Widows, judges and Israelite justice

What do societies do with widows? In Israelite social structure there were many widows. Men tended to marry much younger women. Women lived longer than men. Women were owned by men. A woman without an owner man was a true disaster. Women had no way to earn a living. The prostitutes of the Bible were not the same thing as a prostitute in the 21st century. In Jesus’ day prostitutes were women without owners.

The law of Moses made provision for widows. The first line of help was to come from families, specifically from brothers of the husband, sons of the widow, and in some cases the household from which she came. A widow might receive an inheritance from her husband’s estate. The background of the story about the widow could well be a squabble over the division of a dead man’s estate, no matter how small it might have been. If responsibility within the family broke down or was inadequate, widows were to have access to help from the tithes that were collected by the Temple. The very last hope of a widow was the system of appointed judges.

Where did Jesus first tell this story? Most scholars see Jesus telling this story first to the peasants of rural Galilee. Luke wrote his gospel two generations later in the Jerusalem area far from the Galilee context in which it had first been told. He took the story and placed it in a different context and made it a lesson about the effectiveness of insistent prayer. The problems with Luke’s context are multiple, and scholars insist that it be returned to its Galilean context for best understanding.

Placed in the Galilean poverty situation, the meaning of the parable takes a dramatic turn in a different direction. The below subsistence level of resources for the peasants was an every day reality. The widow had fallen to the bottom of the community resource priorities. Her plight is unimaginable to us who live with resources and in comfort. Most poor people who find themselves outside of the resource pool simply muddle through day to day until they die. They do not have the energy, resources or knowledge to challenge the injustices of the systems that keep masses of people in poverty. It was true then and is true today. I suspect most American Christians, churches and ministers carefully avoid contact with poor people and do not have personal friendships among poor people. They fail to understand the story about the widow and the judge.

We now recognize many of the stories told by Jesus were discussion starters. The story about the widow and the unjust judge is clearly a discussion starter.

I have introduced the widow but have said nothing about the judge. Who was he and how did he get there? He was a political appointee who was expected to make the one who appointed him richer. He was a retainer doing the bidding of the urban rich and powerful. Judges in their own right became wealthy from bribes.

According to the story, the judge did not fear God and had no regard for other human beings. The judge did not live in the community and went there only when he had to do so. He lived in one of the larger cities in the area. Ordinarily a case such as the complaint of the widow would have been heard by a three-judge panel. The fact that he was alone in the peasant village suggests that other judges were unwilling to go. Probably there was not enough money in the village area to make bribery an attractive motivation to leave the city and travel into the countryside. Among peasants, thief and judge were synonymous.

There is no doubt that the story of the widow is a story about the courage and persistence of a widow. However it is more. The story exposed a corrupt system that made some people very rich and many others very poor.

Good stories carry messages to many different generations. The disparities between the rich and the poor are found over and over again. Typically the enormous gap is unthinkingly accepted. We accept slums for the poor and gated communities for the rich. There is no shortage of retainers (middle men), who maintain the system for their own benefit. There are laws that should prevent grave injustices. Those laws are constantly under attack by retainers working for their rich funders. When an aggressive, protesting woman such as the story’s widow appears, she is dismissed.

The United States in some ways is healthy because of the open discussions, the opinion columns and letters to the editor. Free speech is protected and cherished. A high level of open discussion is maintained in our colleges and universities. Still the obscene gap between the rich and the poor grows. Absent from the discussions are our churches and ministers. America needs a great discussion about the rich and the poor among us. Jesus would be pleased if churches and ministers fostered the discussions.