Brief synopsis of the readings: Early in their journey from slavery in Egypt, on their journey to the Promised Land, the Israelites faced Amalek, who waged war against them. Moses asked Joshua to pick men to engage Amalek while Moses stood on a hill overlooking the battle. Moses held his staff and as long as he kept his arms up the Israelites were winning. But as his arms began to tire Moses lowered them and the Amaleks began to win. Aaron and Hur accompanied Moses; they placed a rock for him to sit on and they held up his weary arms and they won the battle. In Luke’s Gospel Jesus spoke a parable about the need to pray without growing weary. He described an unjust judge and a widow. She demanded that the judge rule in her favor in a dispute she was having with an adversary. The judge had no interest in her or the case but she wore him down until he ruled in her favor. Jesus then told his followers that if even the unjust judge ruled in her favor, so much will God secure the rights of the chosen ones. He ended with: “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

You have to hand it to the woman in today’s Gospel: nothing was going to stop her. As I’m sure we’re all aware, widows during the time of Jesus were particularly vulnerable. If a woman had no husband, father or adult son to advocate for her, well she was easy to take advantage of and as we can see, she didn’t always have an easy way to seek justice. She also drew a bad card with the judge. He “neither feared God nor respected any human being.” If he didn’t fear God he certainly wouldn’t have shown compassion to this widow. We can easily believe he would have ruled in favor of whoever paid him off. But having nothing to lose she hounded him until she wore him down.

There’s something to be said for having nothing to lose; if she had nothing she had nothing that could be taken away. I’m guessing that melting the heart of this judge wasn’t part of her plan but maybe she did. After all he could have gotten rid of her by ruling for the other person. On the other hand, melting the heart of the judge matters for this reading. As I’ve often said we don’t read Scripture to learn how to get what we want. Any bookstore has a whole “self help” section for that.

I see parallels between this Gospel and the civil rights movement in this country, and in fact, the world. In 1955 a young, black preacher recognized that African Americans were mistreated by the city of Montgomery, Alabama because of segregation in the city bus system. They had to ride in the back of the bus and surrender their seat if a white person wanted it, among other things. There were many people who wanted only equality and fairness and didn’t care much about the city leaders. But this preacher (yes, Dr. Martin Luther King) recognized that true, lasting change would only happen through a radical recognition that we are all God’s children and deserved the same treatment.

Spoiler alert: Dr. King organized a bus boycott, recognizing that the loss in revenue would get the attention of the city fathers and that the issue would get the attention of everyone in the country. The boycott lasted over a year and a lawsuit over it eventually went to the Supreme Court where they affirmed that bus segregation was unconstitutional.

I think this event matters because of the pressure placed on the entire country to rethink its views on segregation and fairness. It didn’t melt everyone’s heart and we’re still dealing with racial injustice 70 years later. But when Dr. King read in Scripture that we are all children of God, when he read in the Declaration of Independence that we are all created equal, when he saw mistreatment, he knew he needed to act. Furthermore he demanded that the protests be peaceful and nonviolent because that was necessary in the pursuit of justice.

He also knew that it required a community and that’s what we read in our first reading. Victory for the Israelites required not only the individual soldiers but also Moses. But also Joshua, who led the soldiers. But also Aaron and Hur who held up Moses’ hands. Their victory required the cooperation of all of them.

In 1972, then Pope Paul VI said: “If you want peace, work for justice.” Clearly we all want peace, and Paul VI spoke a deep truth about the direction we all must take. Peace isn’t simply a large scale cease fire. It’s a place where even a widow is able to find justice, where even an unjust judge is persuaded to do the right thing.

I need not talk about the injustices we see around us. It a source of great pain for many of us that unjust judges live among us and call themselves Christian. We are still in the first months of the pontificate of Leo XIV but he’s been clear that the need for justice includes immigrants and refugees. We are not called to protect just ourselves and those who chose. When I say “judges” I’m not describing only those who wear robes, and frankly we all fill that role sometimes. And when we’re not we still have a job to do. We must, like Dr. King, melt the heart of not simply injustice but also the unjust. We have to show that while we won’t use unjust methods, we also won’t wear out and go away.

Finally, we can’t ignore Jesus’ last sentence. It sounds like Jesus may have had a moment of weariness himself. For whatever reason Luke decided to include this and frankly I’m glad he did. We all grow weary of seeking justice, even Jesus. But he followed this up by telling another parable that we’ll read about next week. I hope Jesus took a moment, closed his eyes, prayed, and then moved on.

And so do we. Weariness appears to be in great supply these days, but it’s never been absent. But neither has the resolve and strength we’re given by God. So let’s go find that widow and advocate for her.