Contribution or commitment?

Today is the second Sunday of the church season of Epiphany

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, 

2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, 5 for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind 6 just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you 7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

8 He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 

When Paul wrote the Corinthians, he reminded them of who they were right off the bat. They were the church of God in Corinth. They were the only church in Corinth, actually. They were sanctified in Christ, called to be saints. They were recipients of grace and peace from the Lord. They had been enriched by Christ in speech and knowledge of every kind. They lacked no spiritual gift necessary for their church to thrive. They were being strengthened every day. And Paul repeated the fact that they were called into fellowship with Christ. 

It is mistaken to think a calling to Christian ministry is something that happens to men and women who become pastors, and that the rest of the people in a church are not called. This notion is flatly contradicted by Scripture. All people of a church are called to Christian discipleship. Even when we recognize that fact, we say that pastors are called to “full time Christian service,” as if there is any other kind. Is there anyone here who feels called to be a part-time Christian? 

I understand that my own calling is to serve as a full-time pastor. But my prior calling, shared by all other Christian people, was to Christian discipleship.

The first step in effective discipleship is heeding the call. We are called to be saints, we are called into fellowship with Christ. This call is the foundation upon which everything else is built. Responding to Christ’s call does two main things. First, it places each man, woman or child within the realm of salvation. This is no little thing! Just what salvation is and what it means is a topic for another day, but we have to recognize that salvation is a big deal. The Scriptures talk about it a lot, and so did Jesus.

 Answering the call to follow Christ is not a purely altruistic thing. Each one of us benefits, but we benefit principally in ways not found in the other areas of our lives. We benefit in peace, fellowship, assurance, faith, hope and other ways, none of which are listed in the benefits package of a Fortune 500 firm. And we will benefit in being resurrected from death to live in God’s presence forever. The need and desire to be saved is part of human nature. It’s a mistake to turn Christian discipleship simply into other-directed servanthood with no self-interest involved, as long as we recognize that the self-interest served by Christ’s call is not selfishness. It is principally love. Human beings are born to love and to be loved. We live best when we live in the love of God, the love of godly people, and the love of godly things. But love is never turned inward; true love is never narcissism. Godly love is patient and kind. Love is effusive and overflows from one person to another and desires the best for others. The call to discipleship is a call to be divinely loved and a call to love others divinely. 

The second main thing the call does is serve the world’s interest. The self-interest of love is paradoxical in that it cannot be served without reaching out to others and inviting them to heed the same call of Christ that we heard. Ministering to others in Christ’s name, witnessing to them and sharing the Gospel with them are two of the most self-satisfying things we can do precisely because they serve others as well as ourselves. They enrich our own souls, the lives of others and the cause of Christ in the world. 

But this Christian activity is not automatic. Hearing the call is simply to acknowledge that it is given. Heeding the call is to reorient our intentions and lives according to the call’s imperatives. In Ephesians, Paul urges us “to live a life worthy of the calling” we have received (v. 4.1). A life worthy of being called is a life of commitment to the caller, to Christ. The commitment part is where we tend to stumble. Hearing the Word and doing the Word are two sides of the same coin, but the one does not automatically follow the other. 

When airliners accelerate for takeoff, there is a point in the takeoff roll, called the V1 speed, at which the pilot must commit the airplane to flight. Once the V1 speed is reached it is not possible to stop the airplane on the ground before the runway ends. No matter what happens, once V1 is reached, the pilot must commit to takeoff.

 Hearing the call of Christ is like being given permission to run up the throttle and point down the runway. But at some point, individuals, churches or even whole denominations have to commit to takeoff rather than just run up the engines and make a lot of noise and never go anywhere. And we have to recognize when we have passed the point of no return because true progress, once underway, can’t be stopped without crashing. 

Much of the time we solicit people to contribute to the church when we should be asking is for people to commit to discipleship. A contributor can simply watch, but a committer is deeply involved. I am thinking of the time a chicken and a pig decided to go out to breakfast. They came to a diner where the chicken read the menu posted outside the door. "Ham and eggs," said the chicken. "That sounds okay to me. Let's go in."

But the pig replied, "Not so fast. To you than a contribution, but to me it's a commitment." 

Maybe the difference between a contribution and a commitment is that commitments involve risk. I don't mean danger, necessarily, although commitment to Christian discipleship can be dangerous. What I am getting at here is not danger, but presence. Contributions can be phoned it, but commitment requires presence. As the pig in the story knew, contributions are what we do using our things, but commitments are what we do using ourselves.

We make a lot of commitments because most of us lead fairly busy lives. Telephones, radios, televisions, meetings, commutes, deadlines, errands, the crowded calendars we keep, all the clutter of too many requirements and too little time. Our busyness constitutes a lot of static in our lives that the call of God has to punch through. Hearing, much less heeding the call of discipleship can be difficult. 

One crucial element of heeding the call to discipleship is being informed in faith by a community of faith. Being a member of a Christian congregation is crucial to hearing God’s call. Yes, it is true that simply going to church does not make you a Christian any more than simply going into a kitchen makes you a chef. But no one becomes a chef who never enters a kitchen. 

Disciples are formed in congregations. People can be religious without going to church, but mere religiosity is not the point of Christian discipleship. People can be spiritual without going to church, but Jesus never called people simply to be spiritual. He calls us to discipleship, and discipleship requires membership because Christianity is covenantal. Christian living always involves Christian community. Christian covenant always involves both the one and the many, not one or the many.

 The vows of membership to join the United Methodist Church are simple: we promised before God and one another to support the church with our prayers, our presence, our gifts and our service. Discipleship takes all four, but I have never known anyone who could do all four in equal proportion. The point isn’t legalistic exactitude, but neither can one part simply be substituted for another. Giving more money to the church does not relieve one from praying. Practicing private devotions does not excuse one from attending worship. Perfect attendance at worship or serving the church on a committee or a ministry does not reduce the obligation to tithe. All of these things take commitment, and they are all necessary responses to the call to discipleship. 

We are being called, each one of us. Let us put aside our childish excuses. No longer shall we ignore the call or pretend not to hear it. No longer shall we hide behind the inactivity of others or pretend that others may be called, but not us. I am called, you are called, and we are all called together.

God is faithful, and by him we are called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us hear and heed so that we may live as, and lead others to become, disciples of Jesus Christ. 

Has Iran reached its pivot point?

I am adding updates at the end.

I would hope that by now, readers are quite aware of the massive, nationwide popular protests and other actions by the people of Iran against the ruling Shia Muslim regime, headed by Ayatollah Khamenei. It began about 14 days ago, impelled at the start by the massive devaluation of Iran's currency, the rial, plunging the nation into severe inflation. 

But that devaluation was merely the "presenting issue" for the protests, leading now to millions of Iranian citizens taking to the streets across the entire nation to denounce the regime and in some places, burn government buildings. But presenting issues are never the issue, they are just the straw that breaks the camel's back. The fundamental issues relate to the decades of harsh, violent oppression of the Iranian people by the hardcore Islamist regime. Recall that just last month, there was the Kish Island marathon race where hundreds (maybe more) of women refused to wear head covering, defying strict Islamic dress codes that have seen increased public defiance since at least 2022. 

Just a few days ago, the regime blocked internet across the country. Elon Musk has made Starlink available to them, and almost all reports from the anti-regime movement are sent that way.

So what is the fundamental issue?

The popular rebellion springs from two basic conditions that have been building and reinforcing resentment against the ayatollah-led national government for many years. First is that in religious demographics, there has been a massive shift away from Islam in general, Shia Islam specifically. 

while we we commonly think of Iran as a Shia Muslim nation, independent studies, not under control of the regime, belie it. From, "Iran’s secular shift: new survey reveals huge changes in religious beliefs," published in 2020:

Our results reveal dramatic changes in Iranian religiosity, with an increase in secularisation and a diversity of faiths and beliefs. Compared with Iran’s 99.5% census figure, we found that only 40% identified as Muslim.

In contrast with state propaganda that portrays Iran as a Shia nation, only 32% explicitly identified as such, while 5% said they were Sunni Muslim and 3% Sufi Muslim. Another 9% said they were atheists, along with 7% who prefer the label of spirituality. Among the other selected religions, 8% said they were Zoroastrians – which we interpret as a reflection of Persian nationalism and a desire for an alternative to Islam, rather than strict adherence to the Zoroastrian faith – while 1.5% said they were Christian.

What accelerating changes have come in the last five years cannot be determined confidently, but the 2020 World Values Survey showed that Shia Islam adherents were down by 32% from the prior survey. As it also points out, 

Official figures often inflate Muslim numbers due to laws penalizing apostasy, leading to undercounts of atheists, agnostics, and other faiths, with significant numbers of Iranians identifying as non-Muslim or secular in independent studies. ... Conversion from Islam is illegal and apostasy can carry the death penalty, distorting official data. Independent surveys reveal a growing secular or non-Muslim segment within Iran, challenging state narratives.

So it is no surprise that the passing years have brought rapidly increasing discontent with the nation being ruled according to very strict, unforgiving dictates of Muslim sharia law, and increasingly lethal dictates at that. 

The pre-protest status quo was very harsh. According to a US Dept. of State report released by the Biden administration in 2022: 

According to numerous international human rights NGOs and media reporting, the government convicted and executed dissidents, political reformers, and peaceful protesters on charges of “enmity against God” and spreading anti-Islamic propaganda. Authorities carried out hudud punishments such as amputation of fingers (for theft), flogging, and internal exile. The government denied individuals access to attorneys and obtained false confessions through torture in some cases. It reportedly detained and held members of religious minorities incommunicado. In his July report on human rights in Iran, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran (UNSR) expressed alarm at “the disproportionate number of executions of members of minority communities, in particular the Baluch and Kurdish minorities,” who together accounted for 35 percent of the 251 individuals executed between January and June. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran (ABC) reported there were 576 executions in 2022, including 71 in December, an increase from 317 executions in 2021 and 248 in 2020. On November 16, Amnesty International reported that authorities were seeking the death penalty for at least 21 persons, many for “enmity against God.” The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) stated that during the year, the government arrested 140 individuals, imprisoned 39, issued travel bans against 51, summoned 102, raided the homes of 94, and brought 11 to trial for their religious beliefs. Government officials, including the Supreme Leader, routinely engaged in egregious antisemitic rhetoric and Holocaust denial and distortion.

The report goes on to document repeated, violent human rights oppression by the Iranian government against vast swaths of citizens, particularly related to religion and enforcement of sharia law. 

Today's protest/rebellion

With the sudden devaluation of the rial, the "enough is enough" was reached. Over the last two weeks, street protests began and spread, slowly at first and then rapidly and widely, now taking place in every province in the country. Calls for the end of the regime began and spread, along with demands that governing the country be returned to Iran's historic monarchy, headed now by Shah Reza Pahlavi, who, according to The Times of Israel, is ready to return. 

The US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah says he is prepared to return to the country and lead a transition to a democratic government.

“I’m prepared to return to Iran at the first possible opportunity. I’m already planning on that,” Reza Pahlavi says on the Fox News show “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo.

He adds: “My job is to lead this transition to make sure that no stone is left unturned, that in full transparency, people have an opportunity to elect their leaders freely and to decide their own future.”

But that may not be a great idea. As the NY Post reports, 

Pahlavi may be the figurehead of the monarchists, but he does not represent the majority of the 92,000,000 people of Iran or the millions of Iranians in the diaspora. President Trump has been right to state that it would be inappropriate for him to meet with him as president, as Pahlavi has proven to be a divisive rather than unifying figure. ...

What appeal Pahlavi may have is not due to any personal accomplishments — he has not created any successful businesses or built any institutions. Also, he does not have a revolutionary infrastructure inside or outside of Iran. He does not even appear to have a fully paid office staff.

His prominence stems from a sense of nostalgia for pre-revolutionary Iran, constant promotion by Persian-language media such as Iran International and reported cyber operations and diplomatic support by elements of the Israeli government.

Today's status quo 

Multiple news outlets have reported that, as predicted when the regime shut down internet access across the country three days ago, the regime has resorted to violence to crush the demonstrations. The BBC reports that as of now, many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Iranian protesters have been killed by Iranian police, Revolutionary Guard, and army forces. The UK Guardian also reported, "The streets are full of blood" and, 

Video emerged of riot police breaking into a hospital treating wounded protesters in the western province of Ilam on 4 January, shocking Iranians, who were outraged at the beating of patients and doctors.

The BBC reports that 10,600 people have been arrested and imprisoned so far, a figure that is surely below the real number. Hospitals are reported to be overwhelmed by the number of shot Iranians brought there. 

Bodies outside a medical
centre in Tehran, from Reuters.

The Guardian report said,

A demonstrator who gathered in the Tajrish Arg neighbourhood detailed how snipers were firing at crowds, saying that he saw “hundreds of bodies” in the streets.

A picture of two Irans began to emerge.

During the day, state TV and official government bodies projected an air of normalcy, airing pro-government demonstrations and footage of people going about their business in neighbourhoods that were free of any protest actions.

At night, videos of protests raging through the streets leaked to the rest of the world, brought out at great effort by activists and shared with the Iranian diaspora abroad. Videos showed protesters braving the crackdown, with thousands marching through the streets across the country despite facing what appeared to be live fire from authorities.

What will the next day or two bring? 

Ayatollah Khamenei has proclaimed the protesters as "enemies of Allah," which carries an automatic death sentence. Multiple Iranians have reported that the regime's forces have been firing indiscriminately into the crowds. 

That level of deadly force may quell the rebellion. OTOH, it may make the public conclude that it's now or never to overthrow the regime, concluding quite reasonably that to try again later will bring mercilessly forceful responses much more quickly than this time.  

Will the United States strike Iran? 

CBS News reports, 

President Trump was briefed on new options for military strikes in Iran, a senior U.S. official confirmed Sunday.

Mr. Trump appeared to lay out his red line for action on Friday when he warned that if the Iranian government began "killing people like they have in the past, we would get involved."

"We'll be hitting them very hard where it hurts," he said at the White House. "And that doesn't mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts." ... 

 The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous U.S. officials, first reported Saturday night that Mr. Trump had been given military options but hadn't made a final decision. The WSJ reports that Trump will receive further options on Tuesday.

The U.S. has not moved any forces in preparation for potential military strikes. ...

Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Iran's parliament speaker and a hardliner who has run for the presidency in the past, warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be "legitimate targets" if the U.S. strikes the Islamic Republic.

"In the event of an attack on Iran, both the occupied territory and all American military centers, bases and ships in the region will be our legitimate targets," Qalibaf said, according to the Associated Press. "We do not consider ourselves limited to reacting after the action and will act based on any objective signs of a threat."

Would US military intervention be justified? I says yes. But that does not mean it would be wise. And I would say as well that, unlike the limited strike against select Venezuelan targets to support the capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro, military action against Iran would require prior Congressional authorization. 

But it should also be realized that Congress need not "declare war" against Iran. It need only recognize that the United States has been at war with Iran almost since the beginning of the post-Shah regime in 1979. While we have not declared war with Iran, it has definitely made war against us. And to ensure the success of replacing the regime there now may be worth the risks of direct US operations. After all, since 1979, Iran and its proxy groups have killed more than 1,000 Americans, including U.S. service members, diplomats, and civilians in various attacks worldwide, many of which occurred in the Middle East. See here for the list, which is not short.

There is another major factor, however, that mitigates against direct US military action. It is that the central key to whether the regime stays in power is the loyalty of the Islamic Republic Guard Corps, IRGC. The IGRC has two major functions: internal security through its Gestapo-equivalent arm, the Basij, and overall control of Iran's military and foreign policy, especially subverting western nations. On that function, "On 22 November 2020, Hussein Salami, the IRGC Commander-in-Chief, acknowledged: 'Today, the power of the Islamic Revolution has removed America from its strategic base. Today, the Basij discourse has spread in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Latin America, and parts of Africa' " (link). 

However, as retired Army officer and strategy analyst Robert Maginness observes, 

This creates a decisive tension. On one hand, the IRGC has every reason to defend the regime that enriched it. On the other, prolonged instability, sanctions, and economic collapse threaten the very assets the Guards control. At some point, self-preservation may begin to compete with ideological loyalty.

That is why Iran’s future may depend less on what protesters do in the streets—and more on whom the IRGC ultimately chooses to back.

I think that there is surely awareness within the Trump administration that while Iran's regime must fall, it must fall at the hands of Iran's people, not the United States. Otherwise, the new government, whether run by the Shah or a democratic vanguard of the people, will not be seen by other nations as legitimate, and probably not by a significant number of Iranians - remember, the vast majority of Iranians are not joining the rebellion. 

I anticipate that US action will be mostly covert and directed toward two main objectives. First, advisory, material, and financial support to the revolutionists, especially in organization and establishing internal command and control. We will also enable communications that do not use the internet. I do not rule out that we will supply them weapons. 

Second, actions to decrease the IRGC's effectiveness in the near term, such as jamming communications and inserting counterfeit messaging into their comms systems. Axios reported late Jan. 11 that,

U.S. officials said most of the options that will be presented to the president at this stage are "not kinetic."

Such options include steps to deter the regime, like announcing an aircraft carrier strike group is heading to the region.

The officials said cyberattacks and information operations against the Iranian regime are also being considered.

The focus will be on increasing the capabilities of the revolutionists and decreasing the ability and the willingness of the IRGC to support the regime. There is no guarantee of success, of course. And it will almost certainly prove much more difficult than anticipated. 

Let us hope, however, that the people of Iran may persevere and replace the regime there on their own accord, and with as little loss of life as possible. For if they do not succeed, countless more will be killed by the regime nonetheless. That is their new reality, and I have to believe that they know it. 

Update, Jan. 12:

The revolutionists may well be doubling down. Link to video: https://x.com/Tendar/status/2010465996042064329 

Hudson.org, Jan. 9: "The Ayatollah’s Regime Is Crumbling."

Update, Jan. 13: 

1. The value of the rial has now dropped like an anvil tossed from a hot air balloon. 

A good, short analysis is here, bottom line:

Iran’s currency collapse is the final non-kinetic phase transition before irreversible regime fragmentation. This is an extinction-level internal systems failure. ...

Regime Forecast:

No currency = no supply chain = no governance = no control

The currency didn’t just collapse

The state did

2.

The BBC: "Authoritarian regimes die gradually then suddenly, but Iran is not there yet."

How does an authoritarian regime die? As Ernest Hemingway famously said about going broke – gradually then suddenly.

The protesters in Iran and their supporters abroad were hoping that the Islamic regime in Tehran was at the suddenly stage. The signs are, if it is dying, it is still at gradual.

The last two weeks of unrest add up to a big crisis for the regime. Iranian anger and frustration have exploded into the streets before, but the latest explosion comes on top of all the military blows inflicted on Iran in the last two years by the US and Israel.

But more significant for hard-pressed Iranians struggling to feed their families has been the impact of sanctions.

In the latest blow for the Iranian economy, all the UN sanctions lifted under the now dead 2015 nuclear deal were reimposed by the UK, Germany and France in September. In 2025 food price inflation was more than 70%. The currency, the rial, reached a record low in December.

While the Iranian regime is under huge pressure, the evidence is that it's not about to die.

Crucially, the security forces remain loyal. 

More at the link, of course.

A Prayer at Taps for members of the armed forces

I will attend the funeral this afternoon of a long-retired US Army chaplain, a United Methodist ordained minister whom I met late in his life and greatly respected. He was a Vietnam veteran and a wonderful man, with an equally-admirable wife and daughter. 

Although I am not taking part in the service, I post here "A Prayer at Taps," from the armed forces' Song and Service Book for Ship and Field. This book was published by the US Army and US Navy in 1941. It was used throughout World War 2 and for years afterward. 

I bought two copies when my wife and I visited Pearl Harbor in 2005. These copies are original editions, never before used. When I officiated funerals for veterans, I would offer this prayer at graveside. And I hope it will be offered when I pass from this life. 

Middle Tennessee State veterans Cemetery

A Prayer at Taps

Before we go rest we commit ourselves to thy care, O God our Father, beseeching Thee through Christ our Lord to keep alive thy grace in our hearts. Watch Thou, O Heavenly Father, with those who wake, or watch, or weep to-night, and give thine angels charge over those who sleep. Tend those who are sick, rest those who are weary, soothe those who suffer, pity those in affliction; be near and bless those who are dying, and keep under thy holy care those who are dear to us. Through Christ our Lord, Amen. 

I would delete the "Amen" sentence, though, and continue praying with these words, printed on the inside rear cover:

O Lord, support us all the day long through this troublous life, until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then of thy great mercy grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at last. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Thank you, O Lord, for the life and ministries of Rev. Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Richard Stewart, and please bless all those dear to him. 

Rev. Richard Earl Stewart

September 23, 1932 — December 16, 2025

Second Sunday of Advent

The season of Advent is the four weeks prior to Christmas Day. Advent is not specifically a time to prepare for Christmas, but a period to reflect on and prepare for the coming of Christ, starting with the first Sunday's typical focus on the return of Christ at the end of the age. 

Today is the second Sunday of Advent, Year A. Its lectionary passage is Matthew 3.1-12:

3In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his

paths straight.’” 4Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 

   7But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 

In the 1991 movie Grand Canyon, a man’s sports car breaks down in a bad neighborhood where the young toughs wear expensive clothes and carry cheap guns. The driver calls on his cell phone for a tow truck but before it arrives the local toughs surround his car and threaten him with considerable harm. Just in time, the tow truck arrives and its driver, played by Danny Glover, starts to hook the car onto the truck. The tough guys protest. So Glover takes the gang leader aside and tells him, “The world ain't supposed to work like this. Maybe you don't know that, but this ain't the way it's supposed to be. I'm supposed to be able to do my job without asking you if I can. And that dude is supposed to be able to wait with his car without you ripping him off. Everything's supposed to be different than what it is here."

John the Baptist saw it that way, too.. He confronted the power hierarchy of his day and place, men who were secure in their position and who had all the right ancestors in a land where ancestry meant something. John's message was threefold: 

• the way things are is not the way things are supposed to be. 
• God intentions for human life and community have not been realized. 
• But help is on the way.

We see daily a disconnection between how things are and how we can imagine them to be. We submit to and commit wrongdoings so commonplace that we hardly notice them anymore. I still remember the indignity of high school gym class during basketball season. The same two guys appointed themselves team captains every time. The rest of us formed a meat line and the two self-anointed captains took turns choosing their team’s members. Basketball was my worst sport. I was always the next-to-last kid chosen. I remember the smirks on the gym teacher’s face as we dregs of basketball talent were picked over after the more talented kids had been selected, and the contempt on the team captains’ faces for us runts of the litter. And I remember my own smug self satisfaction that there were always one or two kids who were even less desirable than I was. 

Adults are not really nicer than children. Adults are just more devious in the ways we harm others, or accept being harmed as just the way things are. We are more ingenious in our justifications, but we adulterate our lives and the lives of others with greater magnitude: we spoil our relationships, pollute nature, bomb cities. 

Most people tend to think of human behavior in psychological terms, so they have no real way to grapple with the fact that things not like they're supposed to be. But John the Baptist addressed the problem head on. The concept is sin, a word much in disfavor nowadays. Somehow “sin” has come in popular culture to be understood as the word used by self-appointed moralists to put the rest of society on a tight moral budget. Sin is a category of conduct used by the puritanical, moral arbiters of culture: the fear that someone, somewhere, may actually be having a good time. 

The prophets of old would have been impatient with such juvenile concepts of sin. They did not confuse sin with mere error or innocent folly. They understood sin to be a deeply inbred fabric of human nature. Theology professor Cornelius Plantinga explained it this way: 

“The Bible presents sin in an array of images: Sin is the missing of a target, a wandering from the path, a straying from the fold. Sin is a hard heart and a stiff neck. It is both the overstepping of a line and the failure to reach it – both transgression and shortcoming. Sin is a beast crouching at the door. In sin, people attack, or evade, or neglect their divine calling. ... even when it is familiar, sin is never normal. Sin is disruption of created harmony and, then, resistance to divine restoration of it. Above all, sin disrupts and resists the vital human relation to God, and it does all this disrupting and resisting in a number of intertwined ways.” 

Sin perverts what is excellent in human nature and amplifies what is evil. 

The fact that so many things are so excellent about human nature makes contrasts with sin all the more disturbing. We know something is crooked only because we enjoy the things that are straight. We remember times when human beings seemed so close to everything God wanted them to be, and then we know that for all the progress we have made, we still have so far to go. There is much redemptive work yet to be done in humankind. 

Like John the Baptist, we dream of a time when human crookedness will be straightened out and the roughness of life will be smoothed over. The prophets looked to a time when “the deserts would flower, the mountains would run with wine, weeping would cease, and people could go to sleep without weapons on their laps. People would work in peace, their work having meaning and point. A lion could lie down with a lamb – the lion cured of all carnivorous appetite. All nature would be fruitful, benign, and filled with wonders and all human beings would be knit together” as a new family (Plantinga). 

But it’s a long haul from here to there. In the interim, the advent of the savior of the world into human form and life in Bethlehem was understood by John the Baptist as judgment upon the world. The advent, this dawning of a new work of God in the world, was not seen by John as an occasion for children’s pageants. We have made Christmas into a kiddie event, with visions of sugar plums, sounds of sleigh bells, and visits by a jolly old elf, who never actually leaves the coals and ashes threatened for bad behavior. Maybe we’ve sucked all the deepest significance out of Christmas, the advent of God’s personal presence in the world. Maybe John the Baptist got it right: the baby born in the manger will bear a winnowing fork in his hands to clear the threshing floor. 

For if we and God alike envision a better world to come, then we have to face the judgment that the world as it exists is not the way it is supposed to be. If we accept that, then we cannot point the finger at others because our own resistance to God’s redemption is sin, too. The only way to move the world along to what it should be is to start with oneself. We must daily strive to bear fruit worthy of our calling, and we cannot rely on some religious birthright for justification. John said that God could make stones into children of Abraham, so God can make good church members out of rusty beer cans lying along the roadside if wants to. Being on a membership list is less the point than being a disciple. 

Repentance and confession are the first steps of the journey to the transformed world. They are the first steps in shedding sin. We should flee from sin because God is not just arbitrarily offended by it. God hates sin because it separates us not only from his own being, but from the way things are supposed to be. God stands for a peaceful world of justice, and therefore stands against whatever hinders it. Our sin hinders it. 

We are less than three weeks from the manger now. When we reach the manger we will find that in the birth of Jesus is the coming of the Kingdom of God in power, the beginning of the transformation of the world that is into the world that should be. It is an ongoing work. God comes into this world to change it and that it begins with us. It begins when we kneel at the manger. It takes us beyond Bethlehem to Nazareth and then, finally, to Jerusalem itself to a hilltop named the Place of the Skull, Golgotha. 

 Perhaps we do not really want to hear that. We generally want Christmas to be carols and good cheer, parties and fine food. We want it to be an escape from the world, a ceasing of the daily grind. And it can be, but only if we go into the manger prepared to receive God’s greatest gift, his very life and being, and give in return our own lives and being. 

Images that seem to John to be fearful – winnowing, gathering and burning – are really transformed into statements of God’s grace by Christ because Jesus was greater than John. Former Yale chaplain John W. Vannorsdall wrote that the coming of Christ assures us that God comes to us with the message of love, not wrath. “I am prepared for the anger of God,” Vannorsdall wrote, “and believe that God has a right to wrath. What is so amazing is that when God comes among us, God comes not with violence but with love, even as a child vulnerable to our further hurt” (“He Came to His Own Home,” 24 December 1978). 

As we experience God's presence in Advent, we are led to begin or continue a life-long practice of measuring our lives by the call of the gospel. We can rightly celebrate the baby in the manger only by trusting that God goes with us every step of the way. Writer and theologian Madeline L'Engle wrote,

God did not wait until the world was ready,

until the nations were at peace.

God came when the heavens were unsteady

and prisoners cried out for release.

God did not wait for the perfect time

God came when the need was deep and great. 

In joy God came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt

To a world like ours of anguished shame

God came and God's light would not go out.

We cannot wait till the world is sane

to raise our songs with joyful voice

for to share our grief, to touch our pain

God came with Love. Rejoice! Rejoice!

No, things are not like they are supposed to be. But God's promises are true. “In a world that assumes the status is quo, that things have to be the way they are and that we must not assume too much about improving them, ... God’s people are [to be] fundamental indicators that wonders have not ceased, that possibilities not yet dreamt of will happen, and that hope” is a reasonable thing (Miller, Theology Today, 1988).

A Thanksgiving Reflection

   Thanksgiving! When we take a day off to celebrate with families reunited and get stuffed fuller than the Thanksgiving turkey! It is a day we remember what we are thankful for. What are you thankful for? Shortly, we will have a time for everyone who wishes to share what they are thankful for. But I can explain that right now:

I am thankful for - the fork!

As table utensils go, the fork is a recent invention. The knife was first, of course, dating to prehistory. The spoon also dates to the Stone Age, literally. But forks date only to ancient Greece, and then they were large cooking utensils, not for the dining table. In the 600s, table forks were invented but used only in the Middle East. Table forks did not appear in Europe until a thousand years ago, and then only in Italy. The Italians were very slow to adopt them, not using them widely until five hundred more years passed. Forks did not reach France until 1533, but the French thought using them was an affectation and their adoption was very slow. The first table fork reached England in 1608, where they were promptly ridiculed as effeminate and unnecessary. Over many years, forks came to be adopted by the wealthy, who had them made from expensive materials intended to impress guests.

The first Thanksgiving celebration in Plymouth Colony was in 1621. There were no forks. The pilgrims and their guests used knives, spoons, their fingers, and cloth napkins to manipulate their food. So, I am thankful to have a fork to make eating Thanksgiving dinner easier.

The connection between food and giving thanks that reaches back thousands of years. As the children of Israel prepared to cross into the Promised Land, Moses told them,

When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 2you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. … 8 “The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 9and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me.” You shall set it down before the LORD your God and bow down before the LORD your God. 11Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house (Deuteronomy 26:1-2, 8‑11).

Giving thanks to God has a connection with food about three millennia old. The ancient Jews knew of course that life depends on food. But they emphasized that their lives were sustained by the presence of God. After all, not only had God brought them out of slavery in Egypt, he had sustained them with manna as they wandered in the Sinai. They understood that filling the soul was as important as filling the plate.

There was once a man who was struck by a city bus and was critically injured. He was rushed unconscious to a hospital and went immediately into emergency surgery. The surgeon barely saved the man’s life after several hours on the operating table. The victim regained alertness five days later. The day after that, the surgeon stopped in to see him. Incredibly, the injured man launched into a litany of complaints about the care he had received in the last 24 hours – the food was cold, the nurses were slow when summoned, the TV was too small and too far away, the room was either too hot or too cold, and so on.

The surgeon interrupted, “Look, you were almost dead when you got here! I worked on you for five hours! I repaired both your shattered legs, set your broken arm and three ribs. One lung was punctured, and I saved you from suffocating. You were gashed across your head and I sewed it up. Your heartbeat was irregular, and I got it stabilized. A little gratitude might be in order!”

“Okay, doc, thanks,” the patient answered, “but what have you done for me today?”

Probably everyone here has had a moment like that doctor, being informed of perceived failure to meet someone’s else’s demand. One day in Galilee Jesus miraculously fed more than five thousand people, starting with just five small loaves of bread and two fish. That night Jesus left the area. The next day the crowd tracked Jesus down.

John 6:25-35

25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?"

26 Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal."

28 Then they said to him, "What must we do to perform the works of God?"

29 Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."

30 So they said to him, "What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"

32 Then Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

34 They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."

35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Jesus said the only reason the people followed him was because they saw him as a sort of walking grocery store. It was time, Jesus said, for the people to work for the food that endures for eternal life. The people asked what they needed to do to perform the works of God. Jesus answered they needed to start with believing in him because God had sent him.

They asked what sign, or miracle, Jesus would perform so that they may see it and believe in him. Now, just the day before the people had miraculously eaten their fill because of Jesus’ power, but now they said to him, what have you done for us today? It seems a strong sense of entitlement people often have is no new phenomenon.

Baby boomers like me were raised by the generation that grew up during the Great Depression and came of age during World War Two. Much of what my parents’ generation went through is out of place with how my age group knows life. Pulitzer Prize winning author William Manchester wrote of how his mother would cut and re-sew bed sheets to make them last longer. My grandfather, born in 1900, told me of young men he knew in the 1930s who worked ten-hour days on a farm to earn a dollar a day, and were glad to do it.

Yet my age group saw none of this. Robert J. Samuelson wrote of us baby boomers, “We didn't merely expect things to get better. We expected all social problems to be solved. In our new society most workers would have rising incomes and stable jobs. … Poverty, racism and crime would disappear. … We expected almost limitless personal freedom and self-fulfillment. After a while we thought we were entitled to them as a matter of right.”

Yet, as author Mike Bellah points out, when our parents told us how things were, they failed to tell us how things usually really are. In telling the stories of the Great Depression and the Great War, the generation who lived them wanted to create in their children a sense of gratefulness that those tribulations were over, but what they often created in us instead was a sense of entitlement. Why? Says Bellah, “Because of what they didn't say. What our parents failed to tell us is that conflict and want are part of humankind’s future as well as its past. There have been no utopias in history, and as long as the human condition remains the same (imperfect people living in an imperfect world), there will be no utopian tomorrows either.”

Since Jesus's day the human condition has remained the same – imperfect people living in an imperfect world. This new millennium is only twenty-one years old, and we are already shocked by its events. It seems depressingly much like the last one – and the one before that.

So, we may say to Jesus, what have you done for us today? And what sign will you give us so that we may believe in you?

In John, Jesus does not perform miracles on demand; in fact, John's Gospel doesn’t even use the word miracle. Jesus does signs that attest to his identity as the one sent by God, on whom God has set his seal, the mark of authenticity. The constant theme in John is that those who believe without seeing miracles or appearances are blessed. When we say, however sophisticated our words may be, what has Jesus done for us today, what sign can he give us so that we may believe, Jesus’ answer is always the same: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes will never be thirsty.”

Christ has nothing to offer us except himself. And that is more plentiful than we imagine. Perhaps we should be thankful this Thanksgiving not for things; I doubt that this year mere stuff is what we are thankful for, anyway. Despite the violence, despite the threats, despite the uncertainty, despite our politics, we may be thankful that we can rejoice in the Lord always and that the Lord is near. The peace of God will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

   Thanksgiving, then, is not really a once-a-year celebration, except in a secular sense where it handily marks the day before Christmas shopping frenzy. Thanksgiving is for Christian people a continuous state of praise that acknowledges to God what God has done for us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Thankfulness enables us to face the future with hope, for it is by thanking that we remember. To thank someone is to remember what he or she did for you. To remember what God has done is to be filled with hope, because God isn’t finished with the world or with us. As God has done, so God will do, and as God has given, so God will give. 

Thanksgiving is a joyful noise, a glad worship. Despite outwards circumstances, our hearts in faith do heed what the psalmist announced: The Lord is good, his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness lasts to all generations.

Bridging the Gap Between Scientism and Classical Theism

I know you have been anxiously awaiting when you can read my M.Div. thesis. Well, good news! Academia.edu has used AI to turn it into a podcast! And their page also used AI to create 12 slides of its points. They are below.

My thesis, or as Vanderbilt called it, Senior Project, is entitled, "The Disjunction Between Scientific Materialism and Classical Theism: A Process Solution." Before getting to the podcast and slides, here is an intro to the subjects concerned.

What is classical theism?  In classical theism, God "is believed to have created the entire universe, to rule over it, and to intend to bring it to its fulfillment or realization, to "save it." Classical theism draws on "intuitions and assumptions of Greek philosophy as much as biblical images," says Tyron Inbody. 

Catholic Scholasticism developed Aristotelian formulations of God "as absolute, changeless, eternal being or actuality." This idea of impassive immutability remained in the Reformation, though the Reformers emphasized God's sovereignty as unchallenged, absolute power, wholly righteous and gracious. God was understood to have "absolute priority and decisiveness" in divine election. 

Always known as powerful in the Jewish and Christian traditions, God was now understood as absolutely omnipotent, able to do anything God chose. "The concept of God's omnipotence is located at the center of classical theism," wrote Inbody, and so is at the heart of theodicy problems. (Theodicy is the theology of the problem of human suffering and evil.)

What is Scientism? Scientism is faith in science. Scientism is faith in science. As the dominant world view of our day, it is considered self validating. Scientism makes two major claims, neither of which, however, are  provable using the scientific method:

    (1) only science reveals the Real and only science can discover truth; 

    (2) scientific knowledge of reality is exhaustive, not inherently limited, is holistic and sees reality as  reality really is.

The challenge of the new, scientific ways of understanding the world resulted in theological liberalism, which attempted to ensure Christian faith in a world dominated by the increasing power of science. However, "Attempts to render God and the modern world view compatible have been unsuccessful," observed David R. Griffin in God and Religion in the Postmodern World. This has led either to religious pantheism or insulation, which define the disjunction between scientific materialism and theism.

And so, here is the podcast. Slides are below: 

Nag, nag, nag!

Luke 18.1-8

1 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ 4 For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ ”

6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Now think of this situation. A powerful magistrate, insensitive to public opinion polls or the will of God, is pestered day and night by a widow who is evidently so poor she cannot hire an attorney even to get her case listed on the docket. She nags the judge day and night. He eats dinner, the phone rings, it’s her, nagging for justice. When he pulls up at a traffic light, she pulls up beside him, rolls down her window and yells for justice. When he goes to his kids’ soccer games and cheers for the team, she is there screaming for justice. He can’t sleep and gets the shakes. His hair is turning gray. Finally he grants her petition just to be rid of her.

Obviously, Jesus is not making a positive comparison between this judge and God. In the end, the judge is not redeemed. He grants her request purely from pragmatism, just to shut her up. That’s not justice. He never actually hears her case, apparently. He just goes in one morning and has the clerk of court draw up the paperwork finding in her favor. Note that the unnamed other party of the case never gets a voice.

And Jesus explains that if even a crummy judge finally grants petitions, then how much quicker will a wholly just God answer those who cry out to him? But when the Lord returns, will he find people of persistent faith?

There are some real difficulties in just accepting this parable at face value. Probably almost everyone here has prayed in earnest for something that God did not grant. We pray for sick people to become healed, but they aren’t, not always. We pray for marriages to be saved but some fail anyway. Cathy and I knew a couple in our church in Virginia who had one child. They wanted another one or two. But the doctors had told the mother that there was some problem and that the odds of her having another baby were small to the point of vanishing. 

So they prayed and prayed and prayed and tried and tried and tried. The doctors prescribed fertility drugs to no avail. They were as persistent and faithful as the widow in the story. The doctors could give them no medical hope, so they turned to God. Nothing is impossible with God, right? And what could possibly be wrong with asking God for another child? The God of Jesus loves children, clearly. Finally, it sunk in that they were never going to be blessed by either science or religion with a second baby. And I think it killed their faith in both.

So when this passage in Luke seems to indicate that God will quickly grant our petitions, it is easy to be skeptical. People of faith know that it simply is not true that anything we ask for in Christ’s name will be granted. We know that Joan Baez's song, "Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?” misses the point; in fact, missing the point was the point of the song. God is not a cosmic vending machine for which prayers are the currency. No one of minimally mature faith really thinks that God is anxiously waiting to be our personal genie in the lamp, always prepared and able to grant us wishes. Anyway, wishes usually are trivial in nature. It's the life-shattering things that can show the fragility of faith. Over time devout Christians discover that loved ones die young despite prayers, careers are shattered, or jobs lost despite prayers, children do drugs, marriages break down, what have you, even though the most heart-wrenching prayers are offered in true faith.

I have to say I don’t have magic Methodist foo-foo dust to sprinkle on that problem. The best I can offer people wrestling with that is where I come out on it. First, as Paul wrote in Romans chapter 8, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ, although the full flower of God’s love is not necessarily going to be realized by us in this here and now. As a matter of faith, I keep on trying to serve God because I believe another thing Paul wrote, that our present sufferings do not compare with the glory God has in store for us (Rom 8:18). That is the best I can do.

Jesus was no dummy. He surely knew ordinary people of genuine faith who did not have the benefit of being the son of God like he did. Those folks endured and were confounded by prayers that were apparently unanswered by a just God. So I think Jesus structured this parable pretty carefully.

Widows were specially mentioned in Jewish law. There were numerous commands in the Law of Moses to care for widows. Judges were under special admonition by religious law to be scrupulously fair, especially when dealing with matters relating to person-to-person cases. 

 Once Jesus has explained that God’s compassionate nature is the opposite of the unjust judge’s, Jesus’ plea to pray without losing lose heart takes on a different tone. The God to whom we pray is compassionate, ready to respond to the needs of the powerless and oppressed. But we should not pray selfish prayers, “concerned with petty issues, or irrelevant to God’s redemptive purposes” (NIB). We should pray first of all to be agents of God’s redemptive work in the world.

Like any parable, this one invites the hearers to find God inside the story and to place themselves inside the story somehow. The central figure is God, and the central lesson is the call for justice. But where do we find God in the parable? God can’t be found in the part of the judge; Jesus own explanation of the parable does not permit that. 

What if we consider the widow as the God figure? The prophet Micah wrote “what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). This is exactly the requirement that the widow is making of the judge – to act justly and to love mercy within the law. By doing so the judge will learn to fear God and walk humbly with him.

This reversal of roles isn’t so far-fetched. If God is willing to become one conceived as human, born in a barn, and endure the shame of dying on the cross, then I don’t think a Scriptural portrayal of God as a powerless widow is beneath the holy dignity. 

This characterization moves the focus of the story away from prayer and its potential to be answered or unanswered by God. Instead, we see the persistence of God’s demands for human beings to act justly and love mercy, and we see the human tendency to do anything but that. How long will we scoff at God and set God aside before God wears us down?

We have in so many ways “the power to relieve the distress of the widow, the orphan, and the stranger.” If we think of God as a powerless widow – one of the “least of these” whom Christ said represent his presence in history – then “the call to pray night and day is a command to let the priorities of God’s compassion reorder” the priorities of our lives (NIB).

So we are called to re-examine our faith. Faith isn’t just believing beliefs, but also doing the work of Christ in the world where and when we can. If we do not believe, in faith, that God has turned a deaf ear to us when we call, then integrity demands we not turn a deaf ear to God when he nags us to work for justice in the world. We must not be deaf to those who cry out in need to their fellow men and women.

When the Lord returns in power, will he find us faithfully acting justly and loving mercy? That is the question. The question is not, "Will I be cured?" The question is not, "Will I find a new job?" These are all important questions to be sure and more than deserving of prayer. But they are not the questions Jesus addresses in this parable. This parable is about persisting in prayerful work for justice, not in competition with an unjust Lord, but in cooperation with a just and loving God. 

So another way of looking at the parable is that of the widow was able to achieve justice by persisting against an unjust judge, then how much more quickly will our God of ultimate and perfect justice respond to our persistence in conforming to God's will? It will be difficult; we will suffer setbacks. But God will never brush us off and will always persist with us. 

How long will it take for God's justice to be established? From now to the Second Coming, according to the parable. How long should we persist in demanding justice and working for it? From now until the Second Coming, according to the parable. This time frame shows that the persistence and work called for here is not only for individuals, but for the Church in all its history. The Church itself, in its institution as well as its membership, must be persistent in discipleship and dogged in seeking justice. 

Will Willimon was serving as dean of the Duke University chapel until he was elected bishop in 2007 and assigned to the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church. He once told a story about this passage that goes like this:

A person I know works for the telephone company, in the area of customer complaints. She has a tough job because she must represent the demands of the company, and at the same time, she must try to be open and caring about customers. She told me about a person who called her, complaining about some grave problem with her telephone service. My friend said, while this was a bad problem, it did not come under company guidelines. In other words, it was the customer’s problem, and not hers. 

The customer, a widow, living alone by herself on a fixed income, persisted. My friend said, “During the conversation, she at last said something that really got through to me. She said, I’ve always loved and respected the telephone company. Since I was a young child, coming home alone, my mother always told me, if you have any problem, just call the telephone operator and she will help. I trust the phone company to do what is right.”

My friend said that a light went on in her brain and she realized that this was not merely a complaint about bad service. It was a discussion about the character of the phone company. Was this a company that cared, a company that valued its long term relationship with a customer, a company that could be trusted? My friend reached out and solved the woman’s problem. 

In the same way Jesus's parable calls us to ponder what we really believe about God. Is God someone who can be trusted even when our prayers seem futile? Jesus says yes but tells the parable in a way that also calls us to examine ourselves. The discussion is about the character not only of God but of each one of us and of the Church itself. God can always be trusted. But can God trust us? That is the chief question the parable presents, and the one we must answer affirmatively.