Damnit, God! How Long Will You Ignore Me?

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
October 19, 2025
Proper 24, C
Genesis 32:22-31
Psalm 121
Luke 18:1-8

We have an adorable, 30-pound, terrier-pinscher, mutt-thing of a dog named Thor at home. He is sweet as he can be, a little neurotic, and dumb as a stump, by which I mean he’s actually not that dumb; he just has a mind of his own and doesn’t necessarily do what we want him to do all the time. Take eating, for example. We’ll put the food in his bowl, and if he’s not really ready to eat, it’ll make no never mind to him that our other dog, River, will eat all of his food, followed by all of hers. 

He knows he won’t get more food, so if he’s really hungry, he’ll stop her, otherwise, he doesn’t much seem to care that we want him to eat. He’ll just do without.

When it comes to eating our food, however, he is always hungry. The fact that he rarely ever gets our food doesn’t stop him from staring up at us, not whining, not being a pest, just staring, waiting, full-on expectant, loving puppy dog eyes. 

Not our daughter, but
still Thor begging food.

He did this with our daughter just the other day, following her around the house for five minutes as she went from room to room, eating her breakfast sandwich. We all watched, along with our daughter, chuckling, and eventually, he wore her down. She gave him a bit of cheesy, eggy biscuit, and he trotted off, happy as a dog with a bone…or bacon. 

Thor does this all the time, and he knows that most of the time, he’s getting nothing, but he still tries. He tries because maybe not today, maybe not this week, but eventually, his persistence will pay off, and he’ll get some bit of the people food that he dearly loves. 

So, regarding Jesus’ lesson, teaching us to pray always and not lose heart, my family is like the unjust judge, and our dog, Thor, is like the widow, wearing us down by his persistence. Would that we all had the same persistence in faith and prayer as that little dog has in getting people food, and yes, I realize I just compared all of us to dogs begging for food. Oops. 

Of course, so did Jesus and the Gentile woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter. So, lesson learned? Call yourself a dog, and Jesus will give you whatever you want? Maybe not?

Faithfulness is what’s really going on: keeping at our faith even when we’re really tired of waiting, keeping at prayer and living the ways of Jesus. That’s what Jesus taught the disciples, “to pray always and not lose heart.” 

So, how’s this prayer sound? “Damnit, God. How long will you ignore me? How long will this crap keep going on? How long are you going to do nothing?”

Sounds a bit cheeky. Maybe a little heretical for a prayer, but it’s not. It’s really just a more modern, angsty teenager version of Psalm 13. “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me? Look upon me and answer me, O LORD my God” (Psalm 13:1, 3a)

Damnit, God. How long will you ignore me? How long will this crap keep going on? How long are you going to do nothing? 

“Pray always, and do not lose heart,” Jesus said. Now, sometimes you can’t help losing heart. That’s part of what prayer is for, to offer ourselves to God in those times when we have lost heart. The challenge is to keep praying through losing heart. Keep praying while you lose heart.

Jesus’ advice is to keep praying that “How long, O Lord?”, prayer. It’s an honest prayer. So, keep praying that prayer until it changes from “How long, O Lord?” to “Thank you.” That’s what happens in Psalm 13. The prayer changes from angsty teenager, “How long, O Lord?”, to “Thank you, Lord.” That change may take a while. It may take a long while. The change from “How long?”, to “Thank you,” may take a lifetime or many lifetimes. 

There were times for the people of Israel when it was generations before the prayer changed. Looking at life here in the United States, civil rights and equal rights for all people has been a struggle for generations. The “How long?”, has in many ways been changed to “Thank you,” and yet there are many ways we are still praying, “How long, O Lord?”

The change may take generations and longer, and so Jesus asks, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

What do we do while we are persistently praying and waiting? Our behavior has a lot to do with the answer to Jesus’ question. “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Will Jesus find us waiting patiently, prayerfully, and faithfully? Will Jesus find us living his teachings as we wait? That’s a question not only about our faith and faithfulness, but also the faith and faithfulness we may inspire in others. 

See, regardless of how much we pray or what we pray, what people see us doing is what they’re going to believe about Jesus. Truth be told, regardless of what we pray or how much we pray, what we do tends to show us where our faith really lies. 

In Bible study last week, we were talking about the ways of Jesus: forgiveness, choosing non-violence, etc. “That’s crazy,” one person replied. “In here, in the church,” he said, “it’s easy to talk about forgiveness and non-violence. Outside when you’ve got people coming at you all the time, it’s not so easy. It seems crazy to follow Jesus’ teachings out there.”

Well, yeah. As Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:18, the Gospel does seem foolish, and yet it is the power of God. The ways of the streets are, be stronger, be tougher, be mean so you can survive, and it’s hard as hell not to be, and yet, that’s the way of the world. Are we going to put our trust in the ways of the world, or are we going to put our trust in the ways of Jesus?

Non-violence seems crazy. Fair enough. Non-violence in the face of injustice seems crazy, and yet it was non-violence that brought about the greatest change in the Civil Rights Movement. Looking at today, street protests seeking justice are good, until they get violent. Once violence starts, the people seeking justice are seen as villains, and so the justice they seek is seen as injustice. 

When a group of people cries out, “How long, O Lord?”, but also engages in crime and drugs, fighting and hurting other, how could that people expect that God should grant justice? The crime and violence delay any justice that could come, because the people who might have grant justice no longer will. They no longer see people in need of justice, but simply criminals in need of punishment.

Crying for justice doesn’t work if we do not also follow the ways and teachings of Jesus. “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” 

Where will Jesus find that our faith lies? What will our actions show about where our faith lies? How long are we willing to wait and be persistent in prayer to bring about the justice and peace we desire? How long are we willing to trust in the ways and teachings of Jesus as we wait for justice and peace? 

Are we willing to live the prayer and teachings of Jesus for generations as we wait for justice to come? Are we willing to be faithful over generations so our children and grandchildren can live the fruits of our faithfulness? 

If not, our children and grandchildren will live the fruits of our faithlessness and violence. We will hand them the same injustice and violence that we suffer. 

If we are faithful, however, if we continue in prayer, if we risk enough to follow the ways and teachings of Jesus, then our prayer will turn from “How long, O Lord?”, to “Thank you, Lord.” It may not be today. It may not be this year. It may not even be this lifetime, but the prayer will change. Justice will come. Even if it takes generations. If we are faithful in prayer and in action, if we follow the ways and teachings of Jesus, the prayer will change from “How long?”, to “Thank you.”

Poppy Seeds and Drowning Trees

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
October 5, 2025
Proper 23, C
Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
Psalm 37:1-10
Luke 17:5-10

“Increase our faith,” the disciples commanded Jesus, and Jesus said, “No.” Strange, huh? How often was God pleading with the Israelites to have more faith? How often did Jesus say things like, “Do not doubt, but believe”? You’d think of all things that they would ask for, faith is one that Jesus would say, “Sure, man, more faith, deeper faith, all the faith you want, you got it!” That’s not what happened, though. He told them, “no.”

What Jesus was really telling his disciples was, “You don’t need more faith. You just need to do well and trust with the faith you’ve got.” 

That’s how the disciples had chosen to live, trusting Jesus and living as though his teachings really were the best way of life for them…until Jesus said ‘forgive people, like, a lot.’ That’s what Jesus had taught them just before they said, “Give us more faith!”

These are the same folks who had been healing people and casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Jesus told them to go do that, and they were so excited. They didn’t cower down and say they weren’t ready or not strong enough in faith. They went out boldly, healed the sick, and cast out demons like Buffy the Vampire Slayer on speed. They came back and were swapping stories, so excited.

Then, weeks or months later, Jesus taught them to forgive people who wronged them, not just once or twice, but over and over. Forgive people, Jesus taught, a lot, because people are kinda messed up, and they keep messing up, and as often as they do and then turn around and try to make things right, Jesus taught to forgive. Over, and over, and over, forgive people. 

Suddenly the disciples were saying, “Forgiveness, eh, eh, are your sure about that one, Jesus? Yeah, maybe I don’t trust you that much after all, but thanks a ton. It’s been great, loved casting out demons, don’t think I have enough faith in me for forgiveness, though.”

So, Jesus told them, no. You’re not getting more faith. You’re not getting more belief. What you have is enough. He told them that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to a tree, “Hey Tree, go throw yourself into a lake,” and the tree would pull its own roots out of the ground, walk over to the lake, and throw itself in. 

Now, I don’t think Jesus meant that we would or could actually do this. As a kid, I wondered, “Why can’t I make a tree throw itself into a lake? I guess my faith isn’t good enough?” I don’t know, maybe I only had a half a mustard seed or just a poppy seed of faith. 

No, Jesus doesn’t mean that we’re failures in faith if we can’t actually make a tree walk to its death in a lake. Jesus was using this kinda weird image to illustrate the point that his disciples didn’t need more faith to forgive people as he was teaching. Whatever small amount of faith they had was sufficient. What they needed was faithfulness. 

What they needed was to trust Jesus and be faithful to what he taught. Then, their faith would grow. Like not by faith alone, but also by faithfulness. That’s what we heard in Habakkuk. The righteous live by their faith, or really by their faithfulness. 

The disciples thought they didn’t have enough faith. Perhaps they doubted and so thought they couldn’t be faithful because of their doubt.

The opposite of faith, however, is not doubt. Jesus talked about faith the size of a mustard seed. That ain’t a lot of faith, which means you’re going to have doubt. In fact, you can’t have faith without doubt. Doubt goes hand in hand with faith, and we wrestle with it.

Mother Theresa, for example, was hugely faithful to God’s calling on her to care for orphaned children in Calcutta, India. She devoted her whole life to those children, and throughout her life she had faith and struggled with deep doubt. She wrestled with it, and Jesus didn’t grant her more faith. The faith she had was sufficient, and she remained faithful with even that small amount of faith. 

So no, the opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty. I don’t need faith to know that two plus two equals four. I need faith to believe that the people in my life who love me actually love me. I mean, I’m pretty sure they do, but I can’t read their minds. I trust them. Love is based on trust, on faith, and faith requires humility enough to admit that I don’t know everything, and I’m going to trust anyway. 

Through my wrestling with faith and doubt, I too wanted more faith, until I realized that what I really wanted was certainty. I’d so often heard people talk about their faith as certainty. Pastors would say they know their faith is true beyond any doubt, and I could never get there. I finally realized that I could never know with certainty, but I also realized I love God becoming human and joining with us physically in every part of our lives, and I love it so much that I choose to believe it. I still don’t know. I still have doubt, and I choose to believe anyway.

I admitted this to a group of pastors during a Bible study one day, and there was stony silence in the room. Finally, one of them said, “Well yeah, I have doubts just like you’re talking about, but I’d never admit that to my congregation.” There was agreement throughout the room by the rest of the pastors who all wrestled with doubts but who put on a show of having certainty in their faith. 

That means that those pastors were all lying to their congregations. They would never admit having doubts. They were pretending to have certainty that they didn’t have, and they were leading their people to think that they had to have certainty too. That means that these pastors were inadvertently leading their people away from the humility of faith and toward the pride of certainty.

Certainty says, I must be right. I am so certain that I am right, that I won’t even question it. You disagree with me. You, therefore, are not only wrong, but terribly, stupidly, sinfully wrong. 

The pride of certainty is not faith. That sound like how a lot of religious and political discourse goes nowadays? Behind certainty is the sin of pride. I am right. I know better. I am so important. I can put myself in God’s place. God said not to eat this fruit in the Garden of Eden, but I know better. I will do it anyway and place myself above God. 

Jesus said have faith the size of a mustard seed. Well, I’m going to do better than that. I’m going to have huge faith, certainty with no doubts. There’s pride there. Something is hard to believe or do, so I’ll go with certainty, rather than faith, and I’ll make sure that anyone who disagrees gets put in their place because despite what Jesus said, faith isn’t enough for me. I need certainty. 

No you don’t, Jesus said. Just have a little bit of faith, and follow that faith up with faithfulness. Trust in my ways, Jesus taught us, even when you’re not sure. Set yourself aside and trust in Jesus’ ways and teachings as we walk this life together. When I don’t think forgiveness is right, ‘cause it sure doesn’t feel right, I’m going to assume I don’t know everything. I’m going to trust in Jesus instead.

Faith is humble enough to believe in something, knowing that you’re not sure, and even not being sure, choosing to give yourself over to this belief. Faith says, I will give my heart to this belief. I will choose to live as though this faith is true. I will choose to live as though the teachings of Jesus really are the best way of life for me. I will let go of the certainty of self and humbly accept this little amount of faith, and follow where it leads.