Prayerful Perseverance

“I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8

Jesus has just told a parable, and in contrast to the unrighteousness judge in the story, who brings justice only because he is annoyed by a persistent widow, Jesus speaks of God’s attentiveness to the cries of his people. God brings justice definitively, not hesitantly. His justice involves the world being restored to harmony with and to be reflective of the loving nature of God.

But Jesus ends with a haunting question, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Does he mean to say that all God’s plans for what will ultimately be, rest on human faithfulness? If so, then the coming of God’s kingdom, the establishing of a just world, is clearly in doubt. In fact, the new creation will simply not come into being if it depends on us.

And yet, Jesus speaks of the kingdom coming, not maybe, not possibly, and not only if we get things right, but powerfully, triumphantly, and unstoppably! The day is coming, he announces, when the dead will rise, the gathering will occur, all evil will be thoroughly purged, and the will of God will be done on earth as it is in heaven. If Jesus confidently states that this will happen, why does he ask the question “will he find faith on the earth?”

Since faith is the gift and work of the Spirit, faith itself is a sign that God is bringing his good ends to be. Faith is not what God needs from us, but what we need from God! Faith is the evidence of things not yet seen, the Hebrews writer says. Faith is the fruit of the resurrection of the mind and spirit, present in a person already reborn to the coming age, and it is a testimony to what will be.

The haunting question does not make the coming of God’s righteousness and justice dependent on our faithfulness, but rather calls us to an alignment with the inevitable. The question is for me. For us. The destiny is fixed because God has determined to rescue and redeem creation, to set the world right, and eradicate the corruption of sin and death. The darkness has already been defeated by Christ and his cross, but the remnants of corruption, though vanquished, still linger and must be purged.

That final question comes because the parable was a way of encouraging his disciples to pray and to not give up (Luke 18:1). God is not at all like the judge of the parable, but will we be like the unwavering widow?

Discouragement comes easily to us all. Jesus knew how readily his disciples would become disillusioned. The more we have a vision for how the world could be through the fullness of God’s kingdom, the more susceptible we are to despair over present conditions. This is actually a phenomena of spiritual maturity.

Those who lack a robust vision of a world of justice, peace, and righteousness, do not see the repulsive and cancerous state of our world now. They are not as alarmed or liable to be discouraged. But anyone who has glimpsed the light of God enough to abhor the darkness around us, can easily lose hope. The gap between what is and what will be, seems insurmountable.

Will we be those who are indomitable and unrelenting in our striving for this justice of God, not having a faith of belief only, but a faith of action? Jesus will do it, alone if he has to, but in his coming will he find coworkers and co-creators of a new world? We must pray and not give up.