Sermon Dec 16, 2012

Sermon

 

I am struggling, as I’m sure you are, on a morning when all of our hearts are heavy, when all of us have been left speechless by the tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday.

 

In the church calendar, today is called Gaudete Sunday.  Gaudete means “Rejoice,” which is why the candle we lit this morning is the Joy candle.  But I imagine few of us are feeling any joy right now.  How can we feel joy, when a school, a community, a nation mourns the loss of children.  The senseless tragedy seems especially heinous since the children were so young and innocent.  There don’t seem to be any answers, any words that could possibly heal our grief.

 

As people of faith, one of the places we turn to is Scripture.  Many seeing the scenes of distraught parents have been reminded of this story from the gospel of Matthew (2:13-18):

 

¹³Now after the Wise Men had left Bethlehem, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”  ¹⁴Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, ¹⁵and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

¹⁶When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.  ¹⁷Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: ¹⁸“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

 

That reading is assigned on the first Sunday after Christmas, a day called the Feast of the Innocents.  The story reminds us the Holy Family, Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus became refugees, fleeing for their lives. Herod, in his paranoia and lust for power, wanted to make sure the child did not escape, and called for infant boys in and around Bethlehem to be slaughtered.  On that Sunday we remember all those innocent children who have died at the hands of evil in this world.  It seems the Feast of the Innocents came early this year.

 

Death, whether experienced in a tragedy like Sandy Hook or in the quiet loss of a loved one, challenges our faith, our understanding of God. 

Most of us who have experienced such a loss can testify to the turbulent questions of faith that follow in its wake.  We turn to God and ask, “Why?”  When it involves children we want to know, “Why should the little ones suffer?”  But, perhaps, the toughest question is whether or not God is to be trusted.

 

The Gospel writer Matthew invokes Rachel’s voice in the midst of this story of God-with-us, the birth of a child whose name is a verb: save.  God’s salvation may seem far off and inadequate to the parents who mourn, but the promise is deeper than this moment in time. The threat of this Herod passes for a time, only to be replaced by another Herod, yet another ruler without scruples. But when this child of Rachel returns to Jerusalem as an adult, God enters into the fate of every doomed child and every grieving parent. (http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20071224JJ.shtml)

 

Jesus knows what suffering and terror are like.  God stands with the families who are mourning, including the family of the shooter.  But in a year in which there has been so much tragedy, so much suffering, in which people are still staggering from Hurricane Sandy, in which we have lost loved ones, or have traveled through that first year alone without our loved one, a time in which the biopsy came back malignant, a time in which we pray that the radiation will work, that the babies will be ok, that the world will be healed, we want to say “enough”.  Enough, God. Enough.  And we come to this morning’s reading from the prophet Isaiah:

 

¹The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; ²to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; ³to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.

 

The Bible is full of truth telling.  And the prophet Isaiah, in his message to the returnees to Jerusalem, is no different.  There is no sugar coating.  They have returned from exile—and their lives are no better, are, in fact, worse than when they were in exile.  The city is in ruins, the rebuilding seems impossible, they are faint of heart at the work that stands before them, and they are ashamed that they cannot restore the city and the Temple to its former glory.  All is in ruins.

 

And God, through the prophet, speaks a word of both truth and hope.  I know you are mourning, says the speaker.  I know you are broken hearted, I know your sorrow.  But there is comfort for those who mourn, there is good news—even when it seems incomprehensible, even when we cannot imagine anything except grief and sorrow.  For we have in Scripture the testimony of a people who have witnessed the acts of a God who brings hope and joy and life in the midst of despair and sorrow and death.  Stories of Abraham and Sarah, of Joseph and his brothers, of Moses and the Exodus, of the Promised Land, and of return from Exile.

 

This passage from Isaiah alternates between two voices- a human speaker, whom we just heard, and God.  The human voice goes on and says:

 

⁴They (the people of Israel) shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.  ⁵Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, foreigners shall till your land and dress your vines; ⁶but you shall be called priests of the Lord, you shall be named ministers of our God.

 

Which is what we are called to do.  In this time in-between, between Christ’s first coming and his return, in a world that is still broken and not yet healed, a time in which it seems evil and darkness are winning, all of us are called to be ministers, to be priests, to care for others in their sorrow and distress, to do exactly what the speaker first said: the share the good news, to proclaim liberty, to bind up the broken hearted.  Those words are associated with Christ.  But in our baptism, we are anointed with God’s Spirit, and we are called, as individuals and the church, to do the same work.  Binding up. Restoring.  Healing. Helping people see that God is indeed involved in human life, that God was not absent on that awful day, showing the love of God in our words and in our actions.  Because God promises us this:

 

⁸For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their restoration, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

 

The composer Johannes Brahms, grieving the deaths of his mother and of his dear friend, Robert Schumann, wrote one of his greatest works, “A German Requiem.”  As part of the opening movement, he chose the final verses of Psalm 126, which we read earlier.  These verses are, in a way, both prayer and promise:

 

“May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.

Those who go out weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.”

 

God knows our sorrow.  And even though it sometimes feels like we are still living in exile, God will never leave us, will surely restore us.

 

This is the word of the Lord…thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

The people of God, have been rescued, have escaped from slavery, have passed over from death to life —all at God’s hand.  They have traveled in the desert, and God has traveled with them.  Moses and Aaron and Miriam, brothers and sister, have been leaders for the people. Now they are at Mount Sinai, and have received God’s word—the Ten Commandments, ways to live in covenant with God and each other.  Moses has been up on the mountain, talking with God. 

 

Exodus 32:1-14                                                 p 69

32When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us a god who shall go before us; as for that man Moses, who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.”²Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”³And all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron.⁴He took the gold from them, and cast it in a mold, and made it into a molten calf; and they exclaimed, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”⁵When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival of the Lord.”⁶Early the next day, the people offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to dance.

⁷The Lord spoke to Moses, “Hurry down! For your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely;⁸they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves a molten calf, and have bowed low to it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!⁹The Lord further said to Moses, “I have seen that this is a stiff-necked people.¹⁰Now let me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them, and make of you a great nation.”¹¹But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, let not your anger blaze forth against your people, whom you delivered from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand. ¹²Let not the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that God delivered them, only to kill them off in the mountains, and annihilate them from the face of the earth’. Turn from your blazing anger; renounce your plan to punish your people.¹³Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, how you swore to them by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and I will give to your offspring this whole land of which I spoke, to possess forever.’“¹⁴And the Lord renounced the punishment that he had planned to bring on his people.

This is the word of the Lord….thanks be to God

 

When I hear this story, I have a number of things flashing thru my head, all at the same time—the old Cecil B DeMille movie, the Ten Commandments, with Yul Brynner and “Moses”.  A flash of fear, hearing a story about God’s blazing anger.  A picture of God as the dad, on a road trip, saying to the unruly and disobedient kids in the back “that’s it. I am pulling this caravan over.”  And maybe even Bill Cosby as Heathcliff Huxtable saying to his son, Theo, “Son, I brought you into this world.  I can take you out of it.”

And, strangely, a Brittany Spears song “oops, I did it again”.  Because here we go—again. 

Psalm 106, of which we read only a small part, (and I encourage you to read the verses we left out) details in long and embarrassing and soul wrenching details all of the ways God has rescued the people—and all of the times the people have failed God.  God rescued them—and they whined at the Red Sea.  They were hungry—and God fed them.  They were thirsty, and God provided water—and they complained about the supplies.  God gave them shelter in the wilderness, traveled with them- as a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night—and they grumbled in their tents.

Now, Moses has been up on the mountain, talking with God.  Moses has received the word of God, the two stone tablets, written with the very finger of God, we are told. But apparently he is taking too long, and the people are anxious.  They think something might have happened to Moses, and then where would they be? They are restless.  They decide to do something.

 Now, they have already received instruction from God.  And the very first rule, the very first way of being God’s people which is given to them is this:  I am the lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt; out of the house of slavery.  You shall have no other gods before me.  And the 2^nd is this:  you shall not make for yourself an idol. 

And what do they do?  They make an idol. 

 

Meanwhile, up on the mountain, God and Moses are talking.  And it sounds an awfully lot like some conversation I have been part of, conversations that begin “do you know what YOUR son did today?”  Because neither Moses nor God are willing to claim these people—“These people, that you led out of Egypt” God says to Moses, as if it was all Moses’ idea and effort.

 

“These people—YOUR people, whom you brought out of Egypt with a strong arm and a mighty hand” Moses says back to God. 

 

Much like in the story of Adam and Eve and the snake, there is lots of finger-pointing, and everybody is passing the buck.  In times of high anxiety, there is always finger-pointing and blame—this is true for churches, true for family life, true for life in general.

 

Back at the bottom of the mountain, the people have built for themselves an idol, a calf. A bull was a common representation of a god in that time and place.  Legend has it that the bull jumped out of the fire and presented itself before the people and Aaron.  Aaron acts out of his anxiety, as well—he tries to make a way that doesn’t confront the people and their behavior, that smoothes things over, that just gets them through this moment, until Moses gets back down from the mountain. Aaron tries to make it better- he at least, after the calf is made, says “Now we will worship YHWH”.  

 

There is debate, among biblical scholars, about whether what the people have done in making this idol is making a false god, or worshipping a false representation of the true God.  I think it doesn’t much matter.  John Calvin said “the human mind is a factory of idols”.  It is so easy, especially in our anxiety, to worship things that are either a skewed version of God, or things that we put in place of God, that we are often and easily led astray.  The people at the foot of the mountain want a god who is accessible, who is immediate, who is not hidden, who is there—not far away, not watching from a distance, not up on the mountain.  And if they have to construct that god themselves, then, by golly, they will do just that.

 

But here’s the funny thing.  The idol that the people made is…a calf.  Not a bull.  Not a sign of strength and power, but…a baby.  They only have enough gold, enough rings and necklaces, to make…a miniature statue.  In their idolatry, the people fail.  Because idols ultimately and always fail us…because they are idols, and not the living God.

 

God has been with them this whole time—feeding them protecting them, traveling with them.  God has even given them instructions for a tabernacle, a dwelling place for God, so God can make his home with them. But they don’t do that.

 

Up on the mountain, God is not pleased.  That’s an understatement.  God is mad—so mad that he wants to let his anger burn at the people, he wants to destroy them, he, as in the time of Noah, wants to wipe out his creation and start over.  And he tells Moses that Moses can now be the new beginning, the inheritor of the covenant, and the promises, and the land.

And Moses talks God out of it.  These are your people, Moses reminds him.  You rescued them, you brought them here- besides, what will the neighbors say?  What kind of a God will you be if you wipe them out after all this?

 

And God changes God’s mind.   God turns from his plan, and returns to the people. 

 

God wants to be in relationship—with Moses, and with us.  The Bible says that God talked to Moses as a friend. God listens to him when Moses talks God away from the edge of the cliff, when Moses turns down a really good offer to be the new patriarch of the people.  God is not some “unmoved Mover”, God is NOT some distant benign force in the universe, God is there.  Listening.  Listening to us, still.

 

Moses stands in the breach between God and the people, Moses goes mano a mano- or, rather mano a deo, and intercedes for the people.  Which we have always said was a priests’ role-to intercede for the people. But we who believe in the priesthood of all believers, also stand in the breach, when we pray for others.  I know many of you faithfully pray the prayer list every morning, praying for others, for people you maybe don’t even know. And Christ intercedes for us, and for all creation.

 

We are as stiff necked and stubborn as the people at the foot of Mount Sinai.  We are fully as foolish and anxiety ridden now as they were then.  And we are as quick to make idols. To worship other things, when God does not jump to our commands or act according to our time lines. And yet, God still desires to be in relationship with us.  To feed us, to be light and shelter for us, to intercede for us, to be with us through all of our journeys.  Even when we sin, when we turn away, and to other things, again and again.  Amen.

 

NL-Year 3 / Week 3: Joseph

Introduction to this week

Why is it that some in this country, who cry out about family values, turn to the Bible?  Have they read the stories in here?  They’re full of flawed human beings and dysfunctional families.  Hardly ones I would call role models.

Last week in Genesis, we heard God make a promise to Abraham and Sarah of land, offspring and a blessing – a blessing through which God would bless all the families of the earth.  Abraham trusted God’s promise and they sealed the covenant with a ritual.

God eventually enabled Abraham and Sarah to have a child whom they named Isaac.  Now, one child isn’t exactly as many as stars in the sky, but it’s a start.  Isaac married and had twin sons, Esau and Jacob.  As the one born first, Esau should have received the blessing and carried on the promise from his father.  It was a custom at the time called primogenitor.  But Jacob, the trickster, deceived their father and stole the blessing and the promise from Esau then ran away from home.  That’s biblical family values.  And it gets better.

Jacob has two wives, sisters, in fact.  And Jacob will father children with both wives and their maidservants – twelve sons and a daughter.  By the way, Jacob is the one who has the dream of a ladder to the heavens and angels going up and down the ladder.  Jacob is also the one who wrestles all night with God.  Jacob emerges from this encounter changed and with a new name, Israel, which means one who wrestles with God.  Which brings us to today’s reading. 

We begin with Genesis, chapter 37.  Listen for what the Spirit is saying to the church. 

Genesis 37:1-8, 12-14a, 17b-34

¹Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. 2This is the story of the family of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. ³Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. ⁴But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.

⁵Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. ⁶He said to them, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed. ⁷There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.” ⁸His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

¹²Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. ¹³And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “Here I am.” ¹⁴So he said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron.

So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. ¹⁸They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. ¹⁹They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. ²⁰Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” ²¹But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” ²²Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him” —that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father.

²³So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; ²⁴and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. ²⁵Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. ²⁶Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? ²⁷Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers agreed. ²⁸When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt. ²⁹When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes. ³⁰He returned to his brothers, and said, “The boy is gone; and I, where can I turn?”

³¹Then they took Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. ³²They had the long robe with sleeves taken to their father, and they said, “This we have found; see now whether it is your son’s robe or not.” ³³He recognized it, and said, “It is my son’s robe! A wild animal has devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces.” ³⁴Then Jacob tore his garments, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days.

The Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

Joseph – Part 1

The last part of the book of Genesis is the dramatic story of the children of Jacob with a particular, but not exclusive, focus on Joseph.  As you heard this morning, we begin with Jacob and his family settling in the land which God had earlier promised to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.  And immediately we know there is some tension in this family.  We learn that Jacob has a favorite among his sons – Joseph, who is seventeen.  It doesn’t take a genius to realize this will become a problem.  The narrator also gives us a visual cue: Jacob has given this favored son a special coat – a coat of many colors or a robe with long sleeves and reaching down to your feet.  We’re not sure how to translate the word.  Either way one describes it, that coat or robe and what it stands for stirs up jealousy among his brothers.

But that’s not all.  After “working” in the fields with his brothers, Joseph brings “a bad report” of them to their father.  Joseph is a tattletale, a bratty teenager!  The final straw is when Joseph tells his family about a dream he had in which he and his brothers are represented by stalks of wheat, and his brothers’ stalks are bowing down to Joseph’s stalk.  Somehow, Joseph hasn’t figured out that sharing this with his brothers might upset them further.  Joseph has a lot of growing up to do.  And his brothers have grown to hate Joseph.

Having given us a picture of the animosity between Joseph and his brothers, the storyteller sets up the scene that will drive the whole rest of the story of this family, a problem that won’t be resolved until the end of Genesis.

Jacob’s sons are pasturing the flock way out in the next county.  Guess who’s not out there with them.  Of course, Joseph, who’s back home with his dad.  Jacob decides to send Joseph out to see how his brothers are doing.  From the brother’s perspective here comes Joseph, the spoiled brat, probably sent to spy on them.  Is he going to bring back to their father another “bad report”?  And look at him: he’s wearing that coat their father gave him, a reminder that Joseph is special, and they aren’t.  And their father is far, far away.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised when the brothers scheme to kill Joseph, as horrible as that thought is.  And again, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised when they have second thoughts and decide to sell him instead to a passing caravan.  Either way, they’ve gotten rid of their pain-in-the-neck brother, and key to their plot is taking Joseph’s coat so they can put animal blood on it to show their father as proof that a wild animal devoured him.

In four generations we’ve gone from Abraham who trusted God to Jacob’s sons who are jealous and planning to kill.  It’s a cycle of violence that keeps repeating itself.  After Adam and Eve came the story of Cain killing his brother Abel out of jealousy.  And I mentioned earlier how Jacob stole his brother’s blessing and birthright.  Well, Jacob had to flee from home after that because Esau was ready to kill him.

There’s an old saying that the sins of the fathers get visited upon the children.  I don’t think that means God punishes children for the sins of their parents.  I think it reflects the reality that we tend to repeat the same mistakes, generation after generation.  Despite our best intentions, we often make the same mistakes our parents made.  Of course, we often do the same things right as well.  But sometimes we hurt others in ways that are like the ways we once were hurt.  And how often do we hear stories today of domestic violence, of spousal abuse, abuse of children by a parent, that seems to carry on from one generation to the next.  The abused becomes the abuser.  How difficult to break the cycle then and now.

Joseph’s brothers were a lot like their father, Jacob, the trickster.  Reuben, the oldest, realizes that his father will hold him accountable if something bad should happen to Joseph.  You know how it is when you’re the oldest.  So he proposes an alternative plan that will enable him to secretly rescue Joseph.  A little trickery.  And another brother, Judah, not trusting Reuben, secretly comes up with a different plan to sell Joseph as a slave.  A little more trickery.  And all the brothers take Joseph’s special coat and cover it with goat’s blood to show their father, fooling him into believing Joseph has been killed by a wild animal.  Still more trickery.

By the end of the chapter, this family is broken.  The father thinks his favorite son is dead.  The brothers have to live with a terrible secret.  And Joseph ends up a servant in Egypt.  Meanwhile, God seems to be nowhere in sight. 

Introduction to Genesis 50

In Egypt, Joseph’s fortunes rise and fall.  But it is his ability to interpret dreams that will eventually lead to his rescue.  When he interprets the dreams of Pharaoh as predicting a famine, and proposes a plan to prepare for this, Joseph is put in charge of storing and distributing grain.  He becomes Pharaoh’s right-hand man.

As it turns out, the famine is so severe throughout the region that even Jacob and his family have to leave their home and go to Egypt, the only nation with food.  Eventually, Joseph and his brothers are reunited in an emotional scene.  An even more emotional scene takes place soon after when Joseph is reunited with his father.

All would seem to be ending well, but there is one more scene involving Joseph and his brothers.  It follows the death and burial of their father, Jacob.  Listen for what the Spirit is saying to the church in Genesis 50. 

Genesis 50:15-21

¹⁵Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers said, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the evil that we did to him?” ¹⁶So they approached Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this instruction before he died, ¹⁷‘Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the transgression of your brothers and the evil they did in harming you.’ Now therefore please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. ¹⁸Then his brothers also wept, fell down before him, and said, “We are here as your slaves.” ¹⁹But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? ²⁰Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. ²¹So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.” In this way he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.

The Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God. 

Joseph – Part 2

The cycle of hatred and revenge has finally been broken.  Or so we think when the brothers reconcile, and Joseph is reunited with his father, Jacob.  But now that Jacob has died, the brothers are worried Joseph still holds a grudge against them.  That’s because they are still living in the past.

This past spring a group of us read the book “Amish Grace” about the murder of five Amish schoolgirls in Nickel Mines, PA.  A lot of our discussion centered on forgiveness.  It’s not about ignoring or forgetting the past, but about refusing to be chained to the past.  It’s about letting the past go, and it’s not easy.  Ask the folks in Northern Ireland.  Look at the continuing cycle of violence in the Middle East.  Consider your own families – I’m sure some of us can recall feuds that went on for years.  Maybe they still haven’t been settled.

Joseph tells his brothers to look at the present.  Despite the evil of their plan to sell Joseph into slavery, God used that event for good.  This is not to blame God for the actions of Joseph’s brothers.  Rather, despite the brothers’ efforts to harm Joseph, God found a way by working behind the scenes to put Joseph in a position with enough power to enable Jacob’s family to survive and thrive, to become a “numerous people.”  Plans for death have become God’s plans for life.  Forgiveness and the breaking of the cycle of violence is possible because God is involved.  But sometimes God’s plans can be hard to see when you are in the midst of a crisis.

When tragedy strikes one wants to know why and where was God.  There are some who try to attribute the evil to God’s workings.  This text says, “No.”  God doesn’t plan evil, but turns evil plans around to good.  The prophet Jeremiah puts it this way: “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”  It’s often not until after we have come through a tragedy that looking back years later we realize God was always there working quietly in ways and through people we least expect.

When I was a teenager my parents got divorced.  We had a tough first year until my mother could find a job in addition to church organist.  I wouldn’t wish the experience on anyone else, but in spite of the bad situation, my brother, sister and I found some good in it.  Fifteen years later while gathered at my mother’s for Thanksgiving, we all commented on how great her idea was to give each of us $5 a week to buy groceries for making our weekday suppers.  We learned how to cook, how to budget.  We grew closer as a family during this tough time.  And I can look back now and see that God was present in the friends, neighbors and church members who helped us, encouraged us, prayed for us.

Perhaps the good news for us is to realize that God works through ordinary flawed human beings and dysfunctional families.  The Bible is full of them.  Look at Joseph, the snotty kid who irritated his family, didn’t do any work, tattled on his brothers.  He became the means for God to save Jacob’s family, and by extension the people of Israel.  We discover over and over again the sure and ongoing promise of God to create new things, new possibilities, new life, and new hope.  If God can accomplish that through Jacob and his family, think of what God could already be doing through us.

NL-Year 3 / Week 2: Abraham

Introduction to the Text

Last week, we begin a new set of readings called the narrative lectionary – narrative, as in “story.” I shared how stories are the basis of our identity, both personal and communal. For Christians, our identity comes out of the biblical story, the “God story.”

So we began at the beginning…or nearly the beginning. We started our reading with the second creation story, the one with Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the serpent. It was a story whose purpose was to reveal the human condition. The man and the woman are given everything they need to live: a vocation, relationships, and a guide for living that included one prohibition. But too often, prohibition leads to desire for that which is forbidden. We don’t like to be told “No.” And knowing what is “good” for us doesn’t guarantee one will do what is good for us.

And wanting what they aren’t supposed to have leads to disobedience and shame and finger-pointing. At the end of the story, relationships have been broken between the man and the woman, between the humans and God, and even between the humans and the rest of creation. Adam and Eve are sent out of the garden, though a merciful and loving God makes garments for them. And we were left with a question. What is a good and gracious Creator going to do about this?

Well, we hope for the best. But what follows are three stories in which things go from bad to worse. There’s Cain and Abel – a story of sibling rivalry, jealousy over God’s favor, ending with murder and exile. There’s the Flood – God painfully choosing to start over because "creation has refused to be God’s creation, to honor God as God." And then there’s the Tower of Babel – a story "with some subtlety that raises questions about the practice and function of language for following or more often disobeying God’s will." (Walter Brueggemann, "Genesis," Interpretation Series)

We come to the end of the Act One of Genesis and we’re left wondering and waiting to see what God will do to restore relationships. And the answer comes when God calls to one person, Abraham. We don’t know why he was chosen. Maybe God spoke to several people and Abraham and his wife Sarah were the only ones to hear and respond. The narrator doesn’t seem to know or care – only that Abraham responded. To Abraham, God makes a three-fold promise: land, offspring, and a blessing.

Now you might wonder, why God elects, that is chooses, one person, one couple, one nation? This seems rather exclusive, like God is playing favorites. We call it the scandal of particularity. It will come up again and again especially when we talk about Jesus Christ. Being chosen by God is a blessing that comes with a burden, a responsibility. In the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” when the father, Tevye, learns that some of the Tsar’s men are about to come to his small village to cause a little trouble, a little mischief, Tevye prays: “Dear God. Did you have to send me news like that today of all days? I know, I know we are the chosen people. But once in a while, can't you choose someone else?”

God has called Abraham to start something new, “an alternative community in a creation gone awry, to embody in human history the power of the blessing ... The stories of Abraham and his descendents are not ends in themselves; they point to God's largerr purposes."  But God makes this promise to a man who is 75 and has a wife who has been unable to bear children. Some plan, some larger purpose.

Nevertheless, Abraham and Sarah respond and make the long journey from present-day Iraq to Palestine. Time passes, maybe ten years, and God reaches out to Abraham a second time, which brings us to this morning’s reading from Genesis, chapter 15 starting with the first verse. It can be found on page 10 in your pew bible. Listen for what the Spirit is saying to the church.

Genesis 15:1-6

1After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

2But Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” 4But the word of the LORD came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” 5He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 6And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Sermon

How long are you willing to wait for a promise to be fulfilled? Several years ago, my brother was invited to get in on the ground floor of a start-up company in the health care management field. There was a promise that when the company took off and became public, he could do very well for himself and his family, like the folks who started up Apple or Google or Microsoft. So my brother quit his fairly secure, well-paying job with a large insurance company and moved the family from Chicago to Maryland. Three years later as they were about to roll out their main software product, funding dried up and the company went bankrupt. So much for promises. Fortunately, my brother was able to return to his old company and move back to Chicago.

Abraham has been called by God to leave his home and go to where God is directing him. And Abraham is given a promise of land, of offspring, and a blessing. He is blessed to be a blessing to others, to all the families of the earth. So he leaves home with his wife and a sizable entourage and goes where God sends him.

Several years pass, several hard years. When he arrived there was a famine in the land so he went down to Egypt (by the way there’s a little foreshadowing). In Egypt, Abraham passes his wife off as his sister because he’s afraid Pharaoh will kill him if he discovers beautiful Sarah is his wife (so much for trusting in the promises of God). But God acts to save Sarah and Abraham. Once back in Palestine, Abraham finds himself in a foreign land that is not his own. Other than his wife and nephew, the rest of his family is far away. He and Sarah have no children. Even if God gave him the land, with no heir having the land wouldn’t really mean much. Abraham probably wasn’t feeling very blessed.

With none of the promise fulfilled, God appears to Abraham a second time and tells him “your reward shall be very great.” By the way the word translated “reward” doesn’t refer to a kind of quid pro quo. It’s not about doing things so God will immediately bless us with what we ask for. It’s more of a gift, like recognition for long and meritorious service, like a lifetime achievement award.

What is Abraham’s response? God’s promise is what called him to leave home, what keeps him going. Yet after ten years or so, there is nothing. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that his response is to complain. It’s probably what most of us would do. How long do we have to wait for God to respond? What does one do when the answer isn’t “yes” and it isn’t “no,” when the only response is wait. We would complain.

But Abraham is the great hero of three religions, the shining example lifted up by Paul and the letter to the Hebrews as the model of faith, the one God has pinned all the hopes of the future. And he complains to God. “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless.” Then Abraham suggests ways to address the problem. There’s Eliezer of Damascus. There’s a slave born in my household. I could pick one of them to be my heir. Practical Abraham taking matters into his own hands. You know, God helps those who help themselves. No…that’s not actually in the Bible.

God is patient with Abraham and repeats the promise – you will have offspring to inherit the land I will give you. Then God leads Abraham outside and has him look up at the night sky. “Count the stars, if you are able to count them.” That’s how many descendents you’ll have.

We’ve had a few nights in the last couple weeks when the stars in the sky were sharp and clear. I love this time of the year. I can still see Bootes, the Herdsman and its bright star Arcturus. And there’s the summer triangle: Vega, Deneb and Altair. You can see the Milky Way stretch across the sky through the constellation Sagittarius that looks like a teapot and is in the direction of the center of our galaxy. It’s a glorious sight. How much brighter it must have been before the days of artificial lighting.

Abraham complains, and God says, “Trust me.” Then he gives him an unforgettable vision of the night sky. And Abraham believes in this future. That’s what God’s promise and vision can do in spite of all appearances to the contrary. Faith flies in the face of experience. Throughout scripture, “faith is the capacity to embrace [God’s] announced future with such passion that the present can be lot go for the sake of that future.” Abraham trusts in this improbable future and God reckons it to him as righteousness. The storyteller reminds us this is the right way to be in relationship with God.

The Israelites were people who trusted God’s promises. And the apostle Paul will later write that faith as a response to God’s promise is what defines us as children of God. In baptism we trust in God’s promise to bless us and through our lives to be a blessing to others. And we are given a vision in the splash of water. In communion we trust in God’s promise to welcome all to the table and to fill us with such abundance that we can take some out into the community to feed others. And we are given a vision in bread and wine.

God makes it clear Abraham can trust God. What follows the statement about Abraham’s faith is a one-sided covenant ritual binding God to God's promise. In preparation for this ritual, Abraham is told to sacrifice several animals and birds, cut their carcasses in two and lay them in two lines on the ground leaving an aisle between the lines. It was the custom of the day when sealing a covenant to walk between the lines. Implied was a threat: if one failed to live up to the promise, they were to suffer the same fate as the animals. In a dream, Abraham sees a smoking fire pot pass between the animal halves. This was a vision of God promising to make good on pain of God being split in two like the animal carcasses. God puts God’s own self on the line as an assurance that the promise will be fulfilled. Abraham will live his life trusting in God.  And God will deliver.

I asked earlier, how long are you willing to wait for a promise to be fulfilled? The problem is that God operates on God-time, not our time. And that can test our faith. Even after his second encounter with God, Abraham will have to wait several more years before God fulfills the promise of offspring. And we will have to wait longer still to find out when the promise of land is fulfilled. So stay tuned for part three of the “God story” next week. The story continues.

NL-Year 3 / Week 1: Creation

Intro to Main Reading

If one were to ask me about my grandfather on my mother’s side, I might start with a few facts. For instance, he was born in 1906 in a little town called Flora, Indiana. But eventually, I would tell you a story about him. For example, he enjoyed several hobbies during his life. In the 1960’s he was into tropical fish…big time. In his basement he had a dozen fish tanks from 10 gallons up to 30 gallons in size. In one of the tanks he even had two piranhas. During this time, he also obtained a baby alligator, which he named, Roy. Eventually, when Roy grew to 3 feet long, my grandfather gave him away to the Indianapolis Zoo. Like I said, when my grandfather got interested in a hobby, he went “all in.”

Over the last fifty years or so, sociologists have come to realize the basic nature of the human experience is narrative – stories. Stories are the fabric of human knowledge and of interpersonal communication. We construct stories to explain other people’s actions, or to make sense of what’s going on. For example, in the three years Nancy and I have been here in Hector/Lodi, it has been grey and threatening to rain every time they’ve held the Grand Prix Festival in Watkins Glen. Now there’s no real connection between the festival and the weather, but we’ve already begun to build a story. When it’s the Grand Prix Festival it will be grey and drizzly.

Stories are also the basis of personal identity and of communal identity. I shared a story about my grandfather because that’s the easiest way for me to give you a little sense of who he was. And since we’ve been here in Hector and Lodi, we’ve heard numerous stories about the history of this congregation, mostly in the form of stories. One of the reasons you take great pride in the cemetery is that the names out there evoke memories of relatives – memories that are in the form of stories.

For Christians, our identity comes out of the biblical story, what one person has called the “God story.” Through these 66 books, the Old and New Testament, we gain a sense of who we are, who God is, and what is God’s purpose for us. The problem is that we don’t really read this story in any real coherent order. If you’ve ever wondered how we determine what texts to read each week, thank the committee who came up with the list of readings about 40 years ago. It was designed to give congregations the main theological points of our faith over the course of three years. This common list or lectionary has been used by thousands of churches. A lot of resource material has been developed to support it – calls to worship, hymns, prayers of confession, anthems. But the readings jump around a lot. You don’t get a real sense of the overarching “God story.” We’re about to address that.

Today, we begin a new set of readings called the narrative lectionary assembled a couple years ago by a group at Luther Seminary in Minnesota. We hope over the next nine months to give you a better sense of the sweep of the Christian narrative, the story that runs from Genesis through the Old Testament, then one of the gospels, and finally some of the writings of the early church.

So, we begin in the beginning…or nearly the beginning. You heard Pastor Nancy share the first creation story with the kids. We’re going to start our reading with the second creation story, the one with Adam and Eve. Now we all know that story…or, at least, think we know it. But various interpretations over the years have inserted things into the story or made assumptions that are not in the biblical narrative. So, I invite you now to listen with fresh ears for what the Spirit is saying to the church: Genesis 2, starting with the second half of verse 4. This can be found on page 2 in your pew bible.

Genesis 2:4b-8a, 15-17; 3:1-8, 21-24

In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,5when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground—7then the LORD God formed the Adam from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.  8And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east

15The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.  16And the LORD God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

[what follows is the creation of a helper as the Adam’s partner: the woman who is flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone]

1Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ “4But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.7Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.8They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

[what follows is shame, blame and punishment: there are consequences for disobeying God]

21And the LORD God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.  22Then the LORD God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—23therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.24He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Sermon

There was a series of ads recently for pomegranate juice. In one of those ads they show a clearly naked woman wrapped very strategically by a large snake. Meanwhile, the announcer tells us that some scholars believe it was a pomegranate, not an apple, with which Eve tempted Adam.

Except that’s not the story we just heard – one of several misinterpretations of what is commonly referred to as the story of the Fall or Original Sin. In the text, Eve doesn’t tempt Adam, there is no apple or pomegranate – just fruit, and nowhere in the rest of the bible are the words “fall” or “original sin” used to describe this story. It is not an attempt to explain how sin entered the world and has contaminated all of Adam and Eve’s descendants, including us. So what is this story trying to tell us? And does it have any relevance to today?

This second story of creation begins with God forming man from the dust of the ground, and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. This God is intimately involved with creation. Unlike the first creation story where God is somewhat above it all like a king on a throne who speaks and things happen. God in this story isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty working the ground, the adamah. By the way, that’s the Hebrew word for dirt. Adam made from the adamah. It’s word play, like saying God made the human from humus. But the human isn’t fully alive until God breaths into his creation.

And the first thing God does with the human is give him a vocation, a calling, a job. He is to till the garden and keep it. The words for “till” and “keep” can also mean to serve and protect. The human is called to serve and protect the garden to which he is intimately connected having been formed from the dirt. Yes, care for creation, for the environment, has always been a part of our vocation. How we do that responsibly and fairly is our challenge. For those who are interested, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has an Office for Environmental Ministries to show congregations how they can care for God’s creation.

Having a calling is not enough. Work is not enough. So in one of the parts I skipped over in the story, God creates a helper to be the Adam’s partner. It’s the storyteller’s way to remind his audience that human beings are not only created for a vocation, but also created for relationship, one in which each is a partner. This includes marriage in which the two shall become one flesh.

The human has work and a life partner. But one more thing is needed: guidance in the form of life-giving rules. So God tells the humans they can eat of any tree in the garden except one. So now with work, a partner, and a simple command, everything should be paradise. They lived happily ever after...except they didn’t.

There have been studies done in which a group of children are placed in a room full of toys and told they can play with any toy they want, except for the toys in the box in the corner of the room. And pretty quickly the kids are fighting over the toys in the box in the corner of the room. When I was in college, there was a battle over setting the thermostat in our dorm. Eventually, the house manager put one of those plastic boxes that lock over the thermostat so no one could change it. The next day there was a ping pong ball in the box (I’m still not quite sure how it was done). We don’t like being told, “No,” even if it’s for our own good. And prohibition so often turns into desire for that which is forbidden. That is one of the truths in this story about the human condition.

The humans are working in the garden when along comes the serpent – not the devil, not Satan, but a serpent, who is crafty. Actually, the word can be translated as shrewd or sensible or prudent. One can’t really tell whether the serpent is inherently evil. But the serpent raises a doubt and offers an alternate story. No, you won’t die, but you’ll be like God knowing good and evil. Who are people going to listen to?

So Eve takes the fruit and gives some to her husband who was with her. For centuries women were blamed for bringing sin into the world. But look at the story. She’s not tempting him. He’s not off in some other part of the garden. He’s standing right next to her hearing the whole conversation. He’s taking the fruit and eating. Adam is just as guilty of disobeying God.

Now, even before she takes and eats the fruit, the woman already knows the good. She sees the tree is good for food, and that it is a delight to the eyes, and to be desired to make one wise. They both know the good, but it’s not enough. They want what they aren’t supposed to have, what isn’t life-giving. And here we have another one of the great human truths.

Just because we know, doesn’t mean we act appropriately. Knowing doesn’t mean doing. We know what foods we should eat, but I still love my ice cream. We know smoking is bad for us, but millions still smoke including by father. We know we shouldn’t drink and drive, but thousands are killed every year in this country in accidents caused by people under the influence. The knowledge of what’s good and right doesn’t equate to our acting appropriately. The will to do good is not always there. That’s the human condition and another of the central truths of this story. It’s also why this story has endured to the present.

So what’s God to do about all this? Well, there is punishment for disobedience, there is judgment and consequence. But there is also mercy. They two don’t die after eating the fruit. God who is merciful makes clothing for the man and woman and sends them out of the garden to continue to work the land.

This is a theme we will hear throughout the coming year. The Biblical narrative is about the human condition of brokenness and broken relationships. But it is also about discovering that a good and gracious creator won’t give up on us, wants to be in relationship with us. And the ultimate proof is Jesus Christ, whom the Apostle Paul called the new Adam. So stay tuned for part two of the “God story” next week. The story continues.