[Sermon] The Prayer That Runs Between Floors

Pastor Hector Garfias-Toledo + July 27, 2025

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 17

With a touch of humor and a deeply personal story, Pastor Hector brings us into a week of chaos, hope, and divine irony. From hospital hallways to ancient holy debates, this sermon weaves together the messiness of life and the mystery of prayer. Abraham’s back-and-forth with God is not just bargaining—it’s bold relational trust. Like a daughter sprinting between hospital floors, we, too, intercede for those we love, unsure how things will unfold but hoping God hears. This sermon reminds us that God’s justice is not about wrath but about relationship—and that mercy often begins with a conversation.

Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatic captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.

Grace to you and peace from Aba, Father, Mother, Creator, and the Lord Jesus Christ—who is our Savior, our Lord, our friend, the one who challenges us to see in others the presence of our creative God. And we said, amen.

How are you today?

Good.

As you come into this place, what are you asking God here in your heart?

What are we seeking this morning as we are gathered by the Spirit?

Where are the things that we want to share with God, or the things that we are hoping that God will be sharing with us as we are gathered with God's people in this place?

Prayer. Prayer. That thing that we talk about, that we practice, that we don't practice, that we forget. Prayer—the thing that we talk about all the time in church.

As you know, a few weeks ago my sister and I—and I have shared this in different episodes; it's almost like a drama now—but in another episode of my life... and uh, we went—my sister and I went—to Mexico to be with my parents. Before we went to Mexico, my sister, who is a teacher, was hoping that if my parents were going to have surgery, that the surgeries were going to happen during the time that she would be on vacation from school. So she was praying, she told me, and hoping that that would happen—that God would listen to her prayer and that would happen.

So, the prayers were answered, I guess. Or let’s see what you think—because the surgery was scheduled, one of my mother’s surgeries was scheduled, the week that my sister was on a break. Thanks be to God, prayers are answered.

So she's prepared. She goes a week before I do. And then, while she is in Mexico, another surgery comes—just two days after my mother’s surgery. My father's surgery now. And here is my sister in Mexico. I cannot go, because I was still here.

Two parents having surgeries the same week. Major surgeries.

My parents end up in the same hospital, on different floors. My father is on the third, my mother is on the fourth—or vice versa. And then my sister, who is by herself, needs to be running from the third to the fourth, from the fourth to the third, from the fourth to the first, and the first to the third—because the doctors want to talk, the nurses want to talk to her—and she's running like crazy.

She told me later that she went to her husband—my brother-in-law—and she said, “Oh my goodness, I think that God answered my prayers... but I didn’t expect that.”

And my brother-in-law says, “Well, next time that you pray, I think that you need to be more specific with God.”

As we read in this almost comical passage of the Old Testament, we have the portrayal of God and Abraham in a tug of war. Both are bargaining with each other and not willing to give in to each other’s agendas.

This passage makes me think of a couple—or maybe a parent and a child—or maybe a client or customer in a marketplace trying to purchase something for a better price. Arguing, pushing and pulling, and trying to get what they want.

This is a story that we read in the Old Testament, a story that brings maybe many emotions and many, many—uh—feelings to us as we read it.

And I believe that in the traditional interpretation, there are three main points that we can see in this story:

1. That we can bargain with God.

2. That we can change God's mind if we just pray harder—like my sister.

3. And that God's retributive justice is one of punishment.

And this is almost like the Santa Claus kind of theology that says if you're naughty, you're not going to get anything—or you're going to get something really bad.

Especially this last point, about the retributive justice of God—it is an approach that, for whatever reason, in the history of the church has become popular and almost expected. This retributive justice of God—destroying, destroying Sodom and the people in Sodom—that God is a violent God. That we need to dismiss these stories from the Bible when we read them and listen to them.

And I think the reason is because we tend to read the stories from a human perspective—from human reason, or using human images, and using our human experience. This approach, unfortunately, scares us and leads us to refuse any possible dialogue with God, because God seems to be a God who is coming to walk among mortals to punish them for the bad things that they are doing.

But as I have said, the stories that we read in the Bible are stories that are there to evoke in us the interest and the curiosity—and to disrupt us. Yes, to disrupt our purely human conceptualization of a God who is greater than what we can explain, imagine, or even define.

This story describes the profound interplay between God’s perfect justice and God’s boundless mercy that is demonstrated through Abraham’s bold intercession—even for those who are considered the wicked, the bad, the deplorables.

It is God, if you notice, who initiates the relationship. Not in this passage, but if we read the previous verses, we will read when God is announcing to Abraham that he is going to be the father of many nations, when he is going to give a child to Sarah—that changes her name to Sarah—and, by the way, changes the name of Abram to Abraham.

Abram, which means “exalted ancestor”—and to me, that sounds almost like a very personal, private, individual kind of description of Abram.

Abraham, in that case, takes on a new name: “ancestor of a multitude”—a new identity that gives him a new idea, over that he is going to be part—and, as I said in the beginning of this service—to become an extension of God’s mercy. A communal understanding of him being part of something bigger than he can ever imagine.

God’s justice, my siblings in Christ, invites us to an intimate dialogue. And the power of this story that we read in the Old Testament today is a reminder that God’s justice confronts evil.

As I told the young worshippers—when God goes into the city and cannot stand anymore what is going on among people, cannot ignore the wickedness of what is going on in the city—what will God do, or how would God feel coming to the streets of this community, to the countries of this world, right now?

This story tells us about God’s mercy and willingness to relent. God involves Abraham. God is mercy, not destruction. And God is willing to spare an entire city for the sake of a relatively few righteous people.

And I want us to keep in mind that the word in Hebrew that is used for "spare" is not that the good people, or for their sake, are an atonement for those who are bad in the city. It is solely God’s love and mercy that annuls the decision of destroying the city. It is God's love. It is God's mercy.

Another point of this story is the value of the righteous—the tug of war that hinges on a small remnant of the righteous whom God values and Abraham sees as needing to be saved. Even a small number can bring a collective mercy.

And lastly, this story tells us about God’s patience and openness. God listens to Abraham.

“If I find 50—yeah, I won’t destroy.

Okay, if I find 45—I won’t destroy the city.

If I find 10—I won’t destroy the city.”

God's willingness to hear the prayer of God's people.

This story in the Old Testament sheds, for me, some light on the understanding of the Gospel—the story in the Gospel where Jesus is talking to the disciples and teaching them to pray, and telling them that if they seek, they will find; if they ask, they will receive. Pray. Ask. Seek.

It's a revelation of who God is. It's about a relationship with a God who desires close and trusting communion with God's people and invites them into the conversation about God's work in the world.

As I told our young worshippers—it moves from this transactional idea that if we are good or bad, we get what we deserve, to a relationship. It means that it goes from persisting and bargaining—to the dialogue between Abraham and God, us and God, us with one another.

It is the conversation that is important, not the ways that God is coming to punish people. It moves us from reluctance to openness. God initiates the conversation, as we read in verse 17. God comes and speaks with Abraham. And even the story tells us that God said, “Should I tell Abraham what I’m going to do?”

This story invites us to think of the nature of the relationship that God wants to have with us—intimate, personal, lively, lovely. God shares God’s plan and invites Abraham to be open to what God wants to do for the world.

And it helps us move from bargaining to trusting. Abraham is behaving as a merchant in the market, but Abraham remembers the nature of God—a nature of mercy and grace.

This story reveals God’s heart—our God, Aba—who prefers mercy over judgment and invites us to join Godself in the labor of redemption, salvation, healing, and transformation in this world.

This story reminds us that God rejects dehumanization and demonization. Abraham does not dismiss the others—as you and I are called not to dismiss or demonize others.

This story reminds us that the love of God subverts retribution with relational justice. God’s justice isn’t called vengeance—it is relational. It is a commitment to preserve and to bring up the goodness within broken systems—that even out of death, out of illness, out of despair, God is able to bring life and hope.

And this story helps us to combat helpless hopelessness with divine openness. God invites our human partnerships to transform despair into active hope.

And here is where I want to maybe remind us of what we will hear today in a few minutes, as Brian Smith, the CEO of Volunteers of America—the organization that has partnered with us as Trinity Lutheran Church and Schools—are working together in partnership to be and to bring and preserve the goodness in broken systems.

But also to have human partnerships that transform despair into active hope—as the resources of Trinity Lutheran Church and the Schools, that God has given to Trinity Lutheran Church and Schools, and the resources that have been given to Volunteers of America come together in this relationship of sharing not only the physical space of this land, but the vision and the willingness to respond to the call that God has for us.

To be a place where we experience the healing and the transformation of this community—where you and I are able to practice what Abraham had to go through: to talk with God, to walk with God, to have a chat with God, to be transformed, and to be able to see in others the presence of the Lord—even those whom we do not know or those whom we do not like.

In a world that is screaming for retribution, we are called to be intercessors—who see the image of God in every person, who join the voices of those silenced by hate, and who stubbornly believe that no place, no matter how broken it may be, is beyond the reach of the grace, the love, and the mercy of God.

The healing of our world begins when we dare to approach God and one another as Abraham did—with a heart that argues for mercy, not vengeance.

So, my brothers in Christ, my sisters in Christ, my siblings in Christ—let’s pray. And may our prayer be transformed into an action that is visible, transforming, and life-giving.

Thanks be to God for inviting us to be part of God’s mission in this place. Amen. Amen.