A Radical Request Rev. Dr. William Lee

The call came mid-afternoon on the Sunday I preached at my former church. It was a very familiar voice, and I heard tears as she made her request. “Your sermon touched me deeply this morning. Pastor, can you come by my house tomorrow at elven o’clock?” The pastor in me inquired if she was okay and if need be, I could come immediately. She said calmly, “I would much rather it be tomorrow.” 

I did not recall seeing her at worship that morning. This was during COVID; the service was in the parking lot and most people remained in their cars. My preparation for this preaching assignment carried a weight that I had not experienced during my tenure as Pastor of these people. Was it COVID? Was it because we were outside? Was it my concern that my allergies may flare up and impact my voice? Was I overly anxious at returning to preach at the place where I had served for 39 years? I don’t know why, but I prepared the sermon using the process that I had followed for years.

The biblical text chosen by me for that Sunday was Joshua 10:12-14: 

On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel:

“Sun, stand still over Gibeon,

and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.”

So the sun stood still,

and the moon stopped,

till the nation avenged itself of its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar.

The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. 

The sermon title that day was “A Radical Request.” My thesis was that there will come times in all our lives when our prayer request of God moves from the routine to the radical. I emphasized that radical means a change or action that relates to or affecting the fundamental nature of something. I embellished the thought that Joshua made a radical request in asking God to suspend the natural order, causing the sun and moon to stop rotating. I argued that for this to happen God would have to put earth on pause for a specified period. Joshua requested that God change the nature of his divine order so he could win the battle in the Valley of Aijalon. I then queried the congregation to look at their lives to see if they, like Joshua needed to make a radical request. This is what prompted the phone call from the woman in tears.

Our conversation the next day was moving. I knew she had a daughter who had been diagnosed with cancer and was being evaluated for the next steps. The mother said she had been praying a generic, routine prayer concerning her daughter’s health, but my sermon emboldened her to pray radically for her daughter. 

She wanted to tell me up close and personal the content of her radical prayer to God. Her daughter was scheduled to get results of her most recent blood work and x-rays at ten o’clock Monday morning. Her radical request was that her daughter’s cancer would go into remission, and she would not have to endure extensive chemo and radiation therapies. She smiled and said, “While I was on a roll, I also asked God to allow her to return to work.”



With tears of joy, a triumphant shout, and a bear hug, she said, "My daughter called and gave me an update on her doctor’s visit this morning. The oncologist said three treatments of radiation should stymie the cancer and put her in remission. He then cleared her to return to work! Pastor, how did you know I needed that?” 



I smiled and winked; I had made a radical request of God before I preached “A Radical Request.”