What does being bold mean to you? Does it have a negative connotation? A positive one? Maybe you have a neutral view of what it means to be bold. Just last week there was an announcement from the Altar Guild with bold text desperately requesting help. We live in a time when what was once bold is now blasé, so as our culture, and our perceptions continue to change, how can we ever truly know what it means to be bold?
I will tell you something that’s bold, and it’s something that will be bold forever. Prayer is bold. Think about it. Really think about it. We pray, and in praying we enter into a personal relationship with God. Now in case you think that is not bold, let me be clear. In prayer you and I, all of us, whether individually or collectively, are talking to God. The God that created the universe, the God that knows how many hairs all of us have on our heads, which admittedly is more impressive for some of us than others, that same God who is all powerful, all knowing, all good, is who we speak to every time we pray. That’s bold!
If that description of boldness isn’t enough for you let’s take a look at the boldness of Abraham in our Old Testament text. Abraham questions God. “Will you destroy the righteous with the wicked?” Abraham asks God. If this is not bold enough, Abraham then decides to attempt to bargain God down, like a street vendor at a farmer’s market. “What if 50 righteous reside there, what if 45, what if 30, what if 20, Lord what if 10?” What is man to question God? Yet God listens. In fact, God more than listens!
You all know the rest of the story, God’s angels enter into the city and what they find is a really messed up place! A city whose sin of inhospitality and aggression is so potent that God himself has come to investigate! Yet the angels find there, amongst all the evil, one small family: One small family that needs to be saved, a family of four in fact. Now if you are keeping score, 4 is a smaller number than the 10 God and Abraham agreed on. God’s angels literally seize the family and escort them out of the city to save them from the oncoming devastation.
Often when people read this story they see it as a story of the mean God of the Old Testament, but, this is a story of a God who goes out of His way to find the righteous in the midst of an evil world gone all wrong. What this story tells us, is that God is so in love with us His Creation, he will save what is good from amongst that which is evil. And God does this when the good take bold action like the intercession of Abraham. The fact is, the good have to have faith to take steps that, at the time look crazy, but aren’t crazy at all, they’re bold. That boldness comes from being in relationship with God, for without Him we are incapable of doing any good.
The Gospel today from Luke tells us a similar story, albeit, a far less grand one. The Disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray in response Jesus gives them the Lord’s Prayer. But what Jesus says, after the Lord’s Prayer, is where I want to focus. Jesus tells a story of a man who goes to a neighbor’s house at midnight to ask for a loaf of bread. At first the man rejects the petition. But Jesus says that because of the importunity of the knocking man, not due to their friendship, the sleeping man will get up and give the knocking neighbor some bread. Because of his importunity, or maybe better translated shameless persistence. The same shameless persistence that Abraham showed in bargaining with God.
What is bolder than shameless persistence in pursuing God’s kingdom in our world? That bold action is what the Lord’s Prayer is all about! THY KINGDOM COME THY WILL BE DONE! That’s what we are praying for, for God’s Kingdom to come and be made manifest right now. The Lord’s Prayer, Abraham’s shameless persistence of God, and this story from Jesus, they are all revealing to us how we should peruse God’s kingdom, with shameless bold persistence!
You know what? THAT is exactly what I love about this church. Redeemer is bold, this congregation is extraordinarily bold! The bold actions we take are making God’s kingdom a reality, and tangible here in our community. Think about it: Day of Hope is one week away, and we are going to assist nearly 300 at risk young people. Talk about bold! Every day of the week all year long the daily office of morning and evening prayer is prayed here. That’s bold! We have a least one Eucharist 364 days a year, and the one day we don’t celebrate is because it is Good Friday and you aren’t allowed to. That’s bold! We have Sunday school classes for every single grade group up to high school and they are full every Sunday! That’s bold. We have a VBS for 200 children led by a different leader every year, and we wear tie dyed chasubles, we all know that’s bold! We have Father Charleston! That’s really bold!
So it’s established, we are a bold Jesus centered community, the question I have for all of us is this, what is our next bold step? Or better yet what are our next bold steps, because we know we are multifaceted, one thing Redeemer does so well is spin lots of plates all at the same time! Where is God calling you to be bold for His kingdom? Think about it, pray about it, act on it!
Sermon preached by the Rev. Christian M. Wood
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
10th Sunday after Pentecost
24 July 2016