My first sermon as written for my deacon training class. Not everything that is written was said and I said some stuff that is not in this text. It was on the Luke parable about the persistent widow. Luke 18:1-14


Keep It Up


What was wrong with that woman? She obviously didn’t know when to give up or how to take a hint. She might have just as well been hitting her head against a wall. How did she do it? How did she keep it up? How do any of us keep it up? How many of us, while growing up, heard that phrase? Keep it up. Keep it up and I’ll show you my belt, keep it up and I’ll pull this car over, keep it up and Santa Claus won’t be visiting you. It’s a wonder any of us are here; a wonder any of us get up day after day after day. The woman in Luke kept it up. She got up every single day wanting justice, never once ceasing until she got it. Justice. Now there’s a word it’s sometimes hard to imagine seeing. Look at our world: children are abducted, natural disasters take out thousands at a time, riots, cancer, hard workers laid off. And within our own lives: the hurt, the derision, the pain, the loss. Why even bother? Why not give up? What compels us to keep it up? The woman in Luke knows. She wanted justice, however, couldn’t it just as easily have been love, friendship, family or something else that was worth getting a door slammed in her face every day? Many of us are taught growing up that persistence pays off; we are told if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. We are told to never give up. Many of us are taught that from an early age. The woman in Luke was obviously taught that same thing. In the movie Titanic, Jack and Rose are on a sinking ship; literally. Some people hurl themselves into the ocean desperate to get off of the ship; others sit in their rooms quietly accepting their fate; still others push people out of the way to be first on one of the lifeboats. Jack and Rose do none of this; they stick with the ship and each other despite the pandemonium around them. They keep their hope up until the very end, even when the ship plunges into the water, they hold on to anything they can find that will keep them afloat. And when Jack has passed on Rose still promises never to “let go.” Sometimes our lives are like a sinking ship. We flounder and flail and search, sometimes in vain, for something or someone to hold on to. How do we do it? How do we stay afloat and not sink? How do we keep it up? How do we keep knocking on that same door? Almost twelve years ago, a week before my 21st birthday, I had three things happen to me. My married lover moved out without so much as a note, my mom died of cancer, and my sister and brother shunned me when they found out I was gay. Talk about a birthday celebration! I just wanted to crawl under the covers of my bed and never ever come out. Instead I got up every single day, went to work, spent more time with the few friends I had and eventually I realized I was not drowning and flailing; instead I was floating along peacefully. How? How is it possible for any of us to do that? Faith. Faith that things will get better, will get easier, will get done. We may not realize it but we have it inside of us; it’s what keeps us going, keeps us from drowning. So why do some drown while others stay afloat? For the same reason that some people believe in ghosts and others don’t. Many of us think: How can we believe in something we can’t see? How can we believe in something that we can’t look at with our eyes? The answer is that we can. That’s how we have the faith to keep going. The song is called open the eyes of my heart for a reason. We know we can see God; our eyes reveal God to us every day. We see things that prove there is goodness that prove faith is alive that prove there is a God. We see these things every day, everywhere we go. People opening their homes to strangers after a natural disaster; the couple that adopts a newborn with AIDS; people donating brand new clothes to someone who has lost everything; someone in the checkout line at the store who helps a stranger pay for their groceries. People stand up for the weak, the oppressed, the downtrodden. Yes, these things really do happen; every single day. Look at our own church at how so many people have been touched, opened up, and experienced that faith that they thought they had lost. It was never lost, it was always there; it was just a matter of opening our eyes again to see it. So like the woman in Luke it is imperative that we persist in our endeavors. We need to keep searching, keep trying, keep from drowning. We need to use the eyes that God blessed us with. We have to keep knock knock knocking on those doors. We need to persist in our faith so that hope will remain alive. We need to keep it up. If we do then we’ll see that behind those doors God is showing us the things that we are so desperately seeking. Amen.