When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, “My son”; and he answered, “Here I am.” He said, “See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death. Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me. Then prepare for me savory food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.”
Then Rebekah took the best garments of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob; and she put the skins of the kids on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. Then she handed the savory food, and the bread that she had prepared, to her son Jacob.
So he went in to his father, and said, “My father”; and he said, “Here I am; who are you, my son?” Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, so that you may bless me.” But Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” He answered, “Because the Lord your God granted me success.” Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.” So Jacob went up to his father Isaac, who felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him.
Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” But the words of her elder son Esau were told to Rebekah; so she sent and called her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran, and stay with him a while, until your brother’s fury turns away— until your brother’s anger against you turns away, and he forgets what you have done to him; then I will send, and bring you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?”
Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Gen. 27:1-4, 15-23, 41-45; 28:10-17 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from God--Creator, Redeemer, and Renewer. Amen.
Over these past few weeks, we’ve begun to hear the story. The story of how our relationship--how all of humanity’s relationship with the living God is a story of blessing upon blessing. We first read about the blessings of creation and our special responsibility to care for it. We then saw how God blessed Abraham through a difficult time--saw the obedience of Abraham who was willing to sacrifice his own son, who trusted that God was big enough to see God’s promise through to fulfillment and how, in the end, God did not ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. How just, at the right time, God provided the sacrifice.
So, what happens when story goes awry? How does all of this work when the blessing is stolen? When God gives God’s blessing to someone we perceive as completely unworthy and undeserving?
As our story opens today, Isaac is now an old man. He and Rebekah, his wife, have been extraordinarily blessed by God with large herds, a number of servants, and much wealth. They are the parents of twin sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau, the oldest, will be entitled to both the birthright and the blessing under their cultural norms. This means that Esau can expect to be quite wealthy upon the death of Isaac--that he can expect to receive two thirds of all of his father’s estate.
But, the birthright doesn’t only come with wealth. It also comes with power. Esau will be the leader of his family. His brother, Jacob, and all of Jacob’s family will be expected to respect and honor his wishes, as the oldest son and family patriarch.
Then, there is the blessing. This is more personal for Esau. It is the blessing given by God, first to Abraham, Esau’s grandfather. Then to his father Isaac. The blessing--the promise--that God would make a great nation out of Abraham and his descendants and that God would bless them to be a blessing to others.
With both the family birthright and the promised blessing of God, there is a great future ahead for Esau.
And, then, it all falls apart.
It begins with family dysfunction. We get a premonition of this dysfunction at the very beginning of their story, when Esau and Jacob are still in Rebekah’s womb. She experiences a difficult pregnancy. So she turns to God who tells her that the two sons she is carrying will become two nations. That the younger of the two will be the strongest and that the older will be his servant.
Then, in earlier chapters, we also read about how different Esau and Jacob were--physically and temperamentally. Esau was ruddy and handsome, an outdoorsman, a “man’s man.” And that he was Isaac’s favorite.
Then there’s Jacob. He was more delicate. He preferred to stay indoors, particularly in the kitchen. A “mama’s boy.” Yet, smarter than Esau, a schemer. And that Jacob was Rebekah’s favorite.
This family dysfunction plays out one day in the kitchen, where Jacob has just finished cooking a full pot of lentil stew. Esau enters, famished after a full day of hunting. Tricked by Jacob, Esau gives up his birthright--the two thirds of his father’s wealth--in exchange for a bowl of lentil soup.
We see this same dysfunction in today’s lesson. This time, both Jacob and Rebekah are engaged in trickery. In scheming to deprive Esau, who has already lost his birthright. To deprive Esau out of the blessing, too. That more personal promise he is to inherit from Isaac--that promise from God for his future and for his family’s future.
Rebekah and Jacob are successful in their subterfuge. With Isaac’s failing eyesight and the deception of his wife and son, we read in our text that Isaac mistakenly gives the blessing to Jacob. That, in a similar twist and in exchange for a bowl of savory food, of delicacies, of “rich food,” Isaac gives the blessing to Jacob. A blessing of wealth and power and, eventually, the ancestral blessing of God’s promise. A blessing that can’t be taken back.
Esau is outraged. He is beside himself with anger and frustration. “Bless me, me, too, Father!” he cries out bitterly to Isaac. “Haven’t you reserved a blessing for me?” He says, in tears, to his father. And, then, Esau plots to kill Jacob. To wait until their father has died and the days of mourning have passed. And, then, to kill Jacob. His brother.
Rebekah gets wind of Esau’s plan. She convinces Jacob to leave. To run away. To escape the wrath of his brother. To flee to the home of his uncle, Laban--Rebekah’s brother. Back to the ancestral land of Abraham, Jacob’s grandfather.
Family dysfunction. Playing favorites. The ongoing patterns of deception that continue on and on. The evasion. The covering up. The running away. These all become patterns of life. And Jacob, in particular, is complicit for much of what has happened. For much of the family dysfunction.
Yet, Jacob doesn’t live happily ever after, as tricksters rarely do. In the story, Jacob finds himself on the run, alone, in the wilderness. Somewhere between the home he has left behind and that of his uncle.
Our story says he came to “a certain place.” The original Hebrew reads that Jacob came to “the place.” There’s a definite article here. To the place. As though the reader will know exactly where this is. Early Jewish writings tell us that this is Moriah. This place--Mount Moriah--has special significance. It’s where the near sacrifice of Isaac happened. It’s also the place where Solomon would eventually build the temple. The temple on the highest place in Jerusalem.
Jacob does not know this. All he knows is that he is tired. He is tired of running and he is all alone. Without family or friends. In a desolate place. All by himself. With a stone for a pillow.
And, then, the dream begins. It is a wild dream. A wild vision of a stairway stretching from earth to heaven, with angels--messengers of God--moving first up the stairway and then back down. Over and over. Up and down. From earth to heaven and back down again.
Early Jewish writings compare this stairway to those attached to temple towers in the ancient Near East. These stairways were considered microcosms of the world--that the top of the tower represented heaven, the dwelling place of the gods. And that priests would traverse the stairway between heaven and earth and provide communication from the gods to the people. These writings challenge this notion. They argue that this dream is evidence that God speaks God’s own words--words of promise. And that, in this dream, God is personally present with Jacob.
Whatever its interpretation, Jacob wakes up. He realizes that this place is the place--a holy place. A place of God. He takes the stone he has been using for a pillow, anoints it with oil and sets it upright to mark this place. Then, Jacob names this place Beth-el, meaning “house of God.” It is here, in this place of wilderness, in the midst of life and of suffering, in this hard place, that God has been present for Jacob. Eventually Israel would build walls around this place and invite people to it as a place of sanctuary, as a holy place. That they will mistakenly believe that it is only in this place where God is to be found.
We often make that same mistake. Believing that God is only to be found here, inside these walls. What this story teaches us that, in fact, God is found out there. In the wilderness, in the midst of life and of suffering, in the hard places. In the messiness of our lives. It is in the hidden and most obscure, in the darkest places of our lives and of our world that God is most present. At work. Reconciling.
Because that, ultimately, is how the story of Jacob and Esau will end. With reconciliation. Jacob comes back. Just like we come back. To God, who has always been present with us and who refuses to let our dysfunctional pasts determine our futures. Where those patterns are altered through God’s grace.
Ultimately, it is Jesus, who becomes the embodiment of this presence of God in the midst of human sin and dysfunction. It is Jesus who is like the stairway in Jacob’s dream. Jesus, who binds together earth and heaven. Jesus, through whom we find God in the midst of the hard places. We find God just like Jacob did. Present, even when we don’t realize it.
This is the story of Jacob. It is our story. Mostly, though, it is the story of God. How, despite the obstacles we throw in the way, despite the tragedy or our sinfulness, despite the wilderness of our lives and our world, God sees a much bigger picture than we can. God sees where the blessings lie hidden. And God uncovers them to God’s glory. And brings us back. Home. To the house of God.
With Jacob, we, too, can proclaim, “How awesome is this place!” And, mostly, “how awesome is our God!” Amen.
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Is God Big Enough?
The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him.
After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.
When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” Genesis 21:1-3, 22:1-14 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator; Christ, our Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit, our Renewer and Re-creator. Amen.
Blessings. We talked a lot about blessings last week, didn’t we? As we read through the story of creation and heard, once again, the narrative of God’s creativity and loving care in designing a world of order and fruitfulness, it’s hard not to think of how richly God blessed humanity with all of the beauty and diversity of creation. The goodness of such creation. Six times in the story, God looks at what God has created and declares it “good!”
And, then, it all falls apart.
There’s a progression of violence in the early chapters of Genesis. It begins with Cain and Abel and continues to escalate as all of humanity spirals downward into greater and greater conflict and destruction. People are setting up empires to oppress the masses. Entire systems perpetuate injustice.
And, then, we meet Abraham. The primary actor in our story today.
Abraham’s story is unusual. If you remember it from our lessons this past summer, it is Abraham who left his father’s household in Mesopotamia and moved to Canaan. Abraham, who had been called by God to make this journey.
People in Abraham’s time didn’t just do that. They had a cyclical view of history. They believed that everything that had happened would happen again. That somewhere in that cycle you died and then your kids continued the cycle. And that nothing changed. The cycle continued. Over and over and over again.
But, Abraham is different. He leaves. He steps out of the cycle. And walks into a new future. Leaving home. And leaving an entire way of life. Abraham has a destiny, a destiny planned by God. A plan to father a new kind of people to usher in a new era for humanity. One based in love and not violence or power. One that would bless all people.
How do you do this? How do you form a new kind of people who will take the world in a new direction? Well, as Rob Bell, a contemporary theologian, writes, “You have kids!”
And that’s what Abraham and Sarah did. Have kids. Well, not at first. Because, at first, Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was barren. Worried that God’s plan might go awry, Sarah and Abraham tried to fix things. And the result was that Abraham had a son with Sarah’s servant, Hagar. Ishmael, they named him.
But, this wasn’t exactly God’s plan. What was God’s plan would that this new nation would come from Abraham and Sarah. And, so God promised them a child. A son. It is here, where our story begins today. With their son, Isaac, meaning “laughter.” And with God keeping God’s promise to them. Not only the promise of the son. But also the promise that through that son that they had been blessed with--through Isaac they would become a great people. That through these blessings, they would bless others.
Isaac makes it through childhood, which alone is a great feat. And, perhaps just when it begins to feel to Abraham, that everything is right with the world and that maybe, just maybe, this plan of God’s is really real. Once again, it all falls apart. Or so it seems.
Genesis 22 opens with this verse. “After all these things, God tested Abraham.” It’s such an interesting phrase, isn’t it--”after all these things.” After Abraham has broken the cycle, followed God’s command into an unknown future, trusted in the promise of God to give him a son and to make a great nation out of him. After all of these things, God decides to test Abraham. As though Abraham hasn’t already passed test after test.
We hear a lot about God testing us. We need to step back a little bit here and thing about that word “test.” It has such a negative connotation, doesn’t it. It always gets applied to us in our lives when something bad is happening or things seem to be going wrong. “God is testing me,” we might say in response. As if God wants to see whether or not we’ll be faithful through the suffering. Or as though God is sadistic--that God wants to test how much we love God.
But that’s not what this is. Here, this test is like the tests that you used to take in school (or that you still do). Tests that are intended to measure your progress. To make sure you’re ready. Ready to move onto the next step of learning. Tests help us identify our readiness for what is next to come. It’s the same here with Abraham. God comes to Abraham to see if he is ready to move onto the next step. To really become the “father or nations.”
“Abraham, Abraham,” God calls. And Abraham answers, “Here I am!” In the Hebrew, the word is heneni. It’s not just saying, “Hey, I’m here. I’m present.” It is Abraham saying to God, “I’m here. I’m at your disposal. Tell me to do whatever you want and I will do it.”
And so, God tells him to take his son. His only son. To “please” take his son. You see, it’s not a command, it’s a request. Abraham has a choice here. A choice of whether or not to follow God’s request. Or to refuse it. If he was going to do what God asked of him, it would have to be done willingly.
Abraham is silent. Perhaps he was just stunned. But, there is no argument. No resistance. Perhaps it is just silent resignation. But, Abraham does it. He packs up the wood and places it on the donkey. Then, gathers two young servants and Isaac. And he moves toward the mountain. To build an altar. Abraham, who already has a history of building altars and who is experienced at making sacrifices--Abraham begins the journey.
At the bottom of the mountain, they stop. And Abraham takes the wood and puts it on Isaac’s back. As they begin up the mountain, Isaac has a moment of realization. “Father, father,” he says to Abraham. “Heneni,” Abraham answers. “Here I am. Fully for you, my son.”
Isaac has noticed that they have everything they need, except for one thing. The lamb. There is no lamb for the burnt offering. What will they use? He asks his father. And Abraham, still stunned, mumbles, “God will provide.”
I wonder what Isaac’s reaction was when his father began to bound him up and then to place him on top of the altar they had built together. Did he resist? Did he try to run away? Was his pleading, or crying, or struggling? Or was there just placid, stunned submission, like his father. The one he trusted with his very life.
Or what was Abraham thinking as he looked into Isaac’s eyes. Into “Laughter’s” eyes. Eyes that had always watched for Abraham as he returned each day from the pastures. Eyes that had held the promise of a nation, of heirs, of God. Eyes now filled with terror and trust at the same time. How they must have pierced Abraham to his very core!
And, then, just as Abraham is ready to make the sacrifice. Of his son. Abraham hears God, “Abraham, Abraham.” And once again, for the third time, Abraham responds, “Heneni. Here I am.”
How close they came. Abraham pulls Isaac into a deep embrace. And then sees the ram off in the distance. Yes, God has provided.
It is horrifying, isn’t it. We have no concept of what it means to participate in such an act. What kind of religion would demand child sacrifice? Yet, this was the world in which Abraham lived. The gods that people worshipped in his time and place demanded all kinds of offerings from their worshipers, including blood sacrifice. Sacrifice in exchange for the favor of the gods. But interrupting what would have been a normal practice, God is saying, “Enough! No more of this!”
And, yet, if I’m honest, I have to question whether I would want to even have a relationship with a God that would ask me to do that, to do something so repulsive, to sacrifice my own child. Of course, that’s not to say that we don’t sacrifice our children to various gods every day, depending upon what we teach in our own homes. To sacrifice our children to OUR gods. Those things we think are important. Our own priorities that become the gods our children are sacrificed to--the god of money, or of power, or of envy, or of competition or consumerism, or violence, or prejudice.
Yet, Abraham’s story isn’t so much about a man sacrificing his child, but a man who risks everything for his belief in God. Abraham had been given a promise--that he would be the father of multitudes. That many nations would come from him, that his descendents would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens and the grains of sand on the seashore. Isaac was the physical representation of that promise from God.
What if the sacrifice was more about whether Abraham believed that God was big enough to carry out the promise. That even if Abraham destroyed the physical sign of that promise by sacrificing Isaac, God would still carry out the plan. That Abraham’s God was big enough.
The minute Abraham showed that he trusted God to carry out the plan, even without Isaac, the physical sign of that plan. The minute Abraham did this, he passed the test. He was ready to go onto the next step. To truly become the “father of many nations.” Because Abraham understood. He understood that everything he had--his son, his family, and even everything he would ever have- it was all ultimately a gift from God. That it didn’t belong to him. But, that it all belonged to God.
We tend to hold tightest onto those things that are the most dear to us. Our own Isaacs. Our homes. Our 401k’s. Whether those things are, those things that we think will bring us security and comfort.
And, we thank God for them. We have lists of those blessings in the fellowship hall. Lists we created last week that we thank God for.
Yet, we grip them so tightly that they end up bound on the altar of our choice. Just like Abraham’s hand must have trembled at the thought of losing Isaac, so we tremble at the thought of losing these things. Or of giving any of it away. Not just money, but all our gifts. All those gifts God has given us--teaching, caring, listening to someone, serving, leading.
We don’t realize. Or we simply forget. That none of it belongs to us. None of it, including even our church, belongs to us. It all belongs to God.
That’s what the test was for Abraham. That’s what the test is for us. We have to be willing to give up part of who we are and to step into who God tells us we are. To be willing to believe that God is big enough. Bigger than what we can see or even imagine. And that God is able to do more than we can even ask or think.
A few thousand years later (after all these things), when Abraham’s descendants were as numerous as stars, there was a similar scene. But this time, it would be God’s own son who would walk up the side of the mountain, carrying the wood for his own death, his own altar of sacrifice. And this time, God would not stop it. God wouldn’t be spared the pain of God’s own son dying, wouldn’t even reach down to cover Jesus’ eyes that were so full of terror and trust at the same time.
This was God’s gift to us. “For God so loved the world…” And God did it to birth new life for us. Through Jesus’ death. A new covenant. A new promise. Between God and humanity. One that can’t be broken, even if we try to destroy it ourselves. This is the promise and gift we have through Jesus Christ in our baptisms. Life.
So, after all these things. After church and Sunday school, maybe this afternoon when you’re enjoying a beautiful, warm afternoon--probably one of the last before autumn begins. As you’re thinking about everything that has happened, and you’re giving thanks for every blessing that you’ve been given and the many people who have blessed you. Think about this story. And know that God’s Spirit lives within you. It’s that Spirit you know that you hear deep inside saying, “Take what I have given you and offer it back to me.” That’s the test for you. The test of your trust. The test of the question: Is your God big enough?
Amen.
Preached September 17, 2017, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Readings: Gen. 21:1-3, 22:1-14; John 1:29
*With special appreciation to Rev. Linda Pepe and her blog, Theological Stew.
After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.
When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” Genesis 21:1-3, 22:1-14 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator; Christ, our Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit, our Renewer and Re-creator. Amen.
Blessings. We talked a lot about blessings last week, didn’t we? As we read through the story of creation and heard, once again, the narrative of God’s creativity and loving care in designing a world of order and fruitfulness, it’s hard not to think of how richly God blessed humanity with all of the beauty and diversity of creation. The goodness of such creation. Six times in the story, God looks at what God has created and declares it “good!”
And, then, it all falls apart.
There’s a progression of violence in the early chapters of Genesis. It begins with Cain and Abel and continues to escalate as all of humanity spirals downward into greater and greater conflict and destruction. People are setting up empires to oppress the masses. Entire systems perpetuate injustice.
And, then, we meet Abraham. The primary actor in our story today.
Abraham’s story is unusual. If you remember it from our lessons this past summer, it is Abraham who left his father’s household in Mesopotamia and moved to Canaan. Abraham, who had been called by God to make this journey.
People in Abraham’s time didn’t just do that. They had a cyclical view of history. They believed that everything that had happened would happen again. That somewhere in that cycle you died and then your kids continued the cycle. And that nothing changed. The cycle continued. Over and over and over again.
But, Abraham is different. He leaves. He steps out of the cycle. And walks into a new future. Leaving home. And leaving an entire way of life. Abraham has a destiny, a destiny planned by God. A plan to father a new kind of people to usher in a new era for humanity. One based in love and not violence or power. One that would bless all people.
How do you do this? How do you form a new kind of people who will take the world in a new direction? Well, as Rob Bell, a contemporary theologian, writes, “You have kids!”
And that’s what Abraham and Sarah did. Have kids. Well, not at first. Because, at first, Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was barren. Worried that God’s plan might go awry, Sarah and Abraham tried to fix things. And the result was that Abraham had a son with Sarah’s servant, Hagar. Ishmael, they named him.
But, this wasn’t exactly God’s plan. What was God’s plan would that this new nation would come from Abraham and Sarah. And, so God promised them a child. A son. It is here, where our story begins today. With their son, Isaac, meaning “laughter.” And with God keeping God’s promise to them. Not only the promise of the son. But also the promise that through that son that they had been blessed with--through Isaac they would become a great people. That through these blessings, they would bless others.
Isaac makes it through childhood, which alone is a great feat. And, perhaps just when it begins to feel to Abraham, that everything is right with the world and that maybe, just maybe, this plan of God’s is really real. Once again, it all falls apart. Or so it seems.
Genesis 22 opens with this verse. “After all these things, God tested Abraham.” It’s such an interesting phrase, isn’t it--”after all these things.” After Abraham has broken the cycle, followed God’s command into an unknown future, trusted in the promise of God to give him a son and to make a great nation out of him. After all of these things, God decides to test Abraham. As though Abraham hasn’t already passed test after test.
We hear a lot about God testing us. We need to step back a little bit here and thing about that word “test.” It has such a negative connotation, doesn’t it. It always gets applied to us in our lives when something bad is happening or things seem to be going wrong. “God is testing me,” we might say in response. As if God wants to see whether or not we’ll be faithful through the suffering. Or as though God is sadistic--that God wants to test how much we love God.
But that’s not what this is. Here, this test is like the tests that you used to take in school (or that you still do). Tests that are intended to measure your progress. To make sure you’re ready. Ready to move onto the next step of learning. Tests help us identify our readiness for what is next to come. It’s the same here with Abraham. God comes to Abraham to see if he is ready to move onto the next step. To really become the “father or nations.”
“Abraham, Abraham,” God calls. And Abraham answers, “Here I am!” In the Hebrew, the word is heneni. It’s not just saying, “Hey, I’m here. I’m present.” It is Abraham saying to God, “I’m here. I’m at your disposal. Tell me to do whatever you want and I will do it.”
And so, God tells him to take his son. His only son. To “please” take his son. You see, it’s not a command, it’s a request. Abraham has a choice here. A choice of whether or not to follow God’s request. Or to refuse it. If he was going to do what God asked of him, it would have to be done willingly.
Abraham is silent. Perhaps he was just stunned. But, there is no argument. No resistance. Perhaps it is just silent resignation. But, Abraham does it. He packs up the wood and places it on the donkey. Then, gathers two young servants and Isaac. And he moves toward the mountain. To build an altar. Abraham, who already has a history of building altars and who is experienced at making sacrifices--Abraham begins the journey.
At the bottom of the mountain, they stop. And Abraham takes the wood and puts it on Isaac’s back. As they begin up the mountain, Isaac has a moment of realization. “Father, father,” he says to Abraham. “Heneni,” Abraham answers. “Here I am. Fully for you, my son.”
Isaac has noticed that they have everything they need, except for one thing. The lamb. There is no lamb for the burnt offering. What will they use? He asks his father. And Abraham, still stunned, mumbles, “God will provide.”
I wonder what Isaac’s reaction was when his father began to bound him up and then to place him on top of the altar they had built together. Did he resist? Did he try to run away? Was his pleading, or crying, or struggling? Or was there just placid, stunned submission, like his father. The one he trusted with his very life.
Or what was Abraham thinking as he looked into Isaac’s eyes. Into “Laughter’s” eyes. Eyes that had always watched for Abraham as he returned each day from the pastures. Eyes that had held the promise of a nation, of heirs, of God. Eyes now filled with terror and trust at the same time. How they must have pierced Abraham to his very core!
And, then, just as Abraham is ready to make the sacrifice. Of his son. Abraham hears God, “Abraham, Abraham.” And once again, for the third time, Abraham responds, “Heneni. Here I am.”
How close they came. Abraham pulls Isaac into a deep embrace. And then sees the ram off in the distance. Yes, God has provided.
It is horrifying, isn’t it. We have no concept of what it means to participate in such an act. What kind of religion would demand child sacrifice? Yet, this was the world in which Abraham lived. The gods that people worshipped in his time and place demanded all kinds of offerings from their worshipers, including blood sacrifice. Sacrifice in exchange for the favor of the gods. But interrupting what would have been a normal practice, God is saying, “Enough! No more of this!”
And, yet, if I’m honest, I have to question whether I would want to even have a relationship with a God that would ask me to do that, to do something so repulsive, to sacrifice my own child. Of course, that’s not to say that we don’t sacrifice our children to various gods every day, depending upon what we teach in our own homes. To sacrifice our children to OUR gods. Those things we think are important. Our own priorities that become the gods our children are sacrificed to--the god of money, or of power, or of envy, or of competition or consumerism, or violence, or prejudice.
Yet, Abraham’s story isn’t so much about a man sacrificing his child, but a man who risks everything for his belief in God. Abraham had been given a promise--that he would be the father of multitudes. That many nations would come from him, that his descendents would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens and the grains of sand on the seashore. Isaac was the physical representation of that promise from God.
What if the sacrifice was more about whether Abraham believed that God was big enough to carry out the promise. That even if Abraham destroyed the physical sign of that promise by sacrificing Isaac, God would still carry out the plan. That Abraham’s God was big enough.
The minute Abraham showed that he trusted God to carry out the plan, even without Isaac, the physical sign of that plan. The minute Abraham did this, he passed the test. He was ready to go onto the next step. To truly become the “father of many nations.” Because Abraham understood. He understood that everything he had--his son, his family, and even everything he would ever have- it was all ultimately a gift from God. That it didn’t belong to him. But, that it all belonged to God.
We tend to hold tightest onto those things that are the most dear to us. Our own Isaacs. Our homes. Our 401k’s. Whether those things are, those things that we think will bring us security and comfort.
And, we thank God for them. We have lists of those blessings in the fellowship hall. Lists we created last week that we thank God for.
Yet, we grip them so tightly that they end up bound on the altar of our choice. Just like Abraham’s hand must have trembled at the thought of losing Isaac, so we tremble at the thought of losing these things. Or of giving any of it away. Not just money, but all our gifts. All those gifts God has given us--teaching, caring, listening to someone, serving, leading.
We don’t realize. Or we simply forget. That none of it belongs to us. None of it, including even our church, belongs to us. It all belongs to God.
That’s what the test was for Abraham. That’s what the test is for us. We have to be willing to give up part of who we are and to step into who God tells us we are. To be willing to believe that God is big enough. Bigger than what we can see or even imagine. And that God is able to do more than we can even ask or think.
A few thousand years later (after all these things), when Abraham’s descendants were as numerous as stars, there was a similar scene. But this time, it would be God’s own son who would walk up the side of the mountain, carrying the wood for his own death, his own altar of sacrifice. And this time, God would not stop it. God wouldn’t be spared the pain of God’s own son dying, wouldn’t even reach down to cover Jesus’ eyes that were so full of terror and trust at the same time.
This was God’s gift to us. “For God so loved the world…” And God did it to birth new life for us. Through Jesus’ death. A new covenant. A new promise. Between God and humanity. One that can’t be broken, even if we try to destroy it ourselves. This is the promise and gift we have through Jesus Christ in our baptisms. Life.
So, after all these things. After church and Sunday school, maybe this afternoon when you’re enjoying a beautiful, warm afternoon--probably one of the last before autumn begins. As you’re thinking about everything that has happened, and you’re giving thanks for every blessing that you’ve been given and the many people who have blessed you. Think about this story. And know that God’s Spirit lives within you. It’s that Spirit you know that you hear deep inside saying, “Take what I have given you and offer it back to me.” That’s the test for you. The test of your trust. The test of the question: Is your God big enough?
Amen.
Preached September 17, 2017, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Readings: Gen. 21:1-3, 22:1-14; John 1:29
*With special appreciation to Rev. Linda Pepe and her blog, Theological Stew.
Sunday, September 10, 2017
Order Out of Chaos
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.
These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
--Genesis 1:1--2:4a (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from the Triune God--The Creator of the world, the Word made flesh, and the brooding Spirit, hovering over the waters. Amen.
Beginnings. Fall always feels to me as a time of new beginnings. We’re moving from summer and returning from those last days of summer vacation and getting down to business. Or, to school, which is beginning for some and already started for others.
We’ve just come off Labor Day--that holiday that seems to mark the end of summer--and we’re moving into fall. The temperatures are beginning to drop. The days are beginning to grow shorter. The football season has started. Soon, the leaves will be turning and we will definitely have transitioned from late summer into the beginning of autumn.
We’re in beginning days here, too, at Grace & Glory. Today is our Rally Day--the start of our fall programming, including the start of Sunday School and the beginning of Children’s Church. We’re starting cross-generational Sunday School today, which we’ll continue once a month into the fall and spring. In another week or so, we’ll begin a new Table Talk opportunity with our sisters and brothers at Shiloh Church. In a couple weeks, we’ll have a healing service, which will also continue through the year. And, then there’s October. That month in which we will celebrate and celebrate and celebrate Reformation 500--a major anniversary in the church, particularly for us Lutherans. It’s as though, after the lazy, hazy days of summer, we are ready to get down to business.
Then, there’s one more thing that we’re beginning this year. Along with Shiloh, we are moving to a new lectionary--a new series of readings. For years, we’ve been in the Revised Common Lectionary, a three-year cycle of readings that mostly focuses on the New Testament. Today, we begin the Narrative Lectionary, a newer lectionary that has been developed by a group of professors at Luther Seminary. A lectionary that spans four years and that will focus on all of scripture, both the Hebrew scripture (or Old Testament) and also the entire New Testament. Each year over the 4-year cycle, we will begin in the fall in the Hebrew scripture. And, then, in the spring we will focus on the New Testament.
The purpose of making this change is to remind us once again of the broader arc of the history of salvation. The meta-narrative, if you will. The whole story of God from creation through to the formation of the church, after Christ. To see the big picture. And, mostly, to try to figure out where our story fits into God’s story.
And, so, appropriately today, we begin at the beginning. With creation.
In Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, the story opens. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.” Or as Eugene Peterson writes in The Message Bible, “Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness.”
It was shapeless. It was chaos. It was darkness.
It’s important to note here, that the word in Hebrew for “darkness” is a rather evocative word. The opposite of darkness is light and, particularly, for us believers, light often symbolizes God. We read today, for example, in the first verses of the Gospel of John that through the Word--through Jesus--light entered into the world. The light that shines in the darkness and that the darkness does not overcome.
By contrast, in the Hebrew, darkness means everything that is the opposite of God, everything that is anti-God. The wicked. Judgment. Death. All are signified by the word for darkness.
So, in the beginning, when the world was without form or shape, when it was chaotic and without any order, when it was dark--it is here that God enters in. That God enters in and speaks the Word. Saying, “Let there be light.”
This first word changes everything. It is with the dawn of light that the incredible story of God as sovereign creator of the world begins. It is with the dawn of light that God enters into time and space and begins to order things, to separate them. The light from darkness. The waters, separated by the dome, and earth and sky. The separation of the earthly waters into land and seas. God separates and creates boundaries. And God names time and space to be a world for all humanity. In this very action, Claus Westermann writes, “[God] shows [Godself] to be the master creator of the world.” By simply acting and speaking.
But, that’s not everything.
Did you catch verse 11? After God spoke light into being and separated and ordered the chaos, God then shares God’s creative powers. In verse 11: “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.”
God is not a creative control freak. God shares creative powers with the earth. Mother earth. Birthing all vegetation. This is not a God that powers over. This is a God that powers with. That shares creative power with the earth and, eventually, with humankind.
As the earth is bringing forth vegetation, God continues to create. Now he begins to populate the earth. First with creatures. Swarms of living creatures. And birds, flying above the earth across the dome of the sky. And, then, in the oceans and seas--great sea monsters and other living and moving water creatures. And, then, more creatures: the cattle, and the creeping things, and the wild animals of the earth.
Then, once again, God shares creative powers. This time with the creatures that have populated the earth. God blesses the swarms and says, “Go! Create! Fill the waters! And the earth! And the sky! Be fruitful! Multiply!”
Finally, humanity. Male and female. Our story says that humankind was created in God’s image, in “our” image, verse 26 says. In the image of the Three. In the image of the Trinity. Without establishing relative rank or worth of the genders, God, the spinner of this creation story, indicates that humankind is found in two varieties--male and female. And that this humanity, in its complementary nature, is a reflection of the Deity. That God has both male and female traits.
God also shares creative power with humanity. And, then, God also gives men and women responsibility. Our text reads that God tells the newly-created humans to have “dominion” over the earth and all its creatures. The word is really better translated as to steward. Or to be caretaker. Or, better yet, to care for earth and all its creatures.
Because that is the image of God. God is not a “powering over” God, but a God of “powering with.” Stewarding. Shepherding. Caring for God’s creation. For all of God’s creation. As we humans are to care for all of God’s creation.
Six days. Six days of creating, of co-creating with earth and its creatures, and with male and female. Six days of goodness.
Yes, I said six days. Because God enters into our time and our space. Into days as we mark days. Twenty-four hours. We so often get hung up on the story of creation, as though it is a story of science. It is not. It is a story of God, of who God is. The story of the One who enters into our world and creates. And who co-creates. And who continues to create and co-create.
And it is a story with a purpose. With a goal. After six days of creative activity--of good creative activity--God rests. God takes a break. A respite. God marvels in God’s creation. And then God lets creation be for a period of time and makes room for it to create by withdrawing. By allowing us and all creation to come to be what God intends us to become.
This is a metaphor for our lives, isn’t it? When we are in the midst of darkness and chaos, God enters in and begins to separate. To make order out of the mess. Creating life out of death and then, allowing us to become fully who we are. To become God’s people.
It’s a marvelous story to begin with on this day of beginnings! Knowing that God has created and continues to create. That God continues to co-create with us and with the earth and all its creatures. And trusting that even when God takes a brief respite, God is always there, ready to break in and speak a word of light into the darkness of our lives. And to bring creative blessing after blessing to us and to all of God’s creation.
May God continue to grant us new and creative beginnings, now and for all time. Amen.
And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.
These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
--Genesis 1:1--2:4a (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from the Triune God--The Creator of the world, the Word made flesh, and the brooding Spirit, hovering over the waters. Amen.
Beginnings. Fall always feels to me as a time of new beginnings. We’re moving from summer and returning from those last days of summer vacation and getting down to business. Or, to school, which is beginning for some and already started for others.
We’ve just come off Labor Day--that holiday that seems to mark the end of summer--and we’re moving into fall. The temperatures are beginning to drop. The days are beginning to grow shorter. The football season has started. Soon, the leaves will be turning and we will definitely have transitioned from late summer into the beginning of autumn.
We’re in beginning days here, too, at Grace & Glory. Today is our Rally Day--the start of our fall programming, including the start of Sunday School and the beginning of Children’s Church. We’re starting cross-generational Sunday School today, which we’ll continue once a month into the fall and spring. In another week or so, we’ll begin a new Table Talk opportunity with our sisters and brothers at Shiloh Church. In a couple weeks, we’ll have a healing service, which will also continue through the year. And, then there’s October. That month in which we will celebrate and celebrate and celebrate Reformation 500--a major anniversary in the church, particularly for us Lutherans. It’s as though, after the lazy, hazy days of summer, we are ready to get down to business.
Then, there’s one more thing that we’re beginning this year. Along with Shiloh, we are moving to a new lectionary--a new series of readings. For years, we’ve been in the Revised Common Lectionary, a three-year cycle of readings that mostly focuses on the New Testament. Today, we begin the Narrative Lectionary, a newer lectionary that has been developed by a group of professors at Luther Seminary. A lectionary that spans four years and that will focus on all of scripture, both the Hebrew scripture (or Old Testament) and also the entire New Testament. Each year over the 4-year cycle, we will begin in the fall in the Hebrew scripture. And, then, in the spring we will focus on the New Testament.
The purpose of making this change is to remind us once again of the broader arc of the history of salvation. The meta-narrative, if you will. The whole story of God from creation through to the formation of the church, after Christ. To see the big picture. And, mostly, to try to figure out where our story fits into God’s story.
And, so, appropriately today, we begin at the beginning. With creation.
In Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, the story opens. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.” Or as Eugene Peterson writes in The Message Bible, “Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness.”
It was shapeless. It was chaos. It was darkness.
It’s important to note here, that the word in Hebrew for “darkness” is a rather evocative word. The opposite of darkness is light and, particularly, for us believers, light often symbolizes God. We read today, for example, in the first verses of the Gospel of John that through the Word--through Jesus--light entered into the world. The light that shines in the darkness and that the darkness does not overcome.
By contrast, in the Hebrew, darkness means everything that is the opposite of God, everything that is anti-God. The wicked. Judgment. Death. All are signified by the word for darkness.
So, in the beginning, when the world was without form or shape, when it was chaotic and without any order, when it was dark--it is here that God enters in. That God enters in and speaks the Word. Saying, “Let there be light.”
This first word changes everything. It is with the dawn of light that the incredible story of God as sovereign creator of the world begins. It is with the dawn of light that God enters into time and space and begins to order things, to separate them. The light from darkness. The waters, separated by the dome, and earth and sky. The separation of the earthly waters into land and seas. God separates and creates boundaries. And God names time and space to be a world for all humanity. In this very action, Claus Westermann writes, “[God] shows [Godself] to be the master creator of the world.” By simply acting and speaking.
But, that’s not everything.
Did you catch verse 11? After God spoke light into being and separated and ordered the chaos, God then shares God’s creative powers. In verse 11: “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.”
God is not a creative control freak. God shares creative powers with the earth. Mother earth. Birthing all vegetation. This is not a God that powers over. This is a God that powers with. That shares creative power with the earth and, eventually, with humankind.
As the earth is bringing forth vegetation, God continues to create. Now he begins to populate the earth. First with creatures. Swarms of living creatures. And birds, flying above the earth across the dome of the sky. And, then, in the oceans and seas--great sea monsters and other living and moving water creatures. And, then, more creatures: the cattle, and the creeping things, and the wild animals of the earth.
Then, once again, God shares creative powers. This time with the creatures that have populated the earth. God blesses the swarms and says, “Go! Create! Fill the waters! And the earth! And the sky! Be fruitful! Multiply!”
Finally, humanity. Male and female. Our story says that humankind was created in God’s image, in “our” image, verse 26 says. In the image of the Three. In the image of the Trinity. Without establishing relative rank or worth of the genders, God, the spinner of this creation story, indicates that humankind is found in two varieties--male and female. And that this humanity, in its complementary nature, is a reflection of the Deity. That God has both male and female traits.
God also shares creative power with humanity. And, then, God also gives men and women responsibility. Our text reads that God tells the newly-created humans to have “dominion” over the earth and all its creatures. The word is really better translated as to steward. Or to be caretaker. Or, better yet, to care for earth and all its creatures.
Because that is the image of God. God is not a “powering over” God, but a God of “powering with.” Stewarding. Shepherding. Caring for God’s creation. For all of God’s creation. As we humans are to care for all of God’s creation.
Six days. Six days of creating, of co-creating with earth and its creatures, and with male and female. Six days of goodness.
Yes, I said six days. Because God enters into our time and our space. Into days as we mark days. Twenty-four hours. We so often get hung up on the story of creation, as though it is a story of science. It is not. It is a story of God, of who God is. The story of the One who enters into our world and creates. And who co-creates. And who continues to create and co-create.
And it is a story with a purpose. With a goal. After six days of creative activity--of good creative activity--God rests. God takes a break. A respite. God marvels in God’s creation. And then God lets creation be for a period of time and makes room for it to create by withdrawing. By allowing us and all creation to come to be what God intends us to become.
This is a metaphor for our lives, isn’t it? When we are in the midst of darkness and chaos, God enters in and begins to separate. To make order out of the mess. Creating life out of death and then, allowing us to become fully who we are. To become God’s people.
It’s a marvelous story to begin with on this day of beginnings! Knowing that God has created and continues to create. That God continues to co-create with us and with the earth and all its creatures. And trusting that even when God takes a brief respite, God is always there, ready to break in and speak a word of light into the darkness of our lives. And to bring creative blessing after blessing to us and to all of God’s creation.
May God continue to grant us new and creative beginnings, now and for all time. Amen.
Sunday, September 3, 2017
Called to Be
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”
But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:
Grace and peace to you, from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Anything, but ordinary. This has been our theme this summer as we’ve worked our way through the stories of Abraham. Of his son, Isaac. Of Isaac’s son, Jacob. Of Jacob’s son, Joseph. And last week and today, Moses. A descendant of this entire line. Saved from sure death, as we heard last week, by the midwives, Shiprah and Puah, and by the persistence of three other women--Moses’ sister, his mother, and a princess, the very daughter of the Pharaoh who sought to kill all of the Hebrew male babies.
It is anything, but ordinary.
In the years between last week’s story and today’s story, once again, much has happened. Moses, a Hebrew by birth, taken into the Egyptian royal household, into the Pharaoh’s own family--Moses as grown up.
In the same time frame, the subjugation and slavery of Israel by Pharaoh, by the state, has continued and has likely gotten worse. One day, as Moses is out among the Hebrews--his people--he sees this. The forced labor of his kinfolk. In fact, he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. One of his own people.
Moses is grieved by it. Perhaps it was to alleviate his own guilt for escaping the painful experiences of his people. Or perhaps Moses identified with them in their oppression and sought to take action, to do the right thing. Or perhaps it was a complex mixture of motivations that are part of the human experience. Whatever the reason, Moses responds by killing the Egyptian. And by burying him in the sand so no one knows.
Except for one thing. The next day, when Moses seeks to intervene in a dispute between two Hebrews, one of them says, “Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses then realizes that the murder he committed was known. And soon he is on the run from Pharaoh, who finds out about it and seeks to kill Moses.
Moses flees. Eventually he settles in Midian. He marries and has a son. As Moses is making a new life for himself as an alien in a foreign land, things continue to get worse for his people still enslaved in Egypt.
In Exodus 2, verse 23, we read that “the Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out.” That “out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God.” And, in verse 24, “God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.”
God heard. God remembered. God looked. God took notice.
It is hear that today’s story begins. Moses is shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep. He leads them beyond the wilderness onto a mountain. To Mt. Horeb. Also known as Mount Sinai, the place where God gave Moses the ten commandments.
Moses is walking along the mountainside with the sheep when, out of the corner of his eye, he notices something odd. A bush burning.
Now, normally, this wouldn’t be that odd--that there would be a fire burning in a bush. It was a semi-arid climate. That there was a brushfire wasn’t unusual. What was unusual, though, was that the bush was never consumed by the fire. It never burnt up. Moses looked and then he took notice. And, then, he went to investigate.
When God saw that Moses had turned aside to see, God calls to him. “Moses! Moses” God says. Moses responds, “Here I am!” Then, God says, “Come no closer!” God tells him this is holy ground. That Moses should take off his sandals. And, then God helps Moses remember. “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” Immediately, Moses hides his face. Because, he remembers. He knows that this is the God of his ancestors.
I’ve always been intrigued by these few verses and, particularly, how odd it is that God tells Moses to take off his shoes. To go barefoot on this holy ground. To walk on this holy place with his ordinary, dirty, sweaty bare feet. It reminds me of when I moved back to Minnesota and how common it was for house guests, even strangers, to be told to take off their shoes when they came in out of the cold, out of the wintry, snowy mess outside. I’m sure the invitation was a way to help keep the carpet clean. That’s why it seems like such an odd request for God to make of Moses. Didn’t God want to keep this place holy? And clean?
I wonder if when God told Moses to take his sandals off, what God was really saying to Moses was be real. Be a regular person. Because as we continue to read on, this is how Moses is. Normal. Regular. Like you and me. When God lays out a plan for Moses--that God has seen God’s people and how miserable they are in Egypt. And that God has heard their cries and knows how much they are suffering and has decided to do something about it and to recruit Moses to help God do something about it. Well, Moses doesn’t act with the awe and the reverence that we would expect. In fact, Moses acts pretty normal. Pretty regular. LIke you and I probably would.
“What the heck are you talking about? I’m not ready to sign onto this plan of yours! And here’s my list of reasons!” All of a sudden, Moses’ “Here I am!” becomes his “Who am I?” “Who am I that have the ability to do this? Who am I that I should lead Israel out of Egypt?” And then, Moses asks, “Who are you? Who are you that they will believe me and follow me?”
Perhaps the reason that God asks Moses to remove his sandals is because God wants Moses to be himself. To remove all pretense. To be vulnerable and fully open to what God has to say. And, yes, to question and challenge God. To wonder how God has chosen him. To wonder how God has chosen us.
We do that, don’t we? Like Moses, when we see that burning bush in our lives and we turn and take notice and hear God’s call for us, we wonder, don’t we? Who am I? Who are we? That God should be calling us to help. To help relieve the suffering and oppression in our world. Who are we? What abilities do we have to do what God is calling us to do?
And, then, to say, “Are you serious, God?”
The images we saw on television this past week from the towns and cities along the Gulf Coast were devastating, weren’t they? Hundreds of thousands of homes flooded. Businesses devastated. First responders inundated with thousands of 911 calls. Tens of thousands without electricity. Chemical fires burning. And a death toll at 47 and growing. Devastating.
And, yet, people heard the call. The call to do something. To help. Ordinary people. Helping their neighbors. Bringing their small boats and rescuing others in need. Story after story after story of people helping other people. With no regard for race, for ethnicity, for immigration status, for gender, for all of those things that can be used to so easily divide people. Ordinary people doing what is anything but ordinary.
When Israel was suffering, God looked and took notice. God could have acted alone. Or God could have chosen anyone else for the job. But, God specifically selected Moses. There must have been something about Moses, with all of his flaws, with his gifts, with his unique abilities. Perhaps God wanted Moses to simply be. To be himself and nothing else. Moses. Called to be.
Each of us called to be. To be who we are and nothing else. As ordinary as that is. As unique as that is. We have been selected by God. We have been freed from shame and brokenness by Christ.
We have been called to be. To be who we are, in our world, working together with God to free all those who suffer, to free all those who are enslaved by leaders who seek to enrich themselves or gain more power, to free all those who are oppressed by systems that continue to keep them down. You and I are called to be.
As Moses was, as Joseph was, as Jacob was, as Isaac was, and as Abraham was, we are called to be. Ordinary. And yet, anything, but ordinary!
Praise be to God!
Amen.
Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”
But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:
This is my name forever,
and this my title for all generations.
Exodus 3:1-15 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you, from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Anything, but ordinary. This has been our theme this summer as we’ve worked our way through the stories of Abraham. Of his son, Isaac. Of Isaac’s son, Jacob. Of Jacob’s son, Joseph. And last week and today, Moses. A descendant of this entire line. Saved from sure death, as we heard last week, by the midwives, Shiprah and Puah, and by the persistence of three other women--Moses’ sister, his mother, and a princess, the very daughter of the Pharaoh who sought to kill all of the Hebrew male babies.
It is anything, but ordinary.
In the years between last week’s story and today’s story, once again, much has happened. Moses, a Hebrew by birth, taken into the Egyptian royal household, into the Pharaoh’s own family--Moses as grown up.
In the same time frame, the subjugation and slavery of Israel by Pharaoh, by the state, has continued and has likely gotten worse. One day, as Moses is out among the Hebrews--his people--he sees this. The forced labor of his kinfolk. In fact, he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. One of his own people.
Moses is grieved by it. Perhaps it was to alleviate his own guilt for escaping the painful experiences of his people. Or perhaps Moses identified with them in their oppression and sought to take action, to do the right thing. Or perhaps it was a complex mixture of motivations that are part of the human experience. Whatever the reason, Moses responds by killing the Egyptian. And by burying him in the sand so no one knows.
Except for one thing. The next day, when Moses seeks to intervene in a dispute between two Hebrews, one of them says, “Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses then realizes that the murder he committed was known. And soon he is on the run from Pharaoh, who finds out about it and seeks to kill Moses.
Moses flees. Eventually he settles in Midian. He marries and has a son. As Moses is making a new life for himself as an alien in a foreign land, things continue to get worse for his people still enslaved in Egypt.
In Exodus 2, verse 23, we read that “the Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out.” That “out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God.” And, in verse 24, “God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.”
God heard. God remembered. God looked. God took notice.
It is hear that today’s story begins. Moses is shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep. He leads them beyond the wilderness onto a mountain. To Mt. Horeb. Also known as Mount Sinai, the place where God gave Moses the ten commandments.
Moses is walking along the mountainside with the sheep when, out of the corner of his eye, he notices something odd. A bush burning.
Now, normally, this wouldn’t be that odd--that there would be a fire burning in a bush. It was a semi-arid climate. That there was a brushfire wasn’t unusual. What was unusual, though, was that the bush was never consumed by the fire. It never burnt up. Moses looked and then he took notice. And, then, he went to investigate.
When God saw that Moses had turned aside to see, God calls to him. “Moses! Moses” God says. Moses responds, “Here I am!” Then, God says, “Come no closer!” God tells him this is holy ground. That Moses should take off his sandals. And, then God helps Moses remember. “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” Immediately, Moses hides his face. Because, he remembers. He knows that this is the God of his ancestors.
I’ve always been intrigued by these few verses and, particularly, how odd it is that God tells Moses to take off his shoes. To go barefoot on this holy ground. To walk on this holy place with his ordinary, dirty, sweaty bare feet. It reminds me of when I moved back to Minnesota and how common it was for house guests, even strangers, to be told to take off their shoes when they came in out of the cold, out of the wintry, snowy mess outside. I’m sure the invitation was a way to help keep the carpet clean. That’s why it seems like such an odd request for God to make of Moses. Didn’t God want to keep this place holy? And clean?
I wonder if when God told Moses to take his sandals off, what God was really saying to Moses was be real. Be a regular person. Because as we continue to read on, this is how Moses is. Normal. Regular. Like you and me. When God lays out a plan for Moses--that God has seen God’s people and how miserable they are in Egypt. And that God has heard their cries and knows how much they are suffering and has decided to do something about it and to recruit Moses to help God do something about it. Well, Moses doesn’t act with the awe and the reverence that we would expect. In fact, Moses acts pretty normal. Pretty regular. LIke you and I probably would.
“What the heck are you talking about? I’m not ready to sign onto this plan of yours! And here’s my list of reasons!” All of a sudden, Moses’ “Here I am!” becomes his “Who am I?” “Who am I that have the ability to do this? Who am I that I should lead Israel out of Egypt?” And then, Moses asks, “Who are you? Who are you that they will believe me and follow me?”
Perhaps the reason that God asks Moses to remove his sandals is because God wants Moses to be himself. To remove all pretense. To be vulnerable and fully open to what God has to say. And, yes, to question and challenge God. To wonder how God has chosen him. To wonder how God has chosen us.
We do that, don’t we? Like Moses, when we see that burning bush in our lives and we turn and take notice and hear God’s call for us, we wonder, don’t we? Who am I? Who are we? That God should be calling us to help. To help relieve the suffering and oppression in our world. Who are we? What abilities do we have to do what God is calling us to do?
And, then, to say, “Are you serious, God?”
The images we saw on television this past week from the towns and cities along the Gulf Coast were devastating, weren’t they? Hundreds of thousands of homes flooded. Businesses devastated. First responders inundated with thousands of 911 calls. Tens of thousands without electricity. Chemical fires burning. And a death toll at 47 and growing. Devastating.
And, yet, people heard the call. The call to do something. To help. Ordinary people. Helping their neighbors. Bringing their small boats and rescuing others in need. Story after story after story of people helping other people. With no regard for race, for ethnicity, for immigration status, for gender, for all of those things that can be used to so easily divide people. Ordinary people doing what is anything but ordinary.
When Israel was suffering, God looked and took notice. God could have acted alone. Or God could have chosen anyone else for the job. But, God specifically selected Moses. There must have been something about Moses, with all of his flaws, with his gifts, with his unique abilities. Perhaps God wanted Moses to simply be. To be himself and nothing else. Moses. Called to be.
Each of us called to be. To be who we are and nothing else. As ordinary as that is. As unique as that is. We have been selected by God. We have been freed from shame and brokenness by Christ.
We have been called to be. To be who we are, in our world, working together with God to free all those who suffer, to free all those who are enslaved by leaders who seek to enrich themselves or gain more power, to free all those who are oppressed by systems that continue to keep them down. You and I are called to be.
As Moses was, as Joseph was, as Jacob was, as Isaac was, and as Abraham was, we are called to be. Ordinary. And yet, anything, but ordinary!
Praise be to God!
Amen.
Preached September 3, 2017, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
13th Sunday after Pentecost
Readings: Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45b; Romans 12:19-21; Matthew 16:21-28.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Persist
Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.”
Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.
The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.” --Exodus 1:8-2:10 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
As our Genesis reading left off last week, Joseph, son of Jacob (or Israel, as we now know him), grandson of Isaac, great-grandson of Abraham, had, after decades, been reconciled with his brothers in Egypt. All of them, including their father Israel, were now in Egypt. Because of the deep famine in Canaan, Joseph had sought land for them from the pharaoh, who had given his permission for them to live in Goshen. A border province. In Genesis 47, Goshen is described as “the best part of the land.” That certainly still rings true today, doesn’t it?
As time passed, the famine continued and grew even deeper. People from other lands came to Egypt, seeking out Joseph to trade their land for food. Scripture tells us that Joseph bought all of the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. Through his brilliant administrative skills, Joseph made the Pharaoh one of the richest and most powerful rulers in the entire area.
At the same time, Israel became more and more settled in Egypt in that region of Goshen. The family gained possessions there and, our story tells us, they were “fruitful and multiplied exceedingly.”
Seventeen years passed. Israel’s death drew near. On his deathbed, Israel extracted a promise from Joseph--that Joseph would not bury his father in Egypt, but would take his body back to Canaan. That the Cave of Machpelah would be his final resting place. The burial home of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebekah, of Leah.
Joseph also brought his two sons to be blessed by Israel. And, as we have seen so many times before in earlier stories, this blessing was anything but ordinary. Joseph had placed each of his two sons on either side of Israel’s bed, with the oldest and firstborn--Manasseh--on Israel’s right side. And with the youngest--Ephraim--on Israel’s left. As Israel raised his hands to bless his grandsons, he crossed his arms and gave the blessing not to the first born, but instead to Ephraim, the youngest.
Once again, in God's world, tradition and convention or turned upside down. The unexpected happens and things are anything but ordinary.
And, then, it is time for Israel’s generation to end. The last verse of chapter 49 tells us that Jacob breathed his last, and was gathered to his people. Soon, it was time for Joseph’s generation to end. In the very next chapter, we read that Joseph made the Israelites (who had now grown in size)...Joseph made them swear that they would carry his bones back to Canaan. Just like his father. Then, Joseph, too, died.
From generation to generation. Over these weeks and through the centuries, we have followed the ancestral family of Abraham to this point. Abraham and Sarah. And their descendents. Persisting. All of them living into the promise that God would make of them a great nation. And that God would bless them so that they could be a blessing. Trusting. Believing it. And persisting.
And then there are these women in today’s story. Persisting. Beginning with the midwives. Women whose work it is to support life who are told to take it. By a new king, a new regime, a new dynasty who has forgotten. A pharaoh who has forgotten or never known the story of Joseph and Joseph’s God. Forgotten or never known how Joseph helped enrich and empower the previous pharaoh. A leader who seeks to have “power over” the Israelites and who creates a false narrative. A false story about the “enemy within.” Those Israelites, those immigrants who are going to grow and grow and eventually seek to overcome “us.”
It is an old, convenient political narrative that we still hear today. Be afraid of the immigrant. Be afraid of the foreigner. Be afraid of the other. It is a false narrative that is designed to divide people and to keep people apart. And to keep the rich and powerful in power.
But, these women. These midwives. This sister. This mother. This princess. All resist this false narrative in their own ways. All resist this evil.
When Pharaoh comes to the midwives and tells them to kill babies instead of keep them alive, they know. They know that God desires life. And so they refuse. And when he asks why, they play into his own stereotypes and immigrants and their breeding habits. “You know these Hebrew women aren’t like Egyptian women. They are vigorous and they give birth even before we get to them,” they say to the Pharaoh. Even though, they know this isn’t true.
Then, Pharaoh moves onto the people and tells all of them to throw baby boys into the Nile. The resistance doesn’t end with the midwives, but extends into the population. To the mother of Moses and his sister.
The language in these verses is incredible. It is language that is reminiscent of new beginnings. Of new eras. For example, in verse 2 of Exodus 2, when we read that a Levite woman conceived and bore a son, our text says that she saw “that he was a fine baby.” In the original Hebrew, this is the same language used about creation in Genesis 1. That it was “good.”
And, then, in verse 3, we read how this mother could no longer hide this baby, this “good” baby. And so she found a papyrus basket for him. To save him.
Here the original word for “basket” is the same word used for “ark” in Noah’s story.
So, in just two words, the writer of Exodus has connected up the story of the creation of the world into the story of the creation of the Israelites as a people. They are no longer just a family or a clan. But they have become a nation. About to embark upon a new era.
Through it all, the women continue to persist. To persist against evil. Against strategies that are designed to divide people. And to persist against forces that seek death instead of life. That seek division instead of unity. Forces that run contrary to God’s desire for life. And for God’s desire that all people might be unified. Not identical to each other. But unified in their diversity. In the beautifully diverse ways in which God has created us.
We know the rest of the story. How against the odds, God ensured the safety of this young Moses. How God worked through these persistent women to ensure an upbringing for Moses in God’s ways. How God eventually brought Moses up to be that leader who would lead his own people to freedom. In the same way that Christ has led us to freedom.
And, so, like the women in our story, we, too, are called to persist. To push back against those forces that seek to divide people instead of uniting them. To persist against forces that seek death, those forces that are contrary to God’s desire for life. And that are contrary to God’s desire for all creation.
God’s ways. They are not ordinary, are they? We have heard over and over how God upsets the status quo. The powers that be. How God breaks into the false narratives that are used to divide people. God’s ways are not ordinary. In fact, they are anything, but ordinary.
May be remember this as we leave from here and go into the world and into our own lives. As we persist and seek to live out our lives in ways that, like God, bring life. For us and for all those we meet. May God grant it.
Amen.
Preached August 27, 2017, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
12th Sunday after Pentecost
Readings: Exodus 1:8-2:10; Psalm 124; Romans 12:1-8, Matthew 16:13-20.
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.”
Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.
The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.” --Exodus 1:8-2:10 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
As our Genesis reading left off last week, Joseph, son of Jacob (or Israel, as we now know him), grandson of Isaac, great-grandson of Abraham, had, after decades, been reconciled with his brothers in Egypt. All of them, including their father Israel, were now in Egypt. Because of the deep famine in Canaan, Joseph had sought land for them from the pharaoh, who had given his permission for them to live in Goshen. A border province. In Genesis 47, Goshen is described as “the best part of the land.” That certainly still rings true today, doesn’t it?
As time passed, the famine continued and grew even deeper. People from other lands came to Egypt, seeking out Joseph to trade their land for food. Scripture tells us that Joseph bought all of the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. Through his brilliant administrative skills, Joseph made the Pharaoh one of the richest and most powerful rulers in the entire area.
At the same time, Israel became more and more settled in Egypt in that region of Goshen. The family gained possessions there and, our story tells us, they were “fruitful and multiplied exceedingly.”
Seventeen years passed. Israel’s death drew near. On his deathbed, Israel extracted a promise from Joseph--that Joseph would not bury his father in Egypt, but would take his body back to Canaan. That the Cave of Machpelah would be his final resting place. The burial home of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebekah, of Leah.
Joseph also brought his two sons to be blessed by Israel. And, as we have seen so many times before in earlier stories, this blessing was anything but ordinary. Joseph had placed each of his two sons on either side of Israel’s bed, with the oldest and firstborn--Manasseh--on Israel’s right side. And with the youngest--Ephraim--on Israel’s left. As Israel raised his hands to bless his grandsons, he crossed his arms and gave the blessing not to the first born, but instead to Ephraim, the youngest.
Once again, in God's world, tradition and convention or turned upside down. The unexpected happens and things are anything but ordinary.
And, then, it is time for Israel’s generation to end. The last verse of chapter 49 tells us that Jacob breathed his last, and was gathered to his people. Soon, it was time for Joseph’s generation to end. In the very next chapter, we read that Joseph made the Israelites (who had now grown in size)...Joseph made them swear that they would carry his bones back to Canaan. Just like his father. Then, Joseph, too, died.
From generation to generation. Over these weeks and through the centuries, we have followed the ancestral family of Abraham to this point. Abraham and Sarah. And their descendents. Persisting. All of them living into the promise that God would make of them a great nation. And that God would bless them so that they could be a blessing. Trusting. Believing it. And persisting.
And then there are these women in today’s story. Persisting. Beginning with the midwives. Women whose work it is to support life who are told to take it. By a new king, a new regime, a new dynasty who has forgotten. A pharaoh who has forgotten or never known the story of Joseph and Joseph’s God. Forgotten or never known how Joseph helped enrich and empower the previous pharaoh. A leader who seeks to have “power over” the Israelites and who creates a false narrative. A false story about the “enemy within.” Those Israelites, those immigrants who are going to grow and grow and eventually seek to overcome “us.”
It is an old, convenient political narrative that we still hear today. Be afraid of the immigrant. Be afraid of the foreigner. Be afraid of the other. It is a false narrative that is designed to divide people and to keep people apart. And to keep the rich and powerful in power.
But, these women. These midwives. This sister. This mother. This princess. All resist this false narrative in their own ways. All resist this evil.
When Pharaoh comes to the midwives and tells them to kill babies instead of keep them alive, they know. They know that God desires life. And so they refuse. And when he asks why, they play into his own stereotypes and immigrants and their breeding habits. “You know these Hebrew women aren’t like Egyptian women. They are vigorous and they give birth even before we get to them,” they say to the Pharaoh. Even though, they know this isn’t true.
Then, Pharaoh moves onto the people and tells all of them to throw baby boys into the Nile. The resistance doesn’t end with the midwives, but extends into the population. To the mother of Moses and his sister.
The language in these verses is incredible. It is language that is reminiscent of new beginnings. Of new eras. For example, in verse 2 of Exodus 2, when we read that a Levite woman conceived and bore a son, our text says that she saw “that he was a fine baby.” In the original Hebrew, this is the same language used about creation in Genesis 1. That it was “good.”
And, then, in verse 3, we read how this mother could no longer hide this baby, this “good” baby. And so she found a papyrus basket for him. To save him.
Here the original word for “basket” is the same word used for “ark” in Noah’s story.
So, in just two words, the writer of Exodus has connected up the story of the creation of the world into the story of the creation of the Israelites as a people. They are no longer just a family or a clan. But they have become a nation. About to embark upon a new era.
Through it all, the women continue to persist. To persist against evil. Against strategies that are designed to divide people. And to persist against forces that seek death instead of life. That seek division instead of unity. Forces that run contrary to God’s desire for life. And for God’s desire that all people might be unified. Not identical to each other. But unified in their diversity. In the beautifully diverse ways in which God has created us.
We know the rest of the story. How against the odds, God ensured the safety of this young Moses. How God worked through these persistent women to ensure an upbringing for Moses in God’s ways. How God eventually brought Moses up to be that leader who would lead his own people to freedom. In the same way that Christ has led us to freedom.
And, so, like the women in our story, we, too, are called to persist. To push back against those forces that seek to divide people instead of uniting them. To persist against forces that seek death, those forces that are contrary to God’s desire for life. And that are contrary to God’s desire for all creation.
God’s ways. They are not ordinary, are they? We have heard over and over how God upsets the status quo. The powers that be. How God breaks into the false narratives that are used to divide people. God’s ways are not ordinary. In fact, they are anything, but ordinary.
May be remember this as we leave from here and go into the world and into our own lives. As we persist and seek to live out our lives in ways that, like God, bring life. For us and for all those we meet. May God grant it.
Amen.
Preached August 27, 2017, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
12th Sunday after Pentecost
Readings: Exodus 1:8-2:10; Psalm 124; Romans 12:1-8, Matthew 16:13-20.
Sunday, August 20, 2017
Privilege, Perspective, Power
Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Send everyone away from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.’ And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honored in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.” Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.
----Genesis 45:1-15 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Good morning to you. It is good to be back. I am grateful for the days off I’ve had, which have given me a chance to reflect, renew and refresh. I’m also grateful to be back.
Because I missed a Sunday, we have a bit of catching up to do in our stories of Abraham and his descendants--these legends we’ve been working our way through during this entire summer.
If you recall, last week’s Genesis story was that of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers. You remember it, don’t you? How Jacob, Joseph’s father, showed favoritism to Joseph, his youngest son. (Have we heard this somewhere before?) And how Jacob gave Joseph a robe of many colors, making his brothers incredibly jealous. So jealous, in fact, that when they were out tending sheep, they stripped him of his technicolor dreamcoat and threw him into an empty cistern or well. And then sold him to a caravan of Ishmaelites traveling with their wares to Egypt. Then, to make matters even worse, they took dipped Joseph’s cloak in ram’s blood and returned home to tell Joseph that his youngest son was dead.
Do you see and hear, once again, the generations and generations of brokenness? So you see and hear, once again, the hatred and anger that simply seems to be carried from generation to generation?
As our story opens today, we find Joseph in a high position of power in Egypt. In fact, he is the administrator over all of Egypt. It has been a winding road to this point, one filled with false accusations and betrayal, with incarceration, and with dream interpretation. In fact, it was Joseph’s ability to interpret Pharoah’s dreams of feast and famine that led to his appointment to such a powerful position, notwithstanding his complete lack of experience.
Under Joseph’s administration, Egypt has grown dramatically in size, as surrounding nations have looked to it for sustenance during a 7-year famine.
As the famine has gripped the entire region, Jacob has told his sons to go from Canaan to Egypt to buy grain. They appear before Joseph, who recognizes them. However, the sons--Joseph’s brothers--don’t recognize Joseph. And Joseph doesn’t reveal who he is. Instead, he uses his power over his brothers. He first demands that they go home and return with their youngest brother, Benjamin. He, then, imprisons his brother Simeon until they do.
When the food finally runs out in Canaan, they decide to return with Benjamin. Joseph invites them to dinner. There, they share a meal with Joseph. And they still don’t recognize him.
What happens next is either a test or a second act of revenge by Joseph. Joseph instructs his servant to slip a silver cup in Benjamin’s sack. He then confronts his brothers about the alleged theft and threatens to arrest Benjamin. Joseph’s brothers beg him not to do this. And Judah volunteers to trade places with Benjamin.
It is here where today’s story begins. Joseph. So overwhelmed with emotion. Unable to conceal his identity any longer. Joseph sends all of his attendants away. Only his brothers remain.
Joseph then reveals who he is to them--that he is their youngest brother, the one they sold into slavery those many years ago. He also shares with them, though, how God has used this evil act to save the lives of many, many people.
Our story today ends with these words: “He (Joseph) kissed all of his brothers and wept, embracing them. After that, his brothers were finally able to talk to him.”
Reconciliation. After all that has happened between Joseph and his brothers, after the original evil act, after the acts of revenge--after everything, the relationship between Joseph and his brothers is restored. They are reconciled.
As I hear this story once again--this story of evil and hate and of forgiveness and reconciliation, I’m reminded of something written by Brene Brown. Brene is a researcher and professor of sociology at the University of Houston who has researched, written and spoken extensively on the topic of shame and vulnerability.
She has also spoken frequently about the three P’s - Privilege, Perspective, and Power.
First, privilege. There is no word today that makes people more angry today than this word. Privilege. Especially, white privilege. “I worked for everything I have,” we say. “I had no privilege!”
According to Ms. Brown, if this is our understanding of privilege, then we fail to understand what it is. Privilege is something, some right we have that is unearned. It’s about unearned access or authority. We all have some kind of privilege, some kind of unearned right. What is your privilege?
One example of my privilege, as a Christian here in Kentucky or in the entire U.S., is that I can wear a symbol of my religion (say, a cross) and not fear being called a murderer or a terrorist. Privilege.
Or, another example. As a white woman, a mother, I have never had to have a conversation with my son about how to handle getting pulled over by the police. Both of these are examples of my privilege.
I have unearned rights, or access and authority. Privilege has nothing to do with how hard I’ve worked. To fail to acknowledge our own privilege--especially the unearned rights we enjoy by virtue of being white. To fail to acknowledge this fails to acknowledge the pain of others who don’t experience our level of privilege.
The second “P” is perspective. We all see the world through a lens. Whether it is as a result of our age, our gender, our race, our ability, we all view the world with a certain perspective. Add in the perspective of insight, personal history, family stories--we see the world in a particular way. And the more white, the more middle class we are, the more likely is our belief that it is our view of the world that is the only true view, the only right way.
So, we are told we should have empathy with others who don’t have the same perspective. To put down our own lens and to view the world through their lens.
Unfortunately, this is impossible. It is impossible to set aside our own worldview.
How, then, do we take the perspective of others? First, we believe people’s stories and experiences as they are told to us. Period. So, when we hear from our African-American brothers and sisters that they are stopped by the police regularly without cause, we believe them.
Secondly, we acknowledge that how someone else views the world through their lens is just as true and real as how we view the world through ours. It’s not okay to say, “Oh, that’s a terrible story. But that’s now how I see it.” We can have an opinion. But we can’t dismiss what other people share with us as truth.
Then, there is the third “P.” That of power. We hate this word, power, don’t we, especially here in the church. There are many definitions for it, but, perhaps the best is that one given by Martin Luther King, Jr. He said that “Power is the ability to effect change.”
To be without power, to have no ability to effect change, to be completely powerless is the most dangerous state we can ever experience. It leads to isolation. To violence. To shame. To self-harm. Think about history. When has violence occurred most throughout our world? It has happened when people felt powerless.
Somehow we have come to the belief in our country power is finite. That if I share some of it with someone else, I will lose some of my own. That is not power. That is “power over.”
“Power over” is finite. It is also ineffective. When we lead, when we parent, when we act from a position of “power over”, we, by definition, disempower people who have great ideas, great experiences, and great stories to bring to the table and to our broader shared experience. Brené Brown writes, what we are witnessing in our world today is the last resistance, the last stand of “power over.”
Joseph had all three P’s. He was in a position of privilege, having unearned access through his appointment by the pharaoh. He had a perspective that was shaped by his own world view and experience, particularly that of having been sold into slavery by his brothers. He also had power--particularly, “power over.” The power to imprison his brothers, to exact that final revenge upon them for all of the hurt and pain they had caused.
This past week has been so difficult, hasn’t it. As we have watched what has gone on in Charlottesville, as we have watched the hate and bigotry of racism and fascism and naziism raise it’s ugly head in our country, as we continue to witness the growing divide in our country, I don’t know about you, but for me it is so incredibly painful. And hurtful. And sinful.
Yes, sinful. The actions of white supremacists, of bigots, of racists, of neo-Nazis is sinful. Yet, it is not only they who have sinned. We have sinned. We have all sinned. We are all guilty. All of us. And, particularly, the church is guilty.
In his writings during the time of the second World War and the time of Adolph Hitler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that the church was guilty. That the church had not professed openly and clearly enough its message of the one God. That the church had not confessed its timidity, its deviations, its dangerous concessions. That it had disavowed its duties as sentinel and comforter. That it was mute when it should have cried out, as the blood of the innocent cried out to heaven. That the church did not find the right words in the right way at the right time. That it did not resist to the death the falling away from faith. That it was guilty of the godlessness of the masses.
So, we, as individuals and as the church, are called to confess. To confess of the privilege we have used to harm people as a result of our race. To confess of the perspective we have claimed as the only true perspective. To confess of the way we have “powered over” people instead of “powering with” people. To confess of our guilt without a single glance at all of the others who are guilty. And to call everyone--all people in our nation into a community of confession.
We must begin with ourselves. With the church. We, who have been grabbed by the power of Christ’s grace--we must acknowledge, confess, and take upon ourselves not only our personal sins, but also the falling of the world.
Then, we must begin to change. If we are tired of the story of white supremacy (and that is what it is as much as we hate that word!), then we must begin to call it what it is. Every one of us. To say the words. To call it out. And then, to think about what we can do differently. To believe other people’s stories and to begin to work around our privilege, to work around our own perspective, and to work around power to build a world together, a world that lives into God’s declaration that all that God created is good. Every bit of it.
To choose not to do it because it is uncomfortable or because we can’t do it perfectly is not okay. Because that is the definition of privilege. Privilege allows us to simply walk away from the hard work simply because we are not affected by it the minute we wake up.
It must begin here and now. With each and every one of us in the church. As Bonhoeffer wrote, “The church is where Jesus makes his form real in the midst of the world. Therefore, only the church can be the place of personal and corporate rebirth and renewal.”
Joseph eventually reached a place of reconciliation with his brothers. What began as a curse became a blessing on the nations. The same can happen in the church and in the broader world. Out of usurped power can come justice. Out of rebellion order. And out of bloodshed peace.
And this--justice, order, and peace--is what the kingdom of God looks like. And what God desires for all of humanity and all of creation.
May God so grant it!
Amen.
Preached August 20, 2017, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Readings: Genesis 45:1-15, Psalm 133, Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15:10-28.
With attributions to Dr. Brené Brown and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.’ And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honored in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.” Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.
----Genesis 45:1-15 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Good morning to you. It is good to be back. I am grateful for the days off I’ve had, which have given me a chance to reflect, renew and refresh. I’m also grateful to be back.
Because I missed a Sunday, we have a bit of catching up to do in our stories of Abraham and his descendants--these legends we’ve been working our way through during this entire summer.
If you recall, last week’s Genesis story was that of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers. You remember it, don’t you? How Jacob, Joseph’s father, showed favoritism to Joseph, his youngest son. (Have we heard this somewhere before?) And how Jacob gave Joseph a robe of many colors, making his brothers incredibly jealous. So jealous, in fact, that when they were out tending sheep, they stripped him of his technicolor dreamcoat and threw him into an empty cistern or well. And then sold him to a caravan of Ishmaelites traveling with their wares to Egypt. Then, to make matters even worse, they took dipped Joseph’s cloak in ram’s blood and returned home to tell Joseph that his youngest son was dead.
Do you see and hear, once again, the generations and generations of brokenness? So you see and hear, once again, the hatred and anger that simply seems to be carried from generation to generation?
As our story opens today, we find Joseph in a high position of power in Egypt. In fact, he is the administrator over all of Egypt. It has been a winding road to this point, one filled with false accusations and betrayal, with incarceration, and with dream interpretation. In fact, it was Joseph’s ability to interpret Pharoah’s dreams of feast and famine that led to his appointment to such a powerful position, notwithstanding his complete lack of experience.
Under Joseph’s administration, Egypt has grown dramatically in size, as surrounding nations have looked to it for sustenance during a 7-year famine.
As the famine has gripped the entire region, Jacob has told his sons to go from Canaan to Egypt to buy grain. They appear before Joseph, who recognizes them. However, the sons--Joseph’s brothers--don’t recognize Joseph. And Joseph doesn’t reveal who he is. Instead, he uses his power over his brothers. He first demands that they go home and return with their youngest brother, Benjamin. He, then, imprisons his brother Simeon until they do.
When the food finally runs out in Canaan, they decide to return with Benjamin. Joseph invites them to dinner. There, they share a meal with Joseph. And they still don’t recognize him.
What happens next is either a test or a second act of revenge by Joseph. Joseph instructs his servant to slip a silver cup in Benjamin’s sack. He then confronts his brothers about the alleged theft and threatens to arrest Benjamin. Joseph’s brothers beg him not to do this. And Judah volunteers to trade places with Benjamin.
It is here where today’s story begins. Joseph. So overwhelmed with emotion. Unable to conceal his identity any longer. Joseph sends all of his attendants away. Only his brothers remain.
Joseph then reveals who he is to them--that he is their youngest brother, the one they sold into slavery those many years ago. He also shares with them, though, how God has used this evil act to save the lives of many, many people.
Our story today ends with these words: “He (Joseph) kissed all of his brothers and wept, embracing them. After that, his brothers were finally able to talk to him.”
Reconciliation. After all that has happened between Joseph and his brothers, after the original evil act, after the acts of revenge--after everything, the relationship between Joseph and his brothers is restored. They are reconciled.
As I hear this story once again--this story of evil and hate and of forgiveness and reconciliation, I’m reminded of something written by Brene Brown. Brene is a researcher and professor of sociology at the University of Houston who has researched, written and spoken extensively on the topic of shame and vulnerability.
She has also spoken frequently about the three P’s - Privilege, Perspective, and Power.
First, privilege. There is no word today that makes people more angry today than this word. Privilege. Especially, white privilege. “I worked for everything I have,” we say. “I had no privilege!”
According to Ms. Brown, if this is our understanding of privilege, then we fail to understand what it is. Privilege is something, some right we have that is unearned. It’s about unearned access or authority. We all have some kind of privilege, some kind of unearned right. What is your privilege?
One example of my privilege, as a Christian here in Kentucky or in the entire U.S., is that I can wear a symbol of my religion (say, a cross) and not fear being called a murderer or a terrorist. Privilege.
Or, another example. As a white woman, a mother, I have never had to have a conversation with my son about how to handle getting pulled over by the police. Both of these are examples of my privilege.
I have unearned rights, or access and authority. Privilege has nothing to do with how hard I’ve worked. To fail to acknowledge our own privilege--especially the unearned rights we enjoy by virtue of being white. To fail to acknowledge this fails to acknowledge the pain of others who don’t experience our level of privilege.
The second “P” is perspective. We all see the world through a lens. Whether it is as a result of our age, our gender, our race, our ability, we all view the world with a certain perspective. Add in the perspective of insight, personal history, family stories--we see the world in a particular way. And the more white, the more middle class we are, the more likely is our belief that it is our view of the world that is the only true view, the only right way.
So, we are told we should have empathy with others who don’t have the same perspective. To put down our own lens and to view the world through their lens.
Unfortunately, this is impossible. It is impossible to set aside our own worldview.
How, then, do we take the perspective of others? First, we believe people’s stories and experiences as they are told to us. Period. So, when we hear from our African-American brothers and sisters that they are stopped by the police regularly without cause, we believe them.
Secondly, we acknowledge that how someone else views the world through their lens is just as true and real as how we view the world through ours. It’s not okay to say, “Oh, that’s a terrible story. But that’s now how I see it.” We can have an opinion. But we can’t dismiss what other people share with us as truth.
Then, there is the third “P.” That of power. We hate this word, power, don’t we, especially here in the church. There are many definitions for it, but, perhaps the best is that one given by Martin Luther King, Jr. He said that “Power is the ability to effect change.”
To be without power, to have no ability to effect change, to be completely powerless is the most dangerous state we can ever experience. It leads to isolation. To violence. To shame. To self-harm. Think about history. When has violence occurred most throughout our world? It has happened when people felt powerless.
Somehow we have come to the belief in our country power is finite. That if I share some of it with someone else, I will lose some of my own. That is not power. That is “power over.”
“Power over” is finite. It is also ineffective. When we lead, when we parent, when we act from a position of “power over”, we, by definition, disempower people who have great ideas, great experiences, and great stories to bring to the table and to our broader shared experience. Brené Brown writes, what we are witnessing in our world today is the last resistance, the last stand of “power over.”
Joseph had all three P’s. He was in a position of privilege, having unearned access through his appointment by the pharaoh. He had a perspective that was shaped by his own world view and experience, particularly that of having been sold into slavery by his brothers. He also had power--particularly, “power over.” The power to imprison his brothers, to exact that final revenge upon them for all of the hurt and pain they had caused.
This past week has been so difficult, hasn’t it. As we have watched what has gone on in Charlottesville, as we have watched the hate and bigotry of racism and fascism and naziism raise it’s ugly head in our country, as we continue to witness the growing divide in our country, I don’t know about you, but for me it is so incredibly painful. And hurtful. And sinful.
Yes, sinful. The actions of white supremacists, of bigots, of racists, of neo-Nazis is sinful. Yet, it is not only they who have sinned. We have sinned. We have all sinned. We are all guilty. All of us. And, particularly, the church is guilty.
In his writings during the time of the second World War and the time of Adolph Hitler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that the church was guilty. That the church had not professed openly and clearly enough its message of the one God. That the church had not confessed its timidity, its deviations, its dangerous concessions. That it had disavowed its duties as sentinel and comforter. That it was mute when it should have cried out, as the blood of the innocent cried out to heaven. That the church did not find the right words in the right way at the right time. That it did not resist to the death the falling away from faith. That it was guilty of the godlessness of the masses.
So, we, as individuals and as the church, are called to confess. To confess of the privilege we have used to harm people as a result of our race. To confess of the perspective we have claimed as the only true perspective. To confess of the way we have “powered over” people instead of “powering with” people. To confess of our guilt without a single glance at all of the others who are guilty. And to call everyone--all people in our nation into a community of confession.
We must begin with ourselves. With the church. We, who have been grabbed by the power of Christ’s grace--we must acknowledge, confess, and take upon ourselves not only our personal sins, but also the falling of the world.
Then, we must begin to change. If we are tired of the story of white supremacy (and that is what it is as much as we hate that word!), then we must begin to call it what it is. Every one of us. To say the words. To call it out. And then, to think about what we can do differently. To believe other people’s stories and to begin to work around our privilege, to work around our own perspective, and to work around power to build a world together, a world that lives into God’s declaration that all that God created is good. Every bit of it.
To choose not to do it because it is uncomfortable or because we can’t do it perfectly is not okay. Because that is the definition of privilege. Privilege allows us to simply walk away from the hard work simply because we are not affected by it the minute we wake up.
It must begin here and now. With each and every one of us in the church. As Bonhoeffer wrote, “The church is where Jesus makes his form real in the midst of the world. Therefore, only the church can be the place of personal and corporate rebirth and renewal.”
Joseph eventually reached a place of reconciliation with his brothers. What began as a curse became a blessing on the nations. The same can happen in the church and in the broader world. Out of usurped power can come justice. Out of rebellion order. And out of bloodshed peace.
And this--justice, order, and peace--is what the kingdom of God looks like. And what God desires for all of humanity and all of creation.
May God so grant it!
Amen.
Preached August 20, 2017, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Readings: Genesis 45:1-15, Psalm 133, Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15:10-28.
With attributions to Dr. Brené Brown and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
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