Matthew 6.10; Luke 17:5-10

Last week we talked about the first step of prayer: establish you know exactly who it is who you are praying to. “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,

This week, we move on to step two: establish that you know who is in charge.
¹⁰ your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave when at first we practice to deceive.” The person we spend the most time trying to deceive in this world is… ourselves. All too often, we pray the one whose will be done is our own, not God’s. And when the result is not what we want, we get upset or even lose our faith in God.

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

Perhaps you’re not that obvious about demanding what you want from God, but I’m pretty sure God can see through your sugar-coated demands. God sees what is in your heart and knows when it does not match your words and actions. We want to blame God for our own human fallacy.

We want to blame God for… evil.

When confronted with the problem of theodicy, why is there evil in this world, the example often used to cite why this is a problem is called the “three-legged stool.” Christians believe essentially three things about their God. God is omnipotent: All-powerful. God is omniscient: Sees all, knows all. And… God is good.

A three-legged stool cannot stand on two legs. It will fall over; it needs all three legs to function. If God is all-knowing, why does God not eradicate evil? If God is all-powerful, why does God allow suffering? If God is good, why does evil exist in the first place?

If we look at each leg of the stool individually, all of them indicate that evil should just flat out not exist in our world. God could get rid of it using any of the three legs of the stool. Which then ties us to a bigger question: If God is the creator of the universe, all things visible and invisible, did God create evil?

I was really hoping for a dramatic gasp there.

God wouldn’t be good if they created evil, would they?

So, if God is the creator of all things good, visible and invisible, and God didn’t create evil because we just can’t rationalize that in our heads, evil must be something outside of God’s creation. But wait, God is all-powerful and all-knowing, all-encompassing of all things. Evil is a problem.

While God can fix all things. God can heal all things. God can do all things. What does God leave us lowly humans with, despite being omniscient, knowing what would happen if they did? God has left us with a choice. Doing evil is a choice. It isn’t a thing of God’s creation; it is us, human beings, using God’s good in a bad way.

Evil begins with a thought. A suggestion. Evil is in essence, humans trying to be gods. Humans forgetting whose will it is to be done and trying to do their own.

As human beings, we’re allowed to think whatever we want; God gives us this freedom. We are allowed to respond to those thoughts, however we want. Sure, we have to deal with the consequences of those thoughts and actions, but they are our choice to make.

Just because we want to turn around and blame the problem on a three-legged stool that is not the source of the problem doesn’t mean that God is the source of evil. Sure, we can blame God for creating a being capable of evil, but we are made in God’s image, and God doesn’t use their omnipotence to commit evil. That’s on us.

Jesus asks one of the most profound questions in this parable of the mustard seed. “Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? Do you invite them to the table that was prepared and served by them?”

We are servants. Pure and simple. We serve one master, God. But, to serve that master, we must also serve all others. Not one human of this world, not even two or three of them, but ALL of them.

Evil takes on many forms in this world, one of the biggest is the devaluing of human life. It is in our primal instincts to value ourselves higher than we value others. We deceive ourselves. We deem our time more valuable in a multitude of tiny ways we think of as insignificant. We show up late. We show up unprepared. We are inattentive. We want to speak first and tell our story and problems rather than listen to others, or we devalue ourselves and deem our own problems insignificant and not worth others’ time, and we don’t want to burden them. We are neither worth more nor less than others in God’s eyes.

We pray with the intention of telling God what we want and how we want it done. Heal my loved one! Give me a new job! Make my children do what I want them to do! Make everyone do what I want them to do, for that matter. Why are things not being done the way I want them to be done in the time frame I want them done in?

When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, what they sought was the knowledge of a god. They wanted to be able to judge good from evil. God said it was not possible. To eat of the fruit, you would surely die. He did not lie. He didn’t really even curse us; he simply stated a fact, and there were consequences to that knowledge. Like Uzzah, who touched the ark of the covenant and died, there are natural and logical consequences in this world. Touching a hot stove will burn you. That’s not a curse; that is just what happens. It isn’t evil; it’s a consequence of using the fire God created in a bad way.

If you decide you are a god and choose to judge what should and should not be, how things should happen, you will not receive the everlasting life available through His Son, Jesus Christ. You will die. Consequence of judging or not forgiving others. Death.

“Increase our faith!” the apostle’s cry.

The three-legged stool problem of theodicy replies. “Alas, I cannot. Only you can do that.” Your lack of faith has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you. I am an all-powerful, all-knowing, good God, and yet you choose to believe you are more powerful, you know better, and you have more knowledge of what is good and what is evil in this world than I do.

If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. I have sent you my one and only son. To live for you. Die for you. I demonstrated my power to you, and he was resurrected for you.

You chose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil when I had hoped you would be created to do only good. But with that knowledge, you instead chose evil. You chose not to do your job of tending to my garden, which would eternally provide for you, and instead chose to do things your own way. You chose your will over mine.

So when you pray, know who you pray to and know what power I have. And then choose, my will or yours.

If we, God’s people, all of God’s people, choose God’s will over our own, God’s kingdom would be on earth as it is in heaven. God would make it so, unravel the evils of all of history, and restore creation to be a thriving planet that produces more than enough to sustain all life; but it is we who must choose. One at a time, choose God’s will over our own and let God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and goodness come through us and spread through us to all humanity. We must choose to stop deceiving ourselves that the problem lies outside of us and concede that the problem of evil lies within us.

God is omnipotent, omniscient, and good; we are none of those things, but we can try to be good.

God, however, invites those who serve him to his table to dine with him. To sit at God’s table, to dine with God, is to acknowledge that you are human. It is to acknowledge that you are sinful. It is to acknowledge that you need to forgive others as your God has forgiven you. It is an invitation. It is your choice whether or not you wish to comply with the terms of the invitation and partake of eternal life or perish.