"Justice is the right subject for prayer, since the image is of courtroom and judge. We do well, however, to linger over the term justice. It is so much misunderstood in our disclosure, because we think it only means giving people what they deserve by their actions, so punish bad people, starve lazy people. That, however, is not what the word means in the Bible. The Bible means by justice that everyone, because they live in the community, because they are human creatures, are entitled to all that is needed for dignity, peace, freedom, health, joy, and security. Caring, nagging people do not come before God with frivolous, selfish requests. But the subject of all serious prayer is to urge God to give justice, which means:
"dignity for children
safety for families
homes for the homeless
schools for all learners
health care for the poor
food for the needy
respect for the abused . . . women and children
compassion for men wearied too long
access for the disabled
"The Bible imagines that God will finally not let the world linger in inequity and disability. The church gathers, sometimes to pray for itself and our needfulness. But sometimes, in our rather comfortable churches, we have no overriding, desperate needs, and we go to court on behalf of others, to lift their cause for justice. We do that often, even when we do not think the judge will listen. We do so because Jesus says, 'pray always' (v. 1), pray to the judge for justice. When God is tired of it, and exasperated by our insistence, God will answer.
"So nagging prayers for justice are indeed acts of hope. The naggers are filled with hope that justice can be done, that God will listen, that the world will be changed, that the widow will be honored. And then Jesus ends this lesson on prayer with the haunting, unanswered question: 'When the Son of Man comes [the final great accounting of God], will he find faith on earth?' (v. 8). At the bottom of hope and justice and nagging is faith. Faith that this is God's world, and God will listen, faith that the world will be changed. You see, in our secularized world, we do fall out of faith. We end in despair, believing that might makes right, that the problems are insoluble, that the world is so skewed that nothing finally can be changed. These widespread attitudes are in fact ways in which we give up on the fidelity and reality of God.
"Prayer is not an occasion just for pious little children on their way to bed. Prayer is not simply for neurotic people who are excessively and sadly too religious. It is rather the core gesture by which we stay in faith, by which we hope for the world, by which we keep justice as the issue before God and ourselves. To 'pray always' means to hope always for justice, to nag always the judge, to trust always in the power of God.
"There really is no middle ground. Either, like the widow, we believe and hope and nag for justice. Or, says Jesus, we 'lose heart' (v. 1). And when we lose heart, we quit nagging and quit caring. We quit hoping and we quit trusting. And we settle in docility, for a world that will not and cannot change, and the problems of homelessness and poverty and all the rest are then accepted as permanent, intransigent realities.
"The good news is that we baptized people are believers, hopers, and naggers for justice. We will not let God off the hook. God can be nagged to a good verdict. At bottom we are not prepared, we baptized people, to be resigned about ourselves, or our neighbor, or about injustice in the world. It is promised that if we do not lose heart, if we care endlessly, relentlessly, and passionately, God finally must care too. Pray always!!!"
