Proper 26 WED 2025 4 Times Over

Proper 26 WEDNESDAY 5 November 2025

St George’s Episcopal, Fredericksburg, VA

“4 Times Over”

Collect

Almighty and merciful God, it is only by your gift that your faithful people offer you true and laudable service: Grant that we may run without stumbling to obtain your heavenly promises; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Luke 19:1-10

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today." So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner." Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much." Then Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."

When I was a child I loved this story. Being a small child I could envision Zacchaeus. I felt close to him. Mostly because it was a song I loved to sing. 

Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he.

He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.

And as the savior came that way he looked up in the tree, and he said…

Zacchaeus, you come down, for I’m going to your house today.

For I’m going to your house today.

This story is about redemption.

Growing, I learned to see the story differently, and I love it all the more.

Zaccheus was a chief tax collector, and he was rich, the scripture says. Now to get a tax collector job for the Roman Empire, people had to bid for the position. If the Romans wanted 10,000 bodkins, the bid might be 2,000 bodkins to get the job. So the tax collector had to tax the people the 10 thousand required, the 2,000 pay off, and then they had to add profit to make it all worthwhile. So the people being taxed were being robbed by a local for foreign colonialism. Insult to injury. So, Zacchaeus was despised. He was a traitor, and a thief. And he was a wee little man! Short people! Let’s hate him for all the things.

He was probably feeling the hate when he did not bunch up with the crowd to see Jesus, which probably contributed to him being up that tree. And did I mention he was short?

So the wee hated little man climbed up that tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus.

He probably thought he could go incognito, but Jesus stopped, pointed him out, and invited himself to Zacchaeus’ house. The people were disgusted. 

“Doesn’t he know he is a sinner!” they whispered in contempt.

In response to Jesus’s surprise actions, Zacchaeus spontaneously erupted in response, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”

And Jesus was pleased. “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

It might seem like a really sweet deal, spiritually speaking. That by choosing Zacchaeus, where he knew he would get a good meal, Jesus got a little transformation, too. But please, I urge you, do not see it that way. It is easy to read it like that, with a little cosmic tit-for-tat. But if the spiritual life were like that, it no longer is Grace. Grace is not an economic enterprise.

Grace is a gift, freely given to those God loves, not for those who “earn it.” As Brennan Manning reminded us in The Ragamuffin Gospel, “There is nothing you can do that would make God love you any more, and there is nothing you can do that would make God love you any less.” Grace is a gift.

Zacchaeus, in seeing Jesus pick him, felt that Grace and the love behind it. He freely gave his gift of half of his stuff, and returning anything he stole four times over. This is not tit-for-tat, but rather, for me, a grace-filled response for the Grace he received.

As we receive that Grace, may we abide in that Grace and live fully in our responses to it. And maybe like Zacchaeus, Salvation can come to our house, too! Amen

All Saints Day 2025 The Democracy of the Dead

 All Saints Day (Observed) 2 November 2025

St George’s Episcopal, Fredericksburg, VA

“The Democracy of the Dead”

Collect: Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Daniel 7:1-3,15-18

In the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head as he lay in bed. Then he wrote down the dream: I, Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another.

As for me, Daniel, my spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me. I approached one of the attendants to ask him the truth concerning all this. So he said that he would disclose to me the interpretation of the matter: "As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth. But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever—for ever and ever."

Luke 6:20-31

Jesus looked up at his disciples and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,

for yours is the kingdom of God.

“Blessed are you who are hungry now,

for you will be filled.

“Blessed are you who weep now,

for you will laugh.

“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets."

"But woe to you who are rich,

for you have received your consolation.

"Woe to you who are full now,

for you will be hungry.

"Woe to you who are laughing now,

for you will mourn and weep.

"Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

"But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

All Hallow’s Eve. All Saints. All Souls. Friends, we are in the midst of “thin days.” Days when those once living closer to the earth and seasons felt that this world and the one to come came a tad closer and the layers of separation were thinner, what seemed more distant is lessened to veils.

The days were getting darker and most of the crops were stored away for the winter that was coming on. For us, you probably changed the thermostat in the last few days. I know we did. But for millennia, it was so much more than turning up the heat. People have paused and pondered what was, and is, and is to come. The changing of the seasons and the dying of summer made people think of their own journey to what is to come.

In the church, we connect ourselves to the past in looking at the saints. Those exemplars of the faith who provide not a model for us to follow, but a spirit which we can mimic. In the Apostles’ Creed we confess to believing in the “communion of saints.” They are still a part of what we do.

As followers in the Anglican tradition, note that last word there, we are part of the holy apostolic and catholic church, while being birthed in the hotbed of the Protestant Reformation. We sought a middle way, a via media, where we maintained the structure of archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, while embracing reason and the reading and interpreting scripture for ourselves. So we held onto those three strands, tradition, reason, and scripture. We wove them inseparably together. They became the legs of the stool upon which we rest our teachings and practices.

Scripture became the rallying cry of most of the protestant revolts. And Reason the driving force of the Enlightenment thinkers and times. The Roman Catholic Church leaned heavily on what had been calcified over the centuries that they could not respond when the winds of change arrived.

In the Church of England, however, set apart as an island nation’s establishment, they could embrace some change and retain some tradition while all filtered through reason and experience without too much foreign entanglement. Sloppy at times, unwieldy even, it was a system that could change and maintain, evangelize and retain order. I tend during this season to be thankful for the “great cloud of witnesses” that have come before and still have things to teach us and guide us. 

G.K. Chesterton put it this way in Orthodoxy:

• “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.” 

• “All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.” 

We can rebel against tradition, or mine its depths and find its riches. 

Our three legged stool asked us to hold onto a seeming paradox: Change and Tradition. Or another way to look at it is to hold onto both truths:

• The Last Seven Words of the Church is “We’ve Never Done It That Way Before.” 

• “Don’t Throw The Baby Out With The Bathwater.”

Reason is what helps us navigate between the two.

One way to look at it is to be like St Paul preaching on Mars Hill in Athens. If you are unfamiliar with the story, it shows me the radical transformation possible in Christ, embracing the path established for us and reaching out for the fresh wind that flows from the Spirit. In Acts 17, Paul sets out to preach in the public space in Athens, getting up on their equivalent of his soapbox:

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.

 

At first glance, he was just preaching to folks of pagan beliefs and meeting them where they were. But remember who Paul was, his dead name was Saul, a Pharisee and persecutor of the Church. And now he stands amongst Gentiles (Unclean! Unclean!) and points to an altar (Anthema! Anathema!) and maybe even an idolatrous stone raised and says that this idol is the God he is about to preach about. For a good Jewish boy, a Pharisee, to point to something so pagan, an IDOL!, and say that is about his foreign, wild, desert God is blasphemous or amazing! If that is not an example of the wondrous dance of Tradition, Scripture, and Reason, I do not know what is. He joins the dance of the Spirit working in these exciting and new ways, and holding onto the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Jesus, too!

The saints do not want us to be like them, but rather to love like them. They want us to give our complete devotion to God with all we have and to follow the one sent to show us the way home, Jesus the Son. And in doing that be ourselves, who God made us to be! All Saints Day is when we can see clearly how God has worked through the centuries, the “salvation history,” the Heilgeschichte, and how God is at work still.

Gracie Allen told her husband George Burns to not quit living after she died this way. “Do not put a period where God has put a comma.” God has been and will continue to be at work.

For the last few years I have done a daily prayer online, most of which are short histories (often called hagiographies) of the saints in the Anglican, Episcopal, or Catholic and Orthodox traditions.

It is a daily reminder that I am part of something that began millennia ago, and continues on to and through now, and will keep going long after I have sloughed off this mortal coil.

It is not to be morose, pondering my own demise this way. I am part of something bigger, and grander, and greater than myself. Thanks be to God!

Our reading from Daniel was written in a time of worry and concern. People had been uprooted and were far from home trying to wrap their minds around how God could let this happen to them.

Daniel receives this vision:

I, Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another.

As for me, Daniel, my spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me. I approached one of the attendants to ask him the truth concerning all this. So he said that he would disclose to me the interpretation of the matter: "As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth. But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever—for ever and ever."

Daniel was troubled by what he saw, and asked how to interpret these things. These great and horrible beasts standing in for empires of evil will come, but then they also shall go.

These hard days in which we find ourselves with divisions, strife, wars, and famines, these are not to be ignored, but nor do they have the last word. They may come, but they too shall pass. The interpreter for Daniel said as much, but also added this.

But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever—for ever and ever.

Friends, when the dark clouds are overhead and the path ahead is dark, if we are with Christ and in Christ, if we reside in the Body of Christ communing with the Saints, we will not be forsaken or forgotten. The Kingdom of God is our home. To put it in the parlance of our times, our team wins.  Come what may. Come what may.

[for 10 am Joint Service: For those about to be baptized, we celebrate with you this next step in your faith journey. We stand with you and invite into this household of faith. The cloud of witnesses surrounds us this day, and will be with you in your journeys and invite you home when that time comes as well. Nothing makes me happier as a priest than to see God at work in individuals and seeing the Family grow. For the rest of us…]

This All Saints weekend, this Hallowtide, embrace what has been, seek where the Spirit leads, and do it all for God’s glory. Have hope in the dark days, that all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. Thanks be to God! Amen

Proper 25 2025 I Have NOT Arrived

Proper 25 26 October 2025

St George’s Episcopal, Fredericksburg, VA

“I Have NOT Arrived”

Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Luke 18:9-14

Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, `God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, `God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."

I remember hearing a story from a friend about going into a church, and seeing in the entryway a huge banner: “You have arrived!” Now, I hope and trust that what they meant to say was “You made it. We are glad you are here!” But when I hear the phrase, “You have arrived!” it sounds like you have made it to your destination, that you have nowhere else to go, that you have nothing else to do, nothing more to learn, no more growth is needed. Rest.

Had I seen that banner hanging in a church I was visiting, I would have turned around and walked out the door immediately. What I look for in a Church is not a bunch of “arrived” people, but a bunch of people en route. In the early Church, people who followed Christ did not call themselves Christians. In fact, the name Christian was an insulting, derisive name that got slapped on Christ’s followers in Antioch, the city in Syria. It literally means “little Christs.” Little Messiahs. People were making fun of these people running around trying to help people and save them from their troubles. The term that people used in the Church to describe themselves was followers of The Way. The Way. You see, our faith is to be on the move, on the go. We follow Jesus, and he shows us The Way. When we think that we have it made, that we have arrived, we have left The Way. And there is nothing I think that would make Jesus sadder.

In the story he told tonight Jesus sets up a dichotomy, two people praying in the Temple. One who thanks they have arrived, that they have their act together and THANKS BE TO GOD THEY WERE BORN THAT WAY and followed all the rules to stay that way! 

And we have another, who knew for a fact that they were on the wrong path, that they had strayed and that they needed help. He prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” 

God heard both prayers and God affirmed one of them, according to Jesus. The obvious and notorious sinner went home justified. And the one who was sure he was ready and redeemed was anything but.

Friends, you know you. At least, I hope you do. I know I have not arrived, and I still have a ways to go. I could worry and fret about that, or, like the Tax Collector, I could see it as my starting place on the road to Grace.

Maybe one way to look at it is to not be like the Pharisee, and do not judge anybody, unless you are looking in a mirror.

And if you have breath in your lungs, God is not done with you yet! Thanks be to God! You still have room and time to grow and to go home justified like the Tax Collector. 

God has given you today to humbly start again. All Roads May Lead To Rome, but all roads on Jesus’ Way lead to him. No matter where you are starting from, Jesus can and wants to show you the way home. Thanks be to God! Amen

 

Proper 24 WED 22 Oct 2025 Missing the Point

 Proper 24 WEDNESDAY, 22 October 2025

St George’s Episcopal, Fredericksburg, VA

“Missing the Point” 

Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

1 Corinthians 15:51-58 NRSV

Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

“Where, O death, is your victory?

     Where, O death, is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Matthew 12:1-14

At that time Jesus went through the cornfields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.’ 3He said to them, ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests. 5Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests in the temple break the sabbath and yet are guiltless? 6I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7But if you had known what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”, you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.’

9 He left that place and entered their synagogue; 10a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, ‘Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?’ so that they might accuse him. 11He said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? 12How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.’ 13Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other. 14But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.

Two of my favorite authors, and both of which I have had the distinct pleasure of getting to spend time with, Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo co-wrote a book, Adventures in Missing the Point. The book was not particularly memorable, but the title certainly was. So many of the problems we face in life stem directly from this, us not being on the same page. Miscommunications. Assumptions. So many things trip us up and we run with our certainty and assume our perspective is reality and the rest, all that confusion and conflict, is what becomes history.

Jesus had the same thing happen to him. He and his followers were hungry, so they ate. But their way of getting food, plucking the wheat grains, happened on the Sabbath. This commanded day of rest in which we dedicate it to God was the hang-up. Jesus knew it was the Sabbath, but following the minutia of how one is supposed to follow that commandment was what became the issue.

The Sabbath was made for us, not us for it. In other words, who is driving the car here? What is the highest priority?

Think about who you last had a confrontation with. Most likely, you were not on opposite ends of whatever issue it was, but where you rank the priorities coming into conflict. Which priority trumps the other one?

My wife used to be the assistant to Bishop Goff. When she helped prepare churches for their episcopal visitation liturgical colors always came into play. What color is the color of the day. She, coming out of a Baptist background, had no idea about liturgical colors and what was appropriate when. Bishop Goff clarified it this way. If we are invoking the Holy Spirit, it is Red. Confirmations and Receptions. Both of which call on the Holy Spirit. But when we invoke Jesus, Baptisms (and Weddings and Funerals, too, by the way) we have White. While Red and White are both good, Jesus trumps everybody so white wins. It comes back to priorities.

For the Pharisees, Sabbath observance trumped personal needs. Jesus disagreed. Hunger and healing are both good, and good beats legalistic observance every time.

That conversation might seem far fetched and not applicable, but there were a few recent conversations where these conflicting priorities came into play. So many are desperately hurting right now with the government shut down. As a parish, though, we are right smack in the middle of the Generosity campaign which because of all the other programming was happening now. Can we be compassionate and caring of those hurting while the system continues the way systems do?

I was so moved how those on staff wrestled with not being tone deaf to folks’ situation while getting out the scheduled mailings. The emphasis of reaching out and telling people they come first was touching to me. I trust these efforts succeeded and were heard and even more felt.

These conversations around Tithing (or Stewardship or Giving or Generosity, whatever you call it) and the Sabbath are not about God, they are about US! God does not need your money. God does not need you to give God a day of praise. But God knows us because God made us, and God knows we are stuck in limited perspectives where it is hard for us to have the faith that we can live on 90% of our labors and we can get all that needs to be done in 6 days instead of 7. The Sabbath and our Giving are statements of profound faith that God is God and we are not. That what we have from this God of Abundance will make do. As we live into the Kingdom of God, think on that! Amen

Proper 24, 19 October 2025 "Shiny Red Bikes and Having Heart"

 Proper 24 19 October 2025

St George’s Episcopal, 

Fredericksburg, VA

“Shiny Red Bikes and Having Heart”

Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Luke 18:1-8

Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, `Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, `Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

“Shiny Red Bikes and Having Heart”

Good morning! 

Jesus was a teacher. Jesus was a healer. But, what attracted and enthralled his hearers was that Jesus was a storyteller. Plain and simple.

I have been preaching twice as many years as I haven’t, and in those decades I have learned a very simple and important lesson. If I talk in the abstract, people can pay attention for a little bit before their minds wander, or they start applying the ideas to their situation and their attention flits away to those thoughts. It is par for the course.

But if I start to tell a story, and I make it engaging and interesting people look up, and lean in, and stay with me. We are wired for stories. We use them to say goodnight and tuck our kids into bed. Standing around the watercooler or at a cookout, we might break out a joke or anecdote to engage with our colleagues or friends.

And as I said, being a Master of the Human Condition, Jesus knew that about us. And how did he repeatedly teach? Through story, and we call the stories he told parables. The word parable comes from the Latin word for “comparison.” We might use the word metaphor. He is making a point by pointing to something else that is parallel to what we are experiencing.

And we are still wrestling with Jesus’s metaphorical teaching stories 2,000 years later. I highly encourage you, if you would like to take a deep dive, to pick up “Short Stories by Jesus” by Vanderbilt Divinity professor Amy-Jill Levine. Its sub-title is “The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi.” She repeatedly brings out that Jesus intended to shock and dismay his hearers by twisting something that they knew and turning it on its head.

So many of Jesus’ parables are about God and the nature of God. Some other parables are about the way things are or will be in the Kingdom of God which Jesus preached about and lived to bring into reality. 

In the spiritual world, taking the familiar and twisting is an easy way to get us to unlearn what we think we know, and relearn what is more true and real. And by more true and real I mean what God’s intentions are for all of us.

Today’s parable from our lectionary reading is often confusing because it goes against those patterns most often found in Jesus’s stories. It is clearly against how God is. And sometimes, like in this instance, they actually tell you the point it is they are trying to make. Luke does as much…

Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 

So let’s start there. This is about our praying, especially when we are unsure if we are being heard. We need to pray, even if we do not know the outcome.

[Jesus] said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, `Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, `Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" 

Jesus, as I mentioned, takes what is known, and spins it.

Scripture promises that there is nothing new under the sun, and a crooked politician is not new. Even in Jesus’s day, there were stinkers who would kiss a baby just so that they could take their lollipop. Do not confuse the Judge with God, which might be easy to do. The Judge is the antithesis of God; God is not like him.

When it comes to our prayer, it might seem like you are not being heard. It might seem like your prayers are landing on deaf ears. But this parable is about our need to pray without ceasing, not about the nature of God. Jesus clears that up with the line: 

And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will God delay long in helping them? I tell you, God will quickly grant justice to them. 

Now this is the time when we have to talk about God’s answer to prayers. I have read a lot. I have prayed a lot. I have waited a long time for an answers.

You may remember the story from the Hebrew Scriptures when the Prophet Elijah was being persecuted by King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. They had brought in the religion of the false idol Baal, and to get the people’s attention there was a drought for three years. Elijah sent word to the prophets of Baal to meet for a showdown on Mount Carmel.

Elijah set up altars with sacrifices on them, one to Baal and one to God. He allowed the 400 prophets of Baal to pray to their deity first, and after hours of calling and crying, of dancing and even self-mutilation, nothing came of it.

Friends, that is not what God wants from us. God wants us to be clear, honest, and direct. Elijah did that and God lit the fire on the altar dedicated to himself. 

We are to pray, without ceasing and to have heart. A synonym for that is to pray with faith. 

Another caveat, when I am waiting to hear from God, I too often, admittedly think, God will give me exactly what I pray for. And sometimes God does. But I often have to remind myself that God’s answers to prayer are often boiled down to one of three things: Yes, No, and Not Now.

When my daughter was very young, she did not want to get a shot. We would tell her that she was going to get a shot. We would go through the appointment right up until the time when the shot was coming. And even while I held her still on my lap, she would look at me one last time, words no longer of use, but that way our beloved ones can look at us and speak volumes with a glance.

In that look, she would want me to make it go away. But I was the father. I was the one holding her. I was the one who knew it was best for her to take a moment of pain for her long-term health and safety. Despite her begging, the answer to her pleas was No. I stayed with her. I hurt with her. I would take her anger or resentment to the decision that I knew was best for her and all of us. I did what needed to be done. 

I would rather have her beg and tell me what she was feeling. She did not need to hold it or hide it. She did not need to say, “Why bother!?!?” I wanted her to have honest and open communication with me, but I also wanted her to trust that I was doing what was best for her.

Prayer is like that. We share our hearts, what they are really and truly feeling and wanting. No matter how trivial. And I also have faith in God that the answer may be yes, you get what you want, no, you do not get that, or not now, and we will see what comes.

Sometimes I might see a shiny new bike. It is red and cool, and I convince myself that I want that red bike. I might even pray that God would give me that really cool, shiny, red bicycle. I might even pray that continually, like a kid dropping hints at Christmas.

But then it does not arrive. Am I angry with God? If so, that would be on me. If I were a petulant child that would be the outcome.

But if I kept praying for that red bike, God would have the opportunity to show me that my blue bike is just fine. I might see that some people might not even have a bike, and how blessed I am to have a bike at all. My blue bike starts looking better and better, and I see God’s loving hand in saying No, no matter how hard I prayed. And while I got a No to my prayers, I trust that God’s No means something else will happen, and I pray I can see that it is better.

When Jesus talked about our not losing heart in our prayers, it is about faith in a God who is good, a God who is abundant with gifts and justice, a God who loves us more than we can ever perceive.

Holding my child while she got shots was hard, but it was one of the most loving things I could do. She got what she needed without necessarily getting what she wanted. And even in the No to her pleas, I trust she had heart that I loved her and wanted what was best for her in the long run.

God loves us and wants what is best for us. God is generous, abundant, and loving. Today’s reading ends with this phrase.

And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

Praying without ceasing. Praying, even when the answer might be Yes, No, or Not Now, shows that we have faith that God hears us and that God’s response will be just and caring of us.

Today, as we look at the Gratitude we have in our Generosity Campaign, we have a God who hears our prayers. We have a community of love and support, especially in the hard times like so many are going through right now. Even in days like these we can have Gratitude. We have a way to have hope, even when we do not see what is beyond the horizon. God, who began a good work in you, is faithful to complete it. Amen