Third Sunday after Pentecost Yr A Proper 7 June 21 2020

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Third Sunday after Pentecost Yr A Proper 7 June 21 2020

Genesis 21:8-21,Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17, Romans 6:1b-11, Matthew 10:24-39

Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. We have heard this proclaimed in many times and places. Do not be afraid. When the angel announces to Mary that she is pregnant, when the shepherds hear the proclamation of the birth of Jesus, when the spirit enters the room in which the disciples gathered after the resurrection. And each time, do not be afraid is followed by Good News. So why does the proclaimer precede the Good News with do not be afraid? I think because that Good News is not the same old news. That Good News harkens to a profound change in the way things have been. That Good News may sometimes be hard, transformative, Good News.

Let's take a look first at the reading from Genesis. This is the story of Hagar, Sarah's maidservant. Sarah is married to Abraham. They are very important people in Hebrew scripture. The story tells us that Abraham is the father of the Hebrew people, the progenitor, from whom all of us come. But in this point of the story, Sarah has not gotten pregnant and now she is very very old, beyond the days in which she could get pregnant. Sarah knows how important it is to have a child, God has promised that the entire Hebrew people will come from Abraham, and Sarah takes that promise seriously, and yet, no baby. The pressure's on. Sarah tells her husband Abraham to lie with her handmaiden Hagar, so that at least Abraham can conceive a child.

I tend to think that part of the reason Sarah wasn't getting pregnant all those years is that she was so stressed out and afraid about being the mother of the Hebrew people that it just wasn't happening. That's one of the things the doctors tell us, isn't it, just relax, don't be so worried about it, you'll get pregnant. What do they know? Hagar, Sarah's handmaiden gets pregnant by Abraham, and that child is named Ishmael. So now the pressure's off, and Sarah indeed gets pregnant, and Sarah and Abraham's child is Isaac. 

But even Sarah becomes jealous and envious and afraid. She casts Hagar and her son Ishmael off to wander in the wilderness and find their own way. Like it or not, that's the story. Sarah is really not much different than any one of us, is she? Which one of us has not gotten jealous, or envious, or even afraid, with the people and circumstances in our lives? That's the power in these stories, you and I fit right in.

Is there good news here? This is not one of Sarah’s best times. So much fear, and Hagar fears for her life and her son’s life. We can close our eyes and our ears to it, but the truth is whether literally or figuratively, there are those we cast off for fear of who they are. Actually, we do this a lot. Maybe you haven’t actually cast off someone, literally, but we still do it all the time. We cast people off when we discount their skills, or their gifts, or their abilities. We cast people off when we decide the color of their skin should keep them out of the neighborhood, or the school, or the store that you shop in. But the good news is here. The good news is that Hagar’s life matters too. Hagar and her child Ishmael were sustained in the wilderness by the water God provided, and Hagar became the grandmother of a great nation.

And then we have this passage in Matthew in which Jesus speaks of fear. Jesus has commissioned his twelve disciples and is about to send them out on a mission of their own, a mission during which they both exercise great authority and need to demonstrate profound trust. For while they will have the power to cast out demons and heal the sick, they are to take no money or extra provisions but rather depend upon the grace of God as shown in the hospitality of others. Do not be afraid disciples, your world will be turned upside down and inside out, but do not be afraid. Your assumptions about blood relationship and social relationship will be completely demolished, but do not be afraid.

Yeah, right. Fear dominates our lives -- fear for our loved ones, fear about an uncertain future, fear of disease, fear of upheaval in our streets and communities. Or fear of economic downturn, fear of where our next meal or rent payment will come from. It seems like sometimes fear surrounds us. But listen to these words, do not be afraid. And this passage from Matthew shakes us up, and sets us back down on our heads. There is nothing about this Good News that is easy. And yet we believe with every fiber of our being, that we are God's beloved. We believe with every breath we take in that it is God's love that wins. We believe with every breath we breathe out that God's spirit moves among us. And in those moments, and hours, and days of doubt and fear, we say the prayers, we gather virtually in hope that there will be a day when we can gather physically, we love and support one another, and again we glimpse the hope of God's way, God's love, God's healing, God's reconciliation, God's kingdom.

We create a new world with God, each time fear of the other is turned into compassion for the one who is different. We create a new world with God, each time fear of the unknown becomes a bold embracing of the new. We create a new world with God, each time fear of losing our job or our income, becomes the birth of a new idea. We create a new world with God, each time fear of losing our children or our family becomes the opportunity to say I Love you. We create a new world with God, each time acting out of prejudice becomes forgiveness and new relationship. We create a new world with God, each time our words bind and heal, and our actions invite and feed.

Be fearless for God. Be bold, be courageous. Be the change that this world needs.

Do not be afraid. You are God's beloved. Amen

4th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 8 July 2, 2017

(I know it's not a ram, but it's all I've got.)

4 Pentecost July 2 2017 Audio

Genesis 22:1-14

The story we have before us today in Genesis makes a claim on our lives. All that we have, our lives and the lives of those we love, belong to God who gave them to us in the first place. We hear that God provides for creation, God trusts us, and God is present with us. 

As I hear this story of Abraham and Isaac, and Sarah unvoiced, but hugely present, I imagine what may be going on. In the privacy of their tent, Sarah and her husband were exchanging words. Sarah to Abraham, "God told you what! God told you to take Isaac up on the mountain and make him the sacrifice! No way, God would never say that. It's God who gave Isaac to us when we were already too old to have children. It is God who said through this child there will be as many descendants as there are stars in the sky. And even if God did say it, you'll do it over my dead body!" You see, Sarah was fully dedicated, actively committed, to helping God’s plan happen.

Abraham, because he was so pigheaded and stubborn, and because he trusted God with the life of his son, and God trusted him with the lives of God’s people, took Isaac against his wife's better judgment, loaded him up with wood for the fire, and led him up the mountain. In my imagining, Sarah followed secretly. While Abraham built the altar and laid the wood on it, Sarah hid in the bushes. She waited for the moment she would jump out of the bushes to prevent this horrible thing from happening. She watched Abraham stop his work of setting the fire, and listen. But then she saw a ram not far from her, caught in the thicket by its horns. She got near enough to it so she could wave a stick in it's face and it thrashed about and Abraham turned and looked, and realized he could use the ram for his sacrifice. Silently and separately, Abraham and Sarah heaved a sigh of relief, and whispered to themselves, "The Lord does provide." God provides, God trusts, God is present.

This is a really hard story. This is a really troubling story. And it’s not the only troubling story in our Bible. What do we do with them? The story that precedes this one, where Sarah banishes her handmaid Hagar, and Hagar’s son by Abraham, Ishmael, is as troubling and tragic.

What kind of God asks a father to sacrifice his son in the name of trust? What kind of God assumes a mother will just go along with it? Sometimes, as a mother, and as a pastor, I just want to sit down and weep at the tragedy and the brokenness of life. I just want to weep when mothers and fathers must bury their sons or daughters because of gun accidents. I just want to weep when mothers and fathers must bury their sons or daughters because someone was distracted while driving a car. There are so many times I just want to weep. Sarah and Abraham must have felt that kind of pain.

I’ve been asked, as I imagine you have as well, why do we read these hard stories? Why are these stories even in our bible? God provides, God trusts, God is present. Because you see, some days I don’t know if I trust God with my son’s life.

But then I remember, you probably remember too. That you let your child grow up, you let your child drive a car. You let your child go out into the world. You let your child travel to far flung places in the world. You trust God with your child’s life. And you know, that life is not in your hands. You know, that life is risky, and that none of our children will get out of this live alive. You know that we are only stewards of our children’s lives, not owners, and that God calls them as God calls us. Is it the same as God’s trust in Abraham, and Abraham’s trust in God? Is it the same as the fear and pain I imagine for Sarah? I don’t know.

But I do know that following and trusting God in this world is hard, and messy. I do know that tragedy is a frequent visitor to parents who love and trust God. I do know that some days it doesn’t feel much like God provides, or God trusts, or God is present.

And then I remember that ram. That ram that Abraham saw. You see, there’s a little word play happening. The Hebrew word translated ‘provide’ is literally the word for ‘seeing’. (Thank you workingpreacher.com). God provided that ram, and Abraham saw that ram. It doesn’t take away the difficulty of this story, but it does remind us again, that God provides, God trusts, God is present. All that we have, all that we are, belong ultimately to God. And we begin to see that for us, who are followers of Jesus, this story may point us to the story of the life, death, and resurrection of another son, the one in the flesh, the incarnate God, Jesus.

It is a tragic story as well. God in the flesh, Jesus, who says, oh God, why have you forsaken me, and who dies on a cross erected by the empire, with words of forgiveness on his lips. It’s a tragic story of suffering. It’s a joyful story of relationship. It’s a tragic story of loss. It’s a joyful story of the kind of love that the world condemns, love that is not a commodity, but love that lays down it’s life for the beloved. This is the God who provides, the God who trusts, the God who is present. Even, and this is the most amazing part, even, when we come up short, even when we cannot trust, even when we cannot find God anywhere, even when we wallow in our own self-doubt, that ram shows up. And when the ram shows up, it doesn’t save us from the tragedy of life, it does not rescue us from the reality of death. But maybe we see, maybe we see the God who claims our lives, and comes in the flesh to walk with us in our most tragic minutes, and hours, our eyes are opened to the God who creates us, the God who claims us, the God who provides, not what we want but what brings us true joy, the God who trusts, even when we cannot, the God who is present, even we cannot see. God gives all there is, God gives Godself on the cross,for us.

Oh, Sarah, mother of Isaac, when your heart breaks, God’s heart breaks too. Amen.