God Will Provide?

Genesis 22:1-18

There are some stories that you don’t really want to know. Like William Styron’s story, Sophie’s Choice.

Sophie is a Polish woman during the Second World War. She was sent to Auschwitz with her young son and daughter. The defining moment in this story is one of Sophie and her children, standing in line with all the other prisoners, waiting to be processed when a German officer approaches her. He offers Sophie a choice: which one of your children should die? Choose or they will both be taken. She chose her daughter.

Then there is Toni Morrison’s story, Beloved. Sethe is a runaway slave living in Cincinnati with her four children. When the master hunts her down, Sethe grabs her children and runs to the toolshed. She knows she would rather they not live than to see them returned to slavery and so she aims to take things into her own hands. The youngest, a two-year-old girl, is killed before Sethe’s hand is stopped.

These are stories I think about when I try to imagine the circumstances under which a parent would sacrifice his or her child. Both of these novels, you should know, are based on true stories. They would have to be, for who would dare make up such a thing?

I have to ask the question, because the story of the binding of Isaac – although it undoubtedly points to a meaning larger than itself – doesn’t allow me to easily move beyond the pivotal event. And the rescue of Abraham and Isaac at the last moment doesn’t offer much relief. The story is a trauma – to Abraham, to Isaac, and to everyone who hears it.

It is a story that changes everything. Abraham will no longer be the same. Isaac will not be the same. Even we are not the same after hearing it. And Sarah? It might be that Sarah never learned just what exactly happened on Mount Moriah, which would be a blessing, but she definitely knew that her husband and son were not the same when they returned.

In fact, this is a different Abraham that we see in this story, from the moment God calls him out. Abraham, who is sometimes a lively conversation partner with God, is now silent. Abraham, who experienced feelings of deep distress when Ishmael was banished from the camp, is now detached, unaffected.

He resembles an automaton – a creation without a will of his own, whose only purpose was to serve the commands of the creator. He seemed almost inhuman. We can imagine this Abraham silently and stone-faced, marching up the mountain, speaking only when necessary,

Isaac asks where is the lamb? Abraham answers God will provide. We see him focused, deliberate. We see him standing over the boy on the altar they have made, raising his arm high above his head, clutching the knife as he looks down at the face of his son.

We can even imagine Abraham being so tuned out to the world around him that he doesn’t hear the voice of the angel telling him to stop! This is our fear as we listen to the story. Like the phone call from the governor, ordering a stay of execution, that comes a moment too late. Because death cannot be undone.

It seems almost incredible that Abraham actually does hear the command and he stops his hand in midair. God provides a ram in the thicket as a proper sacrifice. Isaac’s life is saved.

Abraham is saved from being the man who kills laughter.

And we are all saved from the dreadful possibility of a God who would demand human sacrifice.

It is a story about testing, but I don’t like that. The notion that God would test us in such horrific ways is deeply troubling. To take one’s beloved children right up to the edge and then stop – as if to say, “just kidding!” – this feels cruel to me.

Would our God really test us like this?

Yet, when I consider the stories of Sophie and Sethe, I am reminded that evil will certainly test us. Evil will confront us with tests in some horrific ways.

And here is where I find the pieces fit together to make meaning.

It took a long time for the people of Israel to get to know their God. Many generations of evolving, slowly, by trial and error, to figure out just who this God is. Just what this God wants from them. For a long time, generations, they were casting around, sampling other gods, other religious practices. Such as human sacrifice.

They thought: Other people are doing it. They wondered: Is this what we should do? Would this be an acceptable, an effective, form of worship?

Would it? Really?

Let me ask you: Would a God who loves us and cares for us desire such a thing? Would the God of Israel demand such a sacrifice from us?

Finally, emphatically, the answer was no.

It was a hard lesson to learn for the people. Trust is not easily come by. Faith is hard earned. We look at Abraham as a mountain of a man, a model figure of faith. But back then I am sure Abraham was floundering. Struggling.

Isaac said to him, Dad, where is the lamb for the sacrifice? And Abraham said to Isaac, God will provide.

God will provide, said Abraham, with no earthly idea of what, of how this story ends.

And then – at last – he knew it. God will provide a better way.

It took some time for the people to understand this – a lot of time. But eventually, centuries later, they put it down in these stories, stories that would be handed down through the generations. Stories that would say:

There once was a time when the people lived in fear – fear of the evil that surrounded them, fear of evil that might take hold of them, control them. And the greatest fear of all: that their God would be a heartless, cruel master over them; one who would take from them what was most precious to them. And they wondered: Is it possible?

And the answer was no. God will provide a better way.

And even today, in our world, the struggle against evil is real, it is constant. And our only hope is the knowledge that God will provide a better way.

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Creating Promise out of Pain

 

Genesis 21:8-21

HBO just wrapped up its series called Succession, after a very popular four-year run. The aging patriarch of a wealthy and powerful family and his children. And it’s all about who will be the heir. To whom will all this power be passed on. And so, there is the ongoing battle among the offspring and other interested parties – the battle for succession.

It is not pretty to watch. I gave up trying to watch the show because every single character was so unlikeable. Truly unlikeable, but unfortunately, not unbelievable. People are like that. People have always been like that, as we can see in the book of Genesis.

There are times in the course of studying the book of Genesis I am very aware of what an old, old story it is. But all I have to do is read the news and I am reminded that some things never change.

Family rivalries still exist. We haven’t outgrown them.

Let’s put today’s story into context. For many years, God had promised Abraham a son. But after decades of trying and hoping and praying, Sarah and Abraham were still childless. Remember the story we read last week, where messengers from God came to say Sarah would bear a child in due time – at the age of 90. And neither Abraham nor Sarah could do anything but laugh at the absurdity.

Long before that time, Abraham and Sarah had stopped believing that God would give them a child. So they had taken things into their own hands. Sometime before that visit of the three divine messengers, Sarah had made a plan to give Hagar, the woman enslaved to her, to Abraham, in the hope that Hagar would become pregnant in her stead. Abraham would have an heir, and Sarah would, by rights of ownership, have a son.

We could tell right away that this was not going to go well. Immediately, Sarah was overcome by jealousy. A pregnant Hagar was simply too much for Sarah to bear, and in her rage she made Hagar’s life hell.

Hagar ran away, out into the wilderness, with no plan, no good options. She couldn’t bear another minute of living under Sarah’s rule.

That was the first time Hagar heard the voice of God speaking to her. Out in the wilderness God told Hagar the plans he had for her. She would bear a son who would be called Ishmael, which means the Lord hears. God tells Hagar that her son Ishmael will live at odds with all his kin. But he will, indeed, live. Hagar responds by naming this God whom she has never before heard. She calls him El-Roi, meaning “God sees.”

Hagar does then return to Sarah and in due time gives birth to Abraham’s first-born son.  And so, perhaps, they assumed the matter of the promised child had been settled. They were quite surprised when the mysterious messengers came to them saying Sarah would have a child. By this time, Ishmael was at least ten years old.

And Sarah gave birth to Isaac.

When Isaac was old enough to be weaned, probably around two years old, Abraham threw a celebration for him. But, once again, the old rivalry emerged between the two mothers. Once again, Sarah is afraid. She is afraid the child Ishmael will take something away from her son.

This is not a pretty emotion. We don’t admire Sarah for her fear and jealousy and lack of faith she exposes. But, even so, we might understand in some small way, the protectiveness she feels. Yes, Sarah’s faith is smaller than it should be, but our faith is often smaller than it should be.

And yes, it might shock us that Sarah seems to care nothing about the welfare of Ishmael or Hagar. But to her, it is a question of survival and the protection of her own blood. Ishmael is not her blood – only Isaac is.

So Hagar and Ishmael are banished to the wilderness, although it seems to grieve Abraham deeply. He gets up early in the morning with her, gives her a skin of water and some bread, which he surely knows is not enough. And with some tenderness, but no real sense of responsibility, sends her on her way. He says goodbye to his son, probably not expecting to see him again.

We are told Hagar wanders about the wilderness, and we have to wonder about her state of mind. Does Hagar have any expectation that she and Ishmael will survive this journey?

In a way, Hagar is in a situation much like Sarah was before Isaac. A promise has been given, but it is hard to see how that promise can be fulfilled. How does faith sustain itself in a time and place like this? How do you hold on to hope in a hopeless place?

The book of Genesis doesn’t tell us much at all about Hagar. She wanders the wilderness until she runs out of water, then she leaves her child Ishmael in the shade and goes off a way from him, where she gives in to her grief. She cries out – and God hears. God hears Hagar and Ishmael and leads them to water.

We don’t get to know much of anything about Hagar from the book of Genesis – this is the last we hear of her. But Hagar plays a very important role in another religion: Islam. The story told in Islamic tradition is that Hagar did not just sit down and cry after running out of water. She ran up to the top of one mountain, As Safa, to see if there was anyone who could help her. Seeing no one, she ran down and then up a mountain opposite, Al Marwa, to see if there was anyone on that side. Hagar is said to have traced this path seven times, desperately seeking help, before she heard the voice of God speaking to her, guiding her to the source of water that would save Hagar and Ishmael and the generations to come.

Together, the two stories, from Genesis and from Islam, tell us something about survival and hope. Hagar could not save her son without God’s help. I believe she knew that. I think we all have had moments in life when we knew that without God’s help, we ourselves and our loved ones would be without hope. So we pray. We listen and look. We go out in search of what we need, for ourselves and our loved ones, because we believe, and we hope that, one way or another, God will provide. God will abide with us, wherever we are. God will be faithful to God’s promises. And for this we are grateful.

All thanks be to God.

 

Photo by NEOM on Unsplash

 

Creative Hospitality

Genesis 18:1-15

Once my mother forgot that she invited a guest for dinner. We were midway through our meal at the kitchen table when the doorbell rang. There he was, all dressed up and smiling, prepared to be a dinner guest.

My mother was acutely embarrassed, as well as panicked. But she reacted quickly. She immediately gathered us all together to go out to a nearby restaurant with our guest, as though she had planned it that way all along. For the first and only time in my life I was encouraged to eat a second dinner – a special treat. My mother was a delightful hostess all through the meal, and all was well. I always found it remarkable that she was able to recover so well and turn a near crisis into a very enjoyable evening.

This was an unusual experience, but actually, hospitality was an ordinary everyday thing for my mother. My mother was a generous host. She didn’t have much, but she was open-handed with what she had. One of the ways particularly memorable for me was through her work with young immigrant women. She opened our home to them as if they were family. She made sure they always felt loved and wanted and cared for in a strange land.

She always cared about her guests’ comfort, no matter who they were. She was positively scandalized if I ever forgot to offer a guest something to eat and drink. And she wouldn’t offer just anything – she paid attention to what her guests liked, and she would go out of her way to make sure they had it. It gave her pleasure to do so. She managed to treat her guests like royalty without ever making them feel self-conscious.

This was a kind of old-fashioned hospitality, maybe. Perhaps even Abrahamic hospitality.

The New Testament book of Hebrews encourages us to show hospitality to strangers because, in doing so, some have entertained angels. We have always understood that verse as a reference to this story of Abraham and Sarah.

In the first sentence of this story, we are told the Lord appeared to Abraham. The second sentence says there were three men. Then in the fourth sentence, Abraham addressed the three men as “my lord,” but in this case the term is simply one of respect. It certainly doesn’t seem as though Abraham knew he was standing in front of messengers of God. He just greeted them as travelers deserving of whatever he could offer them.

The moment he saw them, he immediately sprang into action and began over-functioning.  He told Sarah how to make bread, as if she needed him to do that. He personally selected a calf from the herd and instructed the servant to prepare it. They all moved as quickly as possible, because a simple snack was not going to cut it for Abraham. His guests deserved the best.

At last, they were enjoying the meal prepared for them, and Abraham was standing close by to be sure that his guests should want for nothing. Then we get our first glimpse of who they are and why they are there.

They say, “Where is your wife Sarah?” How do they know Sarah’s name?

They say, “In due time, Sarah will have a son.” In due time? How do they know that Sarah will have a child – a son even?

Sarah, standing at some distance behind the tent wall, laughed into her hand – quietly, politely, surely not wanting to offend these guests, but really – a child? Honestly.

The guests say, “Why did she laugh?” How do they know that Sarah laughed?

These strange travelers seem to know everything, which is a little jarring to me. But Abraham and Sarah don’t appear to be fazed by it. Perhaps they are not unaccustomed to meeting angels on the road – or perhaps it is just that the outrageous announcement they made has taken all the oxygen out of the room. 90-year-old Sarah is going to have a baby.

Of course, she laughed. In the previous chapter, Abraham fell on his face laughing at the suggestion his old wife Sarah should become pregnant. It’s just hard to believe – for both Abraham and Sarah. But the visitors say, “Is anything too wonderful, or too hard, for God?”

Is anything too hard for God?

That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? How do you want to answer that? Maybe you want to say that the correct answer is no, there is nothing too hard for God. And yet there are certain times and circumstances when it is very hard for you to believe it – that there are some things that really do seem too hard for God.

Neither Abraham nor Sarah found it easy to believe that God could give them a son at this stage of their lives. They had long ago stopped believing this was in the realm of possibility. Yet, neither one of them had an answer to these messengers’ very provocative announcement, and question: can anything be too hard for God?

In a little while, they would come to know the truth of it. Sarah would give birth to her son Isaac – whose name means laughter, by the way. He would be the long-delayed but finally delivered promise God made to Abraham. And he would give Sarah immense joy in her old age. Would any of this have happened if Abraham had failed to welcome these three strangers?

What if Abraham had ignored them and let them continue on their journey without any rest or refreshment? What if Abraham had shown no curiosity or care for who they were and what they needed? What if he had turned his back on them because they were not friend or family? How different would things be?

Science has shown us that something as minute as the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can lead to dramatic changes in weather patterns in a far time and place. How much might our small actions impact the world we live in? How can a small act of hospitality change the world?

When you think of hospitality, maybe you think of ladies in aprons with trays, but it’s so much more than that. To practice true hospitality is to open yourself to receiving someone just for who they are. And when you do this, you open yourself to receiving something you need.  And this is why hospitality is an act of creativity: because you find yourself playing a part in the ongoing creative work of the world, you find yourself getting involved in God’s business of making a way out of no way. And when you do you will always be surprised.

Maybe not as surprised as Abraham and Sarah were, but surprised.

We will never know, of course, if Abraham’s hospitality that day made a difference in the plans God had for their lives. It may very well be that this visit had nothing to do with the birth of Isaac. But it is interesting to take note of what happens at the end of this visit – in the next verses. Abraham walks out with the travelers as they resume their journey, kind of the way you might walk your guests out to their car, and here is where God chooses to confide in him certain plans for the city of Sodom.

Sodom had become a wicked place and God tells Abraham there is a plan to destroy it. Just wipe it off the face of the earth. Then Abraham does an extraordinary thing, something we might not have thought possible, except that it is written in the pages of the scriptures. Abraham persuades God to change God’s plan. He negotiates a different outcome.

And so it’s like this: Abraham opened his home, opened his heart, to three wayfaring strangers and he was given an opportunity to change the world.

If we are open to receiving, God will give us what we need. If we are open to taking part in it, God will make us partners in the ongoing creation of this world.

What do you have to give, and what, in return, do you need? Are you willing to give it? And are you open to receiving it?

 Photo by Stefan Vladimirov on Unsplash

  

Spoken into Creation

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

There is a restaurant in Austin Texas called El Arroyo. It has become famous, not for its food, but for its sign. Every day they put up some new witty saying – often reflecting an issue of the day, sometimes just weird and off-the-wall.  Like this one: There’s no way that “everybody” was Kung Fu fighting. 

Or: 90% of marriage is shouting “What” from different rooms.

Or this one: We all think we’re smart until we try to turn on someone else’s shower.

The sign has become a marketing bonanza for El Arroyo. They’re happy to sell you coasters, magnets, tea towels, Christmas ornaments with some of the cleverest sayings from over the years. It’s way more popular than the restaurant, and it caught my attention because, many years ago, I worked at the restaurant – for about five minutes.

I started working there as a waitress when I was in graduate school. I had worked in other restaurants before – I thought this job would be okay. But then I had a run-in with the manager. I was going about my work and suddenly she snapped at me so harshly I jumped. I didn’t respond to it very well; I called her the next day to give her my notice. She said don’t even bother to come back.

This was unfortunate because it could have gone so differently. It’s so easy to ask for something kindly rather than scream murderously.

And that is one of the things that struck me this week as I spent time with this creation story from Genesis 1. God speaks the world into existence – gently, gently.

Let there be light.  Let there be; it’s like a suggestion from the creator of the world, from the source of all wisdom. It’s as though God looked around at this formless, wet, dark, limitless void and out of pure goodness thought to do something about it. “Let us bring light into this void,” God said, because God is light.

Then God separated the light from the dark, giving order to the cycle of days. And God then tackled the waters. There is much to say about water.

Ancient people had a healthy fear of water. Water is a forceful thing, a chaotic thing – storms, floods, mudslides. People have always known that water has the power to give life, but also has the power, when unleashed, to take life.

The story imagines that God’s first act to tame the waters was to separate the waters into the water above and the water below. When these people looked up at the blue sky they imagined that it was all water, and that God had created a dome which protected us from the waters above. And the dome was called sky.

Then God turned back to the earth and gathered the waters together, organizing the wet and the dry, so plants would have a place to be and grow. In a similar way, God ordered the lights in the sky, separating day from night. Then God went about the business of creating life.

Creatures of all kinds, we are told, God says, let there be. The creatures that walk and creep upon the land, the creatures that fly in the sky, the creatures that swim in the seas – every kind, let there be. The rich diversity of life on this planet is God’s good intention of how it should be.

Finally, God created humankind. God spoke us into existence, saying “Let us create humankind in our image.” And God created them in God’s image; male and female, God created them in God’s image.

Notice that this is different from what we read in the second chapter, the second creation story about Adam and Eve. They are different stories, coming out of different traditions, each with its own purpose. The story of Adam and Eve, you might say, is the “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People,” version. The story we have before us today, the first story, is the grand, ordered narrative where God is at the center of it all, where God reveals the goodness that is God’s essence.

At every stage of creation, God declared God’s pleasure with it. “It is good.” And at the end, God said, “It is very good.” Then God rested.

And this is, perhaps, the most extraordinary thing of all. God rests, and the planets still spin. God rests, and the rains fall, the sun shines, day follows night, season follows season; plants, animals, and humans are born and live and grow and die, then new lives begin; and so it goes, on and on. And God rests.

This is not to say that God grew bored with the world and disengaged from it. The rest of the scriptures make very clear that God is deeply connected to us and the whole creation. Isn’t it fascinating, though, that God can let go? And that we, of course, are called to do the same.

As God rests, so should we. God made us as co-creators of this beautiful world along with God. And I assume we are to follow God’s lead. As God is gentle and kind, as God takes pleasure in the creation, so shall we.

The commandment that would come later says, “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” We would do well to remember it.

We might remember the Sabbath as a statement of our inherent worth to God – a worth that is given to each one of us in equal measure. As I read this story of creation, I see it as a story of gift. God holds the world lightly, with grace and blessing, and takes sacred joy in this creation. How could we ever imagine that we should do any differently?

Hold it lightly, as God holds the creation lightly. Know that we are all, every one of us on this earth, created in God’s image. Hold it lightly, with an open hand, not a closed fist. We are all, every one of us, worthy.

Remember this as we hear the invitation to the table today. All are welcome, there is room enough for everyone.

Remember this throughout your week – as you go about your tasks and as you listen to the news. All have the right to food and shelter and human dignity.

God made this beautiful world with enough for us all. And we each have a hand in keeping it this way.

Let there be.

Photo by Rahul Pandit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-person-s-hand-with-paint-colors-3893650/

The Places We Will Go

Acts 2:1-4

Acts 10:34-36    

There is an old folk song called Sonny, and it makes me cry every time I hear it. It tells a story about a man who grew up living on a farm with his mother. His father was a sailor and never at home, so Sonny took care of the farm from a young age. The chorus repeats his mother’s words to him:

Sonny, don’t go away; I’m here all alone.
Your daddy’s a sailor, never comes home.
Nights are so long, silence goes on;
I’m feeling so tired and not all that strong.

Sonny hears these words all his life and he never leaves. Even after his mother dies and Sonny is all alone on the farm, he continues to hear his mother’s words in his dreams. Sonny never leaves, and he becomes the one who is truly alone.

Even if his mother would never have wanted him to live such a lonely life after she was gone, Sonny is paralyzed by the memory of her words.

It makes me cry every time I hear it. Such a tragic story.

Parents and teachers want to give their children guidance to live by, but sometimes it seems like we fail to give them permission to spread their wings. Even when that is truly what we want for them.

And, sometimes, children are paralyzed, like Sonny, out of a fear of disappointing the parents or teachers.

So. Let’s take another look at Peter.

Remember a couple of weeks ago we spent some time with Peter, the disciple. I told you then that Jesus saw some potential in him that was not at all apparent to me. To my eyes, Peter acted like an impulsive kid who needed clear and strong direction – and even then, he would go off and say or do something dumb.

But you may also remember I said that we would see later on, in the book of Acts, that Jesus was right about Peter. And now we are there, now we see it.

Peter is, we now see, The rock. Before The Rock was The Rock. Peter is the rock Jesus needed to build his church.

It began on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came in like the rush of a violent wind; tongues as of fire rested above the head of each of them, filling them with the Spirit. Each one given the ability to speak in different tongues –

Let me stop right here for a moment and acknowledge how weird this matter is. I mean, I get the point that this ability to speak allowed them to communicate and share the good news with people from all nations. Although it is confusing when the people in the streets below, who are hearing them, exclaim that they must be drunk. That’s confusing. Because I cannot remember a time when I saw drunkenness improve anyone’s powers of communication.

From the people in the streets below you almost get the impression that the apostles who have been lit on fire by the Spirit are, maybe, actually, babbling.

Let’s remember that the gift of tongues, as it is called in the Bible, an ability to speak in a “Spirit” language. Which would be incomprehensible to anyone who wasn’t empowered by the Spirit to understand, but to those who were empowered –

Whatever was said that day, whatever was heard that day, one thing we know is that the Spirit empowered these apostles to share the gospel and other people to hear it. Peter was one of these men who, by the power of the Spirit, found his voice that day.

When the people down in the streets start jabbering indignantly about the drunken fools in the room above, Peter steps out and begins to speak.

Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 

And he begins to tell the story of how God has been at work through the ages and leading up to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. This Jesus, whom God has lifted up, through whom God has defeated the powers of death, is Lord and Messiah. Men of Judea, Peter says, fellow Israelites, the entire house of Israel. People of Israel, Peter says, Jesus is your Lord and Savior.

These people in the streets who heard his words are stricken to the heart and turn immediately to Peter and the other apostles for guidance. Three thousand, they say, were baptized in Jerusalem that day, the day of Pentecost.

And that is only the beginning. Day by day thereafter the Lord added to their numbers. My goodness – wasn’t that a time!

Read on in the book of Acts – you know how much I love the book of Acts – read on, and you will see what you might already suspect: these heady days of new beginning can’t last for long. Honeymoons all have to come to an end, and this one does too.

Eventually there are disputes among the apostles about the details. Details like, who is the gospel for? Who should receive the Holy Spirit? And what do they have to do?

Details, yes, but not minor. These are actually critical matters and they grow increasingly difficult because the church is on fire. The Spirit is moving and growing faster than these men can keep up with it.

And we reach the point, in Chapter 10, when Peter is confronted with the decision about a man named Cornelius. Cornelius is a Roman centurion, so this is complicated. A centurion was a Roman military officer who was in command of 100 Roman soldiers. And we all know there is every reason for the followers of Jesus to be distrustful of a Roman military office, a soldier of the Empire that crucified their Lord.

But, we are told, Cornelius is well-respected by all the Jews. Cornelius is a God-fearing Gentile, which simply means that he believes in and, in the ways available to him, worships the God of Israel. He gives alms and he prays. Although he is not a Jew and never will be a Jew.

You see, Cornelius is not a man of Judea, a fellow Israelite, he is not one of those whom Peter addressed from the upper room in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. He loves the Lord, but he is not a son of Israel.

And yet he, oddly enough, receives a vision from the Lord. Your prayers and alms have been received, Cornelius hears, and now this is what you should do. He is instructed to send some men to Peter. He does and they go.

And at the same time, the ever-industrious Spirit of the Lord sets to work on Peter. Peter receives a vision that he cannot understand, but it seems to be suggesting to him that some of the things he has always understood to be true and good, will not necessarily be the way forward.

Cornelius’s men arrive at his door, Peter greets them, and he begins to see the light. They all go back to Cornelius where this Roman centurion and his whole household is baptized.

And for the young church, the ground has shifted beneath their feet.

Standing in the house of Cornelius, Peter began to speak: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all.”

It’s a beautiful moment. And once again I say to you, it could have been so different.

Jesus taught the disciples that God was stirring up a new thing, but no one imagined that it would include anyone other than Jews. The apostles followed in Jesus’ path, by going out to all the villages and towns and speaking in the synagogues, telling the good news. Even when they went out to all the nations, they would find the Jews who lived there and speak to them.

But that Holy Spirit, quick as lightning, just kept getting out ahead of them. The Holy Spirit kept showing them that God’s plans were greater than they ever imagined.

Greater even than Jesus had told them.

When Jesus sent out his disciples to do his ministry he said to them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans.”

Jesus, himself, when he was approached by a Syrophoenician woman begging for healing, declined to help. His response to her was, “I’m here for the Jews. You are not a Jew.”

If the apostles of Jesus had been unwilling to move beyond the strict understanding of what had been taught to them by Jesus, they would have dug in their heels and refused to follow the Spirit.

Like Sonny, paralyzed and unable to move on, to listen to where the Spirit was leading them. Stagnant.

It seems like it could so easily have stayed that way…the apostles adhering to the narrow path, denying the cries of the rest of the world, justifying their actions with the words of Jesus and leaving it at that.

And if it had gone that way, you and I would not be here now.

These wonderful, beautiful apostles had to grapple with the evidence that God was, still is, and always will be, doing a new thing. They had to acknowledge that they would go beyond their teacher, their Lord, in their actions on behalf of his church. They had to realize that Jesus wasn’t giving them a set of new rules so much as he was giving them a vision in which God is always at work in the world shining more light, spreading more love.

And, like those first apostles, we are called upon to recognize this too. As God spoke through the prophet Isaiah, “Look; I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

As the church of Jesus Christ, it is incumbent on us to ask every day: How is God intending to expand God’s love today? Who is God inviting in to God’s household today? And how is the Spirit of God empowering us to do it?

Hear me, Church: the places we will go are not limited by what has been said and done in the past. The places we will go are yet to be revealed by the Holy Spirit of God. 

Photo by Shiebi AL on Unsplash

Claiming New Possibilities

Matthew 16:13-20      

On the day of our wedding, I remember standing in the church with Kim and both our parents gathered around us in a tight little happy circle. I very clearly remember Kim’s mother saying to my mother how hopeful she was that I would get Kim’s life more organized. And I remember the doubtful expression on my mother’s face. “I wouldn’t count on that,” she said. Neither of our mothers had a high opinion of our organizational abilities. I guess, for both of them, prior experiences kept their expectations quite low.

Looking back, I have to assume they prayed for us. a lot.

But I also have to wonder if they were pleasantly surprised later, when we both managed to be pretty normal grownups, who do all kinds of stuff. Successful adults, you might even say. It turned out we both had the ability to respond to the challenges of life and do okay.

Even though neither of our mothers could see it at the time. Sometimes, I guess, the way it is gets in the way of our ability to see how it might be.

In reading the gospels, I often look at the disciples of Jesus and think: what a bunch of numbskulls they are. Hopeless. They can’t seem to learn from experience. Jesus tells them something again and again and they still don’t get it. They watch him feed thousands of people with a few loaves and a couple of fish. Then, the next time they are faced with a hungry crowd they shrug and say, “What? How can anything be done? There’s no way!”

I know, I should be more understanding of them. How were they to know any of these things? All their experiences with Jesus were unlike anything they had experienced before. All the things he taught them were unlike anything they had been taught before. They had no framework for any of this. But still, I think, couldn’t they do better? They were with him all the time. They saw what he was doing. Why would they deny what they saw with their own eyes?

Yet, every once in a while, one of them would blurt out something amazing. Like Peter in this passage: You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. This is astounding knowledge, an amazing breakthrough.

But in the very next moment, in typical Peter fashion, he says something dumb. Jesus is trying to warn his disciples about the things that will happen to him. But Peter cuts him off and says, “Ah, go on. Are you kidding? That’ll never happen.”

To which Jesus tells Peter, “Get behind me Satan, for you are a stumbling block to me.” So much for the star pupil; so much for this budding leader of the pack. He still doesn’t get it.

The rock upon which Jesus will build his church…he’s not quite there – yet.

Peter is the kind of guy we all probably know. He is sort of impulsive. He says what he is thinking when he is thinking it. No censorship going on in his head, it’s “open mouth, insert foot.” Peter is the guy who jumps right out of the boat when Jesus invites him to walk on water with him, but then goes into a panic when he realizes he is walking on water. Peter is the guy who scoffs at the suggestion that he would ever in a million years deny Jesus. Then within hours, three times, he denies Jesus.

Is he really bedrock material? Has Peter got the stuff that foundations are made of? I’d be more than a little worried. I might be looking at him the way my mother looked at me when I was trying to learn how to burp my firstborn baby: This might not work.

But, in spite of all Peter’s frailties and shortcomings, Jesus sees something in him. Jesus sees potential in this guy called Simon, and he renames him: Peter, the rock. To me, the only rock Peter resembled at that point was the scree at the bottom of the mountain. To Jesus, however, he was the firm foundation. He was the keeper of the keys of the kingdom. In Peter, Jesus saw his church.

It takes some kind of vision to be able to see that. But, of course, he was right. In the book of Acts, we see Peter blossom fully. Peter grows into his full potential.

And it could have been so different. What if Jesus could only see Peter as the guy who makes bad decisions? The guy who says dumb things? The guy who betrays him?

But in spite of all that, Jesus sees that Peter has inside of him all that he will need to be a great apostle. He sees beyond what is and sees what could be. Jesus sees the possible.

This is important for us to realize because it is still just as important for us to practice this kind of vision: to see beyond what is, to see what could be – the possible.

It is important in our own lives. We all go through times when we really don’t know what’s next for us. We find ourselves at a crossroads trying to figure out which way to go. Or worse, we might feel we are at the edge of a cliff, with no way to go. In these moments it is helpful to be able to see the possibilities. To be able to step into the unknown and forge a new and previously unimagined trail for ourselves. To see the possible.

It is also important in our relationships. Perhaps there is someone in your life who feels stuck, unable to move forward. But perhaps you can see some possibility that they cannot yet see for themselves. Perhaps you can help someone begin to envision a future. To see the possible.

But even more, I want to suggest that this is very important for us as the church.

The church has gone through some tough times over the past decades. We have watched numbers of church members, numbers of people who call themselves believers, dwindle. We have watched the aging of our congregations, along with the shrinking. And we have watched the reputation of the church get dragged through the mud – not unjustly. There have been a lot of bad actions by church leaders and a failure to atone for them. It is not a mystery why people have drifted away from the church.

These things cause us to become discouraged. We begin to think like those first disciples when they said, “What? How can anything be done? There’s no way. It’s impossible.”

We believe we can do nothing. We will say we are too small, too old, too tired. When we can no longer do the things we used to do we feel we may as well give up. But what if we, instead of seeing only what is, opened our eyes to what is possible? To see what is not yet but could be?

Think of the butterfly. If we didn’t know anything about the life cycle, no one would ever look at a caterpillar wiggling on the ground and think, “that’s going to be a beautiful butterfly someday.” In fact, no one would even look at a wet, wrinkled newborn butterfly hanging from the remains of the chrysalis and say, “That’s going to open its beautiful wings and fly.” But, miraculously, the potential for all that is within the fuzzy, caterpillar we see wiggling on the dirt.

Don’t we believe that there is just as much miraculous potential in us?

Even back in the day of Isaiah, God was saying, “Look; I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

Do you not perceive it? Do you not believe it?

It’s all in what we believe. The possibility will be realized when we expect it, prepare for it, claim it.

To see beyond what is and see the possibility of what could be is to live into the future God desires for us.

The church is at a crossroads – in many ways, big and small. On some days it kind of looks like it is at the edge of a cliff, with no way to go but down. But there might be another way. If we are willing, we might be able to spread our wings and fly.

Of course, we’ve never done it that way before, have we? And yet…

Do you believe in the possible? Can you imagine things you have not yet seen? 

Photo by Bankim Desai on Unsplash

Into the Light

 

Luke 24:28-49   

W.H. Auden wrote a poem that became very famous when it was included in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. It begins,

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.

It is a poem about the loss of a loved one, someone so near and dear to the heart that it just feels like the world has ended. It goes on,

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead.

There is the sense of the earth shifting beneath us and nothing will ever be the same. It is cosmic in its scope:

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

I don’t know any other words that speak so well about grief.

I have read the Emmaus Road story so many times, but it never fully dawned on me just how raw the grief and shock are for these two disciples. Two days ago, their lord died on the cross. Only this very morning they learned that his body has disappeared from his grave. They are not buzzing about the news like it’s the latest gossip. They are numb and confused as they walk on the road to Emmaus.

I don’t know what’s in Emmaus. Maybe the disciples don’t know either. Maybe they are walking there just to be moving; maybe they are trying to shake off the grief, walking because they don’t know what else to do but they have to be doing something.

And for as long as they have been walking, they have been talking, talking about all the things that have happened. Not in a purposeful, logical manner – their talk was compulsive, repetitive, driven by shock and grief.

The man who approached them on the road didn’t seem to be up to speed on the events of the past three days, and this fact shocked them into silence. Stop the clocks, cut off the telephone. How is it that you don’t know these things, friend? They stopped walking for a moment, they were so stunned.

They began talking again, going over everything that happened once more, walking and lamenting, now sharing their lament with someone new. But this new person adds a new voice to the conversation. And he begins to shed some light on their experiences – going back through what they have known already from the scriptures and opening up to them new ways of understanding, which they had not seen before. Perhaps because of this they are able to begin processing their grief.

They feel a connection with this man and they don’t want to lose it, so when they reach Emmaus, they ask him to stay the night with them – they strongly urge him to stay. And if you’d asked them why they needed him to stay, they probably would not have been able to tell you. But they knew they did.

Because all along this journey they have been engaged in, struggling with, the reality of change. The earth has been shaken beneath their feet and they are walking and talking and trying to adjust to the change. What happens now? What does any of it mean? How do we go forward and live?

And now this stranger is a part of their journey, the change they are going through. And so he stays. They go into the inn together. They sit down at the table together to eat. The stranger picks up the bread…he blesses it and he breaks it…

And they see Jesus in their midst. Their eyes are opened now.

It is only a fleeting moment, but once again the ground has shifted. Jesus is not dead. He lives and he is with them.

And they know they must return to Jerusalem. Unconcerned now about the fact that night is falling, they get up and go, they make the seven-mile trek back again to Jerusalem. But it is not the same journey –

Because they are not the same men that they were. They are full of new spirit, new vision. Their world is no longer closing in on them, getting smaller and smaller. They are no longer circling over the same events that traumatized them, again and again. Because the presence of Jesus has opened their eyes and shattered the past and they are ready for the new thing God is doing in their midst.

There are more sightings of Jesus. People are terrified, they are confused. In some cases they don’t recognize him, just as these two disciples did not recognize him.

Just as so many of us, over the past 2,000 years, have failed to recognize him.

The church likes to say that God is unchanging. But more important than that, God is constantly trying to change us, to draw us closer and closer to Godself. We might miss it, we might resist seeing it, because change means loss. The loss of the way things used to be.

And we miss the way things used to be. We grieve and in the darkness of our grief we cannot see. We move around aimlessly, soothing ourselves with the knowledge that we are doing something…

like the disciples on the road to Emmaus…walking…talking…stuck.

When the butterfly becomes a chrysalis it dwells in utter darkness. But a fascinating thing happens when it draws near the time to break out. The outside becomes transparent. Suddenly, you can see the colorful wings of the butterfly inside. Suddenly, there is light breaking through. Perhaps this is designed to begin preparing the butterfly to emerge. Perhaps the light is a signal to the butterfly that it is time for a change, new life.

When God is urging us to emerge into new life, it is like God is inviting us to see the light.

When the stranger, who turned out to be Jesus, approached the two disciples on the road, he brought new light to them, making them ready to see him for who he was. When Jesus appeared to the other disciples at the garden, in the upper room, at the lakeshore, together they could see the light. Together, they could navigate this change, walk this journey.

And that is how we do it. We grieve our losses. But even in our grief we can begin asking ourselves: What is God doing in this new thing? Where is God leading us now?

We never go back to the place we were before. But we must know that whenever the ground shifts, God’s arms are always extended toward us. Jesus is always with us. Together, we walk into the light.

Photo by Gerrit Vermeulen on Unsplash