{"id":292,"date":"2019-07-21T13:13:01","date_gmt":"2019-07-21T13:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=292"},"modified":"2019-07-22T13:15:07","modified_gmt":"2019-07-22T13:15:07","slug":"sixth-sunday-after-pentecost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2019\/07\/21\/sixth-sunday-after-pentecost\/","title":{"rendered":"Sixth Sunday after Pentecost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Luke 10:38-42<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace to you and peace\nfrom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nthere is one complaint about God, that I hear often, it is that God does not\nseem to answer all of our prayers, sometimes important prayers. This concern is\ncompounded by Jesus\u2019 very own words, that tell us that if we ask for anything\nin his name, God will give it to us. So, what about the healing of my loved\none; and what about giving me good weather on my vacation; and what about\nmaking my retreat inspiring and refreshing; and what about helping our sport\u2019s\nteams win: and what about helping me become a little more successful, and what\nabout sending St. Peter\u2019s more members and what about helping St. Peter\u2019s with\ntheir finances? Does God answer these prayers? I\u2019ve barely scratched the surface\nof the things that we ask for, in prayer. that don\u2019t seem to always get\nanswered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Common\nsense will tell us that it is not reasonable for us to expect to get everything\nthat we pray for and with that in mind, consider that while we are praying for\nthe Phillies to win, there are Pirates, Dodgers and Washington and Atlanta and\nMets fans praying for the Phillies to lose. Likewise, when we are praying for\ngood weather, others are likely praying that that front that brings rain will\ngo away from them and maybe it will then go our way so that they, not us, will\nhave good weather. Sometimes I wonder, when it comes to questions of healings\nand our church doing well, what might be the conflict. And then I think of the old\njoke involving a man stranded on the roof of his home during a flood praying\nfor God\u2019s help and I wonder are we sending away God\u2019s help, like the man sent\naway the boat and helicopter, expecting just a miracle. It happens! I know of a\nsituation where a person suffering from anxiety, was sent to a doctor for\nanxiety medicine, but when the doctor offered him a prescription, he told the\ndoctor that he didn\u2019t need it. God does not always answer prayers by way of\nmiracles; God sometimes sends us a boat, or a helicopter or a doctor with a prescription.\nThis we never want to hear, but could it be that sometimes God\u2019s healing, takes\nour sick loved one, away from the suffering of this world into the presence of\nthe Lord God himself, to a new and healthy life. As for the church the Holy\nSpirit is not ignoring our pleas for increased membership and stronger\nfinances, the Spirit has given us the gifts and the wealth to make these things\npossible; the Spirit has readied the soil, in the hearts of the unchurched, and\nthey are waiting for us to share the word of Jesus; the Holy Spirit has put the\ngift of generosity in our hearts and we are those who are hesitating to use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nthen there is this, we do not always agree with the answers to our prayers that\nGod gives to us, even when we know the answer to be the best thing for us and\nthose who are around us. In today\u2019s Gospel reading Martha asked Jesus, \u201cLord do\nyou not care that my sister has left me to do all the work myself? Tell her\nthen to help me.\u201d But the Lord answered her, \u201cMartha, Martha, you are worried\nand distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing, Mary has chosen\nthe better part, which will not be taken away from her.\u201d Martha\u2019s request, her\nprayer, if you like, was not a bad one, but Jesus\u2019 answer was clearly a \u201cno\u201d. It\nclearly shows us that God will not give us everything for which we ask. God, Jesus,\nthe Holy Spirit listen to our prayers and they seek within our hearts, and then\ngive us then what is best for us, sometimes we receive one thing instead of what\nwe want. And because we want only what we want, we do not see God\u2019 wonderful\nplan for us, we do not accept all that God gives and does for us.When I spoke\nwith the person disappointed by the retreat, we established that there were\nsome great learnings and opportunities given, that the retreat did not provide\nwhat was asked for from God, but maybe provided something or some things much better.\nIt seems that God is constantly answering our prayers within the patch work quilt\nof our lives, that it is as much a puzzle as it is a straight forward answer. Sometimes\nGod sends us a boat instead of a miracle, sometimes a helicopter and sometimes\na doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So,\nwhere does this leave the whole question of prayer? Does God answer some of our\nprayers? Does God answer all of our prayers? Does God sometimes answer with a \u201cno\u201d?\nOr does God not answer prayer at all? They say hind sight is 20\/20. Looking\nback, I can see the hand of God in so many of your lives, helping you, caring\nfor you, healing you, comforting you, strengthening you and bringing you\nopportunities for joy. Looking back, I know that God has answered many of my\nprayers and many of yours. (So) How about you? Can you see the hand of God\nanswering your prayers? Look back at your lives, at the worst and the best of\nwhat life has thrown at you. Look at those moments when you received a kind word,\na gentle hug, a squeeze of your hand, maybe a slight miracle, a smile, a\nhelping hand, or something spectacular happened, done by someone nearby or was\nit God\u2019s work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider\nalso this, in the moment that Jesus said no to Martha; Jesus wasn\u2019t just saying\n\u201cno\u201d he was also helping her to see the importance of other things, pointing her\nin a way that would make her life better. I\u2019ve certainly asked God for things\nthat would not have been good for me, that I did not get, and if I look past my\ndissatisfaction, I will see that I was the better because of God\u2019s \u201cno\u201d. If you\nare honest with yourselves, I think you will see this also in your lives. But\ndon\u2019t get me wrong, along with the great answers to our prayers there are times\nwhen it seems no answer came; I\u2019m not going to try to explain these away, only\nto encourage you to look for God in those occasions, he may be there. As for\nyour unanswerable questions, hold on to them until you are face to face with\nyour Lord and Savior. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luke 10:38-42 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ If there is one complaint about God, that I hear often, it is that God does not seem to answer all of our prayers, sometimes important prayers. This concern is compounded by Jesus\u2019 very Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions\/293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}