Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 16 October 2016

29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

I sometimes feel like that persistent widow in Luke's story, her anger towards the unjust judge is real, but I admire her bravery. It's not easy to face powerful people and challenge them; too often their position protects them from too much scrutiny. It occurs in all walks of life and unfortunately it's there in the Church as well! In this story the Widow, who let's face it has nothing to lose as she's bottom of the social heap, with apparently no relatives, friends or supporters to help her, ratchets up the pressure on the unjust Judge! Is she merciless in her demands but she is also violent; " because this widow keeps bothering me

I shall deliver a just decision for her
lest she finally come and strike me." (Lk 18.5)

A better translation of that phrase would be to say, "Lest she give me a black eye"!

How do we react to this tale? I've found it useful to me in three ways. Firstly for me God is NOT like the unjust Judge, that is what we are all too often like. Instead I've picked up on Jesus remark about God being far better than any human agent, if, as this story suggests a bad man can deliver a fair verdict for less than reputable reasons, how much greater is God towards me if I truly am persistent in my prayer for help, if I really take my relationship with the Lord seriously and let rip about the injustice and pain of the world as well as my own situation?

Secondly, it's a call to better prayer, not halfhearted or falsely pious, but real and raw, allowing God to see and hear my problems, difficulties and unbelief as well as my thanks for a life lived. This is the stripping away of any pretence I have, to be like the widow, knowing my poverty of spirit but also trusting in God's promises and holding God to account. The psalmist says it politely:

I lift up my eyes toward the mountains;
whence shall help come to me?
My help is from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth. (Ps 121.1-2) But the widow is direct, "'Render a just decision for me".

Thirdly it's about our vocation to be embarrassing for the sake of Justice and Truth, to persist, never to give up speaking out for all the oppressed and vulnerable to hold those in authority to account!

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern rite Catholic Chaplain for the Melkites in the UK. He is also an Ecumenical Canon of Christ Church Oxford