United Methodist Church Westlake Village

Ready To Dig In

• United Methodist Church Westlake Village

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What if faith isn’t a test to ace but a path to walk when life gets heavy? We explore the parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge, drawing out a countercultural message: persistent prayer isn’t about bargaining with God, it’s about forming a steady heart that keeps showing up for what is right. Along the way we challenge the prosperity gospel and name what many of us already feel—good people face hard things, and the math of “believe and you’ll prosper” breaks down where real life begins.

From that foundation we get specific about our community’s crossroads. COVID reshaped giving patterns and expectations, and we’re still working to right-size our budget without shrinking our calling. Music has long been our heartbeat, shaping belonging, memory, and worship, and we share a vision to renew that strength while investing in a digital presence that acts as today’s front door. Ministry now often starts online: clear storytelling, short-form video, and timely updates help new people take a first step toward safety, hope, and relationship.

The through-line is persistence. Like the widow who kept knocking until justice was done, we commit to practices that outlast the headwinds—steady prayer, courageous generosity, and choices that keep our message intact. Everyone is going through something, and that truth pushes us beyond our walls to meet neighbors in their need with music, hospitality, and a wiser use of technology. If you’ve ever wondered how faith holds when budgets are tight and Mondays arrive too soon, this conversation offers grit, grace, and a way forward. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review to help others find the hope you found here.

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SPEAKER_00:

Well, we've been working with this theme, People Get Ready. Again, it was a song that uh back from the 50s and 60s, I think, but Rod Stewart kind of gave it a little bit of fame. And so that's probably if you know the song, what you remember it from. But People Get Ready. We're talking about us, people getting ready for what God has in store for us. These people, the United Methodist Church of Westlake Village. Are we getting ready? Because today we're talking about being ready to dig in, to dig in a little bit. Anybody catch the humor in the scripture today? Did you see it just a little bit? I don't know. Steve and I were, okay, maybe we're on the same page. We found the same humor. I just found it kind of funny, right? When I we it's coming through, and Jesus says, there's this unjust judge who doesn't fear God or respect people. And then the judge shows up and he says, Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, it just seems so on the nose. Did it not for anybody else? Like the evil shows up. Here's this guy, he doesn't fear God and doesn't respect people. And then he shows up and says, I don't fear God and I don't respect people. And then he twirled his mustache because that's what evil people do. I don't know. That just gave me a little chuckle hearing somebody say that uh out loud, right? We don't uh we don't generally uh well let's admit it, people, even folks who are doing not good things, have probably worked through some way to justify it. It makes sense to them, and there's some greater good that's coming. That's just kind of who we are as humans. But in this case, I think our unjust judge, say that three times fast, he is kind of more of a caricature of sorts. Jesus needs this role filled in order to tell his tale, and he's trying to compare this unjust judge, somebody who has no heart for God, no heart for people, and the widow is able to make him change his mind. The judge is supposed to be compared to God. You know, here's the the judge, he had no heart for people, and he changed his mind with the persistence of the widow. Imagine what God would do. A God who loves you. I think that's the point of this judge, even though he's kind of a caricature. That's the role he's sort of living out for this story, because our focus really is kind of on the widow, I would say. Or maybe even more specifically, the focus might be on the disciples, the people whom he's telling the story to, which when he's teaching disciples, he's teaching us, even here, 2,000 years later. And he's talking about the challenge of faith. Did you hear when Jesus said, pray always and not lose heart? You really good at that? How's everybody doing on that scale? Pray always and not lose heart. I should probably clarify what I think uh Luke is meaning in these words from Jesus about praying. I don't think he wants us understanding that we're just constantly in prayer, we're living through our lives, we're walking through the office of our building where we work or wherever else we are, and we're praying. Hi Dave, how's it going? Sally, you need to get me those papers. Uh no, I don't, that's not necessarily what uh Jesus is talking about here. They're just talking about being mindful, just having God on your heart, in your mind as you go about your life, as you go about your days. But then there's that other key part here: to not lose heart. That can be the tough part, right? Don't lose heart. I don't want to be too negative here. Life for us in in Caneho Valley, Westlake Village is generally pretty good. We live in a pretty blessed part of the world. We have a certain amount of comforts in the way we get to live here, right? And uh we have a church community that is blessing us repeatedly, continually. Look around a little bit and see some of the faces that are around here, people that many of whom you have walked with, you have journeyed with, the joys that you have shared, the life circumstances. You know, that that's uh important for us to remember how we how we bless each other as we walk this journey. Yes, life for us is generally a blessing. Even something more unique, like yesterday, all the protests we had in our nation. Many people are really disappointed with the way things are going, but at least we live in a place where it's possible to disagree. It's possible to raise up a concern and do it in a meaningful way. We are a blessed people. So again, not being too negative here, but I think this passage probably is talking a little bit more about tough times than good times. Because we all have those tough times, right? You heard the expression, everybody's going through something. Have you heard that before? Right? Everybody's going through something. So I've been here a little over a year now. I've getting to know everybody and uh getting uh close with a lot of you as well. I will tell you as that person the statement is true. Everybody's going through something. Do it again. Look around the room. Some of you are newer, so you're looking at newer faces. These are faces, every one of them, going through something. Something in their lives, something in their heart, something weighing them down. Many of you have been here many, many years, and that something you know about. As you're looking around the room, you know what that something is. Maybe even you met eyes going, yeah. We walked through that, we survived that, you survive that. So here we are, a group of people with generally good lives, but we're all going through something. This is what I think God is talking about. This is how God is speaking to us in this passage. So, what is God saying in the midst of that? I'm not a big fan of the theology that's implied here from Luke as he's describing Jesus. Now, theology, that's our word we use for how we perceive God. I might even include how we understand what God does or how God works, although there's other words for that too. In this particular story, I feel like the perception of God, the relationship with God is maybe a little too economic. It's kind of an exchange. We offer faith to God, and then God in turn offers us prosperity. The widow offers persistence about her issue, the justice that she understands needs to happen. And then the judge listens. The exchange, right? This is there's a word for this kind of theology too. They call it the prosperity gospel. Maybe you've heard of the prosperity gospel. I think it comes from a mindset of trying to enhance or get people to understand more clearly the importance and the value of having faith. You should have faith. It matters, it will change your life to be a person of faith. We live in that good place, but the problem is there's this slippery slope that you can encounter, about this exchange that you can fall into this mindset of, oh, I understand. I give faith to God, and then God makes sure that I prosper. My problem is I haven't really felt that in life. It sounds like a lot of you agree with me on that one. I've seen some really good, good, deep moral people go through really tough stuff. On the other hand, too, I've seen some people who don't seem to have too much of a faith identity and maybe not even connected to much morality, and they've done quite good in life. So, this prosperity gospel, this way of understanding God, I haven't really found that work for me. The math doesn't always compute, at least in my brain. I'm getting reminders. There's a town hall at church today at 1115. That's what happens when you bring your iPad up here. And the Rams are winning 21-0. Oh, but but you know, that whole prosperity thing, uh, it just it it doesn't work, right? It doesn't really compute, especially, right, this idea of um how it ends where the passage where Jesus says, will God find faith on earth? Those are heavy words, right? It makes it feel like a like a test. We're talking about faith, and then Jesus says, Will God find faith in this world? Right? You got that perception we all remember from school, the test that came on Friday. You got yourself ready all week, you were studied up, you brought two number two pencils, you were ready to go, you took the darn test, and then you just hoped and hoped and hoped, and then Monday morning came and the teacher was ready to pass the tests back out. You remember that moment? That that feeling of that that test, right? By the way, not all of us believe in the second coming of Jesus, that kind of thing. But if Jesus is coming back, if he comes back on a Monday, that's gonna be rough. Right? Because he's gonna show up and say, I want to bring you life and I want you to have it abundantly. And we're gonna go, oh, that's great. Coffee first. Are we right? I'll take all your life abundance, but after I get a little Java, you know. Monday mornings, right? Can you imagine that idea of that test and getting that result? Can you imagine that perception on your life? I haven't found that to be very, very helpful. I haven't found that perception of God to be something that invigorated me or invigorated my faith. For me, life has always felt, or faith has always felt more like a pathway than a test. It's a way of living life that helps me to give a loving context to my life, especially when my life gets difficult. A person of faith amidst difficulty is more likely to look for the hope. That person is more likely to see the ways that God is working around him or around her. That person is more likely to see God's love despite or maybe even within the difficulty that they're going through. Faith usually is going to affect our actions as well. Amidst sinful situations, and you know the situations I'm talking about, times when people aren't necessarily choosing the good or the godly options. They're cutting this corner, they're cutting that corner. The person of faith is usually more likely to choose the good. Not because it's a test, but because they see the value in living that way. It's because they see how being a godly person can bring hope to the world around them, the community around them, their family around them. People of faith live in that faith often because they can see how it shapes them, how it strengthens them, how it guides them, how it gives them hope. See, to me, this is where that widow comes back into play. She's persistent. She won't leave that unjust judge alone until there is justice. There's a godly right that needs to take place, and so she pushes for that godly right, for that godly presence to be made real. I wonder, and here's the big question, how persistent the United Methodist Church of Westlake Village is and will be. And we're seeing some new faces, including, by the way, a confirmation class that's happening this year. So we're seeing good things that are happening here. God is truly here, but financially, we're still not quite right-sized yet. We haven't really been right-sized probably since COVID. I don't know. Hopefully, that doesn't surprise too many people, but COVID was a big hit for a lot of the church world, and we've managed to work our way staying uh moving forward through some government help, through uh the deep, deep giving and generosity of Miss Marion Ward, through the work of people who have made sure we cut all the corners that need to be cut, but still today we spend more than we bring in. And the problem is we're set at a place and we've in which we feel like anything less would cheapen the message, the calling that we've been given to share with the world. We're feeling like we're at our, we've cut back what we can cut back without actually losing our sense of ourselves and what we offer and what God's given us to share. So, really, at this time, in many ways, we're looking at ourselves. And it becomes a bit of a question: are we ready to be persistent? Are we ready to dig in so that our message, our calling, God's presence can continue to be shared outside of this building, outside of this property? Does God find faith here? The kind in which lives are being given meaning? Our people are being challenged to stretch and to grow in their faith, hearts are being touched, and not just the ones that are already here, by the way. We are touching hearts outside of our community. Remember, we realized earlier that everyone is going through something. Does everyone know they don't walk it alone? Because that's part of our message. We want to get right-sized. I mean, that would be obvious. We want to start even looking ahead into our future. Music has been such an integral part of this place for however many years. I every story I ask someway connects to the music program. We want to get back to that. We want to get a children's choir and a performance, uh, something to grow from the Camp Pizzazz from the summer. We want to move on to those next things. Uh the world itself keeps evolving. Paul back there, despite being a depressed St. Louis Cardinal fan, he's doing his best to keep us ahead of the ways the world is changing, especially technologically. And we've talked about the different ways that he is doing that. You know what we really need, though, is somebody who has dedicated time to be able to work on that internet presence. Because you know what? A lot of ministry is getting done online now. A lot of ministry is getting done online. In fact, most people would say ministry starts online, especially for a new person. Where they're engaging, they're learning, they're watching a 60-second clip of a really handsome pastor say things. It starts. I bet you I didn't like that one. But friends, the the committee the community's ready. Caneho Valley is ready. Everybody's going through something. And we bring the heart, we bring the message, we bring the hope, we bring the faith. The vision is there for where we know we need to keep growing. The need is there in this community. Do we have the faith in this church to keep on going? People get ready. Because we gotta dig in sometimes. Amen.