This sermon was preached for a joint St. Andrew's - St. Michael's online service for Sunday, October 18. The texts for this sermon were: Exodus 33:12-23 ; Psalm 99 ; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 ; and Matthew 22:15-22 . When we were kids in class, we loved to play what I’m sure is an ancient and universal game much beloved by students everywhere. The entirety of the game consisted of trying to get our teacher to ramble off-topic for as long as possible. It didn’t matter about what as long as it wasn’t the lesson on hand. Over the course of the year we'd learn each teacher's particular weakness. Some teachers could be tempted to talk about something obscure they loved, while other teachers would get riled up and go on and on about something that infuriated them. The really clever teachers still managed to teach us something even as they spiraled down the rabbit hole – but that wasn’t the point for us. The point was wresting some semblance of control over what was happening