Luke 18
This is a chapter of reversals.
Jesus starts off the chapter telling a parable to his disciples, urging them to pray with confidence and perseverence. To those who need to place their trust in God, he explains: The widow has no power or influence, and yet she obtains what she needs from a rotten, lazy, uncaring judge. How much more will the powerful, active, and loving God come to our aid if we ask for what we need?
It’s important to recognize here that Jesus isn’t equating God and the unrighteous judge, implying that we must nag God until we get what we want. But he is affirming the need to pray repeatedly for what we need. The process of repeated petitioning forces us to clarify and distill our requests in our own minds, and to trust in God as the only possible source of its fulfillment.
Next, there’s a change of audience, and Jesus speaks to “those who were confident in their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else”. He tells them a story of two men praying, one who exalted himself, and one who humbly looked to God for mercy. The story is short and the point is simple: there’s no place for exalting ourselves before God; the only way to be justified is to bow and humbly ask for mercy.
In the second half of the chapter, Luke plays out these two parables live, in the narratives of the blind man and the rich ruler.
Just as the widow looks to the judge as her only source of justice, the blind man (v.35) looks to Jesus as his only source of healing. And like the widow, he won’t shut up - even after being angrily hushed by the crowd. His plea is simple. In fact, it’s the plea of the tax collector in the second parable: “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And so he receives.
The second parable is played out by the rich ruler. To be fair, he is not quite so forward as the pompous Pharisee. He appears to be sincere in his question, and does recognize that he’s missing something. But I also sense that he’s confident in his own righteousness and looks down on everyone else. He comes to Jesus, saying, “look what I’ve got!”, and his pride is a bit wounded when Jesus’ response is so simple. He recovers just in time to say, “All these I have kept since I was a boy…”, hopeing to hear the one thing he must do to put the final jewel into his crown of self-rightousness. Jesus responds instead by flipping everything upside down: “Go, get rid of everything you value - drop everything you thought was a symbol of your righteousness - and come be my student.”
In the middle, Luke inserts two other bits. When the disciples try to push away those bringing little children, Jesus rebukes them. And as he calls the children forward, he doesn’t stop with the picture-book image of children standing around and a baby on his knee. He throws everything upside down once again, saying, “anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
Finally, it is in the middle that we find the theme of the whole book of Luke: the great reversal, Jesus himself. He warns his disciples,
We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him.” (18:31-32, NIV84)
The climactic act of God on earth is one of reversal.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. (Luke 18:14)
… and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place, and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:6-8)
