Sermon: Justice! Justice! Justice!
Text: Luke 18:1-8
Date: October 17, 2004 (Children's Sabbath)
Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church


In a certain city there was a corrupt bureaucrat who neither feared God nor respected people; and there was a welfare mother in the same city who kept coming to him and saying, "Make my landlord fix the furnace and insulate the walls. I can no longer afford to pay the heat bills and my children are freezing." For a while the bureaucrat refused to listen, but the woman kept coming to his office every day with her three children, and each day she would make her plea again. After several weeks of this, he thought to himself, if I don't give this woman what she asks, she will pester me to death. An order was issued, the furnace was replaced and insulation was
installed in the walls.

The next day the woman was back in the bureaucrat's office with her children. She thanked him for what he had done and then she said, "Now let me tell you about my plumbing problems." Persistence.  John Sumwalt's little retelling of the parable Jesus told takes the narrative one step further to highlight the persistence and perseverance of the widow.  If a movie had been made of the story of the powerless widow and the corrupt judge, and if the storytelling were true-to-life, there would have to be a sequel: Part II, the plumbing.  And there would be a sequel after that.  Part III, the rats.  And Part IV, no affordable day care.  And Part V, gun-wielding drug dealer on the corner between home and the school.  And Part VI, no health insurance, and the baby's got asthma.  And Part VII, and Part VIII, and Part IX, and Part X….

Do you imagine the poor widow will remain persistent in her quest for justice?  Will she keep insisting that the judge, representing the heartless powers she is up against, give her the justice she demands?  I imagine she will-because she loves her children.  And I imagine she draws some of her strength to keep demanding justice from her prayers.

Jonathan Kozol sought out quite a few women who might bring the widow in Jesus' parable to mind when he was writing a book entitled Rachel and Her Children on destitute and homeless women and their children in the late 80's.  There is one brief chapter about prayer.  Kozol is talking with Elizabeth, one of the struggling women he had gotten acquainted with.  He wonders how such desperately poor people can continue to pray.  She says, "You have to pray.  You got no choice."  She tells him how she prays morning and night, and she has taught her children to do the same.  He is puzzled, because it appears to him that God is not answering their prayers, and he wonders why they carry on.  Elizabeth tells him, "You pray to God because he don't say no.  You are hungry.  You can't pay the rent.  You cannot buy the shoes your child needs.  You cannot understand the rules.  You cannot keep the cat or the TV.  You need to pray!  Help me, God!  Help me to see the day!  Help me to see the light!  Help me to get over.  Don't forget me.   God tells you in the Bible: I do not hate ugly.  I do not hate beauty.  I accept you…Many of these women you have met-they don't have fathers.  Or the didn't know their fathers.  God is like a father to poor people.  He may be neglectful.  He may be demanding.  He may not do what He is s'posed to do, but He do not disown you.  He accepts you.  Do these people know they are rejected?  'Course they do.  If they isn't crazy then they know they be despised.  God is the only one who don't despise.  He got to be there.  Jonathan, you cannot live with nothing to believe."

There is a raw power in her words, isn't there?  At the root of her prayer is the strong conviction that though the whole world may despise and reject a person, God will not reject or disown even the lowliest person.  And even though there may not be a great deal of evidence to prove it, there is faith that God wants justice and wants to help.  Such faith gives a person strength to endure in a quest for justice.  And the quest for justice itself practically demands the practice of prayer.

I don't know that those of us who are pretty comfortable most of the time quite get it.  Fred Craddock tells this story: In a large gathering of persons concerned about certain unfair and oppressive conditions in our society, an elderly black minister read this parable about the widow and gave a one-sentence interpretation: "Until you have stood for years knocking at a locked door, your knuckles bleeding, you do not really know what prayer is."

That's a striking image-and a little troubling.  Is he saying that prayer is the knocking until knuckles bleed, pleading with a distant God for help?  I don't think so.  I agree with another commentator who says that the parable of the widow and the comments about prayer are put together in the gospel to show what God is not.  God is not like the unjust judge, but is the force that wills justice that gives one the strength to persevere in pounding on the door of power until one's knuckles bleed.  It's in the struggle for justice that one really grasps the need for prayer and the power of prayer.

That's why, I expect, our larger family of faith suggests a 40-day prayer vigil for children leading up to observing the Children's Sabbath.  Contemplating the vast needs of children in America will drive us to our knees for the strength just to hear about it.  Child poverty continues to be a real problem in our nation.  In this rich nation of ours, 12.1 million children-one is six-remain in poverty. (And this is not simply because parents won't work; three out of four poor children live in families where someone worked in 2002, and one in three poor children lives with a full-time year-round worker.) An American child is more likely to be poor today than 25 or 30 years ago and more likely to be poor than an American adult.

Although a safety and security are obvious concerns of the American public, our record of providing a safe place for children to be born and raised is woeful.  I'm going to give you some numbers provided by the Children's Defense Fund:

Among (about 25) industrialized nations, the United States ranks:
1st in military technology
1st in military exports
1st in Gross Domestic Product
1st in the number of millionaires and billionaires
1st in health technology
1st in defense expenditures
12th in living standards among our poorest one-fifth of children
13th in the gap between rich and poor children
14th in efforts to lift children out of poverty
16th in low-birthweight rates
18th in the percent of children in poverty
23rd in infant mortality
Last in protecting our children against gun violence.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. children under 15 are:

9 times more likely to die in a firearm accident
11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun
12 times more likely to die from gunfire
16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun
than children in 25 other industrialized countries combined.

Those are some sad numbers.  What are we to do with such information?  One of our constant temptations is to forget about it as quickly as possible, which is made easier because we aren't exactly on the front lines of child poverty and gun violence here.  There's one group I know about that spoofs the status quo on various issues-it's called "Ladies Against Women."  Their motto is "I'd rather be ironing."  I saw one of their chapters march in the Doo-Dah Parade in Pasadena some years ago.    When marching, one of the signs they have been seen with reads, "BAN THE POOR!"  It's funny but as with all good humor there is a little stab of truth in it.  I think sometimes that's what comfortably middle class and wealthy people would really like to do-ban the poor.  I bet the judge in the story would have signed up for that campaign if it had been possible.  The Ladies Against Women also invented this chant for their marches and rallies: "What do we want?  Nothing! When do we want it? Now!"

That could never be the slogan of a church that is called by God to care for the "least of these," society's most vulnerable citizens.  What do we want?  Justice!  Justice! Justice!  How will we win it?  Perseverance!  Perseverance!  Perseverance!  And how will we persevere?  Prayer! Prayer! Prayer!

The worldwide Christian church is in a unique position to be able to care for children.  For one thing, many churches, including ours, has a little flock of children and youth right under our noses whose spiritual and material needs we can attend to. Moreover, we have a theology that does not distinguish between "our" children and "their" children; they're all our children since they're all God's children.  Therefore, we will be moved to defend them with a mother's and father's love. For another thing, we have a tight community of people with whom we associate who can encourage us.    In a community like this, we have the education and political savvy to analyze problems and solutions.  And most importantly, we have a God who wills justice and compassion to call us into this work and to provide us with the strength to do it. 

Father Walter Burghardt remembers a Protestant once saying to him of the worldwide Roman Catholic church, "If you Catholics could get your act together, you'd be dangerous."  That's even more true of the worldwide Christian church, Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox together.  If we could get our act together, we'd be dangerous-to all the heartless principalities and powers who would deny justice to someone as vulnerable as a poor child.

I'm going to borrow some of Father Burghardt's words as he calls his Catholic colleagues to compassion:   Start with the family. Let each family, each "little church," become aware of, realize, some of those disturbing facts--that more than 12 million children of our little sisters and
brothers are crushed by poverty in this rich nation. Let our more advantaged teenagers actually feed the hungry, actually clothe the naked, actually visit the sick and imprisoned.

In line with the widow of our Gospel, put pressure on the powerful, trouble your legislators. Tell them, "We want justice! Justice! Justice!" Tell them, time and again, that for $181,700,
the amount that permanent Bush tax cuts would eventually give to each individual millionaire on average in one year, America could provide, Head Start for 22 preschoolers. We want justice!"

Every year the Children's Defense Fund tracks
how your members of Congress vote on children's concerns. If you're dissatisfied, organize to cry, "We want justice!" Get the CDF annual report card on how well your state is investing
in your children, protecting your children; shake a bad report in the face of your elected and appointed officials: "We want justice!"

Is your area a killing field for guns and drugs?
In hundreds and thousands cry aloud, "We want justice!" If you can, persuade them; if you can't, wear them down: "We want justice! We want justice! We want justice!"

One more time: What do we want?  Justice!  How will we win it?  Perseverance!  How will we persevere?  Prayer!  Please join me in a prayer (by Alan Paton) for the courage to seek justice:
O Lord, open my eyes that I may see the needs of others; Open my ears that I may hear their cries;
Open my heart so that they need not be without succor; Let me not be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong nor afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich.
Show me where love and hope and faith are needed, And use me to bring them to those places. And so open my eyes and my ears that I may, this coming day, be able to do some work of peace for thee. Amen.