Hope Asks Questions

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Qais Al Sindy, Compassionate

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INVOCATION

Spirit, come. We stand as question marks – ready to listen. 

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CLOUD OF WITNESS

Abraham Proves God
Genesis 18: 23-33, Plain English Version

Abraham went up close to God and asked him, “Are you going to kill all the good people, as well as the bad people? There might be fifty good people that live the right way down there in that town. Will you still finish up that town? Or will you save that town to save those fifty good people? I don’t think you will kill fifty good people. I know that you are the judge of everybody in the world, and you always do what is right. I don’t think you will kill the good people with the bad people.”

God said, “If I find fifty good people in Sodom, I will not finish up that town. I will save that town so that I can save those fifty good people.”

Then Abraham said, “Look, I know that I am just a man and you are God, but I’m being brave and I’m talking to you. I want to ask you another question. What if you find only forty-five good people in that town, will you still finish up that town?”

God said, “If I find forty-five good people there, I will not finish up that town.”

Then Abraham asked God again, he said, “What if you find only forty good people there?”

God said, “If I find forty good people there, I will not finish up that town.”

Then Abraham said, “God, please don’t get angry with me, but I will say a little bit more. What if you find only thirty good people in that town?”

God said, “If I find thirty good people there, I will not finish up that town.”

Then Abraham said, “I know that I am being brave to talk to God like this, but what if you find only twenty good people in that town?”

God said, “If I find twenty good people there, I will not finish up that town.”

Then Abraham said, “God, please don’t get angry with me, but I will ask one more question. What if you find only ten good people in that town?”

God said, “If I find ten good people there, I will not finish up that town.”

Then they finished talking, and God left Abraham, and Abraham went back to his camp.

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A WORD OF HOPE

Hope asks questions. It’s moved to interrogate. It wants to understand. It’s open to listening and to having awkward conversations. It encourages us to wonder out loud, to cross-examine God, to the pick the Creator’s brain. 

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CANTICLE

from Thomas Merton, Book of Hours

Wrestling quietly with the circumstances of my life.
There is an attitude to be taken, there are decisions to be made.

There is a radical refusal demanded of me somewhere
and I do not know where it begins and ends and how to approach it.

God makes us ask ourselves questions most often when Spirit intends to resolve them.
Spirit gives us needs that God alone can satisfy
and awakens capacities that God means to fulfill. 

Any perplexity is liable to be a spiritual gestation, 
leading to a new birth and mystical generation.

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BENEDICTION

Let us go back to our living and our days asking God, “If only 50…if only 45… if only 30… if only 10…”

Who knows what cities our questions might just save. 

Selah