Things are NOT what they appear

Luke 7:1-10                                                                    

7After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum.²A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death.³When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave.⁴When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy of having you do this for him,⁵for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.”⁶And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to Jesus, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof;⁷therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.⁸For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.”⁹When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”¹⁰When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

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

 

A few weeks ago we heard the first sermon that Jesus preached, according to the gospel of Luke.  Remember?  Jesus went back to his hometown, and preached a sermon in his home church.  And, like so many young preachers, he started off well…but then things took a turn.  For the worse.  So much so, that the crowd, presumably who knew him, who had watched him grow up, got so mad that they wanted to throw him off a cliff.

Because Jesus told them that God blesses strangers, “the other”, the enemy.  That God does not limit God’s grace only to us and to our kind.

That was Jesus’ inaugural speech, his declaration of what his reign would be like.

And now, Jesus is acting out his inaugural promises. 

Jesus has again gone back to his home region, to Capernaum in Galilee.  The region of heavy Roman occupation.  The region of maniacal, murderous Herod.  A region in which there was an uprising against the Romans that was squelched.  And we hear the story of the centurion.  A centurion who has a slave, a beloved servant, close to death.  He sends word to Jesus—through the Jewish elders.  Things are not what they appear.Apparently, this Centurion is a good centurion—as if there could be such a thing!  The Jewish elders plead his case before Jesus- “He is worthy of having you do this for him, he loves our people, and built the synagogue for us”. 

Jesus begins to walk towards the centurion’s house, only to be greeted by more people, speaking on behalf of the centurion- this time, saying “I am not worthy- but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed.”  And Jesus does.  And the servant is healed.

And Jesus commends the centurion’s faith.  A worthy man, his request is granted.  We understand how God works.  But things are not as they appear.

Luke 7:11-17

¹¹Soon afterwards Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him.¹²As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town.¹³When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.”¹⁴Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!”¹⁵The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.¹⁶Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!”¹⁷This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

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

Jesus then goes to the village of Nain, a village southeast of Nazareth, and came upon a funeral procession, heading out of the city, to the burial ground, led by the mother of the dead man.  And Jesus disrupts the procession, puts his hand on the casket, and the men carrying the body stand still.  Probably in shock.  Because if you are a faithful Jew, you don’t touch dead bodies unless you absolutely, absolutely have to.  It makes you unclean, you have to go through a whole process, and then be declared clean by the priest, before you can get back to your life.  It just was not done.  But Jesus did. Jesus speaks to the dead man, and the young man is restored to life, and Jesus gives him back to his mother.

Before Jesus went to the towns of Capernaum and Nain, Jesus has been speaking to crowds, and he has been telling them stories, parables. Jesus has told the story of the wise and foolish men- the wise man builds his house upon the rock, but the foolish man builds his house upon the sand. He is telling that story to point out that those who SAY “lord, lord” but do not act in consonance with their talk, with their beliefs, have no foundation, and will be swept away by the storms of life.

Jesus is consistent in his speech and actions—he talked about God’s grace, and lived it out.

These two stories of healing stand together, and stand in contrast to each other.  The Centurion is an enemy- and yet his request is answered.  He says he is not worthy, but the Jews say he is, and intercede for him.  The widow in Nain—she makes no request.  We have no idea of her faith.  In the whole accounting of “worthiness”, she has none- a nameless widow, now with a dead son.  And yet Jesus interrupts the funeral procession—and restores her son and gives them both their lives back. 

Jesus heals one man, the slave, after a request, and talks about faith.  And Jesus heals a second man, an unnamed son, without a request, and with no comment about anybody’s faith.  So the healings are not really about worthiness, or the amount of faith, or even being “one of God’s people.”  They are about the overwhelming grace of God. 

The crowd, around the widow and her son, in the town of Nain, get it.  They get that in Jesus, God has looked favorably on God’s people.  The Jewish elders in the first story get it—they go to Jesus on behalf of the centurion. And the centurion himself, on some level, understands that Jesus has power- after all, he is in the army—he understands how things work. The centurion gives orders, and things happen.

Things are not what they appear.  The centurion says “I am not worthy to have you come under the roof of my house….”  Like Simon Peter after the great catch of fish, saying to Jesus “Lord, get away from me for I am a sinful man…” the centurion sees, clearly, who Jesus is, and who he is.

Last summer, the [Hector] youth went to Staten Island, to work with Project Hospitality, to serve food to the homeless and the poor, to learn about HIV and AIDS, to see how the people of God were reaching out in that area.  And things were not always what they appeared there, either.  People were coming to the food pantry driving some very high end cars.  And the youth struggled with that- how could they qualify for the food pantry while still driving such an expensive car?  And the people in the group with AIDS and HIV- they didn’t look sick, most of them.  And when we talked with them, or played card games with them, they didn’t seem so different from us. 

 

Reverend Terry Troia, the founder of Project Hospitality, recently wrote about the effects of Hurricane Sandy on the people of Staten Island that she serves.  She wrote of the help that had come from all over:  Buddhist monks, distributed 10 million dollars- in 100$ bills- to families in the area.  Monks, who had taken a vow of poverty, giving away millions.  She wrote of people from all over, from all faiths, Muslims and Jews, Southern Baptists and Mexican day workers who all worked together to help those in need.  She wrote of a town hall meeting, where person after person came up to the microphone:  immigrants, many of them, some long time residents, some disabled, some hearing impaired, gay, straight, young and old, all searching for hope “in the midst of devastation and despair”.  But she saw, through the eyes of faith, the people gathered at the great feast, the people who God had called and God loves, even in great tragedy.  “They shall come from east and west, from north and south, to sit at table in the kingdom of God” we say.

 

For God is working, even now, to heal and make whole.  Because when we look at Jesus’ actions in these stories of healing and hope and compassion, we see that Jesus doesn’t care about the lines, about the rules, about the way things “appear”- Jesus doesn’t care about whether or not the centurion is a Jew, he doesn’t ask about the status of the slave or their relationship—he only heals.  And Jesus doesn’t care that the son of the woman is literally almost in the grave—Jesus interrupts the funeral procession because he is moved with pity.  This is what God is like—because when God is involved, things are NOT what they appear—the rules about what is, or what should be, are laid aside in the face of overwhelming love and healing.  Thanks be to God.

 

 

 

 

 

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.