Eighteenth Sunday After Trinity
“he will quickly grant justice to them.”
Summary
We all long for a world of justice and peace but, as our readings reveal this morning, such a world does not come on its own. In Genesis 32:22-31 Jacob is stuck. He has taken his brother Esau’s birthright and fled but now he cannot move forward with his life until he faces what he has done and seeks forgiveness. First he faces a struggle. A struggle which leaves him both wounded but also blessed. Today, on Racial Justice Sunday, we acknowledge that we, like Jacob, often feel paralysed, overwhelmed by the many injustices in our world, unsure how to take meaningful action. We need to be reminded that such struggles bring their own blessing and by them we are transformed. The widow in Luke 18:1-8 is also struggling to find justice but refuses to give up her struggle even when justice seems an impossibility. Today we are grateful to Abigail Oyedele who is joining us from Citizens UK to encourage us with us examples of how people in our local community have transformed situations by their actions so that we too will not give up trusting that “the arc of history is long but it tends towards justice.”
FIRST READING
Genesis 32:22-31
“The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.”
GOSPEL
Luke 18.1-8
“Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my accuser.’ For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ ” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?.”
