“This peculiar story of the widow’s astonishing (read: countercultural) behavior is intended, as parables are, to disturb and reveal disruptive truth. It not only says something about how important it is for us to pray without ceasing, it also names what we should be praying for: justice. The widow is so certain of God’s justice that she acts in resolute faithfulness and courage, in anticipation of that certainty. She is anything but passive or powerless, as the ancient stereotype went.
“This kind of resolute faithfulness and sheer, dogged persistence, also demonstrated in ordinary and extraordinary women of the Bible and in social justice history — speaks to Christians today of the courage it takes to reject barriers and social norms, in the name of justice and human flourishing. Who among us will persist in the quest for justice? Like the widow pleading her own case before the unjust judge, we must not take no for an answer. It is a matter of faith. It is a matter of trust in God’s goodness — and in our commitment to claiming God’s reign of justice with constancy.”
—Dr. Kathy Bozzuti-JonesA longer interpretation where Author Amy Jill Levine says this scripture forced her to reexamine her own views