Sometime you just need to give something, or someone, or yourself a kick in the butt—or a knock on the knuckles.
During my young and naive years, that is, before I hit the midlife skids, I’d sit in church pews, listen to the gospel parable called,“The Unjust Judge and the Importunate Widow (Lk.18) and think that “importunate” meant important. I’d wonder how a widow got to be so important—enough to change a high court judge’s decisions about who should be awarded damages and whom be denied. This judge was godless and corrupt—not motivated by justice at all. Still, a mere widow turned his head? She had to be a little important—even to him.
After I found out that the word importunate means persistent to the point of annoyance and is derived from the Latin importunus meaning inconvenient or unseasonable, I still thought to myself: But a widow? Really, of all the weak sisters to choose as the star of a parable. But then Luke was probably encouraging the Gentiles to engage in importunity to get into the emergent early Christian church.
I still wonder about widows. I often think about how much I do not want to become a widow—or any variation thereof. I have some female friends who are widows, one twice widowed, one divorced, remarried, then widowed, one too young and alive to be a widow, and one an aspiring widow. They are all lovely, loving, and wiser than ever. In Scriptures, widows are plentiful and to be pitied, first on the list for charitable giving. The Indo-European root meaning of widow is be empty. Still, God loves them.
I learned how to be importunate, thanks in part to this little widow and her unjust judge. Such nagging, near-bullying behavior, entered my behavioral repertoire as I was bounced about among a few bishops and committees just trying to be ordained in the Episcopal Church at a time when it was being beset by women—yes, some widows among them. Like the widow in the parable, women wanted justice. The fuel behind my importunity was anger—very far from self-righteous anger, because I knew my own sins and failings, but anger at feeling shut out. I’ve never like slammed doors, and feelings of shame, and fury boiling inside. The Episcopal Church turned out to be pretty lithe for an institution. It changed for justice's sake.
Every story has transformative power, usually many layers of it, if you read it carefully, then let its many layers of meaning sink deeply into and under your own skin. Every story has its own brand of importunity.
This biblical story ends with the punch line: “I tell you God will give them swift justice.”
Still, I do not want to be a widow.
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