“Fervent Faith”
October 19, 2025
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
Sometimes I totally get the disciples. I get that even though they were following Jesus, were hanging on his every word, ate with him, listened to him pray, had every opportunity to truly understand what he was saying—they often missed the mark. They wished Jesus had everything we need to do on a ppt slide show—or better yet, like David Letterman’s top ten list. Give us simple. Give us concrete. Stop telling us stories and just make it easy! And I can see Jesus rolling his eyes and saying, “You aren’t listening.”
So, this morning we find ourselves talking about faith again. I imagine that it was a constant topic for the disciples. I bet they had questions like we do. What is “faith”? Why does it seem so elusive? Is it something we’re born with? Something we work hard to acquire? What does it look like? As I mused on these questions, I realized that maybe the section of the gospel of Luke that we have been reading since we started back in September has been Jesus’ response.
Faith isn’t just something that swoops in—it requires doing. And Faith has so many faces. Over the past few weeks, we have talked about Faith as thanksgiving, Faith as loving others, Faith that can be as small as a mustard seed, creative faith, costly faith, joyful faith. And today we add another image—persistent faith, fervent faith. Such a needed word in this time and space—and in Jesus’ time and space as well.
Just before the parable of the persistent widow, Jesus has been asked about the timing of the coming of the kin[g]dom of God. He answers in two ways. First, he says, “it’s already among you.” But second, he talks about how it will come FULLY only in the future, not when anyone expects it, and not as a gradual flowering in this world.
The disciples ask, “Where, Lord?” And Jesus’ response is telling. “Where the corpse is, there the eagles will gather.” In other words, get used to seeing a messed up world. But then, he tells them a parable about needing to pray always and not to lose heart.
This is an especially important message to us, who want everything—right now. We don’t want to have to wait. And we get discouraged or disinterested or plain worn down by all the nonsense that goes on around us. I think Jesus knew about such things, and wanted to underline what it takes—the cost, we could say—of being a faithful person in this world.
And the persistence of this widow is seen in many stories in the Bible (in both testaments). We read one of the most famous this morning—Jacob wrestling with a man, an angel, God. Wrestling all night, not willing to let go, until he gets a blessing. And he does get a blessing (though he doesn’t find out the name of the one who he has struggled with). But this wrestling with God, this persistence, costs him. He leaves Peniel with a limp, and a new name.
Our widow does not have a name. But there are many named widows we can think of: Tamar, and Ruth, and Naomi (just in Jesus’ genealogy!) They too had to be persistent. Being a widow made you one of the vulnerable. And even though, in theory, you would be looked out for by the temple, by the tribe, by the community, we all know how that often works out. So, you had to fight for food, for healing, for justice. A good example for us. We can have no excuses. There isn’t time for whining about how bad our world is for us. What do faithful people do?
They keep knocking. They keep showing up. They keep pestering those who have no regard for anyone or anything. And this judge didn’t even fear God! Nothing was important to him other than his own comfort. So, our widow, legally, respectfully, fervently, got in his face. Showing up. Pleading her case. Crying out for justice. Day after day after day after day after day after day. It must have gotten boring for her.
It must have been a serious nuisance. She had better things to do. Maybe she even felt discouraged. Was she ever going to get justice? Why bother? But every day, she got up, and she went to the court area and she made herself known to this judge. Fervent faith.
It reminds me of John Lewis’ “good trouble.” I came across part of Sojourner Truth’s message “Ain’t I a Woman” (given as women were trying to get the right to vote) that talks about the same sort of persistence.
Then that little man in black there,
he says women can't have
as much rights as men,
'cause Christ wasn't a woman!
Where did your Christ come from?
Where did your Christ come from?
From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made
was strong enough to turn
the world upside down all alone,
these women together
ought to be able to turn it back,
and get it right side up again!
And now they is asking to do it,
the men better let them! + Sojourner Truth
It wasn’t the widow’s arguments that convinced the judge. It wasn’t her insistence on him “doing the right thing.” It wasn’t because he had an epiphany, or a change of heart. No, it was because she made a nuisance of herself. She made his life difficult. “because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” In fact, in the Hebrew, the word for “wear me out” is a word used in boxing, so it’s more like “so she may not give me a black eye.”
This is no timid faith. I’m not suggesting physical violence, but this widow means business.
And if that unjust judge will grant the widow’s request, how much more will God quickly grant justice to those who pray? And this is where we get ourselves into timing trouble. Jesus has specifically said, the kin[g]dom has not fully come yet. Justice, love, and shalom are not yet the foundation of our world. We live in the inbetween time. The time where we need to still be pestering God and the unjust judges. Jesus is just telling us that Justice will come. The “son of man” (or as SALT rephrases it, “the child of humanity,” the Messiah) will come to bring in the fullness of God’s reign. That is the end point. There is no mistaking that for Jesus. But will others have the strength, the energy, the faith to believe?
It is a fair question. It’s hard to keep on keeping on when you don’t see much momentum. It’s discouraging, as we all know, to think you have traveled down the road, only to find yourself having to walk the same way once again. It’s unfair. It’s exhausting. And it is the way that the world often is. So, what do we do?
I think it is pretty obvious how people of faith throughout the ages have answered that question. They have been fervent, persistent. They have been willing to slog, day after day after day. Praying ceaselessly. Acting in loving and just ways. Believing and trusting that God will eventually make it right. That God’s promises are not in vain. That the reign of God has already infiltrated our world. We get to live in the glimmer of its wonder and majesty. We get to create droplets of peace and justice and joy and love, that we are asked to sprinkle on the just and the unjust alike.
And because we believe in God’s promises, because we want to follow Jesus, because we rest in the power of the Holy Spirit and the fellowship of God’s people gathered, because of all this, we are willing to continue to ask, to seek, to knock, to stand up, to sit down, to be a thorn in the side of all the injustice in our world. We are tasked with wrestling with God. And if we don’t know how to do that, we can pick up the Bible and look at the psalms.
There is much lamenting and railing at God to keep God’s promises. God is big enough to handle our emotion and our desire.
If we don’t know what to do, we have so many stories of people who walked, who sat at lunch counters, who were willing to be face to face with hatred, with evil, with the worst of what humanity can be. There are Biblical stories (from the midwives of Egypt refusing to kill the Hebrew baby boys, to Miriam placing Moses in a basket in the water near the princess, to David with his slingshot, to Samson and his strength, to those cunning widows: Tamar and Ruth and Naomi, to Paul who refused to stop talking about the Christ he had met on the road to Damascus—witnessing even to his jailors.) There are historical stories—from civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, human rights, freedom from oppression, freedom to be one’s own country, one’s own person.
Jesus’ question haunts me--“will there be faith on earth?” Will enough people be willing to be persistent, to live out a fervent faith? Will we be able to put aside all our desires for an easy way of life? Can we find the mustard seed within us? Will we live out our faith—joyfully, thankfully, fervently, even if it is costly, even if it requires so much of us—to Love God with all we have, and love our neighbors as ourselves?
It is a tall order. But it helps that we are not alone. We can rely on a worldwide fellowship—present, past, and to come. We need to do our part, however small that may be. And we need to do it every day, until the final day, when Shalom will truly come.
May it be so, Alleluia, Amen.