Pentecost 7C - Sunday, July 28, 2019

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. John Forbis, OHC
Pentecost 7C - Sunday, July 28, 2019

Genesis 18:20-32
Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19)
Luke 11:1-13

Click here for an audio version of the sermon.

I have had a love/hate relationship with this Gospel passage during various stages of my life.  I have only just realized this by beginning this sermon about three or four times.  A few days ago, I felt that something had clicked into place for me, and even had a clever quote ready to use.  But then, I abandoned that idea as well.  I was trying to make Luke say what it wasn’t saying.  This Gospel is also not to be cheapened by a clever quote.  So what happened to bring me to a place where I could preach to you today with any amount of integrity?  Prayer happened. 

Being younger and naïve as a boy and teenager, I assumed the literal, that if I ask for anything it will be given to me; if I search, I will find; knock, and the door will be opened for me.  However, I didn’t really believe in my heart of hearts that this would be the case.  And so, I tried to get, find and to force a door open and barge in or beg and manipulate others to do so.  I was eager to see my prize. 

Meanwhile, God sends me the message while wrestling with this Gospel, “Is that it?  Is that really all you want?  Well, OK, but you might be disappointed.”

Then, becoming older and wiser, as a later teenager, college student and even into my earliest years in monastic life, I saw the asking, the searching and knocking as encouragement to intellectualize, philosophize, to figure out the world and God.  I had the opening I needed to be wiser than God. 

And God says, No, not even close. 

As I stand here today, my frustration level is a little heightened.  For there are a lot of snakes and scorpions that are being handed out, especially to children.  So, I have been not just asking, but demanding justice for the last three years since I’ve been back from South Africa.  I witnessed so many needs deferred by corruption, deceit and disregard for anyone but for themselves who engage in these travesties.  Then, coming back to this country, I was shocked to see the same behavior, only more blatant.  Where is the God whom Paul describes to the Colossians, “disarming the rulers and authorities and making a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.”  Sweep away the wicked rulers and authorities, and give back the fish and eggs!!  I may think I’m asking for justice, but all I am asking for is more of the same.  Retribution.  I become just another one creating more travesty. 

God’s sedate response, “Nope.  Not good enough.”

The man who is showing us God’s true identity is the same man who forgives us to the point of nailing what a punitive society expects us to owe, including demands for payback to the Cross.   He carries all of this and gives his life for peace and forgiveness.  The Cross is what disarms, triumphs and even makes public examples of those who are handing out the snakes and scorpions, of me.  Jesus stands in stark contrast to the chaotic and violent desires swirling around him. 

Nothing less than a complete transformation will do for God.  But he won’t force it upon us.  We can take it or leave it.  We have a choice.  God loves us that much. 

Yet, God’s desire for us is still so much more.  While we have our own cravings for which we so desperately ask, seek and pound on doors, God’s hunger is to give us the Holy Spirit.  This gift is as natural to him as it is for a parent, even an evil one, to ensure their child’s physical needs.

The Holy Spirit is the one to sweep away hate and violence.  The Holy Spirit is the one to disarm all of us into a life that is not defended, not vengeful, not grasping, not based on greed or fear, but on the enormous life of healing, restoration, forgiveness and peace, so much bigger and beyond what we can imagine.  So much is good enough! 

A disciple wants to be taught how to pray.  Is he looking for a trick?  A device?  A formula?  Jesus seems more concerned with what we pray rather than how we pray.  Jesus’ prayer is pared down to the bare minimum, and what’s important is what we ask, for what we search, on which door do we knock.  Often underlying my recital of this prayer is a complaint to God, “Is this it?”  I foolishly want more.  But what more do I need?  IT is PLENTY!  It is the prayer that truly asks for our own transformation!!!

We use the plural.  It isn’t just about what each of us desire, but we’re a community praying for enough bread, for forgiveness and to forgive, to not be drawn into the trials of evil, cruel actions, and victimization.  We ask for deliverance but not alone.  We ask to live in Christ, rooted and built up in him and established in faith, praying his words with him.  Vengeance, hatred, violence, death has no business being in our hearts because our one integrated heart beats for God’s will to be done in heaven and on earth.  Yet, the prayer calls for more, for heaven, God’s kingdom, to come right here to earth … God’s Kingdom, not our own!  In this prayer, we beg God daily, again and again, to lead us not into temptation to ask for less, search only in our domain, to knock on the door of emptiness but directly to the place where heaven and earth meet.   

Psalm 85 provides a gorgeous image for this:

9 Truly, his salvation is very near to those who fear him, *
that his glory may dwell in our land.
10 Mercy and truth have met together; *
righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
11 Truth shall spring up from the earth, *
and righteousness shall look down from heaven.

What if we are invited to do nothing less than to be what Jesus teaches us to pray to be?  What if we allow these few words to mean so much, to spring us up from the earth to be truth, peace and righteousness itself?  What if within us they kiss, look to each other for answers, find and come through an open door?  Can you imagine? 

Nope.  There’s more …

Amen.