And still she persisted

10/20

with Pastor Luis Alvarez of Iglesia Evangelical Luterana de Concepcion

Dean Carlos Caamano of the Evangelical Theological Community, with whom I have been working this week, comes to walk me to worship at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Concepcion where I will be preaching. We will be walking because the city is under martial law and curfew since yesterday and it's the best way to travel.  The minute I step outside, the acrid lingering smell of street fires and tear gas hang in the air. Some fires still smoulder. Businesses have been burned, empty shells being boarded up. Store windows broken. Grocery stores looted. I'm trying to take this all in. 

We reach the church. A small Lutheran church a with a 1960's look about it. The first church building went down with one of a repeating cycle of earthquakes. It's the only Lutheran Church left in Chile to still have a German language service. Pastor Luis, a warm and burley man is the last who speaks it. A young woman who will help with interpretation arrives. Attendance will be small this morning, given the tension in the downtown streets.

I know what is happening will have to come out in my sermon. Here is my reflection, delivered first in Spanish:

Gospel Luke 18:1-8

1Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, 'Grant me justice against my opponent.' 4For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, 'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" 6And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

                                            ****

It was a beautiful afternoon, maybe not the sunniest ...or warmest...good people make it beautiful. And good food helps. At one of the good seafood restaurants in the fishing village of Cocholgue. The smell of salt air and grilled  fresh salmon. Empanadas filled with fresh crab meat from the mounds of crabs I saw in the market. Down on the beach, families wrapped against the cool wind enjoying the day. This was my Saturday.

On the drive back, there are texts concerning solidarity actions in Concepcion in support of the protests in Santiago. We can't get near my hotel and have to walk the last several blocks the smell of salmon and salt air in my nose replaced by burning rubber. As we near the hotel, a crowd of young people comes running our way followed by a cloud of tear gas. Soon they are back, with masks and bags of lemons. The rhythmic drumming on pots and pans and street signs and scaffolding pipes continues. Everything is shut down. I am going nowhere. This is my Saturday.

In the car earlier, my colleague asked me what my text for the day was. Luke 18: 1-8, I reply, the persistent woman. "Ah," he said, "I think that this story has much to do with the situation in our country today..."

Another colleague says, "there is so much just below the surface, waiting to explode..."

I think of a quote I saw on a mural outside the Violeta Parra museum: "El jurmentico jamas cumplidico es el causamiento del descontentico" (Victor Jara) A promise delayed is the cause of discontent. 

Theology always lives within a context. And we do our theological reflection within a context. SO today, this is our context as we enter the scripture of Luke. 

This has always been one of my favorite passages. I once knew a judge like that. In the Oklahoma parlance of my day, he was known as a "hanging judge..." When he was appointed to my urban ministry board, I protested. His pastor said, "I think you might be surprised.." And I was. He told me that he had had a near fatal heart attack. And while he lay in recovery, he had a thought that he had been putting the wrong people behind bars. And wanted tp make up for it. So he helped create the first alternatives to incarceration program in the state of Oklahoma. It wasn't a persistent woman who had turned him around, but a wake up call from God.  More of the judge later.

At the center of the story seems to be a widow who ultimately gets justice just by persistence, by wearing the judge down. I can't read this story today without thinking of Elizabeth Warren, the US Senator and presidential candidate. 

During a hearing on Donald Trump's appointment of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, Senator Warren attempted to read a letter by Coretta Scott King , (Martin Luther King, Jr's widow)into the record. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had her rebuked, silenced and removed with these words: “She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

Senator Warren read the King letter outside the chamber and the words "Nevertheless, she persisted”  became a rallying cry for women across the country. Today, Senator Warren is one of the leading candidates for the Democratic party nomination. "Nevertheless, she persisted.” Could well be said of our widow.   And we've got a neat call to persistence.

And Jesus assuring us that our God is better than this judge. But Jesus seems to enjoy turning over thoughts as much as tax collectors' tables. He says, the real question is, the only question is "And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

It's been said that when we hear a parable, we are all the characters in the story. Can we see ourselves as the widow, endlessly calling for justice and not receiving it? Mothers in this country have been waiting for 40 years for an answer to the question Donde estan? And still no answer. The people in the streets are calling out for promises unfulfilled.

But can we also see ourselves as the judge? Who is seeking an answer from us? Who are we denying? Or in what way do we participate in that denial? 

I believe that Jesus knows that the answer does not always com when we want it. Justice does not always come on demand, "we will quickly receive it?" Well, not always. 

Look at Jesus' last question. Jesus is calling us to a practice of faith, to a practice of hope. And understand, faith is not optimism. Things are not getting better every day is every way. 

On days like this, with the smell of burning tires and tear gas the sound of drumming and sirens, we are called to hope. In the words of Jim Wallis, of Sojourners, hope is the capacity to believe despite the evidence and to work to make the evidence change. Because we know who holds the future. 

When the son of man comes again, will he find faith on earth? The answer to Jesus' question belongs to you and I. Let us persist in our demands. Let us persist in faith. Let us persist in hope.

                                                                           ****

In the conversation that follows, the Pastor suggests that we need to reflect on when we are the judge. That we bear responsibilty for delay of justice as well. The small gathering appreciates that the sermon responded to the crisis around them. A sermon must always come in context, I said. And this is ours today. 

We stand in the narthex and share the leftover consecrated communion wine. A fine tawny port, by the way. Reminding me of my days at St. Paul's Episcopal in New Haven. 

We'll have to go out of town a ways to find a place to eat.  It will be a campesino style parillada, grill house. I'm still trying to put all this happening around me together.