Love in persistent prayer
Proper 25C | Luke 18:9-14
Consider what may have occurred moments before this. When the summation of a life can be so easily articulated into categories which so comfortably meet our expectations. That a man of the cloth, perhaps, or a man of some deep faith, so publicly visible as a lay minister, a vestry member, and who is known as such in the community. President of the local Rotary Club, always asked to pray, to say the grace before the catered lunch of fried chicken and green beans in the hotel conference room. This man who is known as the best of us and is asked by those around him to be the best of us — to embody such a role — that he might tell them how to be.
It’s a real pedestal, isn’t it?
And we see the snapshot of the person in this common moment and all of the previous moments fall away. The times they may have lost their temper at the server for forgetting the hashbrown casserole for the second time, who still hasn’t refilled the coffee mug, even though they were asked, and the table next to them keeps stealing the server’s attention when she’s actually at his table, and so forth. And this, too, is after the news that his grandson was picked up on a charge of dealing opioids and he spent the better part of 90 minutes talking his daughter off the ledge about it.
We can’t see everything. Keep Reading
For a limited time, you may find the audio here.
