REFLECTION “I GIVE UP, OR DO I” 

Text: Luke 18:1–8 

By Rev Dr Fei Taule’ale’ausumai 

There are days when the world feels like it’s ruled by unjust people or systems that seem to neither fear God nor respect human dignity.  We just have to look about 200 metres down the road.  I promise I’m not going to talk politics but hey, we don’t have to look very far for some examples of injustice on this street alone.   

When the powerful look away from suffering, when bureaucracies delay, when compassion is measured in cost-benefit terms — we can lose heart. 

I think of myself, as a widow, no kids, one human mouth to feed and of course Snoopy who probably eats better than me.  If I am struggling on my own, so how much more of a struggle do large families on one income much less than a Presbyterian minister’s stipend manage?   

Five of us from St Andrew’s on the Terrace went out to Resene’s at Naenae on Wednesday to protest and stand in solidarity with the workers of Resene’s campaigning for the Living Wage.  At the meeting hosted by us here last month one worker said, “wouldn’t it be nice to be able to buy your kids an ice cream every once in a while”.  Yes, that’s the example that one of the workers sited when sharing how much the living wage meant to them and small treats like an “ice cream” was a major thing for their household.   

I was talking to a couple of mana wahine at my cousin Ken Laban’s victory celebrations last Saturday when he won the Lower Hutt Mayoralty.  I said, how long have you lived in Wainuiomata and they both said all their lives.  I said, how often do you have to change your car tyres?  And they responded almost every year.  They said that the grit that is used on the hill is what wears the tyres out so you have to have them swapped from back to front regularly.  I thought no wonder I had to buy 4 new tyres last year at $480 a tyre.  OMG, who can afford that?  They even said that the new Columbus Café next to Mitre 10 in Wainuiomata which is my new go to place is way too expensive for the local people to afford to eat in.  Everywhere there is an imbalance of have and have nots and even the haves are slowly becoming part of the have nots.  So yes, we need to be persistent in our standing in solidarity with the poor, in our work for social justice.  And I believe we here at St Andrew’s on the Terrace, do a pretty good job.  But in all this Luke 18 shows Jesus as saying:  

Don’t lose heart.
Don’t give up praying.
Don’t stop showing up. 

Because sometimes, prayer is the protest that keeps the fire of hope alive. 

For us as progressive thinkers’ prayer becomes for us a form of solidarity, protest, and alignment with God’s vision of justice.
To “pray without ceasing” is to keep showing up — for climate justice, for fair wages, for refugees, for equity — and to trust that divine love is working through human persistence. 

Luke 18:1–8 is the story of a widow who repeatedly appeals to an unjust judge for justice. Eventually, her persistence moves the judge to act, not out of compassion or moral duty, but because she “keeps bothering” him. Jesus uses this parable to illustrate the power of persistence in faith and the nature of divine justice, contrasting it with corrupt human systems. 

Traditionally, this parable has been read as a lesson about prayer — that we should “pray always and not lose heart.” But we are invited to look deeper  beyond mere persistence in prayer to persistence in justice-seeking, faithful resistance, and structural transformation. 

The parable begins by saying Jesus told it “to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” But prayer, in this context, is not a private act of wishful thinking — it’s a public posture of persistence. It is about not losing heart in the face of indifference. 

In this parable, the widow is the central figure. We often call her “persistent,” but we could just as easily call her courageous, defiant, and unstoppable. Emeritus Professor Maurice Andrew the brother of Maureen Roxborough sent me his book called “God with us” and he uses a word which was new to me “importunity”  referring to someone who is persistent, especially to the point of annoyance.  He was referring to the woman from Syrophenicia but the woman in this gospel narrative has also been labelled in a similar fashion as persistent.   

She has no husband to advocate for her. No money for lawyers. No influence to twist the judge’s arm. All she has is her voice — and her refusal to stop using it. 

In the patriarchal world of first-century Palestine, a widow was one of the most vulnerable members of society — with little legal or social standing, no one to advocate for her, and often no income or inheritance rights. 

Yet in this story, the widow refuses to be silent. She defies the expectation of passivity. Her persistence is her protest. 

From a liberation and feminist theological viewpoint, the widow becomes a symbol of the voiceless who refuse to vanish. Her cry for justice (“grant me justice against my adversary”) is the cry of every oppressed person who demands recognition and fairness in an unjust world. 

This parable elevates her faith not as quiet piety, but as courageous persistence   In this light, faith itself becomes a form of resistance. 

In the ancient world, widows were the faces of society’s forgotten.
Today, they might be single parents, refugees, people with disabilities, or workers on minimum wage. People whose cries for fairness are often ignored. 

But this woman refuses silence. Her persistence itself becomes her protest.
She is faith in motion.
She is the gospel embodied — not in words, but in resistance. 

The judge in the story “neither fears God nor respects people.”
In other words, he has no moral compass and no empathy. He represents every system of power that values convenience over compassion. 

But here’s the radical point Jesus makes:
If even a corrupt judge can finally be moved — not by conscience, but by exhaustion — how much more will the God of justice hear the cries of those who suffer? 

God, Jesus implies, is not like this judge.
God is the opposite.
God hears. God feels. God acts.
But sometimes the transformation of the world depends on us being as persistent as the widow — partnering with divine justice until change comes. 

Too often, prayer is imagined as quiet submission — a private conversation with God behind closed doors. But in the gospel of Luke, prayer is an act of courage, often done in public, always tied to justice. 

The widow prays with her feet.
She prays through her persistence.
She prays by refusing to go away until what is wrong is made right. 

Progressive faith teaches us that prayer isn’t escapism.
It’s engagement.  It’s the language of love that refuses to abandon the world. 

When we gather to pray for peace, for climate justice, for the living wage, for the hungry — we are joining the widow’s cry: “Grant us justice!” 

The story ends with a haunting question:
“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” 

Not “will he find churches full of people,”
not “will he find believers reciting creeds,”
but “will he find people who still believe in justice enough to persist?” 

Faith here is not simply belief.
It is the refusal to let pessimism win.
It is the courage to show up again and again, to pray again, to march again, to speak up again — even when nothing seems to change. 

Today, the widow’s spirit lives on: 

• In the climate activist who plants trees knowing she may never see their full growth. 

• In the union leader who keeps negotiating for fair pay despite setbacks. 

• In the refugee who tells her story again and again until someone finally listens. 

• In every person who insists that love is stronger than indifference. 

This is faith in action — not waiting passively for God to intervene but believing that God is already at work through our persistence. 

The widow’s cry should be the Church’s call today:
“Do not lose heart.”
Do not stop praying.
Do not stop believing in the power of love and justice. 

Every small act of compassion, every word spoken for truth, every prayer whispered in faith adds to the voices that will one day move the mountains of injustice. 

So we need to keep showing up.
Keep praying with our hands, our hearts, and our feet.
the God of justice challenges us to remain persistent in the things that matter.  Amen.  

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