Heart Work III: The Courage to Ask • St Paul's Cathedral Melbourne

A sermon preached by the Dean of Melbourne, the Very Revd Dr Andreas Loewe,
at the Corporate Communion for Cathedral Staff and Volunteers, Lent 2025:

Over these past weeks of Lent, we have been reflecting together on what I’ve called ‘heart work’—the inward transformation that God seeks to bring about in each of us. On Ash Wednesday, we contrasted ‘heart work’ with ‘hard work,’ noting how God calls us not to outward religious observance but to inward renewal. Last Sunday, we explored how Christ has ended our futile attempts to achieve righteousness through our own efforts, instead making God’s word accessible to our hearts. Today’s readings (Additions to Esther 14.3-14, Psalm 138.1-3 and Matthew 7.7-12) explore another dimension of heart work: the courage to ask.

In our first reading, from a less frequently read part of the Scriptures, we heard a desperate prayer of a fearful Queen. Queen Esther was the Jewish consort of the Persian ruler Ahasuerus. The realm’s Grand Vizier, Haman, plots the extermination of all Jewish people, and Esther decided to intercede for them. Breaking court protocol at risk of her life, she approaches her husband to plead for her people. In this moment of extreme vulnerability, she turns to God with these words: ‘O my Lord, you only are our king; help me, who am alone and have no helper but you, for my danger is in my hand’ (Add. to Esther, 14.3).

Esther’s prayer is heart work at its most authentic and unabashed. Without any attempt to appear more worthy than she feels, or more spiritual than she is, she speaks her heart, and tells God of her anxiety. Esther lays bare her fear and her need for help before God. ‘Help me’, she prays. ‘I am alone and have no helper but you’.

Having asked God for help, and having reminded God of his obligation to the people he has chosen, she then makes her petition. And what is the substance of her prayer; what is it that she asks for? Courage. ‘Give me courage’, she pleads, ‘and put eloquent speech in my mouth’. Esther has recognised that what she needs most is not physical protection or a miraculous divine intervention in the crisis that face her and her fellow-Jews, but the courage and the inner strength to act faithfully so that she may intercede successfully on their behalf.

This is heart work—the recognition that our deepest needs are not external but internal. What Esther requires is not a change in her circumstances but a change in her own heart. “She knows she needs the courage to speak persuasively, advocate for her people, and risk her life for something greater than herself, and so she opens her heart to God, and asks him to put his words in her heart, so that she may speak with his authority: ‘O Lord, do not surrender your sceptre to what has no being’, she prays; ‘but make yourself known in our affliction’. And how would God make himself known? By giving his servant Esther great courage.

If you haven’t read the story of Esther recently, let me tell you about the effect of her prayer for courage. Esther did approach her husband, King Ahasuerus. She spoke boldy of the plans his Grand Vizier had to exterminate her people. And so, the hatred of Haman for God’s people turned into the hatred of Ahasuerus in his unfaithful second-in-command. The would-be executor of Jews is executed himself, and the Jewish people are restored to their rightful place in society. The people first to hear God’s call continue to tell this story on Purim—a feast Jews celebrate tonight and tomorrow—to remind themselves of the story of the Queen who prayed for courage to ask for God’s help in trouble.

Four centuries after the story of Esther was written, Jesus preached about how God hears and answers prayer. In our Gospel reading, Jesus invites his hearers to adopt the same posture of courageous asking that was Esther’s: ‘Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you’, he tells (Matthew 7.7). Have courage to ask, and you will be listened to; Jesus tells.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus encourages a persistent, expectant approach to prayer. This is not a passive waiting for answers, but an active seeking. Such an approach to prayer requires the courage to articulate our deepest needs, to admit that we do not have all that we require, to acknowledge our dependence on God and others. It requires heart work: our willingness to open our hearts to God, to declare our dependence on him, and to ask him for help.

‘Lord, help me’ is the essence of that prayer. I find it interesting that, unlike our first lesson, in which the author records in detail the prayer of Esther, Jesus does not report which words the petitioners used; he only describes their actions: ask, search and knock. Because it is based on persistence, rather than proficiency, this kind of asking often runs counter to our natural inclinations. Most people prefer to project self-sufficiency. We hesitate to admit need or vulnerability, because we fear being seen as inadequate or unprepared.

Eight weeks ago I came off my bike, and broke my upper arm. As I picked myself up with bloody scrapes, the person who’d caused the accident asked, ‘Are you all right?’ I answered, through pain-clenched teeth, ‘I’m fine’. I was not. The broken arm still needs twice weekly physio. But I preferred not to be fussed over, and instead tried to help myself; I preferred hard and painfilled work, rather than admitting my vulnerability and literal brokenness. I chose the route of hard work, rather than heart work. Because the heart work that Lent invites us to take on requires exactly this kind of vulnerability—the courage to acknowledge our limitations; have the courage to ask for help.

The German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose eightieth anniversary of martyrdom falls this April, knew about the importance of heart work. After his arrest for involvement in the plot against Hitler, he was placed in solitary confinement. In prison in Berlin-Tegel he wrote a series of poems and prayers. Morning Prayer was written in November 1943, eighteen months before his death:

God, I cry to you in the early morning,
help me to pray and to gather my thoughts;
I cannot do it alone.
It is dark inside me, but with you is the light.
I am lonely, but you do not leave me.
I am timid, but with you is my help.
I am anxious, but with you is peace.
There is bitterness inside me, but with you is patience.
I do not understand your ways, but you know the right way for me.

In the darkest of circumstances—alone in a prison cell, facing an uncertain future—Bonhoeffer does not pretend to have the strength he lacks. Instead, he courageously acknowledges his need: ‘I cannot do it alone’, he prays. Just as Esther laid bare her fear and vulnerability before God, Bonhoeffer admits his darkness, loneliness, timidity, anxiety, and bitterness. At every step of the prayer, he confesses his own urgent need trusting in God’s sufficiency.

What makes his prayer so powerful is that it comes from a man of remarkable courage and conviction. Bonhoeffer was not weak—he had risked his life to stand against the evils of Nazism. Yet he understood that true strength lies not in self-sufficiency but in acknowledging our dependence on God. In prison, stripped of all external supports, Bonhoeffer came to know what Queen Esther had also experienced: that in our moments of greatest vulnerability, we cannot muster our own courage through hard work, but through the heart work of opening ourselves to receive courage from God.

For both Bonhoeffer and Queen Esther, the courage to ask God for help is not merely an individual virtue. It’s a corporate one—something we practice together as a community. That’s why Esther frames her prayer in communal language: ‘We have sinned before you… our enemies… they are not satisfied that we are in bitter slavery’, she prays to God on behalf of her people.

In his Morning Prayer, Bonhoeffer likewise prays for strength alongside other children of God: ‘Let me now receive from your hand,/ what is hard./ You will not lay upon me/ More than I can bear./ For your children you let all things/ Serve for the best’. This willingness to accept both what is good and what is hard from God’s hands lies at the heart of courageous corporate prayer.

In intense personal danger, Esther knows that she is part of a larger whole. Her courage to ask is inextricably tied to her identity as a member of God’s chosen people. For Esther individual faith is no different to her communal responsibility.

The same holds true for Bonhoeffer. Even in isolation in prison, he knows that he belongs to a company of believers that suffer hardships—within and outside the prison walls. For both, bearing the burden of courageous asking meant accepting both what is good and what is hard from God’s hands; it meant asking for themselves and, in the strength that God provides, giving of their own to others.

In our Gospel reading Jesus’ teaching about prayer leads directly to what we have come to know as the Golden Rule: ‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets’ (Mt 7.12). When he compiled his Gospel, Matthew purposefully made that link: because the courage to ask and the generosity to give out of the strength of what we have received are two sides of the same coin. As we open ourselves to receive from God, we become more able to give to others. As we experience God’s generous response to our asking, we are enabled to become more generous in our response to the needs of others.

Heart work, then, involves both the courage to ask and the generosity to give. It requires us to be vulnerable before God and responsive toward others. It calls us to recognise our own need and to honour the needs of those around us.

We may not need to intercede before kings like Esther or stand against Nazi dictators like Bonhoeffer. But in our daily lives, we all will encounter moments that call for the same courage they had. Perhaps in families, where admitting vulnerability can be most difficult. Perhaps in workplaces, where we fear appearing incompetent. Perhaps in our neighbourhoods or wider communities, where we see needs that require us to speak up on behalf of others. And certainly, in our relationship with God, where we may feel we should have our spiritual lives more ‘together’ before we pray.

As we continue our journey through Lent, I pray that we may cultivate the courage to ask—to approach God with our genuine needs, not disguising or diminishing them out of pride or fear. May we trust, as Esther and Bonhoeffer did, that God hears and responds to our prayers by strengthening our hearts, and may our experience of God’s grace, patience, and generous response make us more gracious, patient, and generous toward others.

Intercessions for Lent – The Courage to Ask

Let us pray to our heavenly Father, who gives good gifts to those who ask.

Gracious God, give courage to your Church throughout the world to speak truth to power. Like Queen Esther and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, may we advocate for justice and mercy, especially for those whose voices are silenced. Strengthen all who minister in your name, that they may serve with compassion and speak with clarity.