- Jul 27, 2025
- 6 min read
[Genesis 18:17-33] …Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.” So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” …
Honest and Faithful Prayers
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” [Luke 11:9]. God does hear your prayers. But what kind of prayers does He desire to hear? Prayers that are worded rightly? Reverent enough? Thorough enough? Pious prayers? What prayer is a good prayer to God?
Here’s the first part of the answer I’ll give you: God does desire to hear honest prayers. God wants you to be straightforward and truthful with Him – to say with your lips what is truly going on in your heart.
This is how prayer is in Scripture itself. The book of Psalms is a book of honest prayers, in which the one praying makes his heart made known to God:
“How long, O Lord, will You look on? Rescue me…” [Psalm 35:17]. “Awake! Why are You sleeping, O Lord?” [Psalm 44:23].
“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me?…I cry by day, but You do not answer…” [Psalm 22:1-2].
“O Lord, rebuke me not in Your anger, nor discipline me in Your wrath… Your arrows have sunk into me, and Your hand has come down upon me… for my iniquities have gone over my head…” [Psalm 38:1-2,4].
“Righteous are you, O Lord, when I complain to You; yet I would plead my case before You. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive?” [Jeremiah 12:1].
And Abraham, in today’s reading from Genesis 18:17-33, who drew near to the Lord and said, “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? … Far be that from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”
Let’s note that Abraham’s complaint isn’t that God is bringing His justice against the wicked. In fact, in that regard, we men and women tend to be much quicker to call for judgment and destruction than God is.
God’s justice comes when, after every attempt and much time – both through discipline and troubles sent, and through God’s kindness and messengers of the Gospel sent – hearts are, nevertheless, hardened and will not repent and believe.
Such was the case in these five cities in the region of Sodom and Gomorrah. Their sins went beyond nature, and their hearts were thoroughly hardened against God their creator [Romans 1:18-32].
But, Abraham lived next door to these cities. He did business with them. He was once, not long before, the leader of a plot to deliver them from four other kings who had taken them captive. And, Abraham’s nephew Lot and his family lived in one of those cities.
“Certainly there are still some righteous among the wicked, Lord. Would you destroy their whole life and livelihood over the sins of others? Turn their homes to rubble? Would you sweep even them away? If there are fifty who still look to You – or forty-five – or ten – wouldn’t You spare the place for them? Or will You be unjust, O Lord?”
“Won’t You please do what is right, God?” An honest prayer.
And, in fact, God already had in place His plan for how He would deliver from Sodom and Gomorrah those who still turned to Him – which, like in the days of Noah, was a number reduced to one family. In this case, Lot and his two daughters.
God is just and never was going to sweep away the righteous with the wicked. And, if Abraham had no faith that God was good, Abraham wouldn’t have appealed from his heart to God’s righteousness. God would be just and true to His promises.
Yet it is God’s desire to work His goodness through our honest and fervent prayers. Abraham’s honest prayers were answered for Lot’s sake – and that was God’s will, to save Lot through Abraham’s honest and fervent prayer.
The prayer God likes to hear is honest prayer – and faithful prayer. Faithful prayer is prayer that believes. Abraham didn’t disbelieve God’s righteousness but believed it and therefore called upon it.
And those who prayed in the Psalms let out their honest complaints, but did so to the One whom they believed was hearing and answering:
“I will thank You in the great congregation; in the mighty throng I will praise You” [Psalm 35:18]. “Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of Your steadfast love!” [Psalm 44:26]. “You who fear the Lord, praise Him! … For He has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and He has not hidden His face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him” [Psalm 22:23-24].
“But for You, O Lord, do I wait; it is You, O Lord my God, who will answer… O Lord, my salvation!” [Psalm 38:15,22]. “But You know me, O Lord. You see me…” “I utter my complaint and moan, and He hears my voice.” [Jeremiah 12:3; Psalm 55:17]
Our honest prayers are God pleasing prayers because they are prayers of faith – prayers which complain to Him because He will hear and answer.
Abraham was not disrespectful to God for praying as he did. He prayed with humility, “I am but dust and ashes” [Genesis 18:27]. And the honest cries and complaints of our heart are spoken in faith as children who call out to their Father who hears.
Above all, our Lord Jesus is the perfect Man of honest and faithful prayer. Without sin, and without doubt, He nevertheless suffered perfectly and fully what it is to be trapped in our lowly, sin-fallen condition.
When Jesus carried the sins of the world in His flesh on the cross, He carried fully in Himself our cries and complaints. He knows what it is to be you. Jesus prayed Psalm 22 on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” And He did so in perfect faith, trusting in the resurrection of the body, believing that His Father would raise Him to life.
My prayers are not perfect. I do sin with hypocrisy, making my prayers to God come out more pious than what is really going on in here. Not trusting fully that I can speak fully honestly to my God. And not with perfect faith, but with faith always tainted by a thread of doubt.
But I am baptized into Jesus Christ. You are baptized into Jesus Christ. Your prayers are spoken not in your name, not in Abraham’s name, but in Christ’s holy name.
Your prayers are offered in the perfect relationship of the Son and the Father, clothed by baptism in the perfect, honest cries of Jesus on the cross – who prayed for us all, under our sins and suffering – offered in the perfect faith of His lips who is our intercessor.
And, along with this, you and I who are sinners – like Abraham and Lot – are also the righteous by faith in Jesus Christ. You are justified – counted righteous to God, because of Jesus’ all-atoning death on the cross – by faith alone in Jesus Christ.
Abraham, “the man of faith” [Galatians 3:9], “believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness” [Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3; Galatians 3:6]. You also who have believed what Jesus has done for you are counted righteous by faith – until that day when we are made righteous in heaven. Until then, God hears the honest and faithful prayers of the righteous-by-faith on earth.
For patience in your waiting, in your struggles with how God handles this sin-fallen world, and for needed relief and forgiveness from your own sins and faults, give to God – your Father and Friend – the honest words of your heart, with faith that believes He hears you. Amen.
- Jul 20, 2025
- 5 min read
Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to His teaching. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” [Luke 10:38-42]
One Thing Is Necessary
Anxious and troubled about many things. And, more and more things to have – or more and more things that you accomplish. That more and more doesn’t take it away. More sure, more certain, more secure, will never be enough. And more itself will never be enough.
The anxiety of life – whether it’s anxious worry or that anxiousness for something more – is an empty spot in the middle of us that gets bigger the more you try to fill it or meet its demands.
There is, by nature, a big empty area in the center of each of us – needing to be filled or satisfied – with love and certainty, security, identity and belonging – which can only be filled with our Creator and Redeemer. He’s what’s missing. Only He can fill it.
There’s a saying, which comes from the thought and writing of Saint Augustine, that we have a “God-shaped hole” in our hearts, or in ourselves. Saint Augustine said it this way, in a prayer to the Lord, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” [Saint Augustine, Confessions]
Jesus Christ – who is God in human flesh – one of us – came down to us to be for us God-who-can-fill-us in the way needed. You are His. He is yours. And you have Him in the means by which He comes to you to keep you filled – to keep filling that spot of anxious need in you – until He comes again to make us fully whole.
The way that Jesus comes to you is in His Word, the Scriptures. Preached and read. His Word heard in your ears and read by your eyes fills your heart and your deepest being with Him, the One who can fill it. The One who does make your heart content and at ease.
He is daily available, yet we are distracted by many things.
Martha was “distracted with much serving.” Even serving the Lord much cannot replace receiving the Lord much. He Himself is what we need.
Let’s look at our Gospel reading. The village that Jesus entered at the beginning was called Bethany. It was the village where Mary and Martha lived with their brother Lazarus [John 11:1]. Jesus is there at Mary and Martha’s house. He is in their home, teaching His word.
While the teaching is going on, Martha is, as we said, “distracted with much serving.” Martha is focused on everything that she believes is most important. And she is doing all of it. And because Martha is convinced that she’s doing what’s really needed, she’s frustrated that her sister Mary isn’t: “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?”
Jesus responds, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary…”
The one thing necessary is Jesus and what Jesus does for you. Jesus gave Himself for you and, as we said, gives Himself to you.
Jesus gave Himself for you on the cross. He laid down His life to redeem sinners. By atoning for your sins with His death, Jesus restored full unity between God and you. That’s what you needed.
Sin separated us from God and created that empty spot in us that the whole world spends its time trying to fill. Jesus died for your sins. By His death, your sins are forgiven. This unites you back to God.
Jesus gave Himself for you. Jesus gives Himself to you in His Word and Sacraments. Jesus in your life is the one thing necessary.
Having Jesus in your life is the one thing necessary, and He is yours as you sit at His feet to hear His Word as Martha’s sister Mary did. “…Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
You are not left empty. You are not left to your own solutions. You are not left to your “much serving”. You are not left to the unending list of things you can do or acquire to fill yourself or make yourself secure.
Though you may, like Martha, be “anxious and troubled by many things” you do have – for you, given to you – the “good portion”, “the one thing necessary”, “which will not be taken from you” – His Holy Word, by which He keeps coming into you like a daily meal.
You have His Word preached here. You have a Bible at home. You have the Portals of Prayer devotions. Only a fool would starve while their fridge is full. You are well supplied, so be sure to be filled with His Word.
“Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly” [Colossians 3:16]. “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst” [John 6:35]. His is the “Word of Life” [1 John 1:1]. “Whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life.” [John 5:24]
Don’t leave yourself empty for even one day. Jesus made you His in your Baptism. A living believer in Christ was born in you that day. Let Him dwell in you richly through His Word, every day.
Sit at Jesus’ feet like Mary, choosing the best portion each day. Jesus, who is Lord of this life, will be there for the things you struggle with and are anxious about. Jesus, who is Lord of time, will give you the time, not less, if you spend some time in His Word.
Listening at Jesus’ feet by hearing and receiving Him in His Word is the one thing which is most necessary in your life. Don’t approach all the rest without Him but with Him each day by receiving Him each day in His Word. Like Mary, choose the good portion. Amen.
- Jul 15, 2025
- 6 min read
[Luke 10:25-37 – The Parable of the Good Samaritan]
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii[a] and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
You Will Be a Neighbor
Imagine, giving up such a great thing for the sake of something so small. The lawyer in our Gospel reading asks Jesus, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Nothing is bigger than that. But he is then willing to risk the whole thing just so he can keep not liking the group of people he doesn’t like. The Samaritans.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” “Yes”, Jesus says, “Do this, and you will live.” But the man will risk it all rather than call that person or those people his neighbor.
I.
Our Lord Jesus shows us by this parable that “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” doesn’t get it to mean that some people are your neighbors and others aren’t. No, the commandment means “you shall be a neighbor” to each person.
So Jesus ends the parable asking the lawyer, “Which of these three – the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan – proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among robbers?” “The one who showed him mercy.” “You go and do likewise.”
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” means “You shall be a neighbor to them” regardless of who they are. Would you give up eternal life so you don’t have to be a neighbor to that person who wronged you? Or, those people?
This command is at the backbone of the Law of God: “For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” [Romans 13:9]. “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” [Matthew 7:12].
And to love your neighbor as yourself doesn’t mean only to love those who love you back: “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.” [Luke 6:32-33]
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for them…” [Matthew 5:43-44]. Where the world has an “us” vs. a “them”, we have a neighbor.
II.
Our Lord’s parable in today’s Gospel makes the “to whom” clear in the command, “Be a neighbor.” We should also think about the “where”. Where am I to be a neighbor?
You are called to be a neighbor at home. To your husband. To your wife. To your children. They are your first neighbor. When they’re doing what you like and when they’re not doing what you like, love your neighbor as yourself. Be a neighbor to them. Also to mom and dad, and brother and sister.
You are a neighbor at work. To the well liked and to those not well liked. To those with common interests and to the annoying and the odd. You shall be a genuine neighbor and friend to them. When there’s no advantage to you. For their sake.
You are a neighbor on the road, on the sidewalk, in the parking lot, in the store. In your neighborhood (to your neighbors!), in your building.
Being a neighbor as we go about our day means extinguishing that thought within us which says, “It’s not my concern.” Being a neighbor means not just looking straight ahead but seeing my neighbor’s needs or inconveniences as my concern. You are your neighbor’s keeper, not just your brother’s keeper [Genesis 4:9].
What the fellow shopper or the cashier needs out of you – which might just be your friendliness, your acknowledgment that they are there, and that you’re happy they are there – this is your concern, as if it’s a need in your own day that day. Love your neighbor as yourself.
And, finally, you shall also be a neighbor when no one’s around and you’re watching the news at home. “Who is my neighbor?” There’s not a place or a space, not even on a screen, where the Lord let’s us say, “Not them!”
Though you may never meet the people on the screen, spitting venom along with the world at people in the news – though the words will never reach their ears – it does affect your heart for the worse. Aren’t you training your heart to hate your neighbor? Is that pleasing to God?
Every person on the screen – TV or phone – is a real person, created by God, who exists, has a life, and is sitting somewhere right now – at home, at work, at a church…
How you interact affects your heart. And, in truth, contributing to a general negative attitude, or a general positive attitude, about others in your nation does eventually really affect others, for good or for bad.
III.
It really is true, what our Lord said, that if we kept those two great commandments – to love God and our neighbor – we would inherit eternal life. But it is just as true than none of us have kept those two laws.
This is how God’s Law works. If you keep the Law, you will live. But everyone who does not keep all the things written in the Law are under a curse [Galatians 3], condemnation. That is how the Law works, and the lawyer asked about what he must do – which is a Law question. The Law leaves each of us condemned.
The way the Gospel works is this: Jesus Christ has come to redeem, to save, sinners. Jesus, the only man who has kept those two great commandments in their fullness, is also the one who has now, on the cross, suffered that curse – condemnation – for the sins of the world. Your sins and mine.
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” [Galatians 3:13]. “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” [Colossians 1:13-14]
Jesus has been the perfect neighbor – He has loved you as Himself. He has given His life for you. By His offering, your sins are forgiven. Your falling-short of those two great commandments is forgiven. Jesus, the very Son of God, has been a neighbor to you.
And now, because of Jesus, “You shall be a neighbor” has become “You will be a neighbor.” Inch by inch, Jesus is lifting you up to this heavenly goal – to be to others what He has been to you – and He will bring His work to completion in you on His day [Philippians 1:6]. Thanks be to God. Amen.
