Dionysus on a Bike

Matthew 7:7-11 – 8/1/2026

Here is one of Jesus’s most famous teachings found in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. Jesus promises that asking, searching, and knocking will produce results, gifts from God. As Jesus goes on to say, even evil people will not give a child a stone when they ask for food. If God is good, then God will give better than the evil people who at least feed their children. Here in one of the famous promises of Jesus, I find an opportunity to reflect on the disappointments of faith. Life experience shows that what Jesus promises is apparently false; not everyone who asks receives, and not everyone who searches finds. Plenty of people cry out to God for bread, and instead are given more hunger. Uncounted multitudes search for a better life in faith that God will provide, and instead of a better life they are given more tears and more misery.

The question then is what to do with this promise, given that our experience of living in the world seems to indicate that this promise is continually unfulfilled. What do the promises of God mean when we see time and again cases where those promises seem to be broken? Setting aside the possibility that God simply chooses to betray God’s own promises, there are two possibilities. First, it may not be possible for God to fulfill the promises every time and in every way. God’s power may be limited in ways that are contrary to the understanding of God in classical theism. Second, what is meant by the promises may be different than what is commonly understood. In either case, we have to let go of straightforward and commonplace understandings of God’s nature and the nature of God’s promises.

Questions for further reflection: What does this mean for faith? What is it to have faith in God when we cannot be sure who God is? What does it do for faith in God’s promises when we realize we cannot fully know what is being promised?

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for 8/1/2026:
Isaiah 44:1-5
Matthew 7:7-11
Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21

Reflections of a Dionysian Lutheran, comments on the daily readings of the Revised Common Lectionary by Justin Marquis