Fourth Presbyterian Church: A Light in the City

Sunday, October 16, 2022 | 10:00 a.m.

Sermon

Matt Helms
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Jeremiah 31:31–34
Luke 18:1–8

Just over fifty years ago, a woman named Lois Gibbs and her husband moved into what they thought was their dream home in a newly opened town just few miles away from Niagara Falls. They welcomed their first child, Michael, in 1972, followed by his sister, Melissa, in 1975. Gibbs was a stay-at-home mom — caring for the kids while her husband worked at the nearby Goodyear plant — and she later recalled taking the children almost every day to the local playground right next to the town’s elementary school, the school where both of her children would later attend.

As they got older, though, Gibbs couldn’t help but notice how often her children were getting sick: Michael was diagnosed with asthma at a young age, suffered through bouts of pneumonia, and, as he got older, began to suffer from a seizure disorder. After numerous doctor visits, Michael was diagnosed with an immune system disorder, followed closely by terrible news that Melissa had developed a rare blood disease. Heartbroken, Lois did everything she could to care for her children, but her sadness would later give way to anger. In 1978, the Niagara Falls Gazette published a story about toxic waste sites buried all across the region—including the town where Gibbs’ family lived—and she read, to her horror, that the kids’ school was built on top of a demolished chemical factory.

Their family did not have the money to move, but Gibbs knew that she needed to get her kids away from the school. After weeks of talking to local officials and school board members, she finally won an audience with the school’s superintendent, asking that her kids be transferred into another school district based on their illnesses and asking for an investigation into how dangerous the land truly was. The superintendent looked at her, looked at the doctor’s notes, and told her in no uncertain terms, “We’re not going to do that because of one hysterical housewife with a sick kid. If your kids are sick, why don’t you go home and take care of them,” and he denied both her requests and sent her away.

A few years later, on the other side of the country in California, another mother was experiencing a tragedy that no parent should ever go through: Candace Lightner’s thirteen-year-old daughter was hit and killed by a drunk driver as she was walking home. Her shock and grief quickly turned to fuming anger as she learned more about the person who had killed her daughter. The driver already had four drunk driving convictions—including for a hit-and-run he had committed just a few days prior—but he had served no more than forty-eight hours in prison in each of those previous convictions.

Lightner demanded to know what would happen to him now, and the officers informed her he would likely only serve a year or two of jail time before being released again. Furious, Lightner knew that something was deeply wrong, and even though she had never voted before, she decided a week later to visit the governor and demand that that the state legislature do more to stop drunk driving. And so she visited his office, day after day, seeking an audience with him, and she was denied every time. Days became weeks, weeks became months, and still she could not receive a meeting.

When Jesus shared the parable we read today about a widow repeatedly petitioning a judge for justice, he is unfortunately painting a picture of a scenario that has continued to play out throughout history, both in Jesus’ time and our own. Those without much power are at the mercy of systems far bigger than they are, and too often the system is lacking or they find apathy or confusion from those in power. While we do not know the specific injustice the widow in Jesus’ parable experienced, the parable makes clear that only the judge can grant her what she needs, and the text goes out of its way to establish that this judge does not care about her well-being—or anyone else’s for that matter. The only reason he ultimately relents is in self-interest: “because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice,” our translation reads, “so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” Or, in one of the great alternative translations in the Bible, you may also see a note in your text that the Greek behind this verse can also be read “I will grant her justice so that she may not come and slap me in the face.” The thing that allows this widow to win in the end is her insistence and persistence—a persistence that may be born out of anger but ultimately is fueled by a sense of justice and commitment to what is right, fueled by a belief deep in her heart that what she is advocating for is desperately needed, not only for herself but those who are like her.

Translators have proposed many ways of explaining Jesus’ stated purpose (in verse 1) in telling this parable; various translations say the reason Jesus told this to the disciples was encouraging them “not to be discouraged” (CEB), “not to give up” (NIV, NLT), or “not to faint” (ASV) — all synonyms for persistence. The NRSV, though, captures the original text best by rendering the Greek as “not to lose heart.” The moment we stop believing in the importance of what we are doing — the moment we stop letting our heart guide us — is the moment we begin to fail and falter. But in saying that, we also need to acknowledge most of us — probably all of us — have lost heart for things we believe in at some point or another, discouraged by rejection, failures, setbacks, and disappointments. Things we wanted to see happen did not come to fruition. Dreams that we had, failed to materialize. Passions that we had, cooled when we felt our time, energy, and attention weren’t making as big of a difference as we’d hoped.

I’ve always been fascinated by well-known stories of people who managed to persevere and overcome the odds, because I can’t imagine having their same level of persistence. Some of you may know Stephen King’s Carrie, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Madeline L’Engle’s Wrinkle in Time were all rejected more than twenty times before finding someone willing to publish them. Howard Schultz had loans rejected by more than 200 banks as he looked to fund a coffee company he was building called Starbucks. But as inspiring as those examples might be, each of them was a passion project and for a livelihood. When issues are so deeply personal, touching ourselves and those we love, I would have to imagine the rejection would feel all the more defeating. As Lois Gibbs sat there in the superintendent’s office being told she was hysterical and should go home, how could she not have lost heart? As Candace Lightner showed up at the governor’s office day by day, only to be turned away, how could she not have lost faith that her voice would ever be heard? As we look out at a world plagued by so many seemingly intractable problems, such as hunger and homelessness, gun violence and war, income inequality and poverty, racism and prejudice, how can we not lose heart and faith? How could we ever have the audacity to believe we could make a difference when we are but a few and the problems are so many?

To that I would say, hear these audacious words from our first lesson from Jeremiah once more: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. . . . I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.” The prophet Jeremiah spoke those words to a people steeped in turmoil and loss — a group of exiles who had been dragged away from their homeland and had no hope or future to speak of. It’s not hard to imagine nearly every one of them had lost heart, and yet here is Jeremiah, telling them God is writing a new covenant on their hearts, a promise there will come a time when all will know God, from the least to the greatest, and all will be forgiven and made well.

It would be easy to read those words as a future promise meant to pacify a hurting and broken people, waiting for whatever lay beyond this broken world, but scholars have repeatedly emphasized that Jeremiah’s words were not referring to heaven. This was and is an earthly vision — one rooted and grounded in the here and now — and through that lens this promise takes on new meaning. “The days are surely coming” is not a statement of passive resignation; it is a word of hopeful urgency, a promise that God is still in our midst, a promise that God is writing a new covenant on each of our hearts, and because of that, we should not lose heart even in the face of uncertainly, rejection, and failure. We know we do not yet live in that day when all has been made well, and so there will be times when we cannot accept the status quo, when we need to struggle and persist in willing a new world into being, even if it means making someone sigh “Because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice”.

After her rejection from the superintendent, Lois Gibbs still continued to talk to other families in the neighborhood over the next several months, discovering that many had stories quite similar to hers, and eventually she just couldn’t shake this idea that someone needed to do something. She later would reflect that she had no interest in serving as a community leader — she even hid behind a tree when she was first asked to address a gathered crowd — but gradually she found her voice. Over a two-year span, Gibbs and a group of neighbors took protests and petitions to the state capital of Albany, where she again found rejection and ridicule from the state’s health department. But after Gibbs successfully lobbied for an environmental study, the state was forced to change its tune after the results showed deep and lasting environmental hazards, leading to the federal Environmental Protection Agency getting involved and even an intervention from President Jimmy Carter, who promised to help relocate all 900 families from the town and passed legislation designed to prevent future environmental justice crises like Love Canal from happening.

And after months of visiting, waiting in the governor’s office for hours every day, Candace Lightner eventually got an audience with Jerry Brown, the governor of California, who asked Lightner to be part of a task force on drunk driving. Within the next two years, California — along with twenty-five other states — significantly escalated punishments for drunk driving, leading President Ronald Reagan to pass significant legislation aimed at reducing alcohol abuse. In 1980, when Lightner began advocating, there were around 25,000 fatalities each year through alcohol-related crashes in the United States. Today, that number sits at 10,000, in no small part to the work of Lightner and the Mothers Against Drunk Driving organization she founded.

Lois Gibbs, Candace Lightner, and the widow from the parable all refused to accept the apathy of the status quo. They — and the many who partnered with them — dared to demand justice and a better world for those around them, and they used the fire in their hearts to persist, even in the face of rejection and initial disappointment. The cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead once remarked you should “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has,” and so I have to wonder what that means for us as a church. The most persistent problems in our world cannot be solved overnight or perhaps even in our lifetimes; it will take an even greater persistence to address them. Yet, as Jesus reminds us, “will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night”?

So, friends, I ask, what are those persistent problems in our world today that trouble you deeply? Earlier I named problems like hunger and homelessness, gun violence and war, income inequality and poverty, racism and prejudice, but we all know that unfortunately isn’t an exhaustive list. But whatever fire God has lit in your heart, I hope that you have the courage, tenacity, and persistence to find ways to be a part of addressing those issues once again, even if you’ve lost heart before, even if you feel like your best efforts didn’t make a difference, even if you face outright rejection and failure. May we all have the audacity to believe that “the days are surely coming” when the persistent problems of our world will indeed be addressed, and through prayer and perseverance, may we live lives that proclaim the hope of a better world God has written deep upon our hearts. May we each be a part of making that hope our shared reality. Amen.