Luke tells us the point of the parable before Jesus opens his mouth: they ought always to pray and not lose heart. Everything that follows is built to answer one temptation, the discouragement that creeps in when prayer seems to go unanswered long enough that a person wonders whether praying is worth continuing.
The judge is about as unpromising as can be imagined. He 2"neither feared God nor respected man." He has no religious conscience and no concern for public opinion, the two pressures that usually keep even a corrupt official somewhat honest. A widow, one of the most powerless people in that society, with no husband to advocate for her and no leverage of her own, keeps coming to him with the same request: 3"Give me justice against my adversary." He refuses her for a while.
What finally changes his mind is simple exhaustion. He says to himself that 5"because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming." The Greek verb behind beat me down literally means to strike under the eye, the image of a boxer worn by relentless blows. He grants justice to make the nuisance stop, which is the least noble motive imaginable, and she still gets what she asked.
Jesus' application depends on the gap between this judge and God: 6"Hear what the unrighteous judge says." The argument runs from the lesser case to the greater. If an indifferent official can be moved by persistence, 7"will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night?" An unrighteous judge grants justice slowly and grudgingly, and a Father who loves the people crying to him 8"will give justice to them speedily." The delay a person feels in prayer is not evidence that God is the reluctant judge. The parable leaves delay unexplained and rules out indifference as the cause.
The final line turns the parable back on its hearers: 8"when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" Most hard questions about prayer put God on trial, asking why he seems slow or silent. This parable reverses the courtroom. The uncertainty it names is whether the people praying will still be praying when the answer comes, and God is not the uncertain party.
The widow had one resource, which was returning. Luke's first verse says they ought always to pray, and the word always means the habit continues past the point where it feels pointless. She did not have a better argument or a better position, and she came back every day with the same request. Prayer in this parable is a matter of coming back to the one who can answer.
Jesus does not promise that every request will arrive on the schedule we set. He promises justice, and speed from the Father's side (verse 8). Name the prayer you have stopped praying because it seemed to go unanswered. Pray it again today, plainly, and tomorrow.
Prayer
Father, you are nothing like the unrighteous judge, and yet we sometimes pray as though you were, wearing thin on hope long before you grow thin on mercy. Teach us the widow's persistence, undiscouraged by delay. And when your Son returns, let him find us still praying, still believing, and not given up somewhere along the way. In Jesus' name, amen.