Prayer and Postion

The Widow and The Judge

In their culture, women couldn’t work and if you didn’t have a husband you didn’t have anyone to provide for you. She may have had a son or someone else to provide for her, we don’t know. But what we do know is that widows were not important members of society. They were not powerful or influential. In this example, this widow has been wronged and the judge in the town wouldn’t give her a chance to explain her story or help her. But she did not give up. God does not ignore us, but sometimes He lets us wait so we can learn to trust Him during hard times. The judge was important in society, but he thought he didn’t need God.

The Pharisee and The Tax Collector

Pharisees were very religious. People thought the pharisees were super special and more important than regular people because they knew a lot about God. Did you know that to be a Pharisee you had to memorize the first 5 books of the Bible? They were very smart. They were also what we call self righteous. That means that they thought they were right with God because of what they had accomplished. Self righteous is another way of saying they were prideful and believed that they were better than other people because of things they did. Like giving or fasting. Those things are good, but not when you do them because you thing it make God like you more. We are supposed to do those things because it is a way to honor and worship God, not so He will like us more.

Nobody liked tax collectors. They were often Jewish people who went to work for Rome. Rome was occupying Jerusalem and they were mean to the Jews. So a Jewish person who went to work for Rome and helped them be mean to other Jews was not very popular. This tax collector knew what he was doing was wrong and he prayed for forgiveness. He was not self righteous, he knew he was wrong. He didn’t point out other peoples sins, he just acknowledges his own and asked God to forgive him.

The Children and The Disciples

Not a parable, but maybe the parables were preparing the disciples for how to react to the children. Children were sort of like women in that culture. They could not work so a lot of people thought they didn’t matter. Teachers and religious leaders usually did not spend time with children because they had nothing to offer society. The reason Jesus highlights children is because everyone knew they couldn’t do anything for Jesus. And that was His point. We are like children to God. We can’t really do anything for Him. We can do things to honor Him, but just like the children to a religious leader back then, we are really powerless. But God chooses to love us. So Jesus uses this as an example to everyone to show that God is not looking for people who are self righteous. He is looking for people who understand that they don’t have anything to offer God, but give Him everything because they love Him.

The disciples thought they were more important because they spent more time with Jesus, but He uses this as an example to remind them that they really don’t have anything that God needs, but He still chooses to spend time with them.

Conclusion

Jesus mentions several different types of people, and He illustrates how God’s kingdom is upside down. A judge, pharisee, and his disciples are all pitted against the lowly and people that society doesn’t value. Widows, tax collectors, and children. God accepts the ones who come to Him realizing that they are sinners or that they don’t have anything to give God that God needs. That is what God is looking for. Not people who think they can help God do His work, but people who know that God does not need them, but He chooses to love them.

I think the point of these stories is to help us learn that God does not need us to do His work for Him, but He chooses to use us. And sometimes He uses us because our life is hard or because bad things have happened to us. He doesn’t just use people have done a lot of important things, sometimes He uses ordinary people who other people don’t think are important.

When we pray, He wants us to remember that He is God and we are not. He wants us to confess our sins and rely on Him. But He also wants us to know that He loves us, even when we do bad things.