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?
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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.”
Although it is his job to advocate for this widow, the unjust judge denies her request—because he has no regard for her. However, the widow appears at his court consistently until he finally gives in: OK, OK. I give up. I will give what she wants so she may stop bothering me. He agrees to her request not out of moral duty but out of anger and tiredness. Those whose lives have been disfranchised or disinherited in the United States are familiar with the attitude of this unjust judge, this one who silences their voices and uses power and privilege to deny them justice. This judge might take the form of a government, bank, college, medical system, economic structure, or church.
Jesus says that God, unlike this unjust judge, listens to those who cry and will “quickly grant justice to them.” Walter Brueggemann points out that this metaphor presents a God who “can be counted on to intervene on behalf of those who are treated unjustly or against what is regarded as inequitable treatment.” When I was a student pastor at an African American congregation in Boston, I saw people who had been bruised by racism and oppression still singing the song of hope and trust in Christ, telling him what they wanted: justice and freedom.
God will quickly grant justice to them. In July, Vermont terminated its motel voucher program, driving many unhoused people to the streets. The local newspaper told readers about a woman who was camping in a small park in Montpelier with eight to 12 others, including her sons and her pregnant daughter-in-law. Will God’s justice come to these people quickly, as Jesus promises?
I do not know. However, I can testify to the words of a layperson who serves in the soup kitchen at the church in Montpelier: “We start the soup kitchen at 11:30 a.m., but we allow these people to come inside and sit as early as 8 a.m. The winter in Vermont is long and cold. We want them to find a shelter here, even if it is only a few hours. We want them to know that God cares about them.”
