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Sermon: Be Curious

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.
Exodus 3:1-15

My sermon from the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (September 3, 2023) on Exodus 3:1:15

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Robert Altar is a professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley and he published a complete translation of the Hebrew Bible in 2018. Translations made by one person can be a bit problematic since their conscious and unconscious biases often show up in the work. Yet they also have the opportunity to notice how different themes and ideas are engaged with by the different books within the Bible. Professor Altar, after translating the sections devoted to Moses’s story, noticed something specific that the Biblical authors were paying attention to. He wrote: “the general rule in Exodus, and again in Numbers when the story continues, is that what is of interest about the character of Moses is what bears on his qualities as a leader – his impassioned sense of justice, his easily ignited temper, his selfless compassion, his feelings of personal inadequacy. Alone among biblical characters, he is assigned an oddly generic epithet – the man Moses. There may be some theological motivate for this designation, in order to remind us of his plainly human status, to ward off any inclination to deify the founding leader of the Israelite people, but it also suggests more concretely that Moses as forger of the nation and prince of prophets is, after all, not an absolutely unique figure but a [person]… bringing to the soul-trying tasks of leadership both the moral and temperamental resources and the all-too-human weaknesses that many … may possess.” Moses was more than an almost superhuman figure living through a biblical story full of blockbuster special effects. Moses was also a person with gifts, abilities, and experiences that shaped who he was. After being rescued from genocide by the midwives Shiphrah and Puah, Moses was raised as an Egyptian in the home of the the Pharoah’s daughter. He grew up, fully aware of his background and his current privilege. When he came upon an Egyptian brutalizing an Isrealite, Moses killed the Egyptian and then fled into the land of Midian located in the north-west corner of the Arabian Peninsula. While there, he made a new life for himself by marrying into the family of a local religious leader and took on the job of managing his father-in-law’s sheep. He lived there for the next forty years, never forgetting the complex identities that made up his story. One day, when the old grazing spots weren’t quite what they used to be, he led the sheep into someplace new where, on a mountain, a bush on fire refused to be burned up.

Now this moment in Moses’s story has, for centuries, sparked out imagination. Art depicting this scene usually has a large bush surrounded by different shadows, light, and color meant to inspire in us an overwhelming sense of God’s power and might. This is one of the many blockbuster special effects moments within Moses’s story so we imagined it had to be a bit over-the-top. Yet the details within this story invite us to imagine it in a slightly different way. The word we translate as bush is an ancient Hebrew word that is rarely used anywhere else in the text. In fact, it’s a word often applied to the plants that sort of fade into the background that we tend to not notice at all. God, the creator of the universe who will part the Red Sea, fill the Nile with blood, and cover Egypt with a bazillion frogs, chose to show up in a plant most of us wouldn’t even notice. Even a little fire wouldn’t get us to raise an eyebrow since we expect, and hope, for a God who does big things. And yet God appearing in the thing we often overlook also feels like the most God-like thing God can do. God’s work in this world can sometimes be over-the-top, making a splash that changes all our lives. But God is also deeply invested in the little things we do with each other that end up being the most important things after all. Forgiveness, mercy, an act of patience, a listening ear, and a little thing that says we care might not seem important on the outside but is vital for us to truly know we’re not alone. God, then, showing up in what we would first overlook feels a bit too on-the-nose when it comes to pointing out one of our very human character flaws. But if “not noticing” is part of who we are – what character trait did Moses have that made him do something different?

Long ago, a few rabbis noticed that our Bible doesn’t actually tell us when the bush started burning. It could have been lit up right as Moses looked at it or maybe it burned in the days, weeks, or months before he came near. We could, I think, stretch our spiritual imagination to wonder if this bush had been burning since the earth was made – a visible manifestation of the presence of God that everyone had the opportunity to see. Yet it took generations before someone walking by finally noticed it. That is, I think, one of the character traits that helped Moses be who God wanted him to be. Moses was deeply curious, able to notice what others didn’t. This curiosity was more than simply a willingness to ask questions; it enabled Moses to live in a state of constant wonder. The curiosity he held – a curiosity we all can truly have – is simply a trust that this moment isn’t the limit of what all our moments might be. Curiosity never forgets its history nor does it assume our story is the default story meant for all. Curiosity takes seriously our faults, our failures, and our relationships while embracing every single one of our joys. Curiosity knows we are not meant to be experts about everything, nor do we need to always have everything figured out. Instead, curiosity is a gift that opens us to the fullness of God. When we’re curious, words and phrases like “tell me more?” and “what do you mean?” and “your story is important for me to hear” fill the dozens of small interactions we have everyday with a sense of love and hope. Curiosity is always supposed to be a verb that shows how we, and others, are never alone. Being curious, asking questions, and knowing there’s always an opportunity for more is one of the most courageous things we can embrace since it trusts we aren’t finished growing into who God knows we can be.

I wonder, then, if noticing Moses’ curiosity can invite us to grow our own. When we take the entirety of his story seriously, we notice how Moses’ curiosity never let the status quo be the limit of what his story might be. His history, his experiences, and his journey with God helped open him to the God who was already around him. Moses was very aware of how his own struggles, character flaws, and imperfections might get in the way of all that God wanted him to do. Yet God knows that a life of faith is less about knowing everything and is all about trusting how we are already fully known. In our quest to be curious, the questions we ask shouldn’t be about trying to get the other person to agree with what we’ve already come up with. Rather they expand who we – and they – get to be. The gift of curiosity never lets us limit who God might be since God lived curiosity out loud by doing the very curious thing of living a very human story. It was this God of Moses who chose to grow, to experience change, to live, to die, and to rise while helping all of us notice what’s already around us. God embraced curiosity since curiosity trusts that there’s always more to come. And if God can be curious, then the least we can do is be as curious with ourselves, our families, our neighbors, and our world, too.

Amen.

Children’s Message: Different Images from the Bible for God (i.e. God as a pronoun)

So it’s my tradition, after the prayer of the day, to bring a message to all God’s children and I have a hymnal supplement. In 2006, our denomination came out with a new hymnal to replace the one that came out in the late 1970s. Stuff from this hymnal is what we reprint in our bulletin every Sunday – but that hymnal, the ELW, is 17 years old at this point. So last year, our denomination put out a supplement – named All Creation Sings – with new songs, new resources, and new orders for worship that we can try. Sometimes we use these new songs in our liturgy during communion and I’ll explore using them more in the coming months. Yet one thing I find really neat about these hymnals – and the supplement – is the special resources at the end of the book. For example, there’s a list in the ELW where a lot of our language for worship comes from and in All Creation Sings is a list of all different images for God. When the Bible talks about God – describes God – imagines God – compares God to things in the world – there’s a list of all that God is described as.

So let’s try that. Let’s imagine God. God is…God and our words can’t fully describe who God is. We have to use metaphors or descriptions to say who God is like. So who do you think God is like?

Go through the list. Examples include as a mother, as a man, as feet, as a bear, as a hen, and more. So many images!

You might notice that I tend to say “God” all the time – rather than use pronouns like he or she or they. And that’s because of a list like this. God is described in a lot of different ways that transfers what our words can do. Even the words in the Bible, while sacred, are still our words – so they are a little limited. So I just use God – and imagine that God represents all the things listed in scripture. God invites us to imagine God in all different kinds of ways – and when we want to know who and what God is like – we pay attention to Jesus because he shows us who God is, what love looks like, and how we have the power and responsibility to love like he does too.

Children’s Message: The Responsibility of the Keys

*Bring your car keys

So it’s my tradition, after the prayer of the day, to bring a message to all God’s children and I have something with me that I carry often in my pocket. It’s my keys. Let’s go through what is on my keys. I have a bunch of little pieces of plastic for the various reward programs that stores I attend have. They give me a special coupon if I give them permission to track everything that I buy. I have a library card, ikea card, shop rite, stop shop, and even a card for A&P grocery store which closed in 2015. I probably should throw that card out.

I also have keys for my home and keys for here at the church – like my office, the altar guild room, and the front doors in the sanctuary. And then I have these two keys – keys for my cars. Keys, for cars, are changing so these are a bit old skool. They have little buttons that will unlock doors but also this key that you insert into a door or into the engine to turn it on. You might see different kinds of keys, called FOBs, that allow you to turn your car on as long as you have it on you or in your car. So that shows you what a key does: it helps us enter the car, turn it on, and go.

Now we live in an area where having a car is sort of essential. It’s very difficult to walk to places since we don’t have sidewalks, homes are far apart, and we sometimes need to travel miles to go to school, to fields for sports, to work, and more. Not everyone lives like we do so not everyone needs, wants, or even uses a car. But thinking about what car keys do helps us lean into the story about Jesus we’re going to hear in our second reading from the Bible. Jesus and his friends are traveling around, preaching, teaching, and healing when they near the city of “Caesarea Philippi.” Caesarea Philippi was a newish city that was a very important city – and was named after the Roman Emperor whose title was “Caesar.” The city was full of soldiers, a market place, important government officials, and a lot of different religious buildings that were designed for people who didn’t believe in God. And among those buildings and statues that people thought described the different beings who controlled the universe, influenced lives, etc – was a statue dedicated to an old Roman emperor. Folks were acting and believing and treating as if even the Roman Emperor was someone with power like God or Jesus. It’s there, in sight of those buildings and the Roman military and all these things that said something other than God was in charge of it all – that Jesus asked his friends a question: who do people think I am? The disciples shared what people thought Jesus was. And then Jesus asked “who do you think I am?” and Peter said the Messiah which is a word we don’t use too often but is all about the One who makes God’s love real in our world. Jesus agrees with Peter and promises that his confession – his proclamation about who Jesus is – will be the strong foundation that the church is built on. We continue to think about, proclaim, reflect on who we say Jesus is – and Jesus keeps coming to us to remind us that Jesus is God’s love made real and how that changes the church, our lives, and the world.

Jesus then talks about keys. And the saying is a bit confusing which is why car keys might help us understand what Jesus is saying. Like how a key enables us to decide, with a car, where to go and to go there – Jesus is saying that because we know him, because of our baptism, because of our faith – we are going to jump into the driver’s seat of, like Jesus, helping make God’s love real in the world. That’s going to mean making decisions, making choices, and doing our best to know Jesus, spend time with Jesus, to pray, and to love like Jesus. And while this is a very powerful thing we get to do – it’s also a great responsibility. Jesus is trusting us – in all that we do, even if we don’t drive or don’t have car keys – to make loving decisions. That’s the freedom our faith gives us – the chance to make love, kindness, patience, hope, and mercy at the heart of everything we do because Jesus chooses each of us to, like him, make God’s love real in our world.

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, 8/27/2023.

Sermon: Don’t Forget Your History

Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.”

Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.

The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him, “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Exodus 1:8-2:10

My sermon from the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (August 27, 2023) on Exodus 1:8-2:10.

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So there’s an entire genre of movies, shows, books, and comics devoted to “coming of age” stories. Typically within these stories a young person goes through a series of canon events that matures them into adulthood. Often these tales are funny, tragic, light hearted, or deeply emotional. And we can easily relate to them, even if they’re centered in a culture that isn’t our own, because we have either gone through our “coming of age” stories or hope to have one very soon. These stories remind us of who we are and how we, mostly, consider ourselves to be the mature people God calls us to be. We see ourselves through the eyes of the hero even if they’re going through something we never want to go through ourselves. I wonder, though, what would happen if instead of focusing on the hero, we saw ourselves as part of the wider story. Today’s words from the opening chapters of the book of Exodus are, on some level, the opening lines to a coming of age story that eventually raises Moses up as the person who will lead the Isralites out of slavery and into freedom. But it’s also a story centered on two women who refused to let the wider community rewrite its own history to the detriment of all.

The story begins in the years after Joseph and his family were reconciled. As you might recall from a few weeks ago, Joseph had a pretty traumatic life. Their father, Jacob, had continued the family tradition of naming one child as their favorite at the expense of everyone else. Joseph, instead of trying to keep the peace, wasn’t shy about rubbing this fact in the face of his 11 brothers. In response, the brothers did something horrific: they faked his death and sold him into slavery. Joseph quickly ended up in Egypt where he had no control over the violence done to his body nor the freedom to go wherever he wanted to go. After a series of dramatic events, he ended up as part of the Pharoah’s inner circle and, in the process, gained a lot of political power. But that didn’t really mean much since he was still enslaved. Eventually a famine spread through the entire area and Joseph’s skills enabled Egypt to thrive while everyone suffered. His father and brothers became refugees, coming to Egypt to find food. After a rather dramatic and tearful reunion, Joseph’s brothers were encouraged to settle the entire household inside Egypt itself. Their history up to this moment was pretty complicated but the brothers, Joseph, and the Egyptians, had worked together to build a new community that was more than what they were before. But as the years passed, this story was forgotten. The Egyptians grew suspicious of these people who didn’t look or talk or believe like they did. Their fear enabled the Egyptians to become resentful of these folks who had lived there for generations but were now labeled as foreigners. As the Israelites grew in size, the Egyptians became paranoid. They started to narrow their own history to the point where the Israelites could no longer be a part of it. They enslaved them, forcing them to build the cities that symbolized the might of their kingdom. And when this incredible violence failed to satisfy their xenophobia, they moved into the next stage of what this fear often brings.

Now the next part of the story started with an upside-down request. The Pharaoh ordered midwives to kill all the sons born to Israelite women. He told Shiphrah and Puah, whose vocation was all about bringing life into the world to, instead, do the opposite. Rather than remembering their shared humanity, the Pharaoh chose to let fear consume him, his community, and his people. This was an extreme attempt to end the Israelites’ story and we get the sense that all Egyptians either supported this endeavor or didn’t think that they could, or should, speak up. In light of his power, authority, and a history that pretended to be something other than it was, he assumed this request would be answered and supported. And yet, in the heat of this overwhelming moment, these two midwives said “no.”

One of the interesting things about this story is that we don’t really know who these women were. We never hear their internal thoughts nor discover a coming of age story that describes how they could, in the future, defy the supreme leader in the land. The only thing we’re told is that Shiphrah and Puah feared God. That was all they were equipped with to do the opposite of what the Pharaoh ordered them to do. The word “fear” is a bit confusing in English since we define it as an extremely unpleasant emotion caused by a belief that someone or something is dangerous. We either try to avoid fear at all times or limit it to something manageable like riding a roller coaster or watching a horror movie. Yet the fear Shiphrah and Puah held wasn’t something designed to be overcome nor was it the opposite of faith. It was, instead, rooted in a faith that trusted that their God was always near. Fear is more than a feeling; it’s a signal that we need to slow down and pay attention. Rather than assuming everything is fine with our status quo, fear invites us to notice that something more is around us. Fear can be helpful, keeping us safe during difficult situations. But fear can also consume us, changing how we live our lives today by warping and forgetting the fullness of our story. The fear that grounded Shiphrah and Puah wasn’t the fear that fed the actions of the Egyptians. It was, instead, a reverence that kept them focused on the God who was active in, around, and through them. This fear didn’t consume them; it, instead, helped them to remember who they were and whose they were while being surrounded by another’s unjustified worry and fear. This doesn’t mean they weren’t fearful of the Pharaoh, the Egyptians, and what could happen if they were caught; nor does it mean that they, as human beings, didn’t have their own biases and prejudices that shaped their relationships with others. But rather than letting their fear or the fear around them limit who they could be, the fear of God enabled them to say “no” in spite of everything else that was going around them.

Now when we look at the wider Christian story, we have plenty of examples of Christians using their faith to commit the same kinds of genocidal acts the Egyptians are described as doing within the book of Exodus. And while it would be easy for us to ignore that part of our own history by focusing solely on the heroes of our faith, I’m not sure if that’s the most faithful response. We don’t need to rewrite our story; instead, we need to own it – to point to all the complications and joys and sorrow and evil and good that has shaped us into who we are today. God believes that we, though sinners, have the capacity to grasp the fullness of our history since God, in Jesus, chose to enter that same history and let it grow in the nearly 2000 years since he rose from the dead. Jesus didn’t ignore our complicated story; instead, he faced it head on and, through the Cross, showed us how it can become something more. Our urge to celebrate the Shiphrahs and Puahs of the faith is one that we should embrace as part of our collective coming of age story that shows what the kingdom of God is all about. And yet we also need to remember that we’re not always the heroes we want to be because fear can warp who we truly are. There are times when we will feel as if we’re not equipped to do what needs to be done to share and hold and learn and grow from the complicated history that define our lives and our world. But if a little fear is all that was needed for Shiphrah and Puah to make a difference in their world, your baptism and your faith is all you need to do the same. God knows that your story – your full story – should be known and that it will never limit who, in Christ, you get to be. Rather, you and I and the entire church will continue to grow through our own coming of age story that leads into the age of Christ – where God’s mercy, God’s love, and God’s peace is given to all.

Amen

Sermon: A God We Wrestle With (and who, luckily, wrestles with us)

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
Genesis 32:22-31

My sermon from the 10th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (August 6, 2023) on Genesis 32:22-31.

So at 10:00 am last Sunday, my brother-in-law and I were setting up a large canopy for our day at the beach. Eight kids between the ages of 6 months and 11 years old were already covered up to their neck in sand and I was really paying attention to my phone. It took a few minutes to notice the string of text messages letting me know the livestream at CLC wasn’t working. Once I saw the texts, I wrote back and immediately opened up Facebook to see what was up. But my help wasn’t needed since Karen had everything working. Since I was already plugged into worship, I settled into my beach chair and joined in. It was wonderful seeing how you embraced Sydney, our guest preacher. And I enjoyed having the gentle roar of ocean waves as a backdrop for our prayers and music. We’ve known, for quite a while, that not everyone can physically gather together for worship on a Sunday morning. Some beloved children of God can’t safely leave their home while others have vocations that fill their Sunday mornings in different ways. There is something powerful about seeing the body of Christ physically together but it’s also fun to pray the Lord’s prayer with our toes buried in the sand. The gift of technology has made real something the church has always proclaimed: that the body of Christ truly extends across all space and time. For centuries, this was hard to internalize since listening to the Word and celebrating the Lord’s Supper was something we needed to be physically together to do. But now we can see, hear, and do worship even when an Ocean or a Sunday morning committed keeps us physically apart. Our old experience of living as the body of Christ is something we’re all learning how to wrestle with. And as we heard in our first reading from the book of Genesis, wrestling through these kinds of boundaries is what we are called to do.

The Jabbok River, known today as the Zarqa, begins northeast of the city of Amman in modern-day Jordan before turning west and heading straight for the Jordan River. For centuries, it served as a kind of national boundary, marking the place where ancient Israel ended and the kingdom of Ammon began. Yet before it was a political boundary, it was a personal one for a set of twins who had, for decades, competed against one another. Approaching the river from the south was Esau, Issac’s first born, whose impulsive appetites often got him into trouble. Across from him, coming from the north, was Jacob who, years before, manipulated his way into a position of authority and power that made him, and not Esau, the heir of their father’s household. Esau was, to put it mildly, pretty annoyed at the shenanigans caused by his brother but before he could get his revenge, Jacob fled. Both did their best to live as if their brother didn’t exist by creating large households full of wives, children, servants, and wealth. Esau, though, did a bit better and created a private army that followed his every command. As the years turned, their worlds gradually grew closer together and soon the Jabbok river was the only boundary keeping them apart.

Jacob didn’t know what Esau was going to do but he assumed it wasn’t good. As he neared the Jabbok, Jacob’s anxiety grew. He didn’t think a little water in the wilderness was going to be enough to protect the future he already built for himself so Jacob did his best to make it bigger. He decided to send gifts and servants to Esau as a kind of bribe. But when one group left, Jacob’s anxiety grew and so he sent more people and more gifts to stop the future he believed was coming his way. Nothing he did seemed to lessen his fear so even sent his spouse, his children, and the future God promised to him towards what he assumed was coming his way. And soon Jacob was all he had left while standing on the bank of Jabbok river. Everything he built and valued about himself was across the boundary and in his brother’s hands. The only one who had yet to cross, or so he thought, was himself. And then, in the middle of the night, a wrestling match broke out.

Now Jacob’s opponent in the wrestling match is a bit weird since the so-called man doesn’t fit our image of God or God’s angels. They aren’t usually worried about their identity being revealed when the dawn eventually breaks. But I wonder if the “man’s” identity isn’t meant to be the focus of the story. Instead, it’s about what Jacob did: he wrestled. And while waiting to cross the boundary of the Jabbok, Jacob wrestled with more than God. He was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with his past, his story, and the future he tried so hard to create. He wrestled with everything, refusing to let go because, by this point, it was all he had left. He thought he was at the boundary into a future he did not want. But as he wrestled, a new reality came to life. He had, already, crossed the boundary since everything he said and did was already influenced by it. His story had become so shaped by what he thought might happen that he even threw the future God promised to him at it, hoping that could make it go away. The life Jacob hoped for – the life he thought made it good – had been transformed by the fear he refused to let go. He couldn’t imagine anything else to hold onto which is why he, and all of us, need a God who chooses to grab a hold on us. We need a baptism that affirms, in a very public way, the love God breathed into us when we took our first breaths. We need the gift of faith to show us that we never wrestle anything alone. We need the gift of a community to remind us that our worry and our anxiety do not make us unacceptable to God. We need to hear – to trust – and to experience how we really are part of the body of Christ. When we come to a boundary we are anxious to cross, that boundary has already crossed us. Our thoughts, beliefs, opinions, and point of view have been influenced and changed by the fear at the heart of what we think will come next. We imagine the boundary is still ahead of us even though, for all practical purposes, it’s already behind us. So God, through grace, holds us while we wrestle with what we have yet to work through. This struggle isn’t about overcoming what we’re facing; instead, it’s about not letting the unknowing that has already influenced us continue to be what defines us. We get to strive towards God and into God’s future because God, in Christ, has already shown how far God will strive for us.

Because of what God has already done, we then get to let the body of Christ rather than a fearful future shape the lives we choose to live. If we spend our Sundays inside the sanctuary, we need to always act as if the entire body of Christ is with us. When we run into a fellow church goer after not seeing them in-person in awhile, our words shouldn’t feel as if we’re accusing them of unfaithfulness. If we, through the living of our lives, find our toes buried in the sand on a Sunday morning, living as the body of Christ will ask us to make our worship more intentional and visible. We might post a comment to share that we’re here or make a plan to click play on the video later in the day. When we do that, we’re not watching church; we’re doing church with the community our God has called us to hold onto. We grow through this worship by proclaiming to each other that our fears, worries, and anxieties will not be what defines us. Rather, it’s the Lord who binds us that will always make us who we are. Sometimes that support will require us to humbly listen to each other when the worries become too much. We also make sure to encourage and make sure no one feels like they’re somehow less because their anxiety requires them to access the God-given gifts of therapy and appropriate medications. We, as the church, don’t let old boundaries we’re wrestling with get in the way of the love, hope, and forgiveness God has given us. Together, we strive for God because Jesus, through the Cross, has already shown how far God always strives for us.

Amen.

Sermon: Wheat and Weeds and You/Me

[Jesus] put before [the crowd] another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field, but while everybody was asleep an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”

Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 (NRSVue)

My sermon from the 8th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (July 23, 2023) on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.

So I originally thought my sermon today would be a bit shorter than usual since we’re singing so many Christmas carols. Sometimes the best way to experience the presence of God is to be surrounded by it through song. The songs we sing aren’t just heard; they’re also felt through the vibrations caused by the organ, the piano, our speakers, and our own body as we join in the hymns that have fed the faithful for generations. God’s story is, for us, an incarnated story because God’s promises are meant for the lives we actually live.

But there’s also another reason why today’s sermon feels like it’s allowed to be shorter and that’s because Jesus’ words speak for themselves. Jesus was a storyteller who used metaphors and everyday experiences to reveal truths about the kingdom of God. We call these stories parables and I’ve often said that the key to understanding these stories is by noticing the parts that seem weird. This takes a little work on our part since an everyday experience for us might not exactly match what folks experienced in ancient Israel and Palestine. However, when we finally unpack Jesus’ words, we often discover a character saying something odd or noticing how this reasonable sounding scene is anything but. The absurd bits within the stories are the key that reveals what God’s kingdom is all about. And when we make time to notice all that’s weird, our faith grows. So it makes sense that when we first listened to today’s parable, we kept waiting to hear something weird. And yet the odd thing about this story is how it all kind of makes sense. The setting of a field full of wheat and weeds seems pretty normal and the request to pull out the weed right away is something most of us would agree too. The decision by the farmer to let the weeds and wheat grow together seems weird at first. But when we realize that the wheat and weeds mentioned in this parable looked the same while they grew up, the landowner’s choice to wait until both could be easily separated makes sense. The field, while it grows, will contain a mix of good and bad. And when we extend this parable beyond its literal setting and integrate into our lives, Jesus’ words describe a realistic vision of our world. Within our communities, our neighborhoods, our country, and even our families, there exists the holy, the helpful, the hurtful, the unholy, and everything in between. We only need to exist in this world for a little bit to realize how true this metaphor is. Yet Jesus’ words also reveal how we, in our own ways, are full of wheat and weeds too. This isn’t Jesus trying to tarnish our self-esteem or become some kind of self-help coach. Rather Jesus was pointing out how we, at the same time, participate and resist what God is doing in our world. Jesus wants us to see how sin, self-centeredness, pride, and greed tries to interfere with what God’s love might do. We are not merely good people who occasionally screw up or sinful folks beyond redemption. We are, instead, just as complicated as our communities and our world. We are a field within a field that sometimes loses where we are meant to go. Yet our God chooses to keep planting seeds within it all so that God’s kingdom can grow.

When compared to the other stories Jesus told, today’s parable isn’t that weird. But it does, I think, reveal something weird about us. When we map the different parts within this story to concrete things in our world, the connections we first make feel easy. The landowner is the One who plants seeds full of grace and truth while the field represents where these seeds take root. Those who serve the landowner have answered the call to tend the places where seeds grow and they recognize how difficult that tending can be. The reapers – those who collect the harvest – show how the world, as it currently is, isn’t the limit of what the world will be. God’s kingdom, made real in the life of Jesus, will become real so that pain, sorrow, and brokenness will be no more. Even without Jesus’ explanation, we can easily map Jesus’ words into our world. Yet when it comes to placing us within Jesus’ story, we don’t always get it right. Since Jesus talks about people, our first instinct is to identify ourselves as one of the people in the story too. We know we’re not the landowner nor do we, in our context, want to see ourselves as enslaved or as the evil one. What’s left, then, is the reapers which is a role were particularly drawn to. Deciding who is wheat and who is a weed is something we do, practically, everyday. And while we often use biblical images and quotes from scripture to justify the judgments we make, we rarely admit how we, ourselves, are full of those same weeds and wheat too. We are not called to excuse behaviors and actions that harm, demean, or demand others to be anything other than the beloved children of God they already are. But we are, I think, invited to wonder why it’s easier for us to reap rather than to patiently tend to the seeds God has already planted. This kind of wondering leads to difficult questions such as: what do we put our trust in? Are our values dominated by our need for comfort or do we work hard to cause discomfort in others? Do we choose to root ourselves in traditions that are merely a sanitized version of a past that never really existed? Or are we seeking a future full of change just for change’s sake? Do we want a kingdom where everyone’s story matches our own or do we prefer the world we’re used to rather than letting ourselves embrace what the world might become? When we spend time reflecting on these questions, we start to notice how we, at the same time, are both wheat and weed, saint and sinner. We are not perfect, we are fully whole, and we are not the hero in every story. Instead we are a people in need of grace, of love, and of a hope that does not depend solely on us. What we need, then, is Christmas – which is why Christmas came. We are not called to be reapers since that kind of judgment is reserved only for God. We can, though, give thanks that through baptism and faith, we have already been granted a seed of grace that will grow. When it seems as if the weeds are all around us or if the wheat within us is nowhere to be found, Jesus’ parable reminds us that there’s still a choice we get to make. Instead of practicing our judgment and doing our best to be the reaper God does not call us to be, we can choose to always make our best, most reverent, more loving guess no matter what comes our way. That does not mean that we’ll always be right or that our intentions should outweigh the impact of the choices we make. But it does keep us rooted in a love so big, so grand, and so weird that shows us how God’s story, our story, and the world’s story keeps going through the Crosses we often build.

Amen.

Sermon: Sitting in the Space When We Don’t Know What’s Next

These are the descendants of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, sister of Laban the Aramean. Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was barren, and the Lord granted his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived. The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is to be this way, why do I live?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples born of you shall be divided;
the one shall be stronger than the other;
the elder shall serve the younger.”
When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle, so they named him Esau. Afterward his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau’s heel, so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.
When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. Isaac loved Esau because he was fond of game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished. Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!” (Therefore he was called Edom.) Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.” Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
Genesis 25:19-34

My sermon from the 4th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (July 16, 2023) on Genesis 25:19-34.

So when I first saw our reading today from the book of Genesis, I wanted to focus on the end of the story. There’s something riveting and exciting about a set of twins who are impulsive, calculating, and who are not the heroes of their own story. We’re slowly moving our way through the story of Abraham, Sarah, and their descendants. After being called by God to leave their home in modern day Iraq, Abraham and Sarah lived a semi-nomadic life in ancient Israel and Palestine. While there, Abraham received a promise from God that his descendants would outnumber the stars and that through Sarah, the entire world would be blessed. God, though, didn’t say when this promise would be fulfilled. And as the months turned into years, both Abraham and Sarah wondered if it would ever come true. They tried to speed up God’s promises by having Abraham sire a child named Ishamel through Hagar who was one of their slaves. Eventually, though, Sarah did give birth to a son who they named Issac. It seemed, for a moment, that everything was finally moving forward. But the dynamics within this family were pretty complicated. We saw how Sarah expelled Hagar and Ishmael from their household and even Abraham tried to sacrifice Issac on a mountaintop. Through it all, Issac grew up married Rebekah, and became the new head of the household. God’s promise to Abraham then became his promise and today we witnessed how it was partially answered through the birth of Esau and Jacob. Esau was a rather rugged individual who spent most of his time outdoors. He became a very skillful hunter and was his father’s favorite because of the meat he regularly brought to the table. His twin brother Jacob, though, was more of a homebody who learned how to cook. He, like Esau, was one of his parents’ favorites but unlike his brother, we’re never given a reason why Rebekah favored him the most. Their differences, though, were matched by their shared appetites for power and status. Both used food as a way to improve their social standing at the expense of their brother. Esau, who was constantly on his toes while busy hunting in the field, walked carelessly into a carefully laid ambush by his brother. One day, Esau came home, complaining that he was starving even though he was simply hungry. He, in a very impulsive way, sold the cultural expectations centered around his status as first-born to his twin brother. This wasn’t the end to that story since Jacob still needed to trick his father into granting him that status which he will do in chapter 27. Both Jacob and Esau were ruled by their appetites which invites us, I think, to wonder about those appetites that are busy ruling us. When we focus on the promise fulfilled, we can then dwell in the very humanness of these twins who are not, I think, meant to be made into a hero and a cautionary tale of what not to do.

But there’s another story within this story that I feel particularly drawn to. When Rebekah and Issac entered into their arranged marriage, both expected that a child would arrive very soon. All around them, it appeared that God’s promise to Abraham was coming true since Abaraham, through his second wife, fathered at least a half-a-dozen more children, and Ishamel’s children were already making families of their own. Yet as the length of their marriage stretched from months into years and into two decades, Rebekah and Issac found themselves experiencing something that his parents felt too. For twenty years, they wondered if God’s promise was ever going to come true for them. I want to skip to the fun part, yet I wonder if it’s a bit more faithful for us to sit with Rebekah and Issac in the years before their children came. Many of us know what it’s like to have a promise or an expectation delayed. We know what it’s like for a dream to never take off in the direction it should. The promise of a family, of children, of a relationship built on mutual hope, love, commitment, and whatever else we hold deep in our hearts, that promise might be one that simply lingers in the air. And it hurts when the promise seems to be coming true for everyone else but us. Sometimes the long awaited promise is fulfilled in a way that surpasses our expectations. But most of the time we end up changing the promise or downgrading our expectations and then learn how to live with a promise that never comes. There’s a deep hurt, grief, and sorrow that radiates from the unfulfilled promises that linger in our hearts and souls. And while these promises are often given to us – an inheritance built on the expectations of our families, our culture, and whatever we imagine we need to succeed – they’re also mixed through with words we hear from God. We sit with Issac and Rebekah not because our story exactly matches their story but because we know what it’s like to wait for a promise that might never come.

Now sitting in that spot isn’t comfortable and there are times when we can’t stay there for very long. When the rawness of an unfulfilled promise is simply too much, we can – and should – let someone else take our seat around that table. That space will be ready to receive us when we’re able to name our grief, sorrow, and share with others our unanswered prayers. And once we get there, we’ll do more than simply be present for ourselves. We’ll also name the unfulfilled promises that we see impacting the lives of all our neighbors. When we sit with Rebekah and Issac, we are given the space we need to cry, to doubt, to wonder, to ask questions, to sit in silence, to pray, and even to rage at the sky. We have the permission to admit how these unfulfilled promises impact the relationships we have with our family, friends, our loved ones, and with the entire church. It’s a space where we do not need to be perfect and it’s big enough to hold the loneliness that every unfulfilled promise makes us feel. It is not an easy space but it is a holy space since even Jesus, while on the Cross, wondered why God had forsaken him too. I’ll admit that I’ve found myself sitting in this space this week with questions about what it means to love, serve, and forgive after a particular trauma from almost a half a century ago has suddenly become fresh again. I wish I could simply rush to the next part – to the fun part – to the part where all the questions, doubts, worries, and grief are fully answered by a promise that makes everything new. But until then, we linger in that particular space with every Issac and every Rebekah. When you find ourselves living with unfulfilled promises that linger, know you are not alone. Your worth as a beloved child of God is not defined or limited by the amount of time you spend as a Rebekah or as an Issac. You, through your baptism and faith, are united with a God who knows what it’s like to linger while their loved ones fail to live out their call to show mercy, offer hope, grant forgiveness, and share a holy love meant for all. We are invited to name out loud those promises that linger; to thank those who share those promises with us; and to sit with each other as we yearn for what tomorrow might bring. And it’s in that space where we live as the body of Christ for each other since no one lives through this life alone.

Amen.

Sermon: The Kingdom of God and Money were the first and second thing Jesus talked about the most

“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,
‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’
“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

My sermon from the 5th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (July 9, 2023) on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30.

During the first three years after I was ordained, I spent a few days in January at a conference for newly ordained clergy. Bishops, pastors, and deacons from all over the northeast gathered together for prayer, worship, and to participate in a bunch of workshops. The one I remember the most was led by a former bishop of the New England synod, Rev. Margaret Payne. The workshop took place in a small lecture hall where everyone sat in a large circle. I don’t recall the official name of that workshop but our topic was money. She began the conversation by introducing herself and giving a shoutout to everyone from New Jersey since she began her ministry in Princeton Junction. Once that was all done, she asked the entire class a question: if we looked at everything Jesus said, what thing or topic or idea did he emphasize and focus on the most? Now I think that’s a pretty good question because what we emphasize in the name of our faith doesn’t always match up with what Jesus said or did. We have a lot to say about our traditions, our values, and the roles we expect people to play. The details about what we say changes but the fact that we do this has been a part of the church since Jesus rose from the dead. We do this, I think, because living isn’t easy. We are created beings living in a created world and our lives are often complicated and full of different kinds of people, experiences, joys, and sorrows. We know that Jesus has a lot of say about what it means to live as God’s beloved children in a world that God loves. And yet what Jesus emphasized during his earthly ministry doesn’t necessarily match the ministry we emphasize in his name. I, and everyone else in that room, already had an answer ready to go when Bishop Payne asked the question. When it comes to that one thing in our everyday life that Jesus talked about the most, the answer is always money. Jesus knew that the easiest way to discover the idols, morals, and values at the heart of a person, a community, or a nation was to simply look at their budgets. Everyone in the room said, in unison, that money was the physical and tangible thing Jesus talked about the most. Yet Bishop Payne pushed us to not forget all those things Jesus talked about that feel a bit spiritual, mystical, and even abstract to us. When it comes to Jesus’ earthly ministry, there’s only one thing that Jesus talked about more than money: and that thing is the kingdom of God.

Now I think we treat the kingdom of God as a primarily spiritual thing because in Matthew’s gospel, he named it as the kingdom of heaven. Living in this world is complicated enough so we let heavenly things remain in whatever comes next. Yet I’m not sure if deemphasizing the kingdom of God in the here and now is necessarily what Jesus wants us to do. Much of his ministry was devoted to the proclamation that in him, and through him, and because of him – God’s kingdom was near. He, through his words and actions, embodied what the kingdom of God is all about. He didn’t let God’s love remain as an abstract thing; instead, he taught and he prayed and he reconciled people’s relationships to themselves, their God, and their neighbors. He didn’t tell those who followed him to primarily devote themselves to the life that comes after this one. Jesus, rather, lived his life so that we could see what our lives could be too. And a big part of his own life was a promise that those who are weary and those who are carrying burdens – that they, in him, could find rest.

Now that promise from Jesus is one of the most comforting things Jesus ever said. It’s also, I think, one of the hardest to believe because our burdens are still here. If we named all the stuff that feels like a burden right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up feeling a bit guilty or ashamed by what we consider a burden. Some of what we carry feels pretty normal – like the burden of having a terrible boss, or struggling to find the right kind of work/life balance, or even dealing with the pile of laundry that never seems to be put away. Yet there are other burdens that are a bit different and way harder to swallow. We might, for example, be a caregiver, who is completely overwhelmed by the care we are required to share. And it’s a heavy burden to watch a loved one fade while knowing there’s nothing we can do about it. There’s the burden of carrying a pain we know we can never forgive. And there’s the burden of being unable through circumstances, situations, or maybe a few bad choices to provide for those around us. There’s also the burden of fear and sorrow, of grief and pain, and knowing all the ways we’ve failed to be the people God has called us to be. And while we’re busy naming all our burdens, Jesus, in his own ways, seems to be adding to them since loving God and your neighbors is never easy. Jesus, with his words today, doesn’t promise that our burdens go away. But he does, I think, promise that they don’t have to become the emphasis for what our lives are all about. Instead, there’s something more to who we are and who we get to be – because being the body of Christ means that the kingdom of God is already here.

Eugene Peterson, who authored the paraphrase of the Bible known as “The Message,” heard in Jesus’ words the following: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” When we keep company with Jesus, we participate in the kingdom of God. Instead of focusing on what we think Jesus would say in this moment, we’re first invited to spend more time with Jesus himself. We do this through prayer, worship, by eating at His table, and paying attention to his story as it unfolds. And when we do this, we notice how Jesus chose to take on all the burdens of being human. He chose to be a caregiver and a friend who had the guts to love the loveless and to see people as more than whatever they were living through. He chose, over and over again, for his life, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension – to be FOR you and for the world. It was his way to emphasize our humanity so that we can choose to emphasize the fullness of God’s story too. When we act as if our story is the only story that a person could have, we end up increasing their burdens rather than realizing how all our burdens, in Christ, are never ours alone. Jesus took on the things that weigh us down because our burdens or what feels like burdens or even our guilt at admitting what is draining our heart and our soul is not the total of who we are. Instead, we get to emphasize a new story, a different story, a kingdom of God kind of story that promises that today isn’t the limit to who we are. Rather, because Jesus took on our burdens, we – as the body of Christ in this world – get to take on each other’s burdens too. And when we do that, we are doing more than imagining what Jesus might say to the moment we’re living in. We are, instead, living as if God’s kingdom is truly near.

Amen.

Sermon: What to do with Issac, Abraham, and an unlikely sacrifice?

After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife.

And the two of them walked on together. Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them walked on together.
When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide,” as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”
Genesis 22:1-14 (NRSVue)

My sermon from the 4th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (July 2, 2023) on Genesis 22:1-14.

So what do we do about a story that, in the words of the Mark Smith, professor of Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, “has no parallels in the Bible or ancient Near Eastern literature?” Christians have, since the first few decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection, seen the story of the attempted sacrifice of Issac as one foreshadowing Jesus on the cross. There are details within this story that seem to match – such as Issac being the one who carried the wood he would be bound too. Yet this story still leaves us with questions since God, who already promised that Abraham’s descendants would outnumber all the stars in the sky, suddenly out of nowhere asked Abraham to end that promise. We’re told that this whole ordeal is meant to be a test but what that test is trying to measure is a bit fuzzy. Even Abraham, Issac, his family, and their entire household are left in the dark, not knowing that they’re undergoing a test in the first place. Our reading begins with God calling Abraham by name and then quickly moves to God uttering a word we wouldn’t expect. This is a story where God’s intentions aren’t very easy to see.

Yet I wonder if the opening words between God and Abraham might help us unpack everything else that followed. These words, at first, feel rather one-sided since God does most of the talking. But we can safely imagine that Abraham wouldn’t have been so quiet since he had a regular habit of arguing with God. At worst, Abraham would have kept every response to God safely in his head and I think that that command that punctuated God’s speech provides that space where we get to imagine what Abraham might have said. God began his words with the command “take your son” which Abraham would have made Abraham wonder – which one? By this point in the story, Abraham had two sons – one through Sarah and the other through Hagar, Abraham’s slave. That son was born when Sarah and Abraham tried to make God’s promise come true on their own. God, though, answered Abraham’s question by pointing to Issac but surrounded that name with “an only.” Abraham knew, however, that such a word didn’t fully apply to him but did to the women who never made an overt appearance in the story. Abraham, I believe, loved all his kids – which might be why God didn’t say that Issac was the only one he loved. By this point in the speech, I imagine Abraham was a bit confused – not quite sure what God was doing. The comments God shared didn’t fully describe Abraham’s story as he, himself, knew it to be. God seemed to be shifting Abraham’s story in a slightly different way that left Abraham filled with questions. Abraham probably wondered where God was going with all of this – which shows how faith doesn’t require us to turn off our brain or leave our emotions behind. Instead, God seemed to be engaging with Abraham’s default story – his own self-vision of who he was supposed to be.

And it’s at that point in the story where everything gets weird. God then told Abraham to take Issac to a new place to be offered up as a sacrifice. Now the idea behind the sacrifice – the intentional killing of a living thing as a way to connect with the divine – is something that’s all over our Bible. But our Bible doesn’t take a few verses to describe why this kind of sacrifice existed in the first place. Instead, it’s just there – a part of our human story that assumes reaching out to the divine requires a life to be involved. Usually the sacrifice used grain or grapes, cattle or sheep, or other kinds of domesticated plants and animals. But there were moments when, during a war or after a natural disaster or while living through a famine or plague that humans were killed. When the world was on the line, a person’s life was used as a way to convince a god or gods or whatever to intervene. Abraham knew that his current situation wasn’t close to being that dire but that concept of sacrifice was simply assumed as part of what it means to interact with God. He, I think, couldn’t even imagine that a relationship with the divine wouldn’t include some kind of sacrifice. A sacrifice was how you convinced the so-called gods to act on the behalf of you, your family, and your nation. Living with the divine meant the world was kind of wrapped up in a pay-per-play attitude where your faithfulness, your love, your devotion, was reflected in and through the living things burnt up to the divine. Abraham, though, doesn’t explicitly hear from God about what this so-called test that he didn’t even know he was taking – would give him. Yet that pay-per-play idea was assumed to be part of every communication one had with the divine. God commanded Abraham to end the promise Issac’s life fulfilled – and every bit of his wonder and doubt and questions were impacted by this sacrificial vision of what it means to be in a relationship with God.

And so I wonder if this test wasn’t about how close Abraham came to slaughtering his own son but rather was God showing how far these default stories take us into death and how we need God to give us a new vision of what it means to live in the world. Asking, or forcing, others to make all kinds of sacrifices for our own personal benefit – is a story that is still with us. We often require others, especially the most vulnerable among us, to sacrifice their own opportunities for life, love, health, and success so that the story we tell of our own value and importance won’t come crumbling down. We, without always realizing it, live as if God’s creation really is a pay-to-play reality where everything, including love and grace, is a limited commodity that only certain people are allowed to have. God sent Abraham on a journey that revealed to him and Issac just how far the default stories we carry might take us. God was not interested in letting these kinds of stories continue because a sacrifice shouldn’t be about asking others to lose their own life so that we can continue embracing the status quo. Rather, the kind of sacrifice God had in mine was centered on what we can do to help those around us – thrive.

God gave Abraham and his descendants a new story rooted in the promise of life, opportunity, and hope. Our interaction with the divine and the wider world would no longer be centered on death but rooted in the life God had already brought about. The life of faith is not meant to make us into some kind of holy robot that does whatever it’s told. Rather, our new story helps us undo the default story that believes that scarcity and fear are central to what God is about. And so, after rewriting Abraham’s story, God eventually re-wrote every story by living a human life and ending the power of death. Instead of asking or forcing others to be sacrificed so that we can remain who we are, God intervenes to show us the life-giving people we can be. This, though, requires us to reflect, deeply and honestly, about what our default story truly is. We need to ask what sacrifices we ask others to make so that we don’t have to make any sacrifices of our own. We have to push through our own comfort zone and into a reality where mercy, hope, and forgiveness abound. And we do this not because it’s easy or because we think this will get God to do what we want God to do. But rather, this is simply the way we get to be because God has already acted. Jesus died on the Cross so that we would no longer ask others to die on it too. Instead, we get to embrace a new vision – a holy vision – a Godly vision – that notices just how abundant God’s love, grace, and forgiveness can truly be.

Amen.