Living in the Spirit
October 16, 2022
Scripture Reading: Luke 18:1-8
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.”’ And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’
I would much prefer recognizing people’s faith by their actions, not words. The woman in this parable was persistent in her quest for justice and everyone knew it. I think that is what the scripture above is suggesting when the Son of Man comes he desires to find people being actively involved in loving themselves and loving their neighbor as they love themselves*.
In reference to Christ, [faith] denotes “a strong and welcome conviction or belief that Jesus is the Messiah, through whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God” **.
The kingdom of God is the ideal beautiful community where love is the rule, not power, wealth, or wisdom. Many of us were raised with the concept that we have a final reward in a place called heaven if we believe in Jesus Christ and serve him. The problem is that our culture values power, wealth, and wisdom as transcendent characteristics and we tend to set them as the character traits of faith, not the love Christ modeled for us.
The parable above warns us that we must not be distracted by the ways of the world, but we are to champion justice and righteousness as we live the love of God now and forever.
Prayer: Lord, guide us away from that which distracts us and toward that which makes us whole. Amen.
*See Mark 12:30-31
**https://biblehub.com/greek/4102.htm
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.