“And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay in helping them? I tell you he will quickly grant justice to them” (Luke 18:7-8).

In this parable of Jesus, a woman finally gets her case resolved by relentlessly bothering a judge who could care less about justice.  Jesus compares her to those who cry for justice from God. A parable sanctifying stubbornness.

I don’t know if the fans of the Washington Nationals were praying for justice for a team long-forgotten as ultimate competitors in the World Series, but the team had a relentlessness that caused their rampage through the National League and past the Houston Astros, who had the best regular-season record in baseball. They seemed to have played themselves out of the competition in the first two months of the season, but once they sewed themselves together, they took the Major Leagues by storm.

Max Scherzer and Howie Kendrick, both 35-year-old veterans, exemplified the storm. Scherzer struggled with injuries most of the season and had to abandon his start on Sunday because of seized nerves in his neck. With the relentless encouragement of his wife and the triage of a team doctor and a chiropractor, he was rehabilitated enough to struggle through five innings, seven hits, and two runs, allowing Patrick Corbin and Dan Hudson to finish the job. The man willed himself to perform at a level of mediocrity he would normally disdain, but with a gritty performance to inspire his team mates. Relentless.

Howie Kendrick proved one of the hardest outs in a line-up that included Juan Desoto and Anthony Rendon, two talented young hitters who will appear in more championships, because their future contracts will dictate that. But Kendrick is a 35-year-old retread from the Angels, Dodgers and Phillies, who refused to sit down quietly with two strikes against him. He knew how to foil the best pitches of his opposing pitchers, and he could take the outside pitch to the opposite field, as he proved with his game-winning home run.  As his defensive swing at an outside pitch sent the ball arcing toward the right field stands, the laws of physics or the hand of the divine kept the ball fair, and it clanged against the wing of the foul pole for a home run.  Like Scherzer, Kendrick took his best swat under foul circumstances and made the go-ahead runs out of it.  That was the turning point, though the Nationals went on to score three more runs.

Juan Soto, the twenty-year old rookie, showed he was a force to be reckoned with by launching some majestic clouts, and Anthony Rendon became the prize of free agency with his clutch line drives.   But the battling veterans, Scherzer and Kendrick, reaching the twilight of their careers,  portrayed relentlessness. They battled for the championship, which had eluded each of them for more than a decade,  making a case that the most high judge of baseball was forced to hear.  They inspired a host of unsatisfied dreamers, who sometimes have lost faith that their prayers will ever be answered.