27 July 2025 #LetItGo
There’s this little prayer that Fr. Dave reads right after the Gloria: the Collect. It’s that time of the Mass when Fr. Dave invites us to offer our intentions silently for a moment and then - in our name and with our intentions – offers those prayers to God while expressing the theme of the readings. Here’s the Collect for this weekend:
“O God, protector of those who hope in you, without whom nothing has a firm foundation and nothing is holy, bestow in abundance your mercy upon us - and grant that, with you as our ruler and guide - we may use the good things that pass in such a way as to hold fast, even now, to those that ever endure.”
Did you catch the theme? Pray in hope - and with persistence. I love hearing the Collect as I know my prayers are now laid at the feet of the Lord and heard by the sounds of His heart… so that my entire being can joy-fully listen to the readings and peace-fully worship in mind, body, and soul, for God has taken care of all the rest. Like Elsa from the film Frozen, I just “Let It Go.”
That’s all Abraham is really after too: for God to tend to his new burden so he can return to his peace-filled life. Last week we saw Abraham providing hospitality to God, and life was very good… good food, good company, and the good news that Sarah would bear a son. Today, we see a sudden shift as God now gives Abraham the bad news: his beloved nephew Lot, partner and confidant now living in Sodom, is about to experience the wrath of God… collateral damage to the prayers of the innocent in Sodom and Gomorrah, as it were. For the good sometimes die alongside the bad when evil is persuasive and pervasive, and Abraham knows this truth of life.
What Abraham doesn’t know is where the line in the sand is drawn between justice and mercy. A reasonable question, the same we all have at one time or another. So Abraham asks the hard question of God: How can we pray for those we love who get caught up in bad things not of their making? To use the language of the Collect: How do we invoke “the abundance of God’s mercy” to “use the good things that pass” in such a way as to hold fast “to those that endure forever”?
Or: How do we protect innocence in the midst of evil while giving gravitas to the justice of God, and still hold tight to the promises of heaven? In today’s readings, the innocent of Sodom cry out to the Lord for justice while Abraham simultaneously pleads for mercy. Both are valid, though seemingly opposing, prayer requests.
God moves in mysterious ways for us and Abraham: Yes, Lot and his family are saved. Yes, the evil of Sodom is obliterated. Yes, mercy and justice co-exist and cooperate in God’s own way and will. This is the truth-of-life too.
#LetItGo