July 23, 2004

Listening

Pentecost 8/12C (Gen 18.10-53; Lk 11.1-13)

I’ve only had one for-sure audience with God that I know of. I wouldn’t bet the farm on it, but it was good enough for me at the time. It happened quite a while back on I40W at about 75 mph, ten mph over the speed limit.

I was praying. Suddenly, I was startled to “hear” myself say/ask, “Why you’re the very same God as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!?” “One and the same,” said James Earl Jones (the voice God was using that day).

If anybody rates audience with God, it ought to be Abraham. Heaven knows what he (and Sarah) gave up to become God’s advance man (and woman) and to whelp all of us grains of sand and stars. And then there was the thing with Isaac and the ram, enough to give any kid a complex.

The propers this Sunday are anchored in Abraham and topped off in Jesus. (There’s surely no better combination available.) Abraham takes on God in the interest of Sodom and the possibility that there might be a righteous few in its generally obnoxious population — and wins. Jesus doesn’t necessarily recommend Abraham’s presumptuousness, but he does tell us how to speak to God in a manner perhaps more fitting to our place and assures us God is willing to act in response to our needs.

The beauty of these two tales is the magnificent declaration that God listens. We can intercede for others. We can intercede for ourselves. Nothing and no person is excluded from the agenda — especially not our deepest needs and longings.

God has canceled the bond against us, not for the sake of any shreds of righteousness that we might hold on to, but for the grace that makes us alive in.Christ Jesus our Lord. Pray, then, courageously. Trust the goodness of God. (But don’t presume on it. Remember Isaiah’s caveat to “seek the Lord while he wills to be found” [Is 55.6]. And for heaven’s sake, observe the speed limits.)

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