Luke 18:1-8
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.
He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my accuser.’ For a while he refused, but later he said to himself,
‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’”
And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 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?”
“We don’t take no for an answer.” That was the motto of Sisters of Mercy JoAnn Persch and Pat Murphy — the two women I affectionately call my nuns. I’ve talked about these holy troublemakers before, you may remember, but with today’s story of a persistent widow, I can’t help returning to the two most persistent people I’ve ever met.
In 2007, on a cold, rainy Friday — the day buses rolled out of the Broadview Deportation Center bound for the airport — the sisters stood on the sidewalk and prayed. They prayed for the men being deported and the families left behind, for the judges who signed the orders, the ICE agents who carried them out, and the lawmakers who wrote the policies. Then they went home.
But the next Friday, they came back. And the next. Rain or shine, they kept showing up. When they asked to go inside and accompany the families as they said goodbye, the answer was no. When they asked again, the answer was still no.
Finally, the top ICE official in Chicago — who knew them by name at this point — said, “You can’t come in here. But you might try McHenry County Jail. They could use some pastoral care.” So they called. Again the answer was no.
So they lobbied, wrote letters, met with legislators — and got a new law passed that allowed spiritual care in detention centers. Eventually they were even permitted to board the buses and offer a final blessing as they pulled away.
Sister Pat used to tell me:
“You see, Cogan, we get told no all the time. People, especially those in power, underestimate us because of how old we are and what we look like. But we don’t get discouraged. We work peacefully and persistently. We do what needs doing. And we don’t take no for an answer.”
The sisters remind me that we’ve had the wrong image of widows all along: in Scripture and in this parable. When we hear the word widow, all the old stereotypes rush in: a poor, frail, vulnerable woman begging for help. But that’s not the picture the Bible paints, and it’s not the woman Jesus describes today.
Think of Tamar, who risked everything to secure justice when others denied it to her.
Or Ruth, who crossed borders and broke norms to provide for herself and Naomi. The widow of Zarephath, who spoke truth to the prophet and demanded that God make good on divine promises. The widow of Nain, whose grief moved Jesus to act and whose life was restored along with her son’s.
As one scholar put it, Biblical widows aren’t weak. “They move mountains; they’re expected to be poor, but prove savvy stewards; expected to be exploited, they take advantage where they find it.” Truth be told, most churches today run not because of pastors but because of faithful women, on the front lines and behind the scenes, who keep showing up, praying, organizing, and holding it all together.
Most of us have heard this parable preached the same way: if even an unjust judge will finally give in to a widow’s cry, how much more will God hear and answer when we cry out? In that reading, God is the opposite of the judge — fair, responsive, merciful. And that’s a good and faithful way to read it.
But lately I’ve wondered: what if the story turns the other way? What if God isn’t the opposite of the unjust judge, but rather the persistent, justice-demanding widow herself? What if we are the ones sitting in the judge’s seat, reluctant, distracted, slow to listen, until finally, through prayer, through people, through grace, we give in?
Because that’s how I’ve come to recognize God’s work in Scripture and in my own life. God calls, nudges, insists, pushes people to do what God wants done — until we finally yield.
Think of Abraham and Moses, Jonah and Jeremiah, Paul and even Pharaoh. God persists, sometimes pesters, always prevails.
In this moment, I think we look a lot more like the judge. With all the division and distrust around us, it’s easy to say, I’ve lost all respect for those people. I’ve lost respect for those who vote differently than me. For those protesting and for those who don’t.
For Democrats. For Republicans.For anyone who dares to enjoy the Super Bowl halftime show.
We laugh, but it’s true. Like the judge, we’ve grown tired and cynical. We’ve lost trust — not only in one another, but sometimes in God’s work and timing in the world. And I don’t say that to shame anyone. I understand it. Things feel difficult, dangerous, and disheartening. War still rages in Ukraine. A ceasefire hangs by a thread in Gaza. Inequality deepens across the globe.
And closer to home, many of us are still waiting: for healing that doesn’t come, for a relationship to mend, for a prayer to be answered but only seems to echo in the abyss.
After enough of that, you start praying less, not because you’ve stopped believing, but because you’re tired of being disappointed. Eventually, no prayer feels safer than another unanswered one. And before long, like the judge, you stop looking for God altogether. You decide it’s up to you to figure it out.
Maybe that’s how the judge became who he was — not heartless, but hardened. Not evil, just exhausted.
But the story doesn’t end there, because, like my nuns, God doesn’t give up that easily.
When we least expect it, God, like the widow, starts pursuing us. And that’s what happens in prayer. Often we think prayer is us pursuing God. But what if it’s the opposite.
What if prayer isn’t just our words reaching to heaven; it’s God reaching toward us. In the quiet moments of our days, in the stillness when we try to rest, God is there: tugging at our hearts, stirring us awake, urging us not to give up hope, to forgive and seek forgiveness, to hold on to the relationships that matter, to see the dignity and humanity in every person.
As the great Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard once said, “Prayer does not change God, but it changes the one who offers it.”
The judge finally relents, but not out of compassion. The text says he does it “so she won’t bother me.” That’s the polite, cleaned-up translation. A truer rendering of the Greek is something like, “so she doesn’t give me a black eye,” or, as one commentator puts it, “so she doesn’t slap me in the face.” Now that’s a granny with some grit!
And before we get too quick to dismiss that image, the idea that God might wrestle or wear us down, remember Jacob. He wrestled with God all night long until daybreak, refusing to let go until he received a blessing. He didn’t walk away untouched; he limped for the rest of his life.
Because that’s what real encounters with God do, they leave a mark.
Richard Foster once wrote, “Our prayer efforts are a genuine give-and-take, a true dialogue with God, and a true struggle.”
Prayer, at its deepest, isn’t about soothing words or easy answers. It’s a holy struggle; one that leaves us changed: sometimes limping, sometimes bruised, but always blessed and better because of it.
Pat Murphy passed away this past July at the young age of ninety-six. At her bedside, the last thing JoAnn said to her was, “Pat, remember, we don’t take no for an answer. When you get to heaven, you go to God, and you don’t take no for an answer. We need help down here — help for our immigrants, help for our country.”
Prayer is the process by which God makes us less like the judge and more like Sister Pat:
one whose whole life is a prayer, offering respect for all people, trusting that God is at work in the world and through her, and demanding justice and peace in a world that needs so much of both.
So, in the words of Jesus, pray always. Don’t lose heart. And, in the words of the Nuns, don’t take no for an answer.
If we do that, God will indeed find faith: the faith of a widow.
Amen.
