He’s very good at what he does. He has a winning way with clients and knows how to work the system to get orders filled on time and according to spec. In an extremely competitive environment, he’s respected and listened to by co-workers and clients alike. And he knows it. He’s not cocky, he’s not derisive of co-workers, but he’s smart and confident. You might say he fears “neither God nor man.”

One day a friend calls. The friend is part of a group trying to set up a “memory walk” for the Alzheimer’s Association. The friend’s mother died recently from the disease and he knows what his friend and his family went through. There’s a reason why Alzheimer’s is called the “long goodbye” — for years they watched helplessly as she slowly disappeared in the fog of dementia.

This was not a good time. In these uncertain economic times, his business demands his full attention.

But what his friend is asking is important. His own family has experienced the pain and anguish of Alzheimer’s. And so he signs on — and offers all the help he can.

He’ll make it work.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus holds up the persistent widow as a model of faith and trust in God — but often we find ourselves in the role of the judge, trying to meet the demands of family and career when a “persistent widow” barges into our lives, asking for help, seeking to correct a wrong, needing to be lifted up and supported. If we stop, listen and respond to the extent we can, we can be the answer to another’s prayer — and our help, in and of itself, becomes a prayer of gratitude to God for his giving us the resources to bring hope and help to another; a prayer of petition to God that he will be as responsive to us when we find ourselves in the place of the widow, in need of his mercy and justice. Today, welcome the “persistent widow” of the Gospel who comes to you for the help you can give — and may that help be your prayer of thanks to the God of all that is good.

Gospel

Luke 18:1-8

The parable of the unjust judge

Jesus told his disciples a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. ‘There was a judge in a certain town’ he said ‘who had neither fear of God nor respect for man. In the same town there was a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, “I want justice from you against my enemy!” For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, “Maybe I have neither fear of God nor respect for man, but since she keeps pestering me I must give this widow her just rights, or she will persist in coming and worry me to death.”’

And the Lord said ‘You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now will not God see justice done to his chosen who cry to him day and night even when he delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?’