October 19, 2025

Pentecost 19 Lectionary 29

Luke 18:1-8

Epiphany, Winnipeg

On November 8, 1946, a woman named Viola Desmond took a seat on the main floor of the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Her car had broken down while she was travelling through town, so to pass the time while she waited for her car to be fixed, she decided to go to a movie. She was nearsighted and needed to sit close to the screen, so she found herself a seat on floor level. She was also black, and what she didn’t know was that black people were not allowed on the floor level; she was only allowed to sit in the balcony. So the theatre staff asked her to move to the balcony, but she refused. She persisted. She was then forcibly removed from the theatre, jailed for 12 hours, and charged twenty-six dollars for tax evasion – something to do with the difference in tax between the balcony and floor seating.

But she persisted.

She knew that this had nothing to do with taxes and everything to do with her being black, so she decided to fight the charges and to sue the theatre, but after a year or so in and out of the courts her case was rejected, and the charges against her remained. She died twenty years later, still with those charges and that record hanging over her head.

She persisted, and did not get justice. But then the people who supported her persisted, even after her death. They kept her memory alive and would not let her story fade away, and in the year 2010 the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia granted her a full pardon, and the premier issued a formal apology.

Viola Desmond is now honoured as a pioneer in the Canadian Civil Rights movement, and if you have a ten dollar bill in your pocket right now that’s her picture on that bill.

She persisted. Those who came after her persisted. And Viola Desmond was granted justice.

Jesus tells this story of a widow who comes to a judge to demand justice against her opponent. The judge has no regard for God or people, and does not listen. But the woman persists. She doesn’t just come to the judge and ask nicely on time. She keeps coming to the judge again and again: “Grant me justice against my opponent! Grant me justice against my opponent! Grant me justice against my opponent!” She kept coming. For a few days, a few weeks, a few months, we don’t know. Maybe she’d been coming to the judge for years, or maybe she’d gone through a whole string of judges who wouldn’t listen over that time. She just keeps coming along and demanding justice.

We might all have heard at one time or another about widows “back then,” that they had no resources, and they had to depend on someone else for their living, and that their social position made them weak. But this woman Jesus tells of today is none of that. She is strong, and she stands up to power. She is not weak or dependant, and she knows when she has been wronged. She has the resource that she needs the most: She is persistent.

So the judge finally says to himself, “She just won’t stop bothering me. I’ll give her justice, so she doesn’t just wear me out.” Actually, the Greek expression used there could better be translated, “so she doesn’t give me a black eye.” It’s a Greek boxing term. The judge finally gives in to the persistence of the widow because he wants to save face, and just wants her to stop.

The woman persisted, and the judge relented. It’s a Viola-Desmond kind of story.

And as the story ends Jesus makes a very simple and straightforward point: God is not like that unjust judge. “Will not God grant justice to God’s chosen ones who cry out day and night? Will God delay in helping them? I tell you, God will quickly grant justice to them.”

God does care about the ones who cry out; God hears their prayer and our prayer, and God will swiftly grant justice.

And so we pray.

But sometimes the justice we pray for seems so far away.

Since 2022 we have prayed almost weekly for justice for the people of Ukraine. We’ve prayed for an end to war; we’ve prayed that things that have gone so wrong there will give way to right relationships between neighbours and nations.

The war is still there and not slowing down.

For years we have prayed for the people of Palestine and Israel and prayed for justice. We’ve prayed and prayed again that the strong will not brutalize the weak, and that someone somewhere somehow would make things right and just and peaceful. Now, for two years we have prayed for an end to the destruction of Gaza, and for the return of Israeli hostages who were so brutally and unjustly taken.

Yet we know that things are still, always, at the breaking point.

While we’ve prayed all this time, there are Ukrainians and Russians and Palestinians and Israelis who cry out for justice, day and night.

Our prayers come close to home too. We pray for people in Winnipeg who have no homes. We pray for right relationships – for justice – between settlers and first nations. Daughters and sisters and loved ones prayed that four of the ones they lost would be found: “Search the landfill,” so many people cried out. Crying out day and night to God, to government, to anyone who would listen, for justice; for things to be made right.

You know what you pray for, on your behalf or along with others. In some way all our prayers are like the prayers of the widow: For things that have gone wrong to be made right again, for sickness to turn to health, for hatred to give way to love, for division to be overcome by understanding and curiosity and respect and wonder at the people around us.

Jesus teaches us to pray always, and not lose heart. But we know that’s hard to do. So much of what we pray will come to an end does not just come to an end. Yet. We persist in prayer, but injustice seems to be just as persistent.

Something happens, though, when we pray.

We pray for broken things that we have not been able to fix by ourselves, and when we do that that we learn something about humility. Not weakness, not giving up, but humility. You know, we hear so often that “you can do anything if you just put your mind to it” and try hard enough, or that we are in charge of our own destiny, or maybe even that “God helps those who help themselves.” But we know that those things are not true. We’re not in control, no matter how hard we try, and so often we just can’t help ourselves. When we pray, we remind ourselves that there are things we cannot control. So we hand those things over to God. We pray and we keep joining in the work to end injustice, but when we pray we also hand all of that over to our God who also persists in promising that injustice will end.

When we pray, we remember. We persist in prayer, and the longer that goes on the more we remember those ones it would be easy to forget. When we hold up before God a young trans person who’s afraid to go to school or a first nation that hasn’t had clean water for decades, we’re also reminding each other of people whom we might otherwise forget.

When we pray for a loved one who is sick, or for a stranger in prison or the prison guard whose job can be so hard, we hold them up before God, and we remind one another who our neighbours are, who in their own way cry out to God day and night.

And when we pray, we pray along with those who cry out to God day and night, or who cry out against unjust powers. Gaza is a long way away, and so is Hostages Square in Tel Aviv. Yet when we pray, we are praying with all the people there who cry out to God day and night.

And if you cry out to God day and night, please know that there are people who persist in prayer with you; holding you up before God, reminding themselves to remember you as you cry out, and praying with you, day and night.

Jesus teaches us to pray always, and not lose heart. So we persist. And we pray to God along with all those who cry out for justice day and night.

And when it seems as though maybe God isn’t stepping in to grant justice right now, there’s another something going on. Maybe God is really like that persistent widow. Crying out for justice day and night: Crying out in the world, even to us, “Come on people, what are you doing? Why are you hurting one another?” God persists and comes into the world and stands with everyone who cries out day and night; stands with you or me or anyone, everyone, who lives in the injustice of the world. And God comes into the world and persists in being with us, even when that means suffering from injustice and crying out with all those who cry out day and night, "My God, why have you forsaken me?”

Our God persists. Never gives up. Keeps on nagging at all the injustice, and persisting with the good news that life has risen up out of death. God persists, never giving up on justice, never giving up on love, never giving up on the world, keeping on with a love that goes with us and that always will.