Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Thursday, March 14, 2013 Read – Luke 18:1-8 As if anticipating the complaint of people that if suffering is to be expected as a part of living in the kingdom now and not a sign of the coming end of all things, Luke inserts a parable to help interpret what he has just said. Only Luke tells this parable. Like the parable of the Dishonest Steward this parable is built around an ironic example. Like the previous parable one wonders why Jesus would use such a strange character witness. Yet, what better example is there than an unrighteous judge? If an unrighteous judge can be forced to do what is right, how much more likely is it that God will do what is right? Of course God will do the right thing. And those who worry that God will be slow in acting or unable to do what is needed can rest assured that God will work it all out for the good. In the context of the concern about the end of time those who wonder at its delay can rest assured that God will take care of everything in God’s own time. God is not slow to help those in need. In some ways it becomes evident that Luke is preaching as much if not more to the hearers of his own time at this point in his gospel than he is to the people living at the time of Jesus. Just think of what they have experienced. The city of Jerusalem had been destroyed. The nation had been crushed in the Jewish War of 66-70 AD. The Temple was in ruins. It was one of the worst times. Judaism was in transition. Most of the first followers of Jesus were dead or dying. One of the considerations that is important for us to think about as we read the gospels is to imagine how their first hearers would have heard them – and those first hearers were living a number of years after the events had happened. Luke is preaching to his own people of his own time giving them assurance that God has not abandoned them. That same message of assurance is held out to us. The needs of Luke’s own church – the people living in his time – do influence how he tells this story. And our reading for today is one of those places where we see those needs more clearly.