This summer I moved to Montpelier, Vermont, with my family. A week or so into our new life there, we served at the soup kitchen in the local United Methodist church. As we were leaving the church building, I noticed a car in the parking lot. There was a man inside, covered in a blanket, trying to sleep in approximately 100-degree weather. According to a report by the local homelessness task force, severe flooding in recent years has made it more challenging to find a shelter, adding to the misery of unhoused people like this man.
Before telling the parable of the widow and the unjust judge, Jesus describes what the “days of the Son of Man” will be like: they will be like the “days of Noah,” when the flood destroyed many lives, or the “days of Lot,” when fire rained from heaven and destroyed a whole city (Luke 17:22–32). During floods in Vermont, Texas, or Florida, during fires in California, it seems that those whose lives are already miserable are the ones most affected by these signs of the days of the Lord. In such times as this, where can they go to pour out their hearts and be heard? Where can they go to demand justice for the quality of life lost due to inflation, the cost of housing, and budget cuts by federal and state governments?
Jesus offers this parable to teach his disciples to pray constantly and “not to lose heart.” In the town, there is a judge who “neither feared God nor had respect for people” and a widow who keeps saying to the judge, “Grant me justice against my accuser.” It’s not clear what she’s accused of or whether the accusation is legitimate. Widows in Jesus’ time were a marginalized group; their socioeconomic status largely depended on their sons. In his Luke commentary, Justo González emphasizes that no one listens to the widow’s plight or protects her, even though it is the “responsibility of the entire people of God to care for her, and to make certain that justice is done.”
