SPEAKER_04: Blessed be God.
SPEAKER_04: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_04: Blessed be God.
SPEAKER_04: Now let's pray together.
SPEAKER_04: Almighty God, under whom all hearts.
SPEAKER_04: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_04: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_04: O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity.
SPEAKER_04: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure.
SPEAKER_04: Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_01: Now Samuel was ministering in the presence of the Holy Roman.
SPEAKER_01: A boy dressed in a red cloud, a little robe that his mother would make for him, and bring up the offer for the early sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: And Eli would dress like the blessed Alcana and his wife and say, May the Holy One repay you.
SPEAKER_01: And then they would return to their home.
SPEAKER_01: And the faithful one attended Hannah, and she conceived and gave birth to two daughters and three sons.
SPEAKER_01: And the boy Samuel grew up there in the presence of the living God.
SPEAKER_01: Now the boy Samuel went on and grew in goodness with the Most High and with humanity.
SPEAKER_01: The word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: The psalm for today is Psalm 144.
SPEAKER_01: We will read responsibly by the half-verse.
SPEAKER_01: Or the woman born that you think of them.
SPEAKER_01: Humanity is like a breath.
SPEAKER_01: Our sons in their youth are like plants full grown.
SPEAKER_01: Our daughters are like our building of a palace.
SPEAKER_01: Our barns are full for produce of every kind.
SPEAKER_02: Our sheep are thousands.
SPEAKER_01: Many thousands are.
SPEAKER_01: Happy are the people to whom such blessings fall.
SPEAKER_02: Happy are the people who God is the Lord of life.
SPEAKER_00: Although rejected by humanity, we have chosen and precious son of God.
SPEAKER_00: And I myself, like living stones, have been built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, and to offer spiritual sacrifice that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And thus scripture contains the following.
SPEAKER_00: See, I am laid in Zion a stone, a cornerstone, a chosen, a precious, and whoever believes in that stone will not be put to shame.
SPEAKER_00: To you all who believe in it, a precious honor.
SPEAKER_00: But for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cause, and a stumbling stone and a rock overheads.
SPEAKER_00: They stumble over the word disobey or disobedient by design.
SPEAKER_00: Yet you all are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own possession, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of God who called you out of shadow into God's marvelous eye.
SPEAKER_00: Once I'm not a people, and now I am God's people.
SPEAKER_00: Once I reft of mercy, and now I'm a rich of mercy.
SPEAKER_04: Now when they, Jesus, John, and Peter, came to the disciples after the transfiguration, they saw a great crowd around them and some scholars arguing with them.
SPEAKER_04: And the whole crowd of women, children, and men saw Jesus.
SPEAKER_04: They were immediately overcome with awe and they ran forward to greet him.
SPEAKER_04: Then Jesus asked them, What are you all arguing about with them?
SPEAKER_04: Someone from the crowd answered him, Teacher, I brought my child to you who has a spirit of speechlessness.
SPEAKER_04: Whenever it overtakes my child, it throws them down and they foam, they grind their teeth, and my child becomes paralyzed.
SPEAKER_04: And I asked your disciples to cast it out, and your disciples were not able.
SPEAKER_04: Then Jesus answered them, saying, O faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you all?
SPEAKER_04: How much longer must I bear with you?
SPEAKER_04: Bring the child to me.
SPEAKER_04: And they brought the child to Jesus.
SPEAKER_04: When the Spirit saw the child, immediately it threw the child into convulsions, who then fell on the ground rolling and foaming.
SPEAKER_04: Then Jesus asked the parent, How long has this been happening?
SPEAKER_04: And the parent said, For childhood, often has it cast the child into fire and into water to destroy the child.
SPEAKER_04: Yet if you are able to do anything to help us, have pity on us.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus said to the parent, If you are able, all things can be done for the one who believes.
SPEAKER_04: Immediately the child's parent cried out with tears, I believe, help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_04: And when Jesus saw that a crowd of women, children, and men came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, You spirit of speechlessness and deafness, I command you, come out of the child and never enter the child again.
SPEAKER_04: After crying out and throwing the child into more convulsions, it came out.
SPEAKER_04: And the child was like the dead, so much so that many said he is dead.
SPEAKER_04: Yet Jesus took the child by the hand and lifted the child up, and the child was able to stand.
SPEAKER_04: When Jesus had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why were we not able to cast it out?
SPEAKER_04: And he said to them, This kind can come by nothing but prayer and fasting.
SPEAKER_04: Praise be to thee, Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_04: I've been involved in church since before I was born.
SPEAKER_04: That's a true statement, and it goes uninterrupted.
SPEAKER_04: Like nine months before I was born, I was involved in church.
SPEAKER_04: And I have to say, I've never seen this play out in front of people.
SPEAKER_04: I've never seen somebody with chromistic seizures.
SPEAKER_04: Somebody is missing a limb.
SPEAKER_04: Uh you may, I've never seen somebody in my presence dramatically.
SPEAKER_04: I've prayed for people to be, but I haven't seen anything like this.
SPEAKER_04: So what I want to share with you is what I'm trying to do with this, that I have not seen.
SPEAKER_04: If you've seen it, you probably don't need to hear anything I have to say.
SPEAKER_04: You may not need to anything, but that's what I want to share.
SPEAKER_04: Because for me, this is a struggle.
SPEAKER_04: How do I do this?
SPEAKER_04: Do you do it?
SPEAKER_04: Do this.
SPEAKER_04: And if you've been coming for a while, it's probably uh I don't need to introduce, but I've been struggling with ethnic theology of disability for at least a year and a half.
SPEAKER_04: And particularly in this story, there are a couple of interesting elements for me through study on this.
SPEAKER_04: The child has no agency story.
SPEAKER_04: The parent says that this is a problem.
SPEAKER_04: And I'm not saying it's not a problem.
SPEAKER_04: I'm just saying that the child is an object lesson, not a subject lesson.
SPEAKER_04: I have somebody this week who told me that their mantra would be not my will, yours be done, and I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_04: This story has mine, I believe, helped me overcome my unbelief.
SPEAKER_04: I treasure that phrase greatly because I don't know your background.
SPEAKER_04: I can just speak to my own.
SPEAKER_04: And by no means am I blaming anybody in my background for that I have this impression.
SPEAKER_04: But I grew up with the idea that God owes us health.
SPEAKER_04: God owes us functionality.
SPEAKER_04: It's our right.
SPEAKER_04: So if something is physically not right in us, however we use that word right, God ought to fix it.
SPEAKER_04: And God will.
SPEAKER_04: Our brains are not supposed to be neurodivergent.
SPEAKER_04: They're all supposed to be like the same and really efficient and work really hard.
SPEAKER_04: And if we just believe, God will give it to us.
SPEAKER_04: If you don't believe enough, it's your fault.
SPEAKER_04: It's this brilliant circular logic.
SPEAKER_04: Because it's always weird that God wants our bodies to be perfect.
SPEAKER_04: It doesn't make any sense to me anymore.
SPEAKER_04: Particularly because this man has faith that he has done.
SPEAKER_04: Isn't that compelling?
SPEAKER_04: I believe and I don't, and I know I don't.
SPEAKER_04: And I do and I don't.
SPEAKER_04: And that's where I live most of the week.
SPEAKER_04: That's where I live most of the times.
SPEAKER_04: I want to be somebody who follows Jesus.
SPEAKER_04: I believe and I don't.
SPEAKER_04: Help me overcome my unbelief.
SPEAKER_04: And this is exactly what I think Peter reminds us of Jesus is a living cornerstone, and sometimes we get to be built up, and sometimes we trip over it.
SPEAKER_04: We stumble.
SPEAKER_04: And I want to share, I've said this before, sometimes I think one of the things that we trip over is the idea that God wants us to be fully able to do.
SPEAKER_04: And if we had enough faith, God would do it.
SPEAKER_04: I don't think that's a living cornerstone.
SPEAKER_04: I think it's a stumbling block.
SPEAKER_04: Or else I just don't have enough faith.
SPEAKER_04: You see how it goes?
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes I'm afraid we build the dead cornerstones, not living ones.
SPEAKER_04: Because the truth is, if God wants us all perfectly abled and you see somebody who isn't, what can you have for them except pity?
SPEAKER_04: Pity that they don't believe enough.
SPEAKER_04: Because if they did, then they'd be normalized and functional, and they wouldn't have neurodivergence, and they wouldn't have ADHD, and they wouldn't have you prone to seizure.
SPEAKER_04: Because God doesn't want any of that stuff.
SPEAKER_04: And I'd like to suggest that's a stumbling block because you, like nobody else, want anybody else's pity.
SPEAKER_04: What you'd like is somebody else's consideration.
SPEAKER_04: Well, I think that's right.
SPEAKER_04: I don't want your pity, because that means I'm less than you.
SPEAKER_04: What I'd love is your consideration, because then we get to coexist on the same plane.
SPEAKER_04: And again, this story is not predicated on whether Dad believes enough.
SPEAKER_04: He doesn't believe enough.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's what he says.
SPEAKER_04: I don't believe enough.
SPEAKER_04: Help me with what I don't believe.
SPEAKER_04: I want to say that's where I find myself as somebody who would like to be a disciple.
SPEAKER_04: So I've been talking to a few folks offline for the last couple of weeks about this other idea I got that has been a stumbling block for me for a long time.
SPEAKER_04: And maybe you're familiar with it, and maybe you love it.
SPEAKER_04: I don't want to take it away from you if you love this.
SPEAKER_04: The idea goes like this: God has a perfect plan for your life.
SPEAKER_04: One perfect plan.
SPEAKER_04: And you need to make sure you don't miss it.
SPEAKER_04: Because if you miss it, you'll never get back there.
SPEAKER_04: Sort of like this line, and if you miss it, the best you can do is just be support.
SPEAKER_04: Now, maybe God's plan isn't predicated on what you pick at the salad bar today.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe those are insignificant choices.
SPEAKER_04: But it sure is based on what you choose to major in or where you go to college.
SPEAKER_04: You better get that right.
SPEAKER_04: Or you're going to live for less than perfection, because perfection means there's no mistake, there's no margin of error.
SPEAKER_04: It's either one way or it's wrong.
SPEAKER_04: And I sure think that's a stumbling block.
SPEAKER_04: Because me as a person, as a parent, as a colleague, I'm better than that.
SPEAKER_04: If my kids make a decision I don't like, it doesn't mean their lives are over, does it?
SPEAKER_04: It means what are we gonna do now?
SPEAKER_04: So instead of God having one plan that you better get right, I mean, really, maybe God looks at every decision we make and charts an infinite catalog of possibilities that happens next.
SPEAKER_04: Alright, so you pick to major in film.
SPEAKER_04: We can do something with that.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, you chose to major in math.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe we can do something with that.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, you pick the garbanzo beans and not the Fava beans.
SPEAKER_04: Alright, what's next?
SPEAKER_04: This idea of perfection, meaning there's no variance.
SPEAKER_04: Well, I've decided that's a stumbling block for me.
SPEAKER_04: And boy, that makes God really weak, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_04: Really weak.
SPEAKER_04: Follow that to its logical conclusion.
SPEAKER_04: If you ever make a mistake, why try anymore?
SPEAKER_04: You already blew it.
SPEAKER_04: Instead of wow.
SPEAKER_04: Like there's hope.
SPEAKER_04: And I'm telling you I believe this and I don't believe it at all.
SPEAKER_04: Because when my kids make a mistake, it's over.
SPEAKER_04: You know?
SPEAKER_04: That's my reaction.
SPEAKER_04: I'd like it to be true.
SPEAKER_04: God help my unbelief when somebody cuts me off in traffic.
SPEAKER_04: God help my unbelief when my neighbor puts on a political sign that makes me think you just want me to know you're dumb.
SPEAKER_04: I believe.
SPEAKER_04: Help me overcome my unbelief.
SPEAKER_04: The God of infinite possibilities.
SPEAKER_04: Now I have this friend who you heard from a couple weeks ago, Sean Steele, and we got together this week, and he said, What are you preaching on?
SPEAKER_04: And I said, Well, I'm preaching a different lectionary from you.
SPEAKER_04: And uh, so we really didn't get to have the conversation we normally would have had.
SPEAKER_04: But what was really great is I said, but what are you doing?
SPEAKER_04: And Sean, unlike me, he really likes to use old words that in some ways I've found real abusive and have a hard time with them.
SPEAKER_04: But he likes to redefine them and continue using those words like sovereign.
SPEAKER_04: I learned as a kid that God is sovereign.
SPEAKER_04: And I struggle with that because the truth is 40,000 children are gonna starve to death this week.
SPEAKER_04: And I have a really hard time reconciling my idea of sovereignty with that fact.
SPEAKER_04: By the way, that's a fact.
SPEAKER_04: 22 veterans are likely going to kill themselves today.
SPEAKER_04: I have a really hard time reconciling sovereignty with that.
SPEAKER_04: I hope you do too.
SPEAKER_04: And of course, what Sean said that is so fantastic is that we stumble over sovereignty when we conflate it with control.
SPEAKER_04: Control is my version of sovereignty.
SPEAKER_04: That's when my kids do exactly what I tell them, because I do know better than they do.
SPEAKER_04: And by the way, I probably do.
SPEAKER_04: They'd be at least as miserable as I am if they did everything I told them.
SPEAKER_04: Sovereignty is about getting your way.
SPEAKER_04: That's how you show you're really in control.
SPEAKER_04: Of course, the scriptures offer us a different version of sovereignty.
SPEAKER_04: One in which, to quote Paul's epistle to the Romans, God is able to work all things to the good of those who love God.
SPEAKER_04: So, what if we stumble over the idea of control when instead we're invited to build a living temple in which no matter what you do, God is sovereign enough to fix it?
SPEAKER_04: Maybe fix this with the right word.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe God is sovereign enough to turn it to your good and to the good of the world.
SPEAKER_04: Which definition of sovereignty takes more power for you?
SPEAKER_04: Somebody who has to have their own way in everything you do, or someone who can take anything you do and have their own way.
SPEAKER_04: I stumble over sovereignty as control.
SPEAKER_04: But I think God is greater than that.
SPEAKER_04: I believe it.
SPEAKER_04: God helped me overcome my unbelief when other people stumble in my eyes, when I don't meet my own expectations.
SPEAKER_04: Otherwise, what are we left with?
SPEAKER_04: God gives leukemia to a child to teach us a lesson?
SPEAKER_04: That's gross.
SPEAKER_04: I hope you'll agree.
SPEAKER_04: That's gross.
SPEAKER_04: Leukaemia happens, and it's catastrophic.
SPEAKER_04: And what I'm saying doesn't take away from it.
SPEAKER_04: But what I'm saying, I think, is some good news.
SPEAKER_04: There is nowhere we go where God isn't going with us.
SPEAKER_04: And there is no thing that happens that God cannot.
SPEAKER_04: Rede's not quite the right word, is it?
SPEAKER_04: Work to our good.
SPEAKER_04: Otherwise, we're left with a puppet master in the sky who does things we know are wrong.
SPEAKER_04: We know are wrong.
SPEAKER_04: I believe.
SPEAKER_04: But God helped me overcome my unbelief.
SPEAKER_04: Now, I've mentioned this story before.
SPEAKER_04: I have this friend who uh works at a big uh big firm as a corporate attorney.
SPEAKER_04: And even years ago, she would say to me, you know, I make more money than I know what to do with.
SPEAKER_04: And I thought, I'd love to have that problem.
SPEAKER_04: Uh so she would say this, right?
SPEAKER_04: And she wasn't making millions of dollars, but she was making doing great, you know.
SPEAKER_04: And uh then a couple weeks later, she asked me, she said, Do you give 10% of your income like to church?
SPEAKER_04: And I said, Yeah, I do, actually.
SPEAKER_04: And she said, Well, I look at how much that would be, and I can't give that away.
SPEAKER_04: But I make more money than I know what to do with.
SPEAKER_04: I believe.
SPEAKER_04: Did you see?
SPEAKER_04: God help me overcome my unbelief.
SPEAKER_04: I don't have a good object lesson for this right now, but I will tell you, 8 o'clock.
SPEAKER_04: We had this little baby in here who has been pretty quiet, but today was being alive, you know?
SPEAKER_04: Today was being alive.
SPEAKER_04: And this is a gift of this congregation, whether you know it or not, it's a gift, because nobody does this.
SPEAKER_04: You do this, right?
SPEAKER_04: I believe that children should be in church.
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes I worry about when I hear that.
SPEAKER_04: You have helped me overcome my unbelief, especially when it was my kid.
SPEAKER_04: Because it was.
SPEAKER_04: You were right.
SPEAKER_04: And if I had to say why we do this at all, it's because of that.
SPEAKER_04: Because without you, I wouldn't have this community that perpetually helps me overcome my unbelief.
SPEAKER_04: I wouldn't have this group of people that I want to be like when I grow up, if that ever happens.
SPEAKER_04: Because there are the things I believe, and there's this unbelief.
SPEAKER_04: And we help each other with God's help overcome our unbelief, which is why I come back most weeks.
SPEAKER_04: It's why I need to come back.
SPEAKER_04: Because I don't do a very good job overcoming my own unbelief by myself.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know what it is that you believe and don't.
SPEAKER_04: But I do know that probably each of us, like the man in this story, is desperate for something.
SPEAKER_04: He's desperate.
SPEAKER_04: Do you see it?
SPEAKER_04: And maybe desperation is enough to believe him.
SPEAKER_04: If we can't admit that we're desperate, I think we're lying to ourselves.
SPEAKER_04: But if we can say, yeah, I'm desperate for this, help me overcome my unbelief.
SPEAKER_04: Well, then I think we can start on something.
SPEAKER_04: I think we can start, and as I've often found the case to be, and Jesus concludes this section, he says, This kind can only come out through prayer.
SPEAKER_04: Do you see that word?
SPEAKER_04: Through prayer.
SPEAKER_04: And I'm not silly.
SPEAKER_04: I'm really not silly on this.
SPEAKER_04: Because all the mystics that I've read, I mean the people who know way more than I do, knowledge-wise, wisdom-wise, faith-wise, they say the purpose for prayer is not to change God.
SPEAKER_04: The purpose of prayer is to change us.
SPEAKER_04: I believe that and I don't believe it, because I want God to fix all my problems, don't you?
SPEAKER_04: And I pray that way.
SPEAKER_04: Fix my problems.
SPEAKER_04: Take away my grief.
SPEAKER_04: I don't want a ticket.
SPEAKER_04: Let me get an A on this test, I'll be a nun.
SPEAKER_04: This is the kind of stuff that we do.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus reminds us that when we see somebody who's different from us, we only fix that problem through prayer.
SPEAKER_04: Here's somebody that maybe is having a seizure.
SPEAKER_04: Do I pray for God to fix them?
SPEAKER_04: Or through prayer, might God fix the way I relate to them?
SPEAKER_04: And when people are in pain, we go to the doctor.
SPEAKER_04: There's nothing redemptive about suffering.
SPEAKER_04: But I think we always have to ask ourselves, is this person who seems different from me actually in pain?
SPEAKER_04: Or am I imposing pain on them because they're different from me?
SPEAKER_04: I've said this before.
SPEAKER_04: If you don't have the power of speech, should you be pitied?
SPEAKER_04: God, I hope not.
SPEAKER_04: Because there is nothing wrong with somebody who does not have the power of speech.
SPEAKER_04: They have as much love and dignity from God as they will ever have.
SPEAKER_04: When you see a child with Down syndrome, should they be pitied?
SPEAKER_04: Because their brain doesn't work like yours.
SPEAKER_04: God, I hope not.
SPEAKER_04: Because if I approach them in pity, it means I approach them as less than myself.
SPEAKER_04: Are we invited to approach them with consideration and empathy, God?
SPEAKER_04: I hope so.
SPEAKER_04: When we can't stuff as many envelopes in an hour as our neighbor, are we to be pitied?
SPEAKER_04: When we can't clear as many pumpkins off the truck as our neighbor in ten minutes, are we to be pitied?
SPEAKER_04: God, I hope not.
SPEAKER_04: Which is why we pray.
SPEAKER_04: We don't pray for cures.
SPEAKER_04: We pray for healing.
SPEAKER_04: Because the difference between cure and healing is that you become the way I need you to be when I cure you.
SPEAKER_04: Healing is when you are who you are and we love you for who you are.
SPEAKER_04: And in this story, boy, maybe it's easy for Jesus to cure a boy's symptoms than to heal the way the community treats him.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe it's easier to cure somebody's apparent problems than to heal ourselves of pitying other people because they appear different.
SPEAKER_04: And isn't that too bad?
SPEAKER_04: Isn't that too bad?
SPEAKER_04: I believe.