Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?

 Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, saying:  "There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man.  Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, 'Get justice for me from my adversary.'  And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, 'Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.'"  Then the Lord said, "Hear what the unjust judge said.  And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them?  I tell you that He will avenge them speedily.  Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?"

- Luke 18:1-8

Yesterday, we read that when Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!'  For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."  Then He said to the disciples, "The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.  And they will say to you, 'Look here!' or 'Look there!'  Do not go after them or follow them.  For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day.  But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.  And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man:  They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.  Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot:  They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.  Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.  In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away.  And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back.  Remember Lot's wife.  Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.  I tell you, in that night there will be two men in the bed:  the one will be taken and the other will be left.  Two women will be grinding together:  the one will be taken and the other left.  Two men will be in the field:  the one will be taken and the other left."  And they answered and said to Him, "Where, Lord?"  So He said to them, "Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together."

 Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, saying:  "There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man.  Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, 'Get justice for me from my adversary.'  And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, 'Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.'"  Then the Lord said, "Hear what the unjust judge said.  And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them?  I tell you that He will avenge them speedily."  My study bible suggests that here Jesus is referring to times of tribulation that He has just described.  In yesterday's reading, above, Jesus states, "The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it."  Elsewhere also, of course, the description of the times of the end and its difficulties is more vivid -- see Matthew 24 with its mixed descriptions both of the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem, and also of the time before His Return.   The remedy for these difficult times?  Persistent and faithful prayer.  In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, St Paul describes prayer "without ceasing" (or constantly) as a proper practice for all believers.

"Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?"  Jesus poses a question in a form He uses elsewhere to indicates something rare (see also 11:11; 12:42).

When Jesus speaks of Judgment, it is usually to indicate the terms on how we will be judged.  But here, He speaks of justice on different terms, and it is in a tradition of the Old Testament of a judge who is a deliverer, someone who requites wrongs done to the innocent, a liberator.  Job, for instance, wants more than anything else to be given a hearing with God, and of course, for God to answer (see Job 38-42 for this event).  Jesus is giving us fair warning of the difficulties that will come to believers in the world, and teaching us how we are to respond:  with persistence and prayer.  The widow is also a character who appears all over the Old Testament as one who is both poor and powerless, and for whom God would demand justice (see these few examples out of many in all of Scripture).  James says in his epistle:  "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world" (James 1:27).  Often coupled with orphans in a plea for justice and righteous conduct, widows represent those who have no clout, no one to defend them nor to fight for them, the humble of the world.  Even in today's world and the best of justice systems, we understand the difficulties and disparities in justice between the poor and unworldly and those for whom connection -- and still family connection -- power, and wealth may be at work.  In ancient times, justice really depended upon the family or clan and its capacity to render a claim or redress a wrong.  Such is the nature of the world we live in that this stands as a universal experience.   God's plea throughout all of Scripture is that God's people must be concerned for the widow and the orphan, for righteousness to the humble and powerless.  Indeed, when describing Judgment, Jesus names those things in which we may be remiss as that which will cast us out of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 25:31-46).  But here, He clearly indicates the position of the faithful as those who are among the poor and powerless, those whose ways aren't "worldly."   While the world demands that we be an insider, Christ calls us to be outsiders (see John 15:19).   And we have our Judge, our Deliverer, and the way to His hearing is through constant and persistent prayer.  Humility means a dependence upon God, a persistent attempt at relationship through prayer.  Our job is to never lose hope --  or rather, "lose heart."  Actually,  the Greek word ("enkakein") translated as "lose heart" indicates a state of being inundated with weariness from what is evil.  God's love demands of us not only our own righteous behavior, but also that we persist in our faith.   When Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount that we must keep "asking, seeking, and knocking" (Matthew 7:7-12), this is also understood to indicate a state of constant prayer.  So when it comes to understanding "justice," and by this we are given to know He speaks of God's justice, there are really two demands upon us.  The one is for righteous behavior as in the passage on the separation of sheep from goats; that is, we picture Christ Himself in the place of the widow and the orphan, those who are in need particularly of justice.  The other is when we find ourselves in this place, we are asked not to sink into despair nor give in to the evil with which we may find ourselves perpetually surrounded, to continually pray to the Judge and not "lose heart."   We also have examples of widows in Old Testament Scripture who convey such a message, such as Ruth or even Judith.   Let us note that consistently in both cases, the Judge is Christ or God; we are not the judge.  The struggle He paints for us is real; and it is an internal struggle at all times.  Whatever it is we are faced with in the world, there is always one thing necessary, our faith and our dialogue with God.  And there we are to remain until the very end.  Like Job, we may find that God's answer isn't always the one we demanded, but we will find, with wisdom, that it is actually better than what we asked for.