Proper 24C (Pentecost 19 2025)

Text: “8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8)

I. The Just Judge Who Shows Mercy

“There was a judge,” Jesus says, “who neither feared God nor respected man.”

It is not hard to imagine. We have all seen authority without compassion, power without conscience. A widow comes to this man—pleading again and again for justice—and he does not care. He listens only when he is tired of hearing her voice.

The point that Jesus is making in this parable is that he is not your Judge.

The One who will judge all humanity on the Last Day has already come in mercy.

He left the bench and entered the courtroom.

He took the sentence Himself—condemned in the place of the guilty.

The Judge became your Advocate.

Justice was satisfied in His own flesh.

That is why you can pray at all.

You are not pleading before an indifferent magistrate.

You are calling upon your Father—your Father who has already opened His heart to you in His Son.

The cross is your confidence in prayer.

You do not shout into silence.

You call upon the One whose hands still bear the marks of the nails.

He is the Judge with wounded palms—the Judge whose justice is mercy.

Because you know who your Judge is, you can pray and not lose heart.

II. The Church’s Situation: Living Between Promise and Fulfillment

The problem is: He has not yet returned.

We confess weekly that we believe He will return to judge the living and the dead. But He hasn’t.

Like the widow in the parable, the Church waits. She waits in the long night between His Ascension and His return. She waits in a world that has grown cold, impatient, and forgetful of God.

Jesus told this parable so that His disciples “ought always to pray and not lose heart.”

Because He knew what would happen.

He knew that the love of many would grow cold (Matthew 24:12).

He knew that apathy would be a greater enemy than persecution.

He knew that many would grow weary of waiting for justice—and simply stop praying.

That is the danger of the last days.

Not that the Church will vanish, but that she will stop caring.

Not that faith will be outlawed, but that it will be neglected.

It happens slowly, almost politely.

The Church forgets that she is the Bride of Christ and begins to think of herself as a club.

We remain attached—but only as far as it is convenient.

We appreciate belonging, but we resist bearing one another’s burdens.

Our calendars fill easily; our prayers empty quietly.

We like having a place that feels familiar, but we forget why we exist.

This is how love grows cold—not through rebellion, but through slow, comfortable apathy.

The Church that was called to be light for the nations settles for being a pleasant gathering.

And all the while the widow’s cry grows fainter, drowned out by lesser concerns.

Here the rubber meets the road.

The pure doctrine we so carefully believe, teach, and confess meets the hard truth of daily life.

Faith must walk through the same darkness as everyone else—but it walks knowing something the world does not know.

It knows who God is.

It knows what kind of God He is.

St. Paul says, “The aim of our charge is love that proceeds from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5).

Sound doctrine produces love, not pride; endurance, not despair.

The clearer we know God’s mercy, the more certain we become that we can keep praying, keep loving, keep hoping—because we understand the heart of the One to whom we pray.

And that heart has been revealed at the cross.

A pastor of our own district once preached that any kind of god other than a bleeding, dying God would not be suitable for a world with as much chaos, evil, and suffering as this one has.

Only the crucified God is “up for” this world.

Only the Savior who entered its pain, who bore its injustice, and who rose victorious, can sustain faith through nights like ours.

That is why doctrine matters.

It anchors us to the truth that the Judge we await is the same Lord who was pierced for our transgressions.

So even as the world’s love grows cold, the Church’s faith grows deep.

She believes that her God is merciful and hears her cries.

And therefore she prays and does not lose heart.

III. The Church’s Struggle: Wrestling in Prayer

The Church prays—and she wrestles.

Like Jacob at the Jabbok, she clings through the night.

She will not let go until He blesses her.

Faith does not mean the absence of struggle.

Faith is the struggle.

It is the wrestling of the soul that dares to hold on to God when everything in you wants to let go.

Sharon Hodde Miller has written, “Wrestling is inherently intimate. You cannot wrestle a person without being close to them.”

That is what prayer really is—closeness.

The Church’s struggle is not distance from God; it is the intimacy of faith.

She wrestles with Him because she knows Him.

She argues with Him because she trusts His heart.

And even when He seems silent, she clings to Him still.

That is what prayer is: faith refusing to let go.

It is the rhythm of the Church’s life—the daily offices, the intercessions of the saints, the cries of the martyrs under the altar:

“How long, O Lord?” (Revelation 6:10).

And God’s answer, as always, is a promise wrapped in patience.

Fasting, prayer, and worship are not empty rituals.

They are the training of love so that it does not grow cold.

They are how the Church stays awake through the long night, until the dawn of His coming.

IV. The Church’s Hope: Justice Transformed into Mercy

Jesus asks, “Will not God give justice to His elect, who cry to Him day and night?”

Yes—He will.

But His justice is not what we would expect.

The widow asked for justice.

Christ gives the Church something greater.

The Judge gives more than justice.

He gives mercy.

He gives Himself.

At the cross, the verdict that condemned humanity fell upon Him.

The blood that once cried for vengeance now cries out for forgiveness.

And that blood speaks a better word than justice ever could.

Then Jesus asks again, “Will He delay long over them?”

No—He will not.

Yet His seeming delay is mercy, not neglect.

He waits so that repentance may be given, so that faith may endure, so that all who will believe might yet be gathered in.

And what the Church asks for, finally, is not mere justice at all.

A prayer for justice quickly loses steam.

The anger that burns at one evil cools as another rises to take its place.

The Church’s cry is not vengeance for wrongs done; it is longing for the world to be made right.

We are praying for redemption.

Our prayers join the groaning of all creation, “waiting with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19).

The widow’s cry is the Church’s cry;

the Church’s cry is creation’s cry:

“Come, Lord Jesus. Make all things new.”

When the Son of Man comes, He will find faith on the earth—

not because faith is strong,

but because He Himself sustains it.

Every prayer, every “Lord, have mercy,”

is His Spirit praying within His Church, joining heaven and earth in a single hope.

The Judge who once bled for you will not forget you.

He will not delay long over you.

He will redeem this world and make it new.

He will set all things right.

V. Conclusion: Pray and Do Not Lose Heart

So do not lose heart.

Do not mistake His silence for absence.

Do not let your love grow cold.

Your Bridegroom hears you.

Your Judge is your Savior.

Your Advocate is your Friend.

Until He returns, keep praying.

Keep wrestling.

Keep faith.

When He comes again in glory, He will find you still in His arms.

He will make all things right.

“Surely I am coming soon,” He says.

And the Church—the widow who will not let go—answers:

“Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” (Revelation 22:20)