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 opponent.’ 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?” ~Luke 18:1-8 (NRSV)
People raised in "evangelical" Protestantism are, in David Bebbington's famous analysis,* "crucicentric." And not only that. Overwhelmingly, when they think of the cross, especially on Good Friday, they tend to view its significance almost exclusively in terms of one primary interpretive category, namely, that of "penal substitution:" Jesus died in my place, bearing the penalty of eternal condemnation I had incurred for my sin(s). On this understanding, the cross finds its significance largely in the context of a works contract God had established with humanity, specifically as the divinely-ordained "solution" to the plight caused by human failure, dating back to Adam himself, to live by the terms of said contract.**
Now, I am firmly convinced that the notion of substitution―even penal substitution, so long as it is nuanced properly, shorn of heretical/cartoonish Trinitarian caricatures of "divine child abuse" and understood in terms of an Israel-centric salvation-history―is a prominent element of the New Testament witness concerning the death of Jesus Messiah. Prominent, yes, but exclusive and controlling, by no means. Other models, most notably that of Christus Victor, must take their place in the panoply of theological interpretations of Jesus' death.*** Enter the column published this week by Emory University Professor David Gushee, in which he reflected on the significance of Jesus' Parable of the Unjust Judge for the events of Holy Week, specifically in terms of its implications regarding both God's dealing with injustice in the biblical narrative and Christians' consequent obligations in that regard.
The Parable of the Unjust Judge has often occasioned confusion among readers because of its implicit comparison of God to a human judge who only (finally!) decides to grant justice (ekdikeō, 18:3, 5) to a poor widow to stop her from importuning him to death about the injustices perpetrated against her. It doesn't take too much effort to realize that the implicit comparison in the parable is ironic and that the point being made by Jesus is a classic, rabbinic qal waḥomer argument based on the fact that God's revealed character is fundamentally different from that of the human judge in the parable: If even an unjust human judge will grant justice to a woman who relentlessly begs him for it, how much more is it the case that God will ultimately vindicate his oppressed people if they reach out to him faithfully in prayer?
If read in context, it becomes clear that the persistent "prayer" mentioned in verse 1 has nothing to do with the various and sundry "wants" God's people might have, let alone the desires consumerist Western Christians might have. In the immediately preceding Luke 17:20-37, Jesus discusses the coming of the anticipated eschatological kingdom of God. On the one hand, he tells certain Pharisees that the kingdom, far from coming in such a way that its inception can be observed (meta paratērēseōs), was in fact "in their midst" (entos hymōn) in the sense (implicitly) that he was the very king they were looking for and thus his kingdom was already gaining a foothold as people responded by giving their allegiance to him (17:20-21). Then, turning to his disciples, he introduces a hint of delay in regard to that kingdom's ultimate establishment. The "days of the Son of Man"―i.e., when Daniel's vision of the ascent of "one like a son of man" to the throne of God to receive dominion (Daniel 7:13) would be fulfilled―wouldn't take place until after Jesus, the self-proclaimed "Son of Man," would suffer and be rejected by his generation. Even after this the day when the Son of Man would ultimately be "revealed" would arrive when least expected, when, like in the "days" of Noah and Lot, people were going about their business as usual. But when that day arrived, it would do so suddenly, issuing both in some people being taken away in deliverance and others being left for judgment (17:22-37). Hence the encouragement to persistence (pantote proseuchesthai, present tense) and perseverance (mē enkakein) in prayer (18:1) is a call to prayer for the consummation of the promised kingdom, when all wrongs would be righted and God's "chosen ones," suffering like the Son of Man to whom they are committed (17:25), would ultimately be vindicated.**** Indeed, putting the bookend verses 1 and 8 in juxtaposition suggests that such persistent prayer for the coming of the kingdom is part and parcel of the "faithfulness" (pistis) which Jesus wonders will exist that day when the Son of Man "comes" (18:8).
What does this parable, incisive as it may be, have to do with Good Friday? Gushee makes this connection brilliantly by suggesting that Jesus' role be understood in terms of the experience of the persistent―and persistently oppressed― widow. While at first this may seem to be a stretch, upon further reflection one detects in it more than a little insight. Gushee himself points to the Markan tradition of Jesus' cry of dereliction on the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" (Mark 15:34, followed by Matthew 27:46)? This famous cry was taken verbatim from Psalm 22:1, a classic Davidic psalm of lament. It is not, of course, a "prediction" of Jesus' cry a millennium later; but Jesus' use of this lament is itself a theological claim to be the embodiment, indeed the eschatological epitome, of the sufferings of the righteous which were previously articulated and inscripturated by David himself. Luke, however, while certainly alluding to Psalm 22 in his narrative of the crucifixion (23:34 [cf. Psalm 22:18]; 23:35 [Ps 22:17]; 23:36 [cf. Ps 22:7]), nevertheless uses another Davidic lament for Jesus' final utterance: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Psalm 31:5).***** He also emphasizes the injustice involved in Jesus' execution by recording the tradition, found only in Luke's Gospel, of the conversation between the two insurrectionists crucified alongside Jesus, one of whom acknowledged Jesus had done nothing wrong to deserve his fate (Luke 23:40-41).
Too often ignored is the fact that these Davidic cries of lament, though genuinely uttered in desperation, are not done so in the absence of hope and faith in the God to whom they are directed. Indeed, in Psalm 22 the psalmist later utters a vow of praise in confidence that "[God] did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him" (Psalm 22:24, NRSV). In Psalm 31, despite being handed over to his enemies and abandoned even by his friends, the psalmist places his trust in the Lord for deliverance (Psalm 31:9-18) and utters praise for the deliverance he thus anticipated (Psalm 31:21-22). Just as the laments in these psalms adumbrate the sufferings Jesus would later experience, so these subsequent expressions of confidence and vows of praise imply his unfailing trust in the God he called his Father, the same God who had earlier delivered David from his adversaries upon hearing his persistent cries.****** And, needless to say, the Gospel narratives go on to demonstrate that Jesus' implicit faith was well-founded, as he was delivered from death and vindicated when resurrected on the third day. This means that God's "chosen ones" have yet another reason to persist in their prayers for justice and vindication: not only an abstract theological understanding of God's character, but that character's historical manifestation in the vindication of his Son.
What should we take from this? An answer to this question involves what we can learn both about how God responds to injustices and how we as Christians should respond to them. With regard to the first of these matters, Gushee rightly notes that "The church historically has taught that Jesus bears and absorbs all the sins of the world, including sins of injustice, on the Cross." In fact, not only did Jesus die to atone for human sins; he defeated sin (singular!) and assorted other hostile powers precisely by being crushed under their weight. In one of the most powerful visions found in the Book of Revelation, John the Theologian writes:
Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals." Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered … He went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne. When he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. They sing a new song:
"You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals
for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God
saints from every tribe and language and people and nation;
you have made them a kingdom and priests serving our God,
and they will reign on earth." (Revelation 5:5-10, NRSV)
The Lamb here is clearly Jesus in his role as the royal Davidic King. But the nature, or at least the means and foundation, of his power has been redefined, as it were. Rather than displaying the raw, brute strength of a lion, the Lamb has "conquered" (enikēsen) and even now exercises royal "power" precisely by virtue of having absorbed rather than inflicted violence, specifically by having been slaughtered (esphagmenon) sacrificially in order to ransom a royal, priestly, worldwide people. And, as Richard Bauckham has argued, the fact that Lamb is seen standing "in the midst of" (en mesōi) the throne points to his sacrificial death as the means by which God exercises his rule over the world.******* Looking back at the parable in Luke 18, it is biblically foundational that God, by definition, hates injustice; and so it is that Luke, in concert with the other Evangelists, provides the narrative of how God made his definitive response to it in the cross of Messiah Jesus, who, though recognized even by a Roman centurion on duty as an innocent and "righteous" man,******** took the weight of its evil upon himself and thereby exhausted it. And so God's vindication of Jesus on Easter Sunday guarantees that he will also vindicate, on the "day of the coming of the Son of Man," his "chosen ones" (Luke 18:7) ransomed from all peoples of the earth.
As far as our response to injustice is concerned, Gushee emphasizes the imperative that Christians work for justice in the world. Of course, one of the defining characteristics of the Davidic kingdom as promised in the Hebrew Bible is that the king would reign "forever" with "righteousness and justice" (cf. Isaiah 9:7 et passim). If indeed, as N. T. Wright has consistently maintained, a necessary implication of New Testament inaugurated eschatology is that God's people are thereby commissioned to implement the victory won in Christ's death and resurrection, it would seemingly be incumbent on them to work diligently in the service of the kingdom's priorities, of which justice―in particular restorative justice―is primary.
But such an implication, at best, lies beneath the surface of our parable. Indeed, an unstated presupposition of the text is that God's "chosen ones," like the persistent widow in the parable per se, will suffer and experience injustice, and will continue to do so until the Son of Man "comes"―a day whose arrival, though certain to come "quickly" (en tachei, "suddenly"?), is implicitly delayed and temporally unknowable in advance. In the meantime, their stance must not be one of entitled triumphalism, but of humble faithfulness and perseverance in prayer for vindication when the kingdom is ultimately consummated at Jesus' return. If indeed Bauckham is correct and the modus operandi of God's present reign is that of the slaughtered Lamb, those of us who claim to be his followers ought likewise to understand that following this Lamb will necessarily take the form of, in the words of Michael Gorman, "non-conformist cruciform faithfulness."********* These, of course, are not words (all too) comfortable Western Christians, who so desire to maintain a presumed cultural hegemony they fear is slipping away, will want to hear. Instead, it will take humility, and it will take both patience and perseverance in the most difficult of circumstances. As Jesus said, will he find such faithfulness when he comes (Luke 18:8)?
Worthy is the Lamb, who was slaughtered, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. (Revelation 5:12, trans. JRM)
Soli Deo Gloria!
**A classic expression of such an idea. of course, is the so-called "covenant of works" in traditional Reformed theology, which, together with the posited subsequent "covenant of grace," form the primary structure of that system's presentation of salvation-history.
***For a helpful, scholarly work defending the notion of substitution on exegetical grounds, cf. Simon Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul (Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015). For a popular level introduction to the full-orbed New Testament witness to the significance of Jesus' death, cf. Scot McKnight, A Community Called Atonement (Nashville: Abingdon 2007). For an inspiring treatment of the significance of the cross from one of America's finest homileticians, cf. Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015). Cf. also N. T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion (New York: HarperCollins, 2016).
****On the parable and its message, cf. especially Klyne Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Interpretation of the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2008) 449-62.
*****Note that Luke changes the future tense parathēsomai of Psalm 30:5 LXX ("I will commit") to the present tense paratithemai ("I commit"), "thereby making Jesus' words into a performative utterance rather than a mere declaration of intent" (Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels [Waco, Tex.: Baylor, 2016] 235).
******The principle that biblical texts quoted in the New Testament are not to be understood atomistically, but instead evoke their entire contexts, is called metalepsis.
*******Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (New Testament Theology; Cambridge: CUP, 1993) 64.
********Luke 23:47: "Surely this was a righteous (dikaios) man." Contrast Mark 15:3 (//Matthew 27:54), where the centurion confesses, "Surely this man was the Son of God (huios theou)."
*********Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb into the New Creation (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade, 2011) 79.
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