The Parable of the Persistent Widow and the Unjust Judge - Luke 18:1-8

Say. I am supposedly on sabbatical from spiritual writing at the moment and meant to be spending more time on Jesuit spiritual contemplation and Zen meditation. However I found today's gospel sermon unhelpful and unsatisfactory on its message focused on constant and persistent prayer, without defining what 'prayer' is. And what is this rhetoric about that eventually your prayers will be answered when you pray hard and long enough? I do not think that that is the essence of today's gospel reading from Luke 18:1-8 of the Parable of the Persistent Widow and the Unjust Judge. Jesus only spoke of granting our hope for eternal life; not giving false hopes about living a heavenly blissful pleasurable worry-free life on Earth! He told us to bear our 'cross', remember! Or, are we are selectively blind, when we wish to? Admittedly this is a difficult parable to understand, probably in the same category as the Parable of Faith like a Mustard Seed. Still, it is not as difficult as the Parable of the Unclean Spirit and it's Seven More Deadly Companions (refer Matthew 12:43-45), which I have explained on several occasions. Rather than feeling hamstrung and disconcerted and unhappy about the Christian flock being led astray, I thought that it was my spiritual duty that I should reveal the gospel truth. Firstly, please do not take spiritual prayer as an invocation or mindless chanting. Take it more as a confidential intimate private (refer Matthew 6:5-7) fireside chat or conversation between the Spirit Father and spirit son. It has to be so because the kingdom of God is within us (refer Luke 17:21). It is like Chinese ancestral worship or reverence. It is all about Filial Piety. In Christianity, pride or having an 'Ego' is the greatest sin, and so it is. For unless one is truly humble and egoless, how can we love and share all we have and own? In effect this is no different from the Chinese version that 'Boh How Soon' or 'Not Being Filial' is the greatest sin. It is likewise true that this is the greatest sin! Why? They are both different sides of the same coin. Being filial you put your parents first before you, and you share with the family or extended family. Putting others before you is the foundation cornerstone of humility. It is a matter of your spiritual perspective! Culturally or traditionally the Chinese learn or were taught to do things mundanely by rote. When we pray to our deceased worldly natural parents, we do not really expect anything from them, but rather to assure them (in the spirit) that (like when they were alive) we are still filial and bringing honour to or glorifying them and our ancestors through what we do, that we are still maintaining faith in the love that they have had for and demonstrated to us, that we are still maintaining the filial and familial bonds, that we are still 'family', taking care and loving and caring for each other. Worldly filial piety and love is practical vocational training or apprenticeship for filial piety and love of the eternal spirit for the Spirit Father. It is the 'baptism by water', if you like, in that you cleanse your worldly self, as distinct from 'baptism with the Holy Spirit' where you are awakened or are reborn in the spirit. But you require both, baptism by water and baptism with the Holy Spirit, to become 'egoless', the epitome of total humility. When the filial piety and love of the children and the corresponding undying and unconditional parental love transcend beyond the 'temporal', that is the worldly existence, to the 'eternity' of the spirit, then we have the eternal love and life relationship between the Spirit Father and his spirit children. Spiritual prayer is therefore not really a prayer unless it is about the latent intimate and inherent faith and love between the Spirit Father and his spirit children. Please ponder on our own experience as a child and then as a father about the fruitfulness of persistence. Out of parental love, a child's persistent request, desire or demand is, sooner or later, in the passage of time, acquiesced or conceded to, adjusted of course for propriety, reasonableness and common sense. The other side of the coin, love and forgiveness is similarly like that as well. In time we forget and we forgive and we stop hating. Once you become egoless you stop hating and being selfish. That is why egolessness is synonymous with love and compassion. Bear this picture in mind when you read my discourse on the Parable of the Persistent Widow and the Unjust Judge. It is essentially all about faith, and in particular persistent faith in your eternal self as a spirit son of God and his faith in the Spirit Father.

Gospel, Luke 18:1-8: 1 Then he told them a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. 2 'There was a judge in a certain town,' he said, 'who had neither fear of God nor respect for anyone. 3 In the same town there was also a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, "I want justice from you against my enemy!" 4 For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, "Even though I have neither fear of God nor respect for any human person, 5 I must give this widow her just rights since she keeps pestering me, or she will come and slap me in the face." ' 6 And the Lord said, 'You notice what the unjust judge has to say? 7 Now, will not God see justice done to his elect if they keep calling to him day and night even though he still delays to help them? 8 I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of man comes, will he find any faith on earth?' Focus on (1) the introduction - 'a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart' (which is just or merely the convenient topic or title or subject matter of the parable as opined by the writer, in this case, Luke) and (2) the final comment of Jesus - 'But when the Son of man comes, will he find any faith on earth?' . I have underlined the word 'faith' so that you can focus on what the parable message is really about, rather than on 'prayer' in the 'introduction'. You have to connect the 'introduction' to the 'ending'. Straight away when you are spiritually focused rather than lost in literal interpretation, word for word or word by word, and thus not seeing the forest from the trees, you will realise that 'praying continually' and 'never losing heart' is about our first restoring faith in our eternal self as a 'spirit son of God' and in the Spirit Father's undying and unconditional love for us, then our maintaining that faith and subsequently persisting in our faith. If we do not have this faith, how is the Good Shepherd going to find his lost sheep, how is the lost sheep going to hear their Master's voice, how are the proverbial 'sheep' going to be sorted from the proverbial 'goats'? First let us get rid of some misconceptions. Do not focus or get hung-up on the judge as a 'judge' or the widow as a 'widow'. In biblical times the judge was not a secular judge dealing with secular or legislative laws. He was more or less a religious 'hakim'. He had to stick to the religious tenets and rituals and customs. If he did so, he should have no fear of God. You will note that accordingly the judge in the parable was described as having 'no fear of God'! Additionally he was described as having no 'respect for anyone'. This is fairly obvious. He does not have to pay tribute to anyone. He is the judge; consequently it is others that owe him respect! A widow in biblical times, particularly one who had no sons, was equivalent to a 'pariah'.The inheritance and status and other property rights were biased in favour of the men in the family or tribe. In most cases widows went back to their parents or family out of forced compulsion and necessity. It was in that sense in default that widows got looked after by their own family or 'blood'; not therefore the blood-kin of the deceased husband, the family that they were married into. There was practically no 'justice' for widows as such; and in that sense, given the strictures of the biblical law, strictly speaking, the judge was not unjust! He was just following the law! Of course a judge had the discretionary power to act extrajudicially; and in that sense, the judge here when he finally relented, was belatedly but reluctantly just. The starting point in understanding this parable is in fact the part where Jesus said - 'You notice what the unjust judge has to say? 7 Now, will not God see justice done to his elect if they keep calling to him day and night even though he still delays to help them? 8 I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily.' You see, Jesus was just setting a comparative benchmark. And we will see later that the 'judge' represents Satan, as I shall explain later. Please note conversely that the 'judge' does not represent God, as some might mistakenly otherwise think. You will know this if you are a lawyer. This is based on the principle of reductio ad absurdum. Just as a man cannot contract with himself, he cannot compare with himself. For, where is the duality required for relativity? If there was only one man left on Earth, he could not

judge himself as better or lesser, as there is no reference point to be had. This explanation I have just provided, and in fact generally speaking this parable, becomes clearer when we refer to Luke 11:5-13 5 He (Jesus) also said to them, 'Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him in the middle of the night to say, "My friend, lend me three loaves, 6 because a friend of mine on his travels has just arrived at my house and I have nothing to offer him;" 7 and the man answers from inside the house, "Do not bother me. The door is bolted now, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up to give it to you." 8 I tell you, if the man does not get up and give it to him for friendship's sake, persistence will make him get up and give his friend all he wants. 9 'So I say to you: Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; everyone who searches finds; everyone who knocks will have the door opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asked for a fish, would hand him a snake? 12 Or if he asked for an egg, hand him a scorpion? 13 If you then, evil as you are, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!' I have underlined passages 8 (dealing with persistent requests) and 13 (Spirit Father giving everything to have the Lost Prodigal (Spirit) Son back) for your special attention. Pay careful attention to the requirement that it may take continual persistence, patience, perseverance or whatever you might have it, before you will be given what you ask, before you will find what you search for and before the door will open when you knock. Take note that when compared to eternity, in worldly time, this time might seem or appear to take 'forever', as if it were never going to be! Now relate the question of faith in Jesus' closing comment - 'But when the Son of man comes, will he find any faith on earth?' back to the earlier comment - 'Now, will not God see justice done to his elect if they keep calling to him day and night even though he still delays to help them?' This faith is that of a filial relationship dependent on the Lost Prodigal (Spirit) Son awakening and returning on the faith in the undying and unconditional love of the Spirit Father. For, 'how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!'. In other words, what would the Spirit Father give to have his vagrant wayward spirit son back home with him? If the kingdom of God is within you, you have to deal with the 'faith' that Jesus referred to in his closing comment, within you. More particularly, you have to focus on restoring the faith in the 'spirit' son of God in you. When you persist in 'praying continually' and in 'never losing heart', you are persistent in your having faith in your being the eternal spirit son of God, that you are the Lost Prodigal Son, that you are the 'lost sheep'; persistent in maintaining your faith in the Spirit Father's undying and unconditional love for his spirit children. The persistence of the widow in the parable was in fact the persistent faith in herself and her 'cause'; not as speculated, some obtuse altruistic persistent faith in the 'unjust judge' somehow or somewhat relenting. The widow's 'cause' was her right to her 'inheritance' (in her case, the deceased husband's property). This is only an allegory for the Lost Prodigal Son's inheritance; or more correctly the eternal spirit son of God, lost and entrapped in the false worldly self-ego of son of man, seeking his eternal inheritance, i.e. his right to belong to and be back home with the Spirit Father. The widow's persistence is replicated by the the spirit son of God 'enduring to the end to be saved' - refer Matthew 21:12-13 - "And because lawlessness will abound (lost angels going up and down Jacob's Ladder), the love of many (spirit sons of God) will grow cold. But he (the spirit son of God) who endures to the end will be saved.". How does the spirit son of God, the Lost Prodigal Son set on his journey home endure till the end? Refer Psalm 23 - "The Lord is my (Good) shepherd; there is nothing I shall want ... Though I walk in the valley of darkness (i.e. my mortal worldly life), no evil would I fear because you are there with your crook and your staff. With these you give me comfort."

It is in this sense that the 'unjust judge' represents Satan. Satan wants us to stay as our false worldly self-ego son of man, so that we have to comply with his justice - his immutable law of cause and effect, of our worldly reaping what we worldly sow, and thereby perpetually going up and down the proverbial Jacob's Ladder (the proverbial valley of death)! If we are however persistent in our faith and our cause to be reborn again as our eternal spirit son of God; Satan will have no alternative but, like the 'unjust judge' in the parable, to relent and say - stop bugging me, go, have your 'inheritance', go back home to your true and eternal Spirit Father. When you 'repent' by sacrificing your worldly false self-ego son of man for and to regain or be reborn in your egoless eternal spirit son of God, all your worldly sins of your worldly false selfego, whether the sins are past, present or future in worldly time, they are and will be all immediately 'redeemed'. There are no possible sins in Heaven other than the Sin of 'being separated from God' the Spirit Father. You as the eternal spirit son of God, once you have decided to turn your back on Sin City and to your entrapment in the worldly false self-ego son of man, you are immediately liberated and free from the jail of Satan's web of deceit of the Tree of Knowledge. This is what is meant by 'God see justice done to his elect', for this is how God avenge himself or exact satisfaction. God is avenged because of the spirit son of God's faith in his undying and unconditional love. The Father is celebrating because the Lost Prodigal Son has come home! Filial piety and love is supreme! As the saying goes - 'Love conquers all'. God is laughing at Satan's defeat. God is saying - my son is 'a chip of the old block!'. The one who laughs last laughs the loudest. Do not be pre-emptory in your celebration like the New Age Christians, the 'bang-a-bang-bang on the tambourine' Christians, shouting 'hallelujah' indiscriminately and senselessly in stadiums or house churches or mass assemblies. Each of us makes the journey home individually. We each have to carry our own cross! We each have to endure to the end! The passion of Christ is in the suffering of the cross and enduring till the end. How can you celebrate until you get to the end? Do you celebrate in a marathon just because you have registered to run or when you actually cross the line? Only an 'ego' celebrates! The Lost Prodigal Son is egoless when he gets home; otherwise he would not have got home. He would not have got through the 'eye of a needle' unless he was egoless! Take careful note that it is the Father that is celebrating. For in filial piety, the valedictory joy or victory or celebration is his prerogative, and his alone. He is the one who has found what he had lost. It is his younger Lost Prodigal Son who had said goodbye to Sin City and is now home. The elder son is somehow initially unhappy and spiteful and jealous. The returned younger son is somewhat remorseful and relieved that his faith was sustained and proven true. Eternity has no fixed points in time. Eternity is beyond time! There is no past present or future. Eternity is egoless. There is no exodus or mass migration of Christians only to Heaven! There is no - 'Ain't you a Buddhist? What are you doing here in Heaven?' There is 'no marriage in Heaven'. There is no - 'You are my wife; but are you not also my great great grand aunt?' In your eternal spirit son of God, before Abraham, before Noah, before the Original Sin, before the Exile in the Garden of Eden, you were and you are! Otherwise there is no meaning in the expression returning home to the eternal Spirit Father. It appears inconceivable! In the egolessness of Heaven, no worldly concepts or theories are applicable. Spiritual faith and salvation should not be conceived in 'temporal' worldly terms! They are matters of the 'eternal' 'spirit'! I wish to take the opportunity to explain why we have to 'sacrifice' our 'temporal' worldly false selfego son of man to awaken to or be reborn in our 'eternal' spirit son of God. In Matthew 9:12-13 Jesus said - "Those who are well have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners for repentance." Preachers intuitively home in on the part about sinners repenting without first going and learning what Jesus ask us to learn in the statement before that. I have already just explained 'repentance' above. The passage that Jesus asked us to understand is from Hosea 6:6-7 - 'For I desire steadfast love

and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings. But at Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me." I have underlined the latter stanza so that you can focus on the Original Sin of Adam resulting in the Fall of Adam. In plain English, what Jesus wants us to understand is the need for us to demonstrate that we know that we are in the 'spirit' the children of God and to show filial love to the Spirit Father and not make worldly offerings as sacrifice. God does not want nor need anything from this world. Spirit is spirit! Flesh is flesh! God is not really interested in worldly matters. Otherwise, he would have stopped the unnecessary carnage from wars and diseases and pestilence and natural disasters. Therefore neither bloody slaughtering of animals nor promises of worldly assets would benefit God. God just wants our spiritual filial devotion in our mind, heart and soul, nothing worldly or material. Spiritual sacrifice is, simply put, reconciling with and not being separated anymore from the Spirit Father. Any other interpretation is both false and blasphemous and denigrating of and derogatory to God. Jesus was not the sacrificial lamb because of the fact that he died a bloody death at the hands of murderers. Jesus did not redeem our sins because his blood was shed. Blood sacrifice is inconsonant with matters of the Spirit. It is incongruent that an omniscient and omnipotent God would want his Son killed or could not prevent his Son being killed. It makes no sense when we know that God did not want Abraham to kill his son Isaac. God does not interfere with worldly affairs. All things said and done, 'separation', 'repentance' and 'redemption' are all at the behest of the 'free-will' of the spirit son of God. Jesus was prepared to be killed as he was going to (from his personal viewpoint) 'sacrifice' his Son of Man anyway so that he can be resurrected as the Spirit Son of God. This is a matter of 'free-will'! As the 2nd Adam, he had to forsake the worldly false self-ego of the 1st Adam to be resurrected as the 1st Adam before the Fall. This was a matter of 'free-will'! This was his 'redemption' - the redemption of the Original Sin of the 1st Adam! I repeat, in Jesus' resurrection as Christ, the Original Sin of the 1st Adam (and vicariously ours as sons of man, sons of Adam, but not our 'worldly' sins) was thus redeemed. Blood was not in or on his hands, or shall I say in God's hands or in his mind. Otherwise it would make a mockery of Christianity's 'Thou Shall Not Kill!'. Similarly, unless we are also somehow killed by murderers or other morons for our faith or belief, we should not have to make a blood sacrifice of any sort, whether it be our self physically or an unfortunate goat or sheep. We need only 'sacrifice' our worldly false self-ego by being awakened or reborn in the 'spirit'. This is the essence of the Jesuit expression - 'In the Imitation of Christ'. That is how, like Jesus, we will be resurrected in the 'spirit'! Anything else is unnecessary and superfluous. There is no need to shed blood, by slaughtering of animals or otherwise! There is no need for worldly material offerings! 'Sacrifice' in spiritual terms is simply 'Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's; render unto God what belongs to God'. The worldly false self-ego belongs to this 'temporal' mortal world of the Fall of Adam. The eternal spirit son of God rightfully belongs to eternal heaven, the abode of the Spirit Father. Please do not see 'sacrifice' in worldly literal terms. It is not helpful to spiritual wisdom or eternal salvation. All the Spirit Father expects from his spirit children is 'filial piety' and loving devotion. Therefore be persistent in your prayer of faith that you are the spirit son of God and that you are entitled to your eternal inheritance of eternal life. Faith by fervent filial devotion to God the Spirit Father is all that is required.Value-add fruitfully to your worldly life as a human being by being assiduous but egoless (refer to the Parable of the Talents - Matthew 25:14-30). Being egoless, loving and compassionate and sharing will help unshackle you from Satan's cobweb of deceit. Awaken and get to know your 'eternal' spirit son of God being that is entrapped and lost in your 'temporal' false worldly self-ego being. Separate the 'sheep' from the 'goat' in you. If you cannot distinguish or make this distinction, you are not yet 'reborn' in the spirit (refer John 3:1-8 - the sermon to Nicodemus); and any spiritual practice on your part will be futile. It would just be like the meaningless and ineffectual and impotent worldly religious practice of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Realise and learn how to segregate the Commandments into their spirit and worldly components.

With the Ten Commandments, 1-4 relate to the 'spirit' and 5-10 relate to the worldly self. In the spirit son of God, you have to love only God the Spirit Father (First Commandment); and in your worldly self you have to honour your parents (Fifth Commandment). With the Twin Commandments of Jesus, in the spirit son of God, you have to love God with all your mind, heart and soul; and in your worldly self you have to love your neighbours as yourself. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's; render unto God what belongs to God! Know your 'sheep' from your 'goat'! Our Jesuit Fathers in China were not in error when they refused to stop the Chinese practising 'ancestral worship'. The Pope excommunicated our Jesuit Fathers in error in the past for this! Now, we finally have a Pope that is a Jesuit. I was truly upset when in the name of Christianity, the 'sisters' took away and destroyed the ancestral altar at Gurney Road. Christianity is not about Jesus the worldly person, for he was just a man; nor about us as human beings! God is not a pervert spending his time seeing how we humans eat and shit and have sex! Christianity is a spiritual and not a worldly practice! These 'sisters' lack true Christian spiritual understanding and wisdom. If Jesus said that his words are Spirit (refer John 6:63), and in John 1:4 it is stated that the Word is made flesh, is it not obvious that the essence of Christianity is in what Jesus preached, albeit mainly in parables? Jesus preached FILIAL PIETY and filial love and devotion, full stop. Study the key words 'Father', 'Son' and 'Spirit' spiritually and truly understand that the Holy Trinity represents the Spirit Family - the Spirit Father and his spirit children! Papa Loong was already the truest 'Christian' at heart because he was the most 'how soon' (filial and pious) person I have ever known. There was no need to convert Papa against his will. He was 'egoless' in that he did not want to be labelled by any religion. He was happy as a filial dutiful son practising traditional Chinese FILIAL PIETY. Whether a 'Christian' by name or not, Papa being 'egoless' would have easily gone through the 'narrow gate', the 'eye of a needle'. Worldly labels are meaningless when it is not true faith! God in his omniscience know our 'how soon' qualities. Now these 'sisters' who egoistically and self-righteously and as 'know-all's call themselves 'Christians', how 'how soon' are they to Papa? If your worldly false self-ego human being is not filial and dutiful and respectful and reverent to its worldly natural father, what guarantee do you have that your spirit son of God in you is going to be filial to the Spirit Father? You may call yourself a Christian (or Buddhist or Hindu or whatever) but you will never go to heaven if you are not filial like the Lost Prodigal Son! God does not 'judge a book by its cover'! Your worldly human self is like clothing, like the cover if the book. What is your 'spirit' son of God entrapped within the worldly human self like? What is the 'content' of the book? What is its spirit and substance? God Bless! Chuan. 20/10/13