“And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Luke 18:7-8
The parable of the “Persistent Widow” brings to mind Martin Luther King Jr.’s words: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Dr. King’s words in this famous quotation are an adaptation of a sermon written in 1853 by Theodore Parker, a Universalist minister and abolitionist. Nevertheless, the theological point of these words is timeless; they resonate in our present time as much as in Dr. King’s and Theodore Parker’s. The corruption of power by human sin breaks down right and just relationships formed in God’s mercy, self-sacrificing love, and forgiveness.
Injustice in our world and in our relationships persists. Like the widow in the Gospel parable, in the struggle for justice, persistent prayer is our hope. Prayer casts our vision on the curvature of God’s justice bending toward human hearts. But there’s the rub, persistent prayer is not intended to bend God toward justice, instead persistent prayer is always aimed at bending human hearts toward God’s justice.
Human hearts are stubborn. And it has been my experience that human hearts don’t transform quickly when confronted with anger, bitterness, sarcasm, harsh criticism, or hot takes on social media. Often, even cold hard facts can’t change a human heart. But what can and does change human hearts is God’s love, God’s mercy, and God’s Gospel vision of the world as revealed in Jesus and His way of Love.
Let us be persistent in our prayers for justice. Let those prayers open our hearts, transform our lives, and strengthen our witness to God’s Gospel Justice. May our persistent prayers and God’s justice transform human hearts and quicken the bend of justice toward the earth.
