A funny story about a judge

For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page, which includes Maitland's current Living by the Word column as well as past magazine and blog content. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century.

I’ve been thinking about Jacob a good deal lately, so for this week’s Century lectionary column I wrote about Jacob and the angel. But I also rather wanted to write about the Gospel reading, the Unjust Judge parable from Luke.

I wanted to write about the parable because on the surface it is a bit nonsensical. Jesus cannot have meant to compare God with someone who “neither feared God nor had respect for people” but could be wearied into submission by boredom. Moreover, experience in prayer has taught me that endlessly banging on about some petition is not usually particularly effective in getting it responded to the way I want it to be.