Then There’s Grace

Romans 8:26-39

Genesis 29:15-28        

So the story of Jacob continues. After his night in Bethel where he saw the ladder of angels climbing between heaven and earth, and heard the voice of God reaffirming the promise of a future, Jacob arrives at the home of his uncle Laban – his mother’s brother. Here he is welcomed … here he meets a beautiful girl … it looks like Jacob has landed on his feet.

But what’s that thing they say about karma? Karma is a you-know-what, right? After seven years of hard work impressing his future father-in-law, Jacob the trickster gets tricked. Bigly. And surprisingly, Jacob doesn’t even complain. Maybe he’s been waiting for this, the proverbial other shoe, to drop. So he sighs, nods in acceptance, then puts his head down and continues working off his sentence – seven more years for Uncle Laban. And we, the readers, sit back and say, WOW.

You have to appreciate the irony – it is thick in this story, isn’t it? The young man who passes himself off as his older brother to get the inheritance – and gets away with it – becomes the victim of an almost identical crime. Leah is passed off as her younger sister to get the husband. It is the revenge of the older sibling.

But look deeper and see that in each case the trick was orchestrated by a parent. Jacob was disguised to look like his brother Esau by his mother, who was acting to defeat the tradition of the first-born privilege. And then Leah was disguised by her father, who was acting to defend that same tradition. This is a huge showdown: It’s Rebekah versus Isaac, Esau verses Jacob, Rachel verses Leah, Laban versus Jacob. This is a big, fat, complicated family affair.

You start looking for where to pin the blame, but then it becomes hard to figure out just where to put it. Jacob is blamed in the family for tricking Esau, but what if Jacob didn’t even want to do it? It was all his mother’s idea; maybe Jacob was a victim too.

But Rebekah, remember, had a vision when she was pregnant, telling her that the younger was destined to rule over the older. And maybe Rebekah had been carrying that burden for all these years, until she finally saw where she could lay it down.

Laban … well, nobody really likes Laban, so I won’t say anymore about him. But Leah – sure she got the husband Rachel was counting on, but did she even want any part in this deception? It could be that Leah was just miserable about the whole thing. Who’s to say?

It is impossible to say why people do all these kinds of crazy things to hurt one another. You might look for some kind of cosmic order in all of it – it’s human nature to want to find order in all of it – and maybe you will find answers that seem sufficient.

Maybe it is enough to say that Jacob sinned in cheating Esau, and now he gets his punishment.

Maybe it is enough to say that Rebekah heard the voice of God tell her that Jacob would be the chosen one and her scheme was simply an act of obedience to God.

Maybe it is enough to say that Laban, as the head of the household, had an obligation to hold up the traditions they held dear – by whatever means necessary. It might be enough, but if it’s not then –

Maybe we should add that, in this experience with Laban, Jacob received an opportunity to grow in maturity, compassion, and wisdom. I think he did.

Maybe we should add that Jacob, who still had much to learn about life, now would have the time to learn it. I think he did.

And, we should also add that the story is not over yet; there are more twists and tricks and confrontations to come.

A good story is like a multifaceted gem, you can turn it and turn it and always see something else sparkle in it. And the more you turn it, the better you understand that each one of us in this world has something of both darkness and light in us. The more you turn it, the better you see how little we really understand of ourselves and others. The more you turn it, the better you see that there are no white hats and black hats – but just a bunch of hurting, broken people, sinners all.

And then there’s grace.

And that grace is truly the good news of the day. In these words from Paul’s letter to the Romans, we are told how profound is God’s grace. We can take Paul’s words and lay them over the story from Genesis, and know that God took this young man Jacob with all his flaws, and conformed him to a different image, the firstborn within a large family.

In the story, as in life, things keep going around and coming around, and sometimes people learn something – by the grace of God. Because, as Paul said (and even when it doesn’t look like it), things are working together for good for those who love God and are called according to God’s purposes.

In the end, grace wins. In the end, love wins.

Photo: By SitharaAriyarathna - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90824084

Where God Is

Genesis 28:10-19a     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.” So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel;

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It used to be that when I read this story of Jacob I would get stuck on the notion of a stone for a pillow. I thought, a stone for a pillow? there’s no way that works. That’s where I got hung up. Never mind the ladder to heaven, with angels climbing up and down. Never mind the Lord just showing up, standing beside him and telling Jacob what his future will be. I didn’t think twice about any of that because I couldn’t get past the idea of laying down for a night’s sleep with a stone for a pillow.

Until one day at a church camp. I went hiking with a few others. We hiked up to a place they called the Bald Spot.  In the mountains of Pennsylvania, where just about every surface is covered in trees, there is an area way up high that is covered in white rock.  When you see it from the ground and just looks like a bald spot on the mountain’s head. 

The climb up there is long and hard; we stopped to rest once along the way and, believe me, I would have stopped again, but for the peer pressure that kept me going.  So when we reached the bald spot I was as tired as I know how to be. 

I looked out over this site and it was marvelous – this beautiful vista of mountain ranges out to the west as deep and wide as the eye could see. Then right in front of me I looked down on the Bald Spot and saw a delightful thing: somebody, sometime, had arranged large flat stones into furniture – big chairs and sofas from slabs of rock. Picture Fred Flintstone’s living room.  So I took my tired body and I sat down in a stone-age recliner and I thought of Jacob.

It was then I had an inkling of how tired Jacob was, that he would lay his head on a slab of stone and call it rest. If you are tired enough any surface, hard or soft, will do to rest your weary head.  Jacob was bone-tired when he stopped for the night – weary in body and mind and soul.  We know this, because we know where he was coming from.

Jacob and his twin brother Esau were the sons of Isaac and Rebekah. Isaac favored Esau, the elder, and Rebekah favored Jacob. That, by itself is not unusual. I have heard it said the first child is the father’s child and the second child is the mother’s child, so I guess it happens often enough. But there was a special reason Rebekah favored Jacob.

When she carried the twins in her womb she heard a word from God that the elder of the two would serve the younger. Jacob, the younger, would take the place of Esau, the elder. And Rebekah, apparently, felt it was her responsibility to facilitate that.

When the time came, Rebekah and Jacob schemed to take Esau’s blessing.  Their father Isaac, in his old age, and with dimming eyesight, asked his son Esau to come to him to receive the blessing due to him as the eldest son.  But while Esau was out hunting game to offer his father, Jacob came in his place pretending to be Esau.  Isaac, unaware of the deception, gave him his blessing. 

The ancient people who told these stories to one another believed there was real power at work in the blessing. It was a gift, and once given it could not be taken back. Jacob received Esau’s blessing, the inheritance of the firstborn son, and that was that. So Esau really did have his birthright taken away from him.

He casually gave it away for a bowl of soup. But he didn’t really believe that he was giving it away. Now he realizes it is gone. And he’s angry – angry enough to kill.

Jacob fled from the family home. He ran and got as far as this place which was no place, and he stopped for the night. He was tired, he was weak, he was worn. He laid his body down on the hard ground, a stone beneath his head, and he slept. And he dreamed.

He dreamed of a ladder going between heaven and earth, and angels of the Lord climbing up and down that ladder, between heaven and earth.

And God stood beside Jacob 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.”

And Jacob awoke from his dream, knowing that the Lord was in this place. And he took the stone that was his pillow, stood it up on end and poured oil over it, anointing it. Jacob will remember this place, where God spoke to him. Before, it was no place; now it was Bethel, the house of God.

It’s what we sometimes call the church, our sanctuary – a special place and we have missed being in it together. Because when we come here to this place we know that God is here with us. But during these past few months we have made the sacrifice of not being here together for the sake of our health. We had to adjust in some ways we never imagined we would – like watching a worship service on a small screen, or settling for just reading the bulletin and the sermon later on.

Yet we know that, although we have been unable to gather in the house of God, we have not been without God. We know from the story of Jacob, and countless others in the scriptures, that when we are weary, when we are at our end, God is there.

When Jacob was on the run from Esau … When Elijah was on the run from Jezebel … When the Israelites were on the run from Pharaoh … God was there.

Wherever we are in our journey, we may be assured that God is there. And it is a comfort, a source of strength, for a tired and weary and wandering people.

Much sacred music comes from a place of being tired and weary and lost, and finding that God is present in those places with us. It’s as old as the psalms the people of Israel sang together in worship – we, like they, need to remind ourselves that God is with us everywhere, but most especially where we need God most, where we are bone tired and lost and alone.

It was that way for a man named Thomas Dorsey, a talented musician. In the 1920’s and 30’s he divided his talents between the jazz clubs and the church. He loved them both, and his love of jazz helped him to develop his own style of spiritual music that might have seemed irreverent to some, but became well loved by many.

In 1931, he kissed his pregnant wife goodbye in Chicago and drove down to St. Louis to attend a gospel convention where he was to perform. Everything was going well. After he got off the stage, he was handed a telegram that said, “Come home. Your wife has died.”

She had died giving birth to their firstborn son. The infant died a day later. One day Thomas Dorsey had everything, the next day, nothing.

He was lost in his grief. He didn’t perform, he didn’t compose, he didn’t know what to do anymore. Until finally, a friend gently led him to a piano; he sat down and composed this song:

Precious Lord, take my hand;

Lead me on, let me stand;

I am tired, I am weak, I am worn.

Through the storm, through the night,

Lead me on to the light;

Take my hand Precious Lord,

Lead me home.

The gift of music brought him back – back to the knowledge of the presence of God. He poured out his feeling, his need, his prayer in this song. And the Lord answered his prayer, leading him on, through the storm, through the night, to the light.

This was neither the first nor the last time Thomas Dorsey would be tired and weak and worn. He had been lost before and it would happen again, but every time the Lord would lead him home.

As the Lord led the people of Israel, God will lead us through all our wilderness journeys. As the Lord led Jacob, God will lead us through times of fear, of confusion, of feeling abandoned. Wherever you are, God is with you and there is no place God will abandon you. Call on the name of our Precious Lord to take your hand and lead you on.

Photo: By Unknown author - British Library, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76427100

Entitlement

Genesis 25:19-34       

When we were little, my older sister and I told our youngest sister that our parents found her in a garbage can and brought her home.  We only told her that because she was young enough and innocent enough to believe it and it amused us that she believed it.  We convinced her also that her duty as the youngest child was to wait on us; run down to the kitchen and get us a snack if we were hungry, even run down to the 7-Eleven if we had a sudden craving for Doritos or Laffy-Taffy.  We were bad. 

It’s the natural order of things that older siblings dominate the younger ones because they can. They’re bigger, smarter, stronger … for a while.  Later, when things even out; when the younger siblings are as big and strong and smart as the older siblings, they’re still dominated by the older ones, because everybody is used to it.  It’s the way things have always been.

But the thing that seems kind of weird is that, even in the case of twins, it happens. This natural order asserts itself.

Even with twins, babies who share the same womb at the same time, even when they are born minutes apart – possibly just seconds apart, if we take seriously the notion that Jacob came out grasping Esau’s heel. Even if it’s just a matter of seconds, the older one is still the older one and, therefore, the dominant one. I’m not sure why it happens; it’s a bit of a mystery to me. So I asked one of my sisters who has twins and she gave me some insight into this.

Her twins are identical twins. They were born 20 minutes apart. The firstborn weighed about six ounces more than the second-born. A small difference. Yet that 20 minutes, those six ounces, were enough to cement the order of things into their personalities. It is clear to those who know them well which one is the firstborn.

It seems like just being able to say, “I’m older than you,” gives the firstborn an inherent advantage. In fact, if you ever see a younger sibling gain an advantage over the older sibling it’s probably because they carefully watched and listened and schemed to get it … like Jacob.

The story of Esau and Jacob is fascinating, like all stories of family dynamics are. The fact that they were twins, growing together in the same womb, then severing that relationship so completely, just adds layers of interest to it. But the story of Esau and Jacob is a puzzling one, as well, because it’s just hard to figure out what to make of these characters.  I have questions. Would Esau really trade his birthright for a bowl of soup?  Would Jacob really withhold food from his brother until he gave him his birthright?  And is this really a binding legal transaction?

To the third question, I really have no idea.  It seems to be mostly symbolic; it’s not as though there was any magic involved, like a Freaky Friday sort of thing where the two people switch bodies with each other.  But it does seem to indicate consent on the part of Esau to give over to Jacob the right to his inheritance, presumably the traditional double share that the first son is entitled to.  And as such, it takes us back to our bewilderment that he gave it up so casually. And cheaply.

The scripture says he despised his birthright.  In the way we understand what it is to despise something, I don’t believe we really see evidence of that in the story.  A newer translation, the Common English Bible, uses the phrase “showing just how little he thought of his birthright.” I think perhaps that makes more sense.  Clearly, Esau thought little about his birthright. 

And that is the point: Esau didn’t trouble himself to think about it, to appreciate it, to truly value it.  Maybe Esau took his birthright for granted, never questioning that it was his.  After all, his birthright was his natural right, wasn’t it?  He couldn’t really give it away to his brother any more than he could give his brother his natural red hair.  By the laws of nature it was his and his alone. Right?

Well, the message that the story in Genesis seems to be driving home is:  the way we think things should be is not necessarily the way God ordains that they should be.  And that God enjoys stirring the pot now and then to remind us of that. Don’t get too complacent; don’t be too self-assured about your rights. 

Because, by what right do we have anything at all? When, really, it’s all gift? And yet it is true that all of us – at some time, about some things – have that sense of entitlement.

Yes, entitlement. That’s a loaded word.  It is generally used either to refer to a type of government program or a derogatory term to suggest that someone’s trying to get away with more than they should.  Or both at the same time.  As I said, it’s a word heavily-laden with baggage.

To be clear, I am not talking about government programs that we call entitlement programs. These efforts to ensure that all have the basic needs met – like food, shelter, health care – are important for a society to attend to.  What I’m really talking about here is the creeping sense of entitlement, or privilege, that you and I, all of us, are vulnerable to. 

We get this sense of entitlement from growing accustomed to certain things, because it’s just the way things are.  The culture we live in, the people around us; what we have always known and had, and learned to expect.  It trains us to see a thing as our due – instead of seeing it as gift.

And if we ever think of those people who don’t have all the things that we are somehow entitled to, we tell ourselves that in some way they are different from us, and perhaps less deserving/entitled than us.

Maybe you don’t think this applies to you?  You never have this sense of entitlement? Maybe you don’t. But next time you feel resentful about something, ask yourself this: Am I resenting this situation because I feel entitled to something different?  And, if that is so, ask yourself this:

By what right do we have anything at all?  Our God-given right, perhaps?

Well, that’s just what Esau thought – when he thought about it at all. He just assumed the rights of the firstborn son belonged to him. Because, of course, he was the firstborn son. Could there be any question about this? 

And Jacob comes along, with some help from his mother, of course, and says, “Yes, I have a question about this. I would like the same rights.”

Now you may think that Jacob is acting like he has a big sense of entitlement, with all his grasping, but actually it’s just the opposite. Jacob knows that none of these things will be given to him. He will have to use his heart and mind and strength and wiles to get anything. He’s like Alexander Hamilton singing, “I’m just like my country, I’m young, scrappy, and hungry, and I’m not throwing away my shot.”

Esau thought it was his God-given right to carry the promise, to receive the inheritance, to be the chosen one – but it wasn’t. That would belong to Jacob, and he certainly had the God-given talents to seize it and hold it and succeed with it – that we will see as the story continues.

See the story of Jacob and Esau from the perspective of entitlement verses gift, and we see something we perhaps didn’t see before. It’s all gift. If there is one thing the book of Genesis wants us to know, it is that it is all gift from our Creator God. But we are God’s partners in receiving and using the gifts we are given.  So, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Joel Osteen, how will we go forward living our best life now?

May we lose our sense of entitlement, and gain the joy in remembering that it is all gift from our Creator God.

May we practice gratitude for all these gifts, forgoing resentment about the gifts we don’t have.

May we follow the light and listen to the word that guides us on the path God gives.

Photo: My sisters and I all turned out okay, in spite of everything.

O Soul, Are You Weary and Troubled?

Romans 7:15-25

Matthew 11:16-19,25-30     

Some years ago, I began a search for Jesus pictures. I was interested in all the different ways Jesus is portrayed in art. There is quite a variety. Over the centuries you can see the ways cultural priorities have been reflected in the popular images of Jesus. In the early centuries of the church, there were some rather severe images: Judge-of-the-world Jesus and victorious-in-battle Jesus. But modern people seem to prefer a milder version: Gentle-shepherd Jesus and little-children-loving Jesus.

There are some that are less common but very arresting: like sad Jesus, looking on the state of the world with a tear on his face. One of my favorites is polite Jesus, knocking on our door, hoping we will answer. There is also laughing Jesus – which, for some reason, a lot of people don’t like, and I’ve never really understood why.

But one thing I have never seen is drunk Jesus. Or gluttonous Jesus. I have never seen Animal House Jesus. Ever.

Tell me the truth. Can you imagine Jesus holding a red solo cup at a party, drinking a beer with the tax collectors? Or at a pig roast, sitting back and loosening his belt a notch after chowing down on barbeque and all the fixings. Can you picture it? Even in wedding at Cana story, where Jesus saves the day by turning vats of water into wine, we kind of imagine him and Mary being the only sober ones at the party, don’t we?

Yet, apparently, this was a not uncommon criticism of him, that he was a drunk and a glutton – he heard it enough that it got him a little riled up and he snapped at them, like, is there no satisfying you people? John was criticized for being absolutely no fun at all, while Jesus was criticized for having too much fun. They can’t win for losing, as my mother used to say.

To what can I compare this generation, he asks? If someone comes playing the flute for you, you will not dance with them. Yet if someone comes wailing, you will not mourn with them. A bunch of critics, you are! whiners.

And so, I would suggest that what we have here is an image of Jesus just losing it with his people. Something else we really don’t see much of in religious art – irritable Jesus; the I’ve-got-one-nerve-left-and-you’re-standing-on-it Jesus. We don’t see much of that one in religious art. Although perhaps we should.

Although we don’t dwell on it, there were plenty of times Jesus was angry. Angry about injustice, angry about hypocrisy, angry about the obtuseness of his disciples, their slowness to catch on. Although we want nice Jesus, easy Jesus, what we have is a different kind of Jesus.

Because there never was a nice, easy Jesus. We have good Jesus, but that’s not the same as nice. We have gracious Jesus, but that’s not the same as easy. The problem here is that, as much as we like to imagine him as gentle and mild, Jesus has always challenged us. And it’s a problem, because who among us wants to be challenged? Does anybody feel like they need another challenge this year?

We have had more than enough challenge for now. We would like 2020 to be recalled. We are over it.

We are tired; we are frayed at the edges, wearing out from all the tensions we are living with. Little problems cause us to snap at each other. Parents are thinking about re-homing their children (just kidding!). Loving couples are retreating to their separate corners and nursing their wounds. While those who live alone are thinking, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to be bicker with?

We are weary. And none of us really wants to be scolded for being too demanding and wanting what we cannot have. Nobody has the energy for that now.

Yes, it is a truth we cannot deny, that as the Apostle Paul says, sin dwells within us. Yes, it is a sad fact that, even when we know what is right, we find we cannot do it. All we can do, my friends, is pray for mercy.

Because we are tired, and weary, and troubled.

And then the gospel says to us, rest in that, beloved. Rest. In. That.

Rest in that sense of weariness, that helplessness, that I-hate-this-and-I-don’t-feel-like-being-strong-anymore, because dear one, that is who you are. Rest in it.

Infants, that is what you are, Jesus says – but in a kind way, a loving way. We are infants, and that is the good news.

Because those who believe they can solve all the problems on their own; those who excel at analyzing and criticizing; those who feel they have a leg up on all the others and look down on them – these are the ones who are passed over. For, as Jesus says to his followers, it was the gracious will of the Father that the lowly ones would be favored. The weak ones, the poor ones, those who do not presume they can do it for themselves; those who have no preconceptions about what their salvation should look like – the infants.

And this is good news, even in the context of everything that has been happening here. Because we would do well to remember that everything was happening then, too. If you have been paying attention the last few weeks, you know it. Jesus made it pretty clear it is not easy. Yet, even though, as Jesus told them, the way would be costly; even though all the beloved institutions would suffer and possibly even be broken; even though they would be asked to take up their cross and follow him; even in all that, there is this:

Your burden is heavy, but my burden is light. You are weary, but my yoke is easy. Follow me, learn from me, and find rest for your souls.

Yes, even though the way is difficult, and the price is high, God is gracious and gentle with those who follow Jesus.

All thanks be to God. Amen.

Photo: drawings of Jesus from a congregational worship project.

An Outstretched Hand

Genesis 22:1-14

Matthew 10:40-42      

There are a few stories in the Bible that are sometimes referred to as “texts of terror.” This story from Genesis is one of them.

It is the climax of the long story of Abraham and Sarah. In a way, it resembles the climax of a big disaster movie, where a disaster comes – a tsunami, a fire, a nuclear attack, or zombies from outer space – tearing through our civilization and leaving a huge swath of wreckage in its wake.

Usually, in the disaster movie, we just focus on the survivors. When it’s over, the audience is washed in relief, so thankful that we made it! On the screen there are embraces and maybe a little wry humor, so we can leave the theatre feeling good.

We might try to do that with the Genesis story too. Look at the survivors – Abraham and Isaac come back down from the mountain alive. They go home to Sarah. Isaac lives to a ripe old age – he marries and has children. So all is well.

Yet, I just can’t do it. And it’s all because of one sentence. God calls, Abraham answers, then God says:

“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.”

I mean, what do you do with a text like this? You can rationalize it, usually our first instinct with something this hard. You can historically analyze the heck out of it – I have done that too. You can spiritualize it – try to remove it from the bodily realm and just think about the spiritual meaning.

And while all of these things – the historical context, the spiritual meaning – are worthy conversations, they don’t erase the plain sense of the words on the page, the flesh and blood impact of the story.

This is your worst fear; this is the darkest corner of humanity; the darkest shadow of every human heart.

I resist it the same way I resist the reality of evil in the world, in all its forms. and yet it is here.

Why is this story necessary, I often wonder? Something so difficult, so hurtful and frightening, so prone to misunderstanding? Was it really prudent to include it in the Bible?

I am reminded of a conversation recounted by the writer Sara Maitland, with an elderly woman she ran into on her way to the post office one day. A local church had been struck by lightning and it was on the older woman’s mind. She asked Sara, “Do you suppose it’s really true that God deliberately made this happen?” Sara replied, “No, I don’t think really think so. Do you?” The older woman said, “No I don’t think so either.” But then she added, “He should have been more careful, though. He should have known there would be talk.”

And that’s what I think about this story of Abraham and Isaac. God should have known there would be all kinds of talk. God should have known that people would be scandalized by a story like this one. They would distort it and misuse it and misinterpret it … and just have a really hard time understanding the how and the why of it. Really, God should have been more careful, so such a story as this wouldn’t even be necessary.

And that is fine to think, even to say, but God will do what God will do, not being subject to our conventions. God is too big for that. And so stories of God, like this story of Isaac and Abraham, take us right up to the edge without letting us fall.

But, man, that edge? I don’t really want to look over that edge.

I want to echo the feelings of the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, who said it was one tough calling being Abraham, God’s chosen one. It would have been so much easier to have been cast out, rejected by the Lord. Kierkegaard imagined that there were times when Abraham actually wished that God would turn away from him, releasing him from this impossible burden.

The calling is, indeed, a tough one, as Jesus told his disciples in a variety of ways. In this 10^th chapter of Matthew Jesus offered some hard teachings – words we listened to last week. That because of his presence, families would be divided and lives would be lost. That to be worthy of him, they each must take up their cross and follow him.

He took his disciples right up to the edge. But then he didn’t let them fall. Jesus pulls them back with the assurance that their relationship is for keeps.

Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and welcomes the one who sent me, he says. We are so intertwined, you and I, that they can’t do anything to you without also doing it to me. I am always with you in a way that backs you up entirely and strengthens you completely. I am so much with you that our identities are inseparable. And even more, we are both intertwined with the Father, the one who sent me.

The Father – the one we identify as the God who said to Abraham, “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.”

It is still a tough calling, because this is what it is. Our God asks us to go right up to the edge and look over; to acknowledge the evil, to never close our eyes to the suffering in the world. Yes, our God is a scandalous God who won’t tidy things up or shove the skeletons in the closet for the sake of our sensibilities. But in it all, through it all, God will reach out a hand to come between us and the evil.

God stopped Abraham from the terrible act he was so near committing, and God provided a suitable sacrifice. In gratitude, Abraham named the mount, “The Lord Will Provide.”

The Lord will provide what we need. An outstretched hand holding –

a ram caught in the thicket – saving Isaac, rescuing Abraham from becoming a hollowed-out man for the rest of his life. An outstretched hand holding –

a cup of cold water for a thirsty traveler, the sustenance we need in a dry and weary land.

Remember this. No matter how ugly things get in this world, God will provide.

Photo: Team building at Camp Krislund

Promise Born of Pain

Genesis 21:8-21

Matthew10:24-39      

I am often surprised by how clearly the scriptures speak to our contemporary troubles. The texts we read each Sunday are thousands of years old, and yet sometimes the relevance of the words leap off the page. I think the author of the book of Ecclesiastes captures it for all time when he says there is nothing new under the sun, and there is a season for everything.

Our hopes are the hopes of people always and everywhere. and the troubles we face are the same kinds of troubles people have always faced.

The trouble in the text from Matthew’s gospel is this: Jesus knows that his followers will have plenty of conflict ahead. They will be persecuted and oppressed and misunderstood.

The disciple is not above the teacher, he says. Could he be any clearer? Why should the disciples expect to have an easy stroll through life when their teacher is executed?  It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, he adds. In other words, seek to emulate him in all ways – even the hard ways.

If they malign me, how much more will they malign you, my disciples. You can count on this – it won’t be easy.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to this earth, but a sword. A sword that will cut right through communities, beloved institutions, even families. There will be division, and it will be painful.

Christians hate these passages where Jesus talks about creating divisions in families. These words hurt our feelings, because we are all about family.

But Jesus didn’t make this up. It was an old trouble even then. He was quoting the prophet Micah, who spoke of a deep disorder in Israel, where the bonds of trust were broken. Jesus found relevance in these words that were several hundred years old then. Division was, and is, nothing new.

It’s something that happens when societies are under the stress of change – such as the kind of change that Micah was witnessing in ancient Judah – a time when the kingdom was experiencing radical economic changes that were resulting in greater suffering for the poor, while the rich grew richer.

Or like the kind of change that Jesus was talking about, when he talks about bringing good news to the poor and release to the captives and that the oppressed shall be freed. Here, too, he was quoting the ancient prophets of Israel.

The trouble in our world is the same. Even though Jesus told us in 99 different ways that following him would not be the easy way, Christians still want to believe that it is – or should be, anyway. We want to believe that Jesus did all the hard work of fixing the world so we can coast. Even though he told us different.

The disciple is not above the teacher, he said, and we follow a teacher who walked straight into troubles and called them out. He walked straight into hard situations and told stories of dissent, a different way of being in the world. He walked straight into ugliness and showed it he was not afraid of hate.

And he said, It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher. He wanted his disciples to do the same. Knowing that if they did, there would be trouble.

So, 2000 years later there are still plenty of troubles, and we have seen our share of them in the nation recently. Born out of some of these troubles, we find ourselves in a national conversation about racism once again. But it doesn’t feel the same as it did before. It feels like God’s people have decided they are ready to wade into the trouble.

That old line from Mission Impossible comes to mind. Your mission, should you choose to accept it – and there has to be that option, because the mission is never easy or risk-free. Disciples, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to wade into the trouble. To be, as some would say, God’s Troublemakers.

Last Friday our city held a ceremony to unveil a new street sign on Broad Street: Black Lives Matter Blvd. It is a ceremonial renaming, so you won’t have to change the address when you mail things to the church – although you certainly can. But, like all ceremonial events, it is significant for what it proclaims. Black lives do matter.

And it is important to say. Because in all too many situations it is clear that we have operated as though Black lives did not matter. As though Black bodies could be treated differently from White bodies. As though, somehow, the many injustices that have been piled on these Black lives for centuries in our nation are justified. Or insignificant.

When we first began hearing that phrase, almost seven years ago, after Trayvon Martin was killed and his killer was acquitted, it had a highly charged and polarizing effect. At that time, even though I spoke from the pulpit about the unjust killings of Black men and women at the hands of law enforcement, I still did not feel I could use that phrase – Black Lives Matter. It seemed to me that it would be like throwing a grenade into the sanctuary. Back then, it seemed like the church wasn’t really ready to have a conversation about it. But I hope we are ready now.

Because to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord is to proclaim that every life matters. Every one. And this means that there is a season in which we have to say that, specifically, Black lives matter, in order to counter the longstanding, inherent, and obvious belief that they don’t.

Our nation has a long sinful history that we are trying to come to terms with, in which black lives have been undervalued. In which black bodies have been objects to be used, misused, or destroyed. Racism is, as the Reverend Jim Wallis put it, America’s original sin. It is an offense against God’s extraordinary creativity and the profound love in which God created the world.

We can see this truth in the Genesis story about Hagar and Ishmael. Sarah got so jealous of Hagar and fearful of the boy Ishmael, she told Abraham they should be banished from the household. Even though Sarah had been the one who forced Hagar to have Abraham’s child because Sarah herself couldn’t get pregnant. Even though they were family, they had to go.

So Abraham sent them out. He gave them a little water and some bread to start them on their journey, although this was hardly the measure of hospitality he had shown to the three strangers who entered their camp a few years earlier. He pointed Hagar in the direction of “away” and then turned his back on her and his son, and that was that.

But even though Sarah and Abraham no longer had any use for Hagar and Ishmael, the story shows how much God valued them. Hagar and her son would not die of thirst in the wilderness, for God treasured them. They would not be assaulted and killed by bandits out there, because God had a vision for them.

The point of this story is that even when we misuse and cast off other human beings, treating them as less than human, God doesn’t regard them that way. God loves Hagar and Ishmael as much as God loves Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac. And don’t you imagine it is true, then, that God wants us to love them too?

Things have to change if we really and truly love them. This is the message of the gospel and it is a message that is just as meaningful for us today. Things do have to change – and change is not painless. This, also, has always been true. But Jesus says to his disciples, Do not fear.

Do not fear those who will surely criticize you when you make a stand. But what I say to you in the dark, tell it in the light; proclaim it from the housetops. Speak the truth even if it makes people angry. Because things have to change. And things will change.

It will create some discomfort, but it must change. It may even be painful, but it must change. Because the hope that Jesus came to proclaim, is a hope that is born of pain.

The Necessary No

Matthew 28:16-20       Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

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In 1934, a group of German Evangelical Church leaders met in the town of Barmen to write a confessional document for the church in their particular time and place. Amongst them were Lutherans, German Reformed, and representatives of the United Churches. Their purpose was simply to reiterate their common faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Some of the names associated with this effort might be familiar to us: Martin Niemoller. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Karl Barth. These men and others had been working together for some time to articulate a faithful interpretation of the gospel in Nazi Germany. Their work reached its apex in this meeting.

The document was drafted primarily by Karl Barth, a theologian of the Reformed Church. He worked, in his own words, “fortified by strong coffee and one or two Brazilian cigars,” while the Lutherans in the room took a nap.[1] (I don’t repeat that to disrespect the Lutherans. But the truth is I never met a Lutheran who didn’t like a Sunday afternoon nap.) The result of Barth’s efforts, with some help from the Lutherans, was The Theological Declaration of Barmen.

This Declaration is one of the confessions of faith in our Presbyterian Book of Confessions. It is premised on the belief that the church is united in obedience to the Word of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. It declares certain affirmations about the nature of God and Christ’s church. And it asserts that every “‘yes’ of the gospel…always entails a necessary ‘no.’”[2]

It is the task of the church always to ascertain what is, for our particular time and place, the necessary no.

And, so, included in the Declaration are these words:

The Christian Church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in Word and Sacrament through the Holy Spirit. As the Church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance.

And it goes on to say:

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions. (The Theological Declaration of Barmen, 8.16-8.18)

That’s more than a mouthful. Ah, if only he had more help from the Lutherans, Barth might have found a clearer way to say it. In short, it means that the gospel will not be co-opted for the purposes of the state, or anyone else.

It is true that political figures have used the church for their own political ends far too often in our society – as they did in Nazi Germany. And often they have been abetted by church members. I once wrote a letter to the editor of my local newspaper arguing that one presidential candidate had a stronger grasp of the scriptures and a more authentic obedience to Christ than did the other candidate. It was a good letter, but even at the time I wrote it I felt a little uneasy about it. Now I look back at it with some shame about what I was attempting to do: to use Jesus Christ as a political tool.

To be faithful, to be obedient to everything he has commanded us, is to recognize Christ as our head, not as a tool we can use at our convenience and for our purposes. As the letter to the Ephesians says, and the Barmen Declaration quotes, “speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body is joined and knit together” (Ephesians 4:15-16).

Thus, the community of the church is charged with bearing testimony to a sinful world, with calling the whole world to obedience to the reign of God. It is no small thing, no easy task, to speak the truth of the gospel to the powers of the world; nonetheless, this is our calling.

The apostle Paul urged in his letter to the Romans, that Christians must not be conformed to this world, but be transformed, renewed, so we might discern what is the will of God. What is good and acceptable and perfect. Or, as it says in The Message, the popular translation by Eugene Peterson:

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Nothing will be gained by taking up sides and sniping at each other. Nobody will grow in maturity by tossing but-what-about-isms back and forth at each other. Only in keeping our eyes fixed on Christ, acknowledging that we belong to him in our entirety – body and soul, heart and mind – will God be glorified.

We can say, “it is wrong to burn up somebody’s property, wrong to loot businesses, wrong to smash windows” and “it is wrong to beat protesters or kill innocent people” – at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive. But our faith demands that we also say there is no equivalence between property and life. Even that beloved Old Testament verse, “an eye for an eye” does not pretend there is equivalence between property and life. And Jesus Christ, the one who gave up his life so that we might have life, the one who said “love your enemies,” condemns any such notions.

As the Declaration of Barmen affirms, every “yes” of the gospel entails a necessary “no.”

And it is in this spirit that I say to you, God is not glorified when our government assaults peaceful protestors to move them out of the way so a man may take a walk to stand in front of a church and hold up a Bible for a photo.

God is not glorified when our leaders order the removal of peaceful protestors by smoke, tear gas, rubber bullets – which are sometimes lethal – or brute force, and top it off with the word of God and the cross of Christ as symbols for domination. That’s a hard no. a necessary no.

The five verses of scripture we heard today are the closing words of Matthew’s gospel. They include Jesus’ departing words to his disciples: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

As the church, we are called to “go therefore,” on a mission to teach the law of love that Christ taught us. To be obedient to all his commandments, which are, to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. To bear testimony to a sinful world. To affirm the gospel’s “yes” as well as the necessary “no.”

And the good news assures us that we do not go alone. No talent of ours will bring about world peace. Nothing we bring to the table will usher in the reign of God. All the grace, all the love, all the power that is needed to do this is not dependent on us. What we bring to the game is simply this: because God loves us, we are empowered to love others – all the “others.”

So turn to God. Invite Jesus into your heart. Call upon the Holy Spirit to guide you and empower you to bear witness in a sinful world.

And remember, Jesus Christ is with you always, to the end of the age.

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[1] https://postbarthian.com/2018/05/21/karl-barth-and-the-barmen-declaration-1934/

[2] Book of Confessions: Study Edition, p. 304-305.