LOOK AT ME

See, we can tolerate a world with creeps and criminals, but what we cannot stand, what we cannot bear is someone who has the power and the position to help us, but doesn't care to use it. Which is better, justice from a judge who couldn't care less, or mercy from a Heavenly Father who loves us more than we can imagine? That's the question behind today's message by Dr. Michael Ziegler, coming up next, here on the Lutheran Hour. I'm Mark Eisher, and this is Archives August, in which we revisit classic messages from previous seasons. Today's message was first aired four years ago. It's based on Jesus' parable of the unjust judge and the persistent widow. Later, Dr. Ziegler and his guest, Dr. David Schmitt, discuss the strange and unexpected twists found in almost every parable. Now here is Dr. Ziegler with today's message. The other day we were at a playground. Friends from out of town were visiting, and we took them to this playground so that their kids could spend some energy and run around a bit before another long day in the car. While we were there, I was talking with the father of the family, my friend, Eric. We hadn't seen each other for a while, and so we were trying to catch up, but just about every other sentence, we were interrupted by his youngest daughter, Hazel, seven-year-old Hazel, or Crazy Hazy, as they sometimes call her. Crazy Hazy is hanging from the top bar, shouting, hey, daddy, look at me. She's swinging on a rope, shouting, daddy, daddy, look at me. She's climbing up a wall. Hey, daddy, look at me. And I could barely get a word in, edgewise. Now I'm familiar with how this goes. My youngest son, Jude, he has a similar petition that he repeats often when he's doing something dramatic. It's not, look at me, but, hey, dad, watch this.

And whether the difference between those two expressions, look at me or watch this, has more to do with the differences between boys and girls, or just the differences between these two in particular, I'm not sure, but I am sure of this. Whether it's expressed as look at me or watch this, boys and girls thrive under the watchful favor of a father and a mother. And where a father or a mother is absent, then father and mother figures are needed. And this may be more true of adults than we appreciate. Like seven-year-old Hazy, I suppose we're all a little crazy for some attention. Now if you're a parent or a grandparent, an aunt or an uncle, you know how crazy demanding an attention-craving child can be. Maybe you just look over at her swinging from the top bar and give her a perfunctory, hey, that's great. And then you go back to whatever had your attention before. Or maybe you don't even look up when you say it. But even a child knows when you're not giving them your full attention. That day at the playground, if Hazel sensed that her dad was not looking at her with sufficient seriousness, she would just repeat the petition over and over again with increasing intensity, daddy, look at me. Even a child knows the truth of the old adage. It's the squeaky wheel that gets the oil. Because no one likes listening to a squeaking wheel. So you fork over some oil to make the painful assault on your eardrums go away. Or maybe you give a squeaky kid a device of some sort, something to distract them from craving your attention. But a digital distraction only masks the pain. Because what she needs is you, your watchful favor. There is a throbbing question inside every child's heart, inside every human heart, young and old. Do you see me? Do I matter to you, is what she's asking.

Am I important to you, is what he wants to know. The ancient Jewish rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, once told a story about a woman who was asking these kinds of questions and fighting for answers. It's a fictitious story that Jesus told, but it's true to life. It's a parable that points to a deeper truth about humanity's deepest needs, your needs, my needs. It's a parable about a widow, a woman on the margin of her society, easily overlooked. Because in the story setting, the ancient Middle East, there are no retirement accounts or health insurance companies or assisted living. Facilities so a widow is especially vulnerable like an orphan She has to depend on the people in her community to support her but this widow in Jesus story doesn't have a supportive community she doesn't have people for whom she matters what she does have is an enemy an Adversary someone who's harming her taking advantage of her So she brings her case to the local judge hoping that she might matter to him and when she finds out that she doesn't She does the only thing left that she can do She becomes the squeaky wheel the irritating child who cannot be ignored Now Jesus told this story for his followers I'm one of them, and I want to share it with you, and if you're open to it see what Jesus shows you by way of a contrast How you matter to the God who created you The story is recorded in the ancient biography of Jesus called the gospel according to Luke chapter 18 it starts like this Jesus is walking along with his followers with his disciples And he starts to tell them parable to show them that they should always pray and not lose heart he said There was a certain judge in a certain city Who did not fear God and did not respect people and in that city there was a widow who kept Coming to the judge and kept saying to him give me justice give me justice against my adversary and For a time the judge was not willing But after a while the judge said to himself

Even though I do not fear God, and I do not respect people yet because this widow keeps giving me grief I will give her justice so that she does not beat me down by her continual coming and The Lord said Jesus said listen You all listen to what the unjust judge is saying and will not God Give justice to his chosen ones who are calling out to him day and night will he long delay over them I tell you he will do justice for them. He will do it swiftly decisively but when the Son of Man comes Will he find this faith on the earth? Okay, let's review in Jesus story. There are three characters an enemy a widow and a judge Though we never see him or hear from him the enemy in the story has a major role. He's the problem Maybe he's stealing from the widow. Maybe abusing her harming her in some way So she goes to the local judge to plead for justice help me protect me rescue me look at me she says But the judge isn't listening He doesn't care. He's in a comfortable house cushy job privileged life and This is the conflict in the story the tension is not over the enemy, but over the judge The enemy is acting as expected. He's a thug. He's a bully. What do you expect but the judge is the real disappointment? See we can tolerate a world with creeps and criminals But what we cannot stand what we cannot bear is someone who has the power and the position to help us It doesn't care to use it And that's why this widow in the story keeps coming her ranging nagging Jumping on his back and pummeling him with her fist so that he will step up and do his job But hold on In Jesus story the judge is supposed to remind us of God Not God's character But God's status God's position as God God ultimately is the one we go to for justice Because all other power in the universe is merely riding piggyback on God's power Only God is in the position to truly give us justice and

Even though Jesus says this unjust judge in the story is nothing like God in terms of character Jesus is sensitive to the fact that sometimes our life experience is not as good as we want it to be Jesus is sensitive to the fact that sometimes our life experience says otherwise I Experienced this several years ago when I was serving as a pastor and pleading with God about a middle school boy who had cancer I'll call him Stephen I visited with Stephen and his parents in the local Children's Hospital several times over the course of a year And again, we went to God in prayer on Stephen's behalf asking God to heal him to bless the doctors and the nurses to take the away to restore him to full health and there was a season when God gave us what we asked for. That summer Stephen's cancer went into remission and we praised God for his goodness and his mercy. At the start of Stephen's eighth grade year his dad sends me a text. He said they were heading back into the hospital. He said they were scared. Again we brought it all to God. Stephen died just before the end of his eighth grade year. His mother and father asked me to officiate the memorial service for him. The service was held in a large rented hall across the street from the public school he had attended so that the teachers, the staff, and the students who knew him could attend the service and during the service I shared this story from Jesus about the widow, the judge, and the enemy and how the story points to the truth of our situation in the world because we have an enemy. You and I have an enemy in this world. We have an adversary. In the Hebrew language, the language of the Old Testament in the Bible, the word adversary is Satan. It's where we get the English word Satan. Satan is the adversary. He is a powerful spiritual being, once good creature of God who rebelled against God and is even now at work to deceive the whole human race and Satan's strategy turns on the power of suggestion and when over a hundred middle school students have gathered to mourn their dead friend Satan's suggestions strangle the lungs like smog. Does God really care about any of you? Do you think that you matter to him? That you're important to him? The adversary suggests this false picture of God to demoralize us, to make us lose faith, to give up hope, to live as if God is aloof and uncaring as though God doesn't exist. But the adversary is not the Creator.

Satan cannot change the way things are but only our perception of them. God is still faithful. Jesus came to show us and you and I were created to relate to him not like a plaintiff suing for justice in the court of a corrupt judge, not like an irritating child desperate for the attention of a distracted parent, but like a beloved daughter, like a son confident under the watchful favor of the Father. Satan can distract us but he can't keep the questions from coming. Even when a cloud of doubt and a haze of distrust chokes our breath, these widowed questions, these orphaned petitions are still with us. Do you see me? Am I important to you? Do I matter? People may stop asking them of God but they don't stop asking them. They look at their classmates and colleagues and competitors and ask them, do you see me? They look at social media profiles and ask them, am I important? They look in the mirror and wonder, do I matter to anyone? And it's looking for these answers from anyone and everyone other than our Creator. That's the source of our deepest pain. God, the Father, will give us justice against the adversary one day. God will put the world right again one day. God will restore the health of his creation but he doesn't want to leave you hanging. So right now, before he comes with justice for the universe, he meets you. He meets your deepest need first. He comes to you with his Word, with Jesus. I see you, he says. You matter to me. The first time I visited Steven in the hospital, I read him one of the reports about Jesus recorded in the Gospel according to Luke chapter 7. Now Luke, the author of this book, was so taken by these accounts of Jesus that he took it upon himself to interview eyewitnesses and write down an orderly account of the events surrounding this one-of-a-kind construction worker from Nazareth. Luke's report has come down to us in the Bible and the part that I read for Steven that day was the report of how Jesus once interrupted a funeral. A young man had died. He was the only son of a poor widow. He was supposed to care for her in her old age and now he was dead and she was alone. But Jesus sees her. Moved with compassion, he walks up to her in the middle of the funeral and he says, do not weep. And then he goes over and puts his hand on the open casket.

casket. The pallbearers stand still. Jesus speaks again not to the widow this time, not to the pallbearers, not to the guy officiating the service. He speaks to the dead man. He says, young man, I say to you, arise. Arise, Jesus says, and the dead man rose. He sits up in his casket and starts talking. Jesus gives him back to his mother. Jesus sent me into the hospital that day to share this report about him with Stephen and his parents as they faced the first of many waves of cancer and chemotherapy. And Jesus sent me to speak to you today. I asked Stephen a question that day, and I'm asking the same of you now. Will you trust him? Will you trust Jesus because no matter what happens in the future, even if you suffer, even if you die, Jesus promises to make you come alive again when he returns as judge so that you can live with God forever. So will you trust him? Stephen said, yes. How about you? God is trustworthy because the character of the judge in the story is nothing like the character of the true judge. God's trustworthiness was decisively demonstrated in the life of Jesus, even when there was a moment in Jesus' life when God's justice seemed slow in coming. It happened like this. Jesus' teaching exposed the insecurity of powerful people in his community. They were looking for love and respect in all the wrong places and Jesus called them out for it. And they hated him for it. They schemed to have him killed, hung to die on a cross. The night before it happened, Jesus praised to his father, asking God if he were willing, he would rescue him, spare him from this suffering. But God left him hanging. And in that moment, Jesus took all of your orphaned questions and mine, he took them all on his back so that we would never need to bear them alone and he died with them. And if the story ended there, we should all go back to looking for love in all the wrong places. But it didn't. God stepped in just like he said he would. He raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus lives. You and I still have an enemy for now. We still have a judge. But in Jesus, we have a judge whom we can trust. We have a watchful father who will step in and save his children. Who are God's children, God's chosen ones? Jesus says they are the ones crying out to God day and night. They are crazy, persistent, like the widow. Even more, they are loved like Hazel. Hazel's family stopped to

visit us in St. Louis on their way down to Florida for a vacation at the beach. Later, I spoke to her dad, Eric, about the trip. He said there was a moment when Hazel was following her older siblings out into the ocean, into the waves. And the waves, as they do, kept coming and crashing, knocking Hazel off her feet. And in that moment, away from the playground where things were not in her control, she wasn't saying, hey, daddy, look at me. All she could see was the next wave closing in. You and I call out to God. But that's not what makes us chosen. It's God who chooses. And in Jesus, in his word, in baptism, he puts you on his back and says, look at me. Watch this. Hazel's dad hung back in the waves and watched for a while, knowing his beloved daughter's sometimes crazy sense of independence. In a panic, she turns in the water and sees him there. You want to piggyback? He asked. Yes, she answered. So how about you? Why don't you pray with me? Dear Father, save your people, bless your heritage and carry us forever. Through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen. You're listening to The Lutheran Hour. For free online resources, archived audio, our mobile app. And more, go to LutheranHour.org. Now back to our speaker, Dr. Michael Ziegler. Thank you, Mark. I'm joined in the studio by Reverend Dr. David Schmitt, and we're talking about parables, the parables of Jesus. Thanks for joining us, Dr. Schmitt. Oh, thank you for inviting me, Michael. We've been working with this definition of a parable as a metaphor, a comparison of one thing to another, and the comparison happens by some setup in the everyday life, but then some surprising or strange event which points us to teaching. So it looks like everyday life, but something's a little bit off,

which makes you wonder maybe it really isn't just about everyday life. So let's talk about this parable that was discussed today that I discussed in this sermon from a few years ago about the widow and the judge and the adversary. So what is the surprising event here? What's strange about it? I think you've got really two options, right? Maybe one is the widow herself. She is in the law court day after day after day. I'm not sure that women had the status in society to be able to do that, right? And so the persistence of that widow is something that might strike us as strange. That would be one thing. Another thing would be the complete selfishness of the judge. As you had said in the sermon, he's the one who has the position and the power given him by God to care for widows, and yet he is just extremely selfish. The only reason he cares for her is because it cares for him. Remember last time you talked about the context and not just the cultural context of widows and judges, but the actual context in the text of what Jesus says before the parable and after the parable. So before the parable, Jesus says he told them this parable so that they would always pray and not lose heart.

So whatever the teaching is, it's gonna be something that encourages us to pray and not lose heart. After the parable, Jesus says to the disciples, listen to what the unjust judge says. Notice Jesus does not say, look at the widow and what she does. He says, listen to what the unjust judge says. And so it would seem to me that Jesus is pointing us to the judge and particularly to what he says as that's gonna be the thing that stands out as odd. And when you listen to the judge, the thing that he says is. I'll give her justice. I know, I'll give her justice, not because God wants me to give her justice. I don't care about God. Not because people in the city think I should give her justice because I don't care about them. I don't care about God. I don't care about humans. What I care about is myself and I'm tired. And so that strikes us as really odd. That's the weird thing. Opens us up for the teaching now. Right, yes. And so that's where you get to this lesser to greater argument, right? The judge is this bad.

Imagine how good God is. So we've got the lesser to greater argument moving from the judge to God and that if an unjust judge grants this widow this plea because he's that selfish, imagine what a just God who is selfless and giving and sacrificial would be like. That's kind of the reasoning that happens. And so then all of the sudden, we see God and his graciousness and his favor, which you did wonderfully in the sermon. That's what I loved about that sermon is you opened with kind of asking us to meditate on kind of what it's like to be the widow, to be seen. We wanna be seen. You're really touching onto these abandonment issues and these identity issues that we have today. And it's something that's exacerbated by social media. Then at the closing story of- Hazel, yeah. Hazel and- Crazy Hazy. And the fact that her father sees things that she doesn't see. And so you kind of reveal to us how wonderful our God is that he just not only sees the things we need him to see and are asking him to see, but he sees the stuff we don't see. So that's what I loved about that sermon. It really did a wonderful job

of unpacking that graciousness of God in contrast to the judge. All right. Well, thank you so much again for being here, David. Next week, we're gonna talk more about the teaching and different teachings that parables offer us. Great. Join us again. Next, a hymn sung for us by the Concordia Seminary Chorus. ♪ When in the hour of the Lord's birth ♪ ♪ Power of deepest need ♪ ♪ We know not where to look for aid ♪ ♪ When days and nights of anxious thought ♪ ♪ No help or counsel yet hath brought ♪ ♪ For you have made a promise true ♪ ♪ To pardon those who flee to you ♪ ♪ Through him whose name alone is great ♪ ♪ Our savior and our advocate ♪ ♪ So we with all our hearts each day ♪ ♪ To you our glad thanksgiving pay ♪ ♪ Then walk obedient to your word ♪ ♪ And now and ever praise you, Lord ♪ Now Dr. Ziegler invites you to join him in praying the Lord's Prayer. Taught by Jesus, we're bold to pray. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Receive the blessing of the Lord. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace. Amen. Each week, the Lutheran Hour reaches hundreds of thousands of listeners in North America and around the world and listeners like you make it possible through the support of your prayers and gifts. Learn more at LutheranHour.org. Next week, Archives August continues with a classic message by Dr. Ken Klaus. I'm Mark Eicher. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries. LUTHERAN HOUR MINISTRIES LUTHERAN HOUR MINISTRIES LUTHERAN HOUR MINISTRIES