Scripture/Sermon of the Day

Proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is convenient or inconvenient. Challenge, warn and encourage with patience and instruction. 3 For the time is coming when people will not tolerate sound teaching. They will collect teachers who tell them what they want to hear, to suit their own desires. 4 They will turn their back on the truth and turn to myths. 5 But you—keep your eye on what you’re doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant.

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 accuser.’ 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?”

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:7-8, 11)

II. But notice — he doesn’t say how long we have to ask and seek and knock. It’s even misleading. He says it so it sounds like if we pray to God — if we ask, we get an answer to our prayer quickly. And not just an answer — but the one we want! And if we seek, we find whatever it is we’re looking for right away. Same with knocking on the door — we expect God to open it immediately.

III. Last Wednesday — a little after 10 in the morning, at the Optimo Car Wash on Dixwell Avenue, about 10 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents handcuffed and took eight people away — to an undisclosed location. Seven of them employees of the Car Wash, and one was a customer!

The agent’s covered their faces with black masks that remind me of Al Qaeda and terrorists from other parts of the world. Because what they do fills millions of people with terror. I hope each of us feels the terror too — because we’re all in this together. The good people being arrested and kidnapped and the agents doing these terrible acts are all members of ONE FAMILY — OUR FAMILY. ALL OF US ARE CONNECTED SPIRITUALLY AND SADLY MANY OF US DON’T REALIZE THIS.

I realized this while watching a powerful story last week on Hulu. I realized, “My God! This is not just a heartbreaking drama on TV — this narrative is happening in real-time in our neighborhoods.

The TV series of eight episodes I recently saw was based on the movie Das Boot. And part of it takes place in WWII in La Rochelle — a village in German-occupied France. And these raids — like the ICE raids — happen all the time, without warning. But watching this I have an odd feeling now that I’m not sure if I live in Hamden or La Rochelle! Because Secret Police — are raiding and kidnapping OUR neighbors! Is this Deja Vu?People are being arrested whose children attend our schools. And the only difference between them and us is a piece of paper that makes us “legal”.

IV. Even with my faith that God protects us and loves us and helps us — I’m frightened for our country. Because our country is not becoming great again — it’s becoming La Rochelle in 1942! And I wonder how many of the thousands or millions of people who have already been arrested are also — like us — Christian? I bet most of them. And how many of them pray? And how is God helping them? Where is God’s protection for them?

At least two of those eight people taken away had children still in school. When the children return home from school, will their homes be empty? What will happen to them?

VI. But before you get too discouraged, there’s a bright side to this when we realize — BOTH SIDES PRAY. I’m sure there are ICE agents who pray too. In Das Boot, the French villagers who were being rounded up to be shot prayed, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee….” At the same time, somewhere in the Atlantic, the German sailors whose submarine was bombed and sinking to the ocean floor prayed, “Our Father, who art in heaven….” EVERYONE IS PRAYING TO THE SAME GOD. In crucial moments, no matter who we are, we pray.

VII. I hope all of us will keep praying for these 8 people who were just kidnapped by our government agents as they worked at a car wash to make a good life for their families and especially, their children. And we need to continue to pray for the agents and their families, and also for the people who are ordering them to commit this terror.

— and we can have faith and know that God, Our Father, is changing us and making us so that we will treat each other with kindness, and respect and love — there will be a day when it will not matter to us whether a person has “papers” or not.

This is what constant prayer will do to us. It makes us PEOPLE WHO LOVE EVERY PERSON, because this is who God OUR FATHER is, and this is what we are becoming. And this is good news. This is the best news.