People over rules. August 25, 2019 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Luke 13:10-17, Isaiah 58:9b-14

It is the Sabbath and Jesus is teaching in the synagogue when all of a sudden he stops and calls someone over. It is a woman. A woman who for the last eighteen years has been living her life crippled and bent over. When Jesus sees her he desires to put an end to her suffering immediately. “Woman,” he says, “you are set free from your ailment.” And upon touching her she stands up straight and begins praising God.

What a moment of joy. But there’s a problem. The healing is fine. It’s the timing. For this is the Sabbath day. The day set aside by God to rest from one’s labor. Six days, argues the synagogue leader, "there are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, but not on the Sabbath."

Now, it’s all too easy for us - or at least it is for me - to hear this story and simply cast the synagogue leader in the role of “bad guy.” To think something along the lines of, “What a jerk. He’s just way too uptight about rules. Thank God I’m not like that.” But if that’s our response, we close ourselves off to the transforming and freeing work that Jesus seeks to do not just in that leader, but in us as well. For if we are truly honest can’t we all admit that there are some situations where we get stuck? Where we dig in our heels insisting that the rules must prevail? Resisting change even when it might benefit others? Of course we have our reasons. Good reasons, we’d say. Just as the synagogue leader would say. I mean, you can’t get more righteous and rigid than when you think you are on the side of God. But even well-meaning rules, traditions, or theological convictions can be wrong. Sometimes so wrong that they are harmful to others what Jesus challenges in us today.

For God always, always preferences people over rules. Now in this particular situation Jesus rebuts the synagogue leader by pointing out that actually there are allowances made in the Sabbath law to care for ox and donkey. How much more then, Jesus reasons, does this daughter of Abraham deserve the same care and consideration - to be set free from her bondage - now, on this Sabbath day? It’s not that the Sabbath laws don’t matter, but people - all people - matter more. The well-being of people always takes priority over traditions, rules or laws, no matter how cherished or justified they may be.

This message is nothing new. The prophet Isaiah, among others in the Old Testament, speaks this word as well. Today we hear Isaiah declare that God’s people will flourish when they begin to act justly and honor the Sabbath. Acts of religious devotion, like honoring the Sabbath, are intimately and necessarily connected with social justice for all. They are so intertwined that one cannot be teased out from the other. Here God specifically wants his people to remove the yoke of oppression, to refrain from contempt and slander, to take care of those in need. But the way our translation puts it, that is to “offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,” really doesn’t do the original Hebrew justice. What it literally says is, “extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul.” This is not a call to just be a nice person, to do random acts of charity, and then go about business as usual. This is a call to invest our very selves into the well-being of all others. For whether we are listening to the words of Isaiah or watching the deeds of Jesus the message is always about recognizing the sacred worth of people and responding accordingly. Freeing people from systems and structures that bind. Bringing into the fold those who have been cast out. Drawing the circle wider. That’s honoring the Sabbath and acting justly, loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself.

As I was reflecting on this message and thinking about today, Emily Rutledge, our Children, Youth & Family Minister, came to mind. She came to mind because from the very start, her ministry has been informed by God’s preference for people and call for inclusion. In fact, one of the first things she did when she came to Church of Our Saviour was guided by this vision. Up until her arrival the tradition was that the gathering of teenage kids in our church was called, like in so many other churches, the Youth Group. Right away Emily changed that. The Youth Group became the Youth Community because, as I understand it, she was sensitive to the fact that a “group” can often have a closed, cliquish feeling about it while calling something a “community” sends a subtle but important message of openness and welcome - especially to those who might feel as if they don’t fit in any other place. Then, after some time here, she made God’s care and inclusion even more explicit when she started using the tag line, “You BELONG here.” It’s on every message that Emily sends out and infused in the programs she creates. You BELONG here. In all of her ten years, Emily has sought to create an authentic and loving community in Christ where everyone can thrive. And over those years that ministry and community has grown to include not just teenagers, but all the children of this parish as well as their parents. Now I’m sure she’d be the first to say that sometimes her hopes for inclusion and belonging don’t always pan out. Nonetheless, that is her aim and it’s one of the many reasons we celebrate her presence among us today.

But it’s not just Emily that has been tapped with the ministry of God’s radical preference for people. Indeed, we are all called to this ministry. To bring into the fold those who have previously been left out. To extend our very souls in the work of justice and equity. To draw the circle ever wider so that all of God’s children, both daughters and sons of Abraham alike, might know that they really, really BELONG. This is our vision. This is our call. This is our privilege. To be partners with God in the healing of this world knowing that one day we all will stand up straight, set free from the bondage of our ailments, and praise God together.

Not living in fear. August 18, 2019 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

Luke 12:49-56

While I was at seminary in New York City, I spent some time working for St. James’ Church on Madison Avenue. It was a very affluent parish with an active ministry to homeless people, dozens of whom could be seen around the church every day. So the congregation decided to create a homeless day center, sort of like the Haven here in Charlottesville, where people could come for a meal, a shower, and some sense of community. Well, it was a good and necessary thing to do, but all hell broke loose. People in the neighborhood did not want such a facility anywhere near them, and they fought the church furiously. So at one point a public meeting was held, attended by several hundred people. Like most of the parishioners at St. James, these were residents of the Upper East Side: they were educated and successful people. And they were terrifying: they screamed at us and some of them actually threatened us with violence. In the years that I lived in Manhattan, it was the only time I feared for my physical safety. I really did not think we would get out of there unscathed. Many people spoke, hurling abuse and vitriol at us, and then finally the rector of the church got up to speak. He did not respond in anger, nor did he give in to fear. He stated simply why the church wanted and needed to do this, why it was the right thing to do. He spoke the truth in love. And when he spoke, the place got quiet: there was a presence in that room, a presence greater than any of us. I don’t think he changed many minds, but he did change the mood, and my own fear just disappeared. I remember the occasion vividly.

I share that story because in the Gospel today Jesus warns us that his message, the Good News of God’s kingdom, will not always be welcome. It challenges the status quo, it threatens the powers that be, and it will create divisions, even to the point of dividing families. But I also tell you that story because I was afraid — and something overcame my fear. Last week, I preached about living in the Kingdom and about how that means not living in fear, and after the service someone asked me, “How do I do that? How do I not live in fear? Because I am afraid. Part Two of your sermon should be telling us how not to be afraid.” I took that to heart, and I feel called to address it. But I do not address it as someone who has conquered fear: I haven’t. But I can say some things as a fellow traveler, and I can share what I believe the Bible reveals and what I have experienced to some degree in my own life.

To begin with, people are told not to be afraid in the Bible hundreds of times because it was easy for people to feel afraid. And it still is. The gun violence we addressed last week is just one of many things that make the world a scary place. But in addition, as the Gospel shows us today, following Christ can be scary. The people around us will not always applaud us. And personal transformation, any kind of deep change, is also scary. And so over and over again throughout Scripture people hear the message, “Do not be afraid.” I don’t think it’s a reprimand — “You shouldn’t be afraid! Shame on you!” — nor do I think it’s a magical formula, as if just saying the words, “Do not be afraid,” will instantly set people free from fear. What matters in all these biblical stories is not just what is being said, but who is saying it. Every time someone hears that message in the Bible —Do not be afraid! — they are hearing God. It may be delivered by a prophet or an angel or Jesus himself, but when people hear it, they are encountering something greater than themselves. That’s what I experienced at that public meeting years ago — a powerful sense of God’s presence. That’s what made my fear evaporate, and that’s what so often sets others free from fear as well.

Living in the kingdom means becoming a more and more aware of how close God is to us at all times and in all circumstances. Julian of Norwich, whose wonderful book we are reading in contemplative prayer, wrote, “Faith is nothing but right understanding, reinforced by true belief and trust in the depths of our beings, that we are in God and God is in us, even when we cannot see this truth.” We are in God and God is in us: this is what the Incarnation is all about, it’s what Jesus lives and teaches and demonstrates. Our worship, our private prayer, our acts of service, our ministries — they are all meant to help us consciously and intentionally live that great truth.

And over the years of celebrating the Eucharist and sitting in contemplative prayer and ministering in various ways, I have come to understand at ever deeper levels that not only is God in me, but the God in me is love. The Christ self in me and in you is love — unstoppable, unbeatable, undying love. Countless numbers of women and men over the centuries have been able to endure even the worst horrors because they knew that God is in them and they are in God and God is love. The Apostle Paul, who suffered beatings and imprisonment and other extreme hardships until he was finally beheaded in Rome, spoke eloquently of what allowed him to face all that so courageously. In his letter to the Romans, he writes, I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:38-39). Or as the First Letter of John says more succinctly, perfect love casts out fear.

None of this is academic to me. I wrestle with fear a lot. I confess to you that every single time I stand up here to preach, I am afraid. I feel exposed and frightened. My children are growing up and in the process of leaving, and I am afraid to let them go. I am afraid of the kind of death to ego that God continually calls me to. I am afraid of offering the witness to Christ I feel called to offer because much of the world doesn’t want to hear it. But over time I have discovered what the biblical writers knew and what saints and mystics have known for thousands of years: the love of God lives in me and it lives in you, and that love is stronger than any fear. It is what is enabling me to preach right now. We may have moments of feeling afraid, but I know that we do not have to be controlled by our fear. And the only thing I can honestly preach that sets us free from the domination of fear is love, the experience of God’s love, the love Jesus embodies and reveals, alive in us. Jesus tells us, Abide in me as I abide in you . . . abide in my love (John 15:4, 9). Meditate on that. Cultivate that. Live that. If we truly want to overcome fear, that is the only way I know that works. And I know it works.

Agents of the Kingdom. August 11, 2019 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

Luke 12:32-40

Someone once asked me if I thought heaven would be one massive, interminable church service, where we sing every verse of every hymn and say really, really long prayers. I must confess he did not ask the question with the most positive spirit. Fortunately, I was able to reassure him: “No, no, heaven won’t just be singing hymns and saying long prayers. There will also be a sermon — that goes on forever.”

Is the final goal of religion just more religion? I don’t think so. More to the point, the Bible doesn’t think so. At the very beginning of his book, in the passage we heard today, the prophet Isaiah points out that, actually, God is not very religious, at least not in terms of outward observance: What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord. I have had enough of burnt offerings . . . trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me . . . Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me.” Strong language, but clearly Isaiah does not see religious ritual as being an end in and of itself. God has greater things in mind than that: Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. The goal of religious practice is to transform us and transform our world.

That’s crucial to bear in mind as we approach the Gospel. Jesus did not start a new religion: he lived and died a Jew. He was not especially interested in religious rituals: he says very little about them. And what we now call the Church did not, properly speaking, begin until after his resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. What Jesus lived and proclaimed was a loving and intimate relationship with God, a reality that he called the kingdom of God. In that kingdom, everyone is welcome, justice prevails for all people, and the light of God’s love outshines the darkness. All worship, all religious practice, has value only to the degree that it helps us live in that kingdom, experiencing it now, sharing it now, while we wait and pray for it to come in all its fullness.

The passage we heard today contains one of my favorite verses from Luke’s Gospel: Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. That one verse tells us so much. It reminds us that we don’t make the kingdom happen: God gives it to us as a gift. And the Holy One does not give it grudgingly, but freely and generously: it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom. And we don’t have to be great and powerful to receive it: Jesus is addressing a small flock of relatively powerless people. But what really strikes me today is that opening admonition: Do not be afraid. It is the most commonly repeated commandment in all of Scripture: people are told not to be afraid hundreds of times in the Bible. As much as anything else, living in the kingdom means trusting in God and not living in fear.

Last weekend, 32 people were massacred, dozens were injured, and a countless number of lives were shattered in a couple of horrific shootings. Mass shootings have become all too familiar to us, and more than a few of them have been motivated by racial and ethnic hatred. It is heartbreaking to read how two parents in El Paso died shielding their baby from gunfire, a baby who is now an orphan. It is heartbreaking listening to my own children this week wonder if they will be mowed down someday in an act of senseless violence or if their parents will be mowed down. It feels like a terrible world we are creating and tolerating.

But it is in that world that Jesus speaks those words to us: Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. We are followers of the Crucified and Risen Lord, filled with the Spirit of Christ: it is not our mission to cower in fear. And in light of that, two features of this Gospel are critical for us to remember. First, as he is wont to do, Jesus encourages people to sell their possessions. We instantly defend ourselves against that, but the core of the message is that Jesus does not just want his followers to take care of poor people: he wants them to identify with poor people. Jesus identifies with everyone who is poor and needy, everyone who is hurting or grieving. The people who continue to die in mass shootings could be our parents or our children, but they are most definitely our sisters and brothers. We cannot ignore or forget their suffering: Christ doesn’t. And with Christ, we need to feel their pain.

Second, Jesus tells us to be dressed for action. Only God can make the kingdom happen, but we are the agents through whom God works. And we must be ready to do what we can do. I was thinking about this two weeks ago when I attended Friday prayers at the masjid with our Muslim neighbors. I walked by the police guard they have to hire because of the threats they get, and shared in their worship. Afterwards, several of them hugged me and thanked me for being there. It’s a little thing, but it’s something. We cannot by ourselves save the world and we cannot do everything, but for Christ’s sake we can do something. We can be servants, dressed for action, and not afraid to act. This week, I urge you to be agents of the Kingdom of God. I don’t know how Christ will call you, but Christ will call you to do something: be kind to someone who needs it; visit someone who is sick; volunteer to help those who are hurting; give money to groups actively working for peace and reconciliation; get engaged politically; somehow, some way, make a difference for good. The ripple effects of all of our actions are incalculable: who knows how God will use them to further the kingdom? So whatever else you do, pray. It is God working through us that will change the world.

Which leads me back to worship. We are not here because God wants to us to enact some ancient and arcane religious rituals to entertain God or stroke God’s ego. God doesn’t need to be entertained, and she has no ego to stroke. We are here, in those marvelous words of the Prayer Book, to give thanks “for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.” We are here to eat and drink Jesus Christ and let his Spirit flow mightily through us. We are here to affirm that love is the greatest power in the universe. We are here to remember that it is God’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom, and that we don’t need to live in fear.

But we are here for only one hour. May each of us have the grace to use the other 167 hours this week to increase the amount of love in this world and bear witness in our own lives to the kingdom of God.

God always remains faithful. August 4, 2019 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Hosea 11:1-11

I can’t remember her exact words. It was something along the lines of, “Really? I have to read this in church today?” She was talking about last week’s reading from the book of Hosea and I couldn’t blame her. I mean listen to this, “When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, "Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord." Now it probably comes as no surprise to you that I decided to preach on the gospel lesson that day. Problem solved - or so I thought - until, that is, I looked at our lectionary readings for this Sunday and, lo and behold, there Hosea was again! He wasn’t going away. And no matter how many times I told myself this past week to let it go, to just preach on the gospel, but that pesky prophet wouldn’t leave me be. It was like a burr in my saddle. I just couldn’t get the readings, both last week’s and this week’s, out of my head.

So finally I surrendered to preaching on Hosea... and here we go. First some background. It’s the 8th century BCE. Things are not looking good for Israel. It’s a time of political unrest and intrigue. Most of the leaders who come to power during this time are either assassinated or suffer a violent death. All the while Israel's neighbors, Egypt and Assyria, threaten to further destabilize the tiny country. God’s people are clearly in crisis, but instead of turning to God or God’s prophets for help they look to foreign gods to save them.

It is into this mess that the word of the Lord comes to Hosea instructing the prophet to go and marry Gomer, a “wife of whoredom.” Why, you may wonder? So that Hosea’s marriage can be a real life show and tell of what faithfulness to the unfaithful looks like. Just as Hosea is faithful to the deplorably unfaithful Gomer so is God faithful with faithless Israel. So for three chapters Hosea calls out all of Gomer’s promiscuous ways. How this woman of ill repute continually turns away from her faithful partner to voraciously search out her next sexual encounter. It’s not a pretty picture no matter how you look at it. But with 21st century eyes and sensibilities, I can’t help but see and recoil at the way the woman, Gomer, is so easily cast as the villain. It’s particularly disturbing since we know that many women, both then and now, who are labeled as “whores” are often victims of abuse. Because they’ve never experienced true, authentic, life-giving love they cycle through the destructive patterns that sadly have become oh so familiar. Surely there is more to Gomer’s story than we will ever know.

In today’s reading the metaphor shifts from marriage to parenting, but the message of God’s faithfulness stays the same. Speaking for God the prophet begins, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” And then we get a long list of all God’s loving acts, “I loved...I called...I taught...I took them up...I healed...I led...I bent down...I fed. Now in today’s world these are things that any good parent does for their child. But make no mistake the original hearers of these words would have clearly identified these actions as belonging to a mother. Verse after verse, line after line it’s the motherly love of God that is communicated here. Yet despite this good nurturing Israel still rebels, “The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols.”

Now in ancient Jewish culture a son rebelling against his parents was in no way the norm. Parents didn’t find themselves in the role of grinning and bearing outrageous behavior waiting for a certain stage of development to pass. No sir. They had other ways of dealing with a disobedient child: stoning being one of them. According to Jewish law a rebellious son was such an anathema that such a one was to be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). So when God likens the people Israel to God’s son, a rebellious son, that means that Israel deserves to be destroyed.

But then comes what sounds like a cry of agony, “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger.” God can’t, or rather, won’t do it. There will be no destruction. Even though Israel has turned away God will never turn away. Instead of lashing out in retribution - a very human response - God’s compassion grows warm and tender. Why? Because, says the Lord, “I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.”

This is not to say that God went soft. That when the going got tough God turned to mush. Just the opposite, there is great power and redemption in offering forgiveness and mercy instead of vengeance and punishment. And in doing so, ironically, it is God who becomes the rebel - breaking the Torah, God’s own law, for the sake of the life of the child. It is the strength of compassion that moves God to pursue justice by forgiving and not punishing. Indeed this is what it means to be “God and no mortal.” And that’s not all. Not only does God is rebel against the idea of punishment, but this holy, merciful God will not remain distant from the beloved, instead coming near for “the Holy One in your midst.”

The Holy One is in our midst - now and always - offering us true, authentic, life-giving love no matter our state in life. Whether we are faithful or faithless, good or bad, strong or weak God’s compassion grows warm and tender. I don’t think it’s any mistake that when Hosea seeks to communicate God’s deepest devotion towards us that the two metaphors he uses, marriage and parenting, are the most primal and visceral relationships we humans can have. We are loved completely, perfectly, passionately by God. It would do us well not to turn away and rebel. And yet so often we do for various reasons - fear, hurt, ignorance, brokenness, to name a few - looking for other gods, other loves, other things to save us. Thankfully, though, God is God and no mortal and will always remain faithful. Even more than I felt dogged by the prophet Hosea this week the love of God will never let us be. God will pursue us to the ends of the earth, if need be, and never, never let us go.

Experiencing a holy presence. July 28, 2019 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Luke 11:1-13

“Everyone who asks, receives, and everyone who searches, finds, and...everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” So says Jesus this morning in our reading from the gospel of Luke. He’s talking about prayer. Yet as lovely as those words sound here in church, don’t we all secretly know that that doesn’t always square with our experience. Haven’t we all, at one time or another, asked for something in prayer and not received, searched and not found, knocked and the door has remained shut. Sure there are times when we have not asked wisely and so God’s loving response to such requests is no. But countless other times we have offered prayers that are in harmony with God’s will - for Scripture tells us that God desires that everyone be healed and made whole, that justice prevail, and divisions cease. Yet the reality is that even today as we pray millions suffer, injustices exist, and violence rages on.

Prayer. It’s at the heart of Christian life and also can be the heart of Christian frustration, misunderstanding, and pain. So what are we to do? How are we to make sense of it? Well, some say that the reason a prayer isn’t answered is because a person didn’t pray hard enough or didn’t have enough faith. Others suggest that the prayer must have been asking for the wrong thing or asked in the wrong way. Explanations like these suggest in one way or another God deemed the one who prayed inadequate. That’s, at the very least, troubling. And then there are the platitudes like, “God has something better in store for you” or “Everything happens for a reason” which only serves to minimize the current need, suffering or distress that someone is experiencing in the moment. Too many times I have sat with someone who has been wounded by a person’s well-meaning but feeble attempt to explain prayer and the ways of God. My advice? Hold your tongue. And just be with someone so that they know they are not alone.

“Lord, teach us to pray,” is the request of one of Jesus’ disciples. More than likely than not he, along with the rest of the disciples, struggled the way we all do with seemingly unanswered prayers. Now it’s hard for us to know what exactly he was hoping to hear, but instead answering with some kind of explanation about prayer or a how-to guide, Jesus offers an invitation - an invitation to relationship with God - God as father. Now for all the difficulties this gendered language can carry Jesus uses the term “Father” to communicate intimate care. Before anything else what Jesus wants his disciples to know about prayer is that it begins with the God who is in loving relationship with us. And because that is our starting place it’s safe then to pour out our hearts. To ask for what we need, our daily bread. To pray for God’s will in this world, your kingdom come. To be in right relationship with others, forgiveness. And to save us from hardships, do not bring us to the time of trial. God desires that we share what is on our hearts and in our minds because that’s what you do when you are in a relationship with someone.

Now this relationship we have with God is personal and intimate, but it is also communal. Prayer is not just something we do by ourselves, one-on-one with God. Prayer is also something we do with others. I mean, what do you think we are doing here? We come to church for many reasons, but one of them is to pray together. And when you get this many people together at one time no doubt there is someone here who is hurting while someone else is full of hope. There’s at least one person right now who feels desperate or lost while another is brimming of faith. Some are just going through the motions. While others are keenly aware of the Spirit’s presence. Together we make up all sorts and conditions. And that’s exactly why we need each other. In those times when all that we can do is just get ourselves to church, the community then can hold us and pray for us as a body when we aren’t able to do it alone. For we pray to Our Father, not My Father. (And I just want to point out that I realize that our English translation begins simply with “Father,” but the Greek actually reads “Father of us” - so it really is Our Father. Meaning that when we pray we draw close not only to God but to one another.

Yet even with that understanding we can still struggle with prayers that seem to go unanswered. Whatever the reason is for that, let me assure you it’s not about us. We do not hold a magic key that unlocks the power of God to do as we ask. God does or does not answer prayer because one person says just the right combination of words or has more faith or recruits more people to pray or is in some way a better person. No. The key to prayer is God. God who is good. God who desires, even more than a parent with child, to give good gifts. If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

Notice though that Jesus isn’t saying that every time we ask, search or knock God will give us exactly what we have in mind. Rather what Jesus is saying is that God will always give us God’s highest gift - the gift of God’s very self, God’s Holy Spirit. Because prayer is ultimately not about getting some thing from God, but knowing some one who is God - it’s about relationship and experiencing a holy presence. Which means that there is ever only one answer to our prayers and that is God. When we pray God always says yes. But God’s yes means that God is always offering His life, Her life to us and to those for whom we pray. The rub comes when that’s not the answer we want. At least I know for me that’s not often what I’m looking for. I want God to do something. To change something. To make something or someone right or better in the way I think right and better should be. And, yes, God does sometimes intervene to change circumstances in ways that pleases us. When that happens we say that our prayers were answered. But make no mistake, whether or not the outcome to a certain situation is as we wanted God still answers our prayers with yes. God’s yes. The yes of God’s life and spirit flowing in us and through us. Sustaining us, strengthening us, empowering us, comforting us no matter the circumstances. On my best days that sounds like really good news to me. But there are times when it just doesn’t feel like enough. And when that is so I say, “Lord, teach me to pray” - trusting that because all of our lives is rooted in a loving relationship that Jesus stands ready not only to answer that prayer, but to show all of us the way.