Nevertheless, we persist
A homily for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
“Nevertheless, she persisted.”
That phrase began back in 2017 as a statement — really, a condemnation — of a woman, Senator Elizabeth Warren. But very quickly it became something else. It became a badge of honor and a marker of courage. It became a phrase about someone standing firm in the face of opposition, refusing to give up on what she believed in. And it resonates deeply with anyone who has ever refused to give up.
And if that phrase had been written centuries ago, it could easily have been said about the widow in today’s Gospel. Because “Nevertheless, she persisted”
Day after day she comes before a judge who, as Jesus tells us, “neither fears God nor respects any human being.” She has no money, no power, no influence — by every measure of the world, she is insignificant.
All she has is her persistence, her dogged faith that justice is possible.
“Grant me justice,” she says, over and over again. She needles this unjust judge. She refuses to accept silence or indifference as the final word. And before her persistence, evil and injustice give way, showing just how weak they really are.
And Luke tells us exactly why Jesus gave us this parable: “He told them a parable about the necessity for them to pray always and not lose heart.”
Because that’s the danger, isn’t it? That we lose heart and we give up on hope.
When prayers seem unanswered, when our advocacy for the immigrant or the unborn bears little fruit, when our family disowns us, when the world seems stubbornly unfair or our experience of Church seems doomed to dryness and isolation — in those moments we stop believing that injustice and evil are really going to give up, to surrender.
We stop believing that change can happen. Change in us, in our community, in our world. We become disillusioned.
And that disillusionment, that losing heart, it starts young, and it can start small.
I’m reminded of the classrooms at St. Margaret. It’s easy for our students, brilliant as they are, to get frustrated in the midst of their challenges.
And you hear things as you walk around:
“I’ll never be good at this.”
“This is too hard.”
“I’m just not smart enough.”
“I’ll never get it.”
Those words sound small, but they’re familiar to us all. They’re the little voices of despair that whisper, “Why keep trying? They can become the first steps toward losing heart.
One day those little voices aren’t just talking about a lesson in school, but about a relationship, maybe in college or in our family, that’s hard or challenging and instead of facing that we say “well, why keep trying?”
Or maybe it’s about politics. About gun reform, immigration, abortion. “Can anything change? It seems like my letters and protests, don’t do anything, so I won’t bother.”
Or maybe it’s about ourselves. “I don’t know how to change. I keep doing the same things, the same sins and mistakes, I keep hurting the same people. I’m not worth it. I should just give up”
But friends, those are lies. Every single one of them. And we must reject these lies.
Because the truth — in the classroom, in prayer, in life — is that growth happens in and through persistence and perseverance, through hope which believes that change can happen, that it will happen.
We persist and we hope that justice will not be denied, that comfort will be given, that no sin is outside of God’s forgiveness, and that love indeed will be ours.
And that hope and that persistence is built on something more than us and our abilities. Our hope is built and founded upon the God who has first hoped in us. The God who has always been persistent in love for you and for me.
The whole story of salvation — from Moses and the Israelites, to Christ and his apostles, to all the women and men throughout the centuries down to us today is about God’s persistence — it is the story of a God who refuses to give up on His people. Who refuses to lose heart in us.
Even when we lose heart, God never does. God never wearies of you, never wearies of loving, of forgiving, of slowly working out his justice and his mercy in the world and in our lives.
That’s what our hope and our longing for peace for justice for love is really built upon, what our persistence is built upon—God and his love.
The widow in our Gospel had only an unjust judge to rely upon, but we have something more. We have a God who is a better father and a better mother than any of us could ever hope for. And that same God has not and will not abandon us.
Prayer can feel empty, Justice can seem delayed, Progress can look non-existent but how things appear is not the deepest reality. And our lives, our hope, our persistence is built on something far more real. It is built on God. And so nevertheless we persist, we do not lose heart, we stand firm, and we shall overcome the obstacles to holiness and the injustices of the world because we know that God is not finished yet.
God is not finished working out his love in the world, God is not finished in working out his love in our Church, and God is not finished working out his love in us and in our lives.
God’s not finished and neither are we.
And so, nevertheless we persist.