Sermons

Summary: Our Father will guard our coming and going both now and into eternity.

Twenty-ninth Sunday Integral 2025

One of the most long-lasting feuds in the Bible is encountered in today’s OT reading. “Amalek came and waged war against Israel.” Exodus does not tell us the why or the when, but this nation of Amalek attacked Israel, perhaps without provocation. Moses, the Israelite leader, was too old to lead in battle. Joshua—in Hebrew that is spelled exactly like the name of Jesus of Nazareth, our Lord—led the Israelites while Moses stood on a hilltop with Aaron and Hur to pray. He acted as an intercessor before God, and while his prayer went to God, Israel “had the better of the fight.” When he slackened, they began to lose. But when all three men worked together to facilitate the prayer, Amalek lost decisively. Daily we should imitate Moses, Aaron and Hur by interceding for all those who need our prayers, and we should do it as a family, supporting each other’s intercession.

The nation of Amalek was cursed at the end of this battle. Moses built an altar there because God told him, ““Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven.” Decades later, one of the reasons God deposed King Saul as king of Israel is that he failed to follow the command to eliminate Amalek, and during the exile, one of the descendants of the Amalekites, Haman, plotted to exterminate Israel. That was the story of Queen Esther and the origin of the feast of Purim. But, of course, God thwarted that genocidal scheme, because of Esther’s intercessory prayer.

In the OT, nations went to war under the banner of their national gods. That is surely what Amalek did when they attacked Israel. But, as our psalmist teaches today, in any time of crisis, our help is from the Lord, the true God, who made heaven and earth and is our constant defender. In our spiritual warfare, which goes on between St. Michael under the banner of Christ, and Satan under his own banner, we need only ask for God’s help to defeat the foe. Our Father will guard our coming and going both now and into eternity.

St. Luke gives us a parable about the necessity for us to pray always even if we get tired of praying for the same thing month after month, year after year. God has His own timetable and we must respect it. So Jesus throws a little humor into this situation. There was a judge who respected neither God nor man. In other words, he was a jerk. Widows in the time of Christ were at the bottom of society. So the judge keeps deferring justice for this widow, and she keeps coming back with a new petition. It took him a “long time” but her persistence paid off. In fact, he realized that he had painted her into an impossible corner so that he was afraid she might respond to the injustice with a physical assault. He was a jerk, but he was also a coward. He did what was right, and she got justice.

Jesus is not telling us to imitate the cowardly judge, but it seems right to think through the story and think of our prayer to the Father. God loves us. After all, God loves us so much that He gave His only begotten son to death to atone for our sins and raised Him up and ascended Him to His right hand so we become His adopted children. If we pray for a healing, or a solution to a financial crisis, or for a friend or relative to repent and come to Christ and His Church, we cannot impose a deadline on God’s reply. He’s not an unjust judge, but He is the judge and knows what is best for everyone concerned.

While we are waiting and praying, St. Paul tells us through Timothy what we should be doing. Timothy came to Christ through the prayers and teaching of his mother and his grandmother—read the whole short second letter of Paul to Timothy for that beautiful story. Timothy spent time reading and studying the OT (that’s the only sacred scriptures the early Christians had in the first couple of decades). We should wait and pray and intercede and study and participate in the Church’s sacramental life. We should also spread the joy of the Lord to those who do not know that happiness, persistently being charitable to others and sharing the Gospel. We will then be known as “encouragers” if we act patiently in our daily encounters.

As we prayed in today’s Introit antiphon, We call to God, who will surely heed us, turning His ear to us, and guarding us in our spiritual battle as the apple of His eye. Blessed be His Holy Name forever.

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