“Persistent” Elizabeth Warren Just Enacted one of Jesus’ Parables

I opened up CNN.com today to discover this huge headline: “Nevertheless, She Persisted”

These were the words of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, explaining his invocation of Rule 19, a rule that disallows senators from “impugning” another senator.

The “she” is, of course, Elizabeth Warren, who had delivered an impassioned speech against the nomination of Jeff Sessions. In her speech, Warren read from a 1986 letter from the late Coretta Scott King, MLK Jrs widow, in which Martin Luther King Jrs. widow pleaded against the nomination of Jeff Sessions to an Alabama district court. The letter accompanied a complete statement, in which King argued that Sessions had worked to obstruct the “free exercise of the vote by black citizens,” in that very same district, particularly obstructing elderly black citizens.

The phrase, “she persisted” reminded me of one of Jesus’ parables, a familiar one about the “persistent widow,” or as some translations have it, the “nagging widow.”

Here is that parable:

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. ² He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. ³ And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

⁴ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, ⁵ yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”

⁶ And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷ And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? ⁸ I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:1-18).

It seems that, in this new government where big moneyed interests seem to matter more than the real problems of real people in this country, with known white nationalists influencing seemingly every decision in the White House, with an assembled cabinet composed of a mix of unqualified persons or candidates known for allegations of racism in the past, we’ve got a situation a lot like that of Luke 18, where people in power “neither fear God” nor care what people think.

May there be more and more of #shepersisted, whether on the floors of government, in the actions of churches, or as people voice their persistent nagging in the streets.

“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Here is the letter, by the way, which Coretta Scott King wrote (addressed to Strom Thurmond) and which Warren read; the letter that got her banned from the senate discussion of Sessions’ nomination: