Persistent in Hope
Persistent in Hope
19 October 2025
Revd Sophie Ferguson
I am now almost 4 months into my curacy, serving, both here at the Cathedral and the benefice of Harnham.
The joy of starting a curacy here, is meeting and spending time with all the departments that make this Cathedral a living and thriving place. In particular I have loved meeting the glazing team who are currently working on the restoration of the Burne Jones Window.
I have spent some time in their workshop and watched Vicky and Kate who were carefully and meticulously working on very small pieces of glass. So much thought and detail went into the accuracy of depicting the strings on a pair of sandals worn by one of the angels. Each detail is thought through with immense care. This is a work of pure dedication and perseverance.
To persevere and dedicate yourself to one cause or thing is admirable.
When I think of the word perseverance. Images of great athletes come to mind such as Rob Burrow: A former rugby league player for the Leeds Rhinos, Burrow was diagnosed with MND, which didn’t stop him campaigning and persevering and, using his diagnosis to raise awareness for MND,
I think of artists, or musicians who have pursued and persevered with their talents. Perhaps Beethoven who was Called “hopeless” by his music teacher but wrote 5 symphonies while deaf. Think of those who you admire, who have dedicated time and persevered through difficulty to reach a particular goal.
Now think of the word persistent in contrast with perseverance…… (pause)
The word persistent seems to have more negative traits attached to it. Words like Stubborn and relentless, come up when I think of a person being persistent. But is it a negative trait?
Someone who embodies this trait is Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist whose persistence has landed her on the worlds stage. Ms Thunberg has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Her persistence has raised awareness of climate change for millions of people. She has been the relentless and formidable teenager who has disrupted parliament, global conferences and famously said about climate action
“We will continue. The fight continues. And we will never stop.”
She has been revered for her persistence. I would argue she has also been a marmite person; people wither love her or hate her.
But one thing she is, is persistent.
This morning, we encounter persistence in the actions of a widow in our gospel reading today, who refuses to stay silent.
We meet this widow, In the large centre section of the book, in Lukes’s gospel. This part of the book consists mainly of Jesus’ teaching and parables given on the road as he encounters people, mostly his growing group of disciples. In this parable, we hear Jesus speaking about prayer. How they should always pray and not give up or lose heart.
The parable presents two opposing forces. The very human judge, who had no fear of God and no respect for people. Not the characteristics that you want to see in a Judge.
And then there is the widow, who is asking for justice…
Jesus said: “In a certain town there was a judge, and there was a widow who kept coming to the judge with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary”.
A widow, a classic symbol of the most vulnerable at that time, even powerless. Women would not have attended court, as men would go on their behalf, perhaps a father, uncle, brother or nephew. But here in this story, the widow pleads her case solo. Against all the odds she refuses to give up.
She just kept coming… showing up… persisting.
The widow is presented to us as someone to emulate, a figure of persistence and no doubt immense courage. The widow’s voice echoes down the centuries in the cries of the oppressed, the forgotten, the overlooked. She is the figure of those who stand and ask for justice.
Just this week we have seen the emotional images and videos of hostages and prisoners returning to families and loved ones having been separated for over two years. Some who have literally been through hell. And finally, relief has been trickling through in the form of food aid. I want to share a testimony of a real widow. A mother in Gaza and these are her own words taken from an interview with the women’s refuge commission this year.
“Most days we eat once, sometimes not at all. My younger children cry through the night, and I have no answer for them. We have no gas or electricity, so I cook over scraps of wood or cardboard in old tins. The smoke makes us cough and sick, but there is no other way. I starve myself so my children can eat. This is what survival has become. Recently I walked for hours to reach an aid distribution point. There were thousands of desperate people, crying and pushing while soldiers fired in the air. When I finally reached the front, everything was gone. I came back to my children empty-handed.”
These are the words of a woman in Gaza—a, widow, nurse and mother of six doing everything she could to keep herself and her children alive in the famine, while under constant siege.
How does the widow in this parable from Luke speak to this widow in 2025 .
The widow in the parable embodies a prayer for the voiceless for those for whom persisting is the only way. The widow in this parable is the one who keeps asking against all the odds, she is looking for hope. That hope is found when justice is granted. And it has been trial and breakthrough this week, as food aid has been able to reach starving civilians. This is a breakthrough but there are still many people in our world who have lost hope. Jesus’ teaching about the persistence of prayer is to say that unlike the judge who has no fear of God and no respect for people, we serve a God who is for the oppressed, the voiceless and the marginalised.
Persistent prayer forms us, not into nagging and bothersome people, but into people who refuse to give into despair and refuse to give up hope.
As followers of Jesus Christ, the light of the world, there is a real urgency and need for the church today to keep holding on to hope. When we pray with persistence, we are joining that chorus. Prayer is not an escape from the world’s pain, but a way of carrying it into the presence of God.
I think of the rhythm of prayer in this cathedral: the psalms sung at evensong, the daily offices, the Eucharist celebrated week by week. They are acts of persistence, prayers that rise day and night, testifying that God’s justice will come.
Jesus ends with a searching question: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
Faith, here, is not a matter of simply and blindly believing that all will be well. NO.… It is the courage to keep showing up. To keep crying out when the world seems unjust. To keep working for justice when progress feels painfully slow. To keep trusting in God’s mercy when answers do not come quickly.
In a year like 2025, when uncertainty lingers—over global conflicts, over our warming climate, over the future of our communities—the temptation is to give up, to grow cynical, to stop believing that prayer matters. Yet the reading today challenges us to hear the faith of the widow: persistent in the pursuit of justice and hope.