Playing Favorites: A Sermon About Joseph (Genesis 37:3-8, 26-34; 50:15-21) -50)

The scripture can be found here...

Let’s begin by talking about jealousy. And when I say “jealousy,” I’m not speaking of a passing sense of wishing you had what another person has… a great house, or pair of shoes, or even, a relationship. I’m talking about the kind of deep-seated resentment that stays with you, perching on your shoulder like a malevolent pet, or burrowing into your gut, crowding out all other feelings. Jealousy, as in the feeling that you have a rival, and while that rival has success, or advantage, or superiority, or love, you can never have enough.

And jealousy is the force that tips over the first domino in the story of Joseph. We are in a great transition moment in the story of God’s people: that moment when they move into Egypt. This sets the stage for what is surely one of the key stories of scripture. And for us to be in Joseph’s story now we have sped past countless other remarkable stories. I commend them all to you, but especially those of Jacob, the scoundrel. Joseph’s father Jacob, whose name is eventually changed to “Israel,” the one from whom God’s people take their name. I particularly commend to you the stories of Jacob’s particular biblical model of marriage: First, his marriage to Leah, by the trickery of his father-in-law, and then his marriage to her sister Rachel, his first and true love. In addition to these two wives, Jacob takes as wives the two slave women, Bilhah and Zilpah. By these four women Jacob has twelve sons and a daughter.

Why start with jealousy? Let us count the ways.

The first line of our passage tells part of the story: “Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children… and he had made him a long robe with sleeves” (Genesis 37:3). Imagine being a son of poor Leah, the woman Jacob was tricked into marrying. Imagine being a son of one of the slave women, used as surrogates and tangled up in the rivalry between the two sisters. Joseph is none of these. He’s a son of Jacob’s old age. And he’s the first born of Rachel, the love of Jacob’s life, the favored wife. And that favoritism, now passed from mother to son, is openly displayed. Jacob, whose early career included some time in the kitchen, continues to show his domestic abilities by crafting an unusual and somewhat royal garment for his favorite son, a coat with long sleeves. If you’re wondering where we get the “coat of many colors,” this is what happens sometimes with bible translations. In the era of the King James translation, as today, coats with long sleeves were common, so to translate it literally would have left the reader puzzled. “What’s so special about a coat with long sleeves?” So the team of translators decided that a coat “of many colors,” would convey the coat’s uniqueness, and the extravagance of Israel’s gift to his youngest. Jacob was playing favorites. And when Josephs’s brothers saw that coat, they hated him for it.

But that is not the only way in which Joseph provoked his brothers. Those dreams! Joseph has this incredibly annoying habit of sharing dreams with his brothers, dreams whose general theme is that Joseph is in charge and everyone else must bow to him. The dreams are pretty telling. In one sense, they betray a sort of cluelessness that we might just chalk up to his youth—he’s seventeen, and a culture of bragging isn’t exactly unheard of among teenage boys. In another sense, they show an arrogance, maybe even a meanness of spirit that is kind of breathtaking. Even his father gives him the verbal equivalent of a smack to the head after one of these episodes. Just who does he think he is? His brothers hate him, we are told. They cannot speak peaceably to him.  Jealousy, burrowing into the gut, crowding out even the ability to speak a word in peace.

But none of this—not the favoritism, not the arrogance, not the hate, not the soul-consuming jealousy—nothing can justify what happens next.  In a scene we didn’t read this morning, the brothers first discuss whether or not to kill Joseph. The plan is to return the beautiful coat to their father covered in blood, pinning the death on a wild animal. Reuben, the oldest and the child of the unloved wife Leah, has an attack of conscience, and persuades the rest of them not to kill Joseph, but to simply throw him in a pit. (His plan is to spirit Joseph back to their father at a later time.) They agree. They strip the clueless kid of his beautiful robe, throw him into a pit with no water to drink, and sit down to lunch.

When Reuben is gone, the brothers see a band of traders passing by. Judah, the youngest of Leah and Jacob’s sons, says, hey. We can kill two birds with one stone here: get rid of the dreamer and get ourselves some cash at the same time. When Reuben returns and learns that Joseph has been sold into slavery, he goes wild with grief and horror, tearing his clothes, trying to imagine what on earth they will tell their father.

They decide to go with the wild animal story. Jacob is presented with the exquisite garment he made for his favorite son, smeared with blood. He is told the boy is dead. In response, he tears his own clothes, and puts on sackcloth (the traditional garment of mourning), and weeps for many days.

And the brothers? Even though most of the remainder of Genesis focuses, not on them, but on Joseph, it’s good for us to imagine just how things go for them from this point on. The brothers have done, if not the unthinkable, then something approaching that. What they have done to Joseph, it is fair to say, will haunt them.

As for Joseph?  His path is one of peaks and valleys—literally, as well as figuratively. From his high position as daddy’s favorite he is cast down into an actual pit, and sold as a slave. But he ends up in the household of Potiphar, a captain of the Pharaoh’s guard, where he is given a chance to shine. “The Lord is with him,” we are told—which is interesting, because we never heard that God was with Joseph when he was being coddled by his father at home. And for all his arrogance, for all his teenage bravado, qualities begin to emerge in him we might not have imagined. The Lord is with him, and Joseph turns out to be a man of talent and character. He rises to another peak in the house of Potiphar, only to fall again after he spurns the advances of Potiphar’s wife. Once again in the valley, Joseph finds himself in prison.

But even in prison Joseph manages to land on his feet. The head jailer entrusts him with care of the other inmates, and Joseph rises to the top of the heap there as well. And suddenly an opportunity to truly distinguish himself arises: Someone has a dream.

Did you ever meet someone, and upon first meeting them, you had, well, not the greatest impression of them? In fact, you didn’t really like them at all? But then, you met them again… under other circumstances. And you felt that maybe, just maybe, you had misjudged them. I bring all this up because this is not the first time dreams have played a major role in Joseph’s story. And that first time, everyone—Jacob his father, all his other brothers, and, yes, we, the readers, thought. Hey. This guy is kind of a creep. He’s annoying. Of course people want to throw him into pits and worse. If he were in high school in Lima, Ohio, he’d be getting Slushies in the face on a regular basis.

But when Joseph is in prison interpreting dreams, we learn some key information. When it comes to dreams, Joseph is a veritable Carl Jung. His knowledge and intuition are stunning. He has a gift. And we begin to wonder… might those other dreams of Joseph’s have meant something after all?

It’s dreams that finally bring Joseph out of the pits and to the heights of power. When the Pharaoh, the Egyptian king, hears about Joseph’s impressive abilities of interpretation, he brings him out of jail and into the royal court to interpret a dream of his own. Joseph correctly tells Pharaoh that his dreams are warning him of a time of famine for which they will have to prepare. Three guesses who Pharaoh puts in charge of the preparations! By the end of this episode, and forever after in this story, there is no one in Egypt, save the Pharaoh himself, more powerful than Joseph.

Meanwhile back in Canaan… the famine hits. And after many years, during which Joseph has been making his peaks-and-valleys climb to power, and the brothers have been living in guilt, in daily contact with their forever grief-stricken father, the men’s paths intersect again. The details of the story are less important than the big picture: the brothers come, with their proverbial hats in hand, to the land that has prepared well for the famine. And they have no idea whatsoever that the very Egyptian looking overlord who is dealing with them is the brother they sold away so long ago.

Joseph toys with them. Just a bit. Joseph manipulates his brothers so that they are made to twist in the wind with the guilt he can see they are still carrying. And so Joseph indulges his desire, for a time, to exact a kind of emotional revenge on his brothers. But in the end, in a scene that I dare you to read without weeping yourself, all is revealed. The brother whom they sold into slavery makes himself known. And he forgives them. “Do not be distressed,” he tells them. “[Do not be] angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life” (Genesis 45:6).

And, in some storybooks, that would be the end of the story. But the bible is not just any book of stories. The bible, in many places, shows such depth of insight into the human psyche that reading it is like looking into a really good, really well-lit magnifying mirror. Ever look into one of those? And see, really see, all those things we manage most of the time not to notice? Reading the bible can be like that. The nature of the human being on full display, in all its glory and all its decay. Joseph forgives his brothers. But… they don’t feel forgiven. Oh, they relocate permanently to Egypt, which is a key moment in the Biblical narrative: How’ God’s Chosen People Get to Egypt. This is how. And there, in Egypt, all their cares are taken away, and they are well housed and well fed and the family of the very powerful and well-loved Joseph. But they carry with them the memory of what they did to their brother because their father played favorites with him. They carry it with them for years and years, and after Jacob’s death, many years later, they turn to one another in certainty that the other shoe Still. Might. Drop.

‘Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers said, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?”’ (Genesis 50:15). And all Joseph can do when the brothers, even now, even years later, come to him begging for mercy, is to weep. When he can speak again, he says, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.”

If the story of Jacob, the very flawed father of many children, and the story of Jacob’s children, including the arrogant and annoying Joseph, can tell us anything, it can surely tell us this: God works through the actions of flawed and broken people and actions. God worked through Jacob’s misguided favoritism, endowing Joseph with the sure conviction that he was all that and more, and sure enough, when the time was right, he was. God worked through the jealousy and anger of Joseph’s eleven brothers, making Joseph a stronger and better man in the process, and saw to it that this chosen family had a safe haven in time of famine. And God worked through Joseph, not only to provide food and shelter for his family, but also to provide the unexpected blessings of grace and reconciliation.

God uses flawed people, broken people. God uses us, even when we’re not at our best. God even uses us at our worst, though the outcomes of those moments can be hard to foresee… they may take years to play themselves out. Listen: I’m not saying God uses us like puppets, I’m not saying that God made those brothers do their dastardly deed. I do believe we have some measure of free will. But once the deed was done, even that was not beyond God’s power to somehow redeem, reclaim and repurpose. God uses us—in all our goodness and all our frailty—to bless the world. And God uses us—in all our beauty and all our brokenness—to convey God’s message of grace and forgiveness to one another. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Now What??? Sermon on Genesis 15:1-6

Scripture can be found here...

Have you ever heard of a BHAG? A BHAG is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal. It’s usually generated by a business, a kind of mission statement, if we want to translate it into church-language. BHAG’s are supposed to be just what they sound like—the kinds of goals set by companies when they want to challenge themselves to rise to unprecedented levels of greatness. Amazon Booksellers have the following BHAG: “Every book, ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds.” And Disney’s BHAG is this: “Be the best company in the world for all fields of family entertainment.” I think my favorite is Ford Motor Company’s: “Democratize the automobile.”

 

When an individual sets a BHAG, she sees a future for herself in which she accomplishes something she never imagined she could. I have a friend who, after losing a significant amount of weight with the help of diet and exercise, has set herself the goal of competing in a marathon next year.  For some of us a BHAG might be to get rid of our credit cards, or to pay them off in full every single month. For others, it might be to grow the perfect rose or orchid.

 

By embarking on the Narrative Lectionary this fall, we as a church have set ourselves an audacious goal: to read across the entire bible in the space of nine short months. In just thirty-seven Sundays plus Christmas Eve we will familiarize ourselves with the whole, big story of scripture. Not every book, mind you—there are sixty-six books in the Bible, so, as you can tell with the help of math, that won’t be possible. This starts to feel a little like what a seminary professor of mine used to call “roller-skating through the Louvre.” (“Look at that! Look at that! Look at that! Look at that!”)

 

And we’ll be doing a little of that this morning, since we have skipped all the way from the very beginning, the creation stories, and are now, not even at the beginning of the Abraham and Sarah story, but already a few chapters in.

 

When we started our Monday evening bible study four and a half years ago, we took note: the first eleven chapters of Genesis are the history of the whole cosmos, and then, of the whole of humanity. These are the chapters that include the story of the first murder, one son of Adam and Eve killing another, Cain killing Abel. God says to Cain, “And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand” (Genesis 4:11). But God deals with the murderer Cain by protecting him—God doesn’t want him to be killed.

 

And these are the chapters that include the story of, not an angry God, but a God who “was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” (Genesis 6:6). That God decides to send devastating floods upon the earth, though he provides a way to survive for a faithful fragment of the human race, and of the animal kingdom as well. This is a troubling story, a story we tend to domesticate in our Sunday school so that it appears to be about a wonderful watery adventure for Noah and the animals. But it is a story of a God who has had it and, for a time, who seems to give up on his own creation.

 

But God changes his mind. This happens from time to time in scripture, so we shouldn’t be surprised or scandalized when it does. God relents, God repents. And instead of utterly destroying creation, God re-creates, and gives the sign of the rainbow to humans as a reminder of God’s new intention:

 

“I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood… I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth” (Genesis 9:11,13).

 

These are also the chapters that include the story of the tower of Babel, a story about human beings arrogant enough to believe they could literally get to heaven with enough brick and mortar, which turns into a “just-so” story. God thwarts the arrogant humans by creating different languages, so that they can’t understand one another to cooperate.

 

These are just a few of the stories in the chapters between last week and this. “Look at that, look at that!” And then we come to the end of chapter 11. Do any of you remember the beginning of the movie, “The Sound of Music”? It starts with a bird’s eye view of the Austrian Alps—snow capped mountains, breathtaking landscapes. Slowly we descend to the green slopes below. And then, the camera swoops in towards what is, at first a dot, which is gradually revealed to be a woman, and, once in close-up, she throws wide her arms and sings. This is what happens in chapter 12. The story swoops in on one man and one woman and their one family.

 

Here is the problem: God has created a universe, and a world and inhabitants of that world. And the human inhabitants have been created in God’s image. God has called all this creation “Good.” But God is still faced with the reality of brokenness in creation. Humans are prone to wander. Humans are prone to fail. Humans are prone to hurting one another and killing one another and trying to get to heaven on their own steam. And so, at this point, the story is faced with the real question: Now what?? How shall God respond to this problem?

 

The answer to “Now what???” is what happens at the end of Genesis 11.  God tries something new. God focuses in on one man and one woman and their one family. God enters a second covenant, this time, with Abraham and his family.

 

When we meet him, Abraham is seventy-five years old. His name is Abram; the change comes later. ‘Now the Lord says to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”’ (Genesis 12:1-3).

 

Abram and his family become God’s BHAG—God’s Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Humanity has not, so far, been able to perceive itself as a good and blessed part of God’s creation, ready to work in partnership with God. So God creates this partnership, and makes its specific. God enters into this covenant, a covenant promising three things: land, children, and blessing.

 

The promise of land is a complicated one. The claim on the land for God’s people is one that is reasserted and lost again and again throughout the Old Testament. The promise of being a blessing—“in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”—is one that, perhaps no one who lived these stories saw realized in their lifetime, though we know it is true today. As for the promise of children: we are told at the outset that the promise is doomed to failure. In keeping with the primitive understanding of biology and all things scientific in biblical times, the lack of offspring is inevitably blamed on the woman: Sarah is said to be “barren.”

 

And so we come to chapter 15. You can tell right away that something is amiss, because the very first words God speaks are words of reassurance. “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” You see, between chapter 11 and chapter 15, the promise of children has been put in serious peril. At one point Sarah has been taken into the harem of a king. At another point Abram has become enmeshed in a battle involving the hostage taking of his nephew and no fewer than nine kings.

 

Thus God’s words of reassurance. Abram responds, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” (Genesis 15:2). Abram is a practical man. He has selected one of his slaves to be his heir. He knows that God has promised him offspring, but… he’s willing to help the promise along, right? What’s wrong with that? Doesn’t the Lord help those who help themselves?

 

Well, no. That is not, in fact, a scriptural sentiment. There is no bible citation for that very American-sounding proverb. In fact, that quote is almost the exact opposite of what is going on here. What is going on here is grace, a one-way promise of blessing. Abram did nothing to earn it. Abram needs to do very little to keep it. And God is quick to correct his misguided attempt to hedge his bets.

 

No, God says. That man will not be your heir. Your very own flesh and blood will be your heir, just as I promised. And then… this happens sometimes, early in Genesis especially: the character of God is described much as any other character. God plays with mud. God walks in gardens. God blows a puff of breath into people. And now, God takes Abram outside, just as if that were the most normal thing in the world. A startling, very human-like God a very anthropomorphized God, pops up now and then in the bible. This is one of those moments.

 

God takes Abram outside. I like to imagine them lying down in a field, or maybe on a sand dune. There is absolutely no light pollution where they are. They look up, and the stars are so thick, it’s like the stars themselves form a blanket across the heavens. You and I will never see with our bare eyes the number of stars they see.

 

Look at that, God says. Will you just look at that. That is how many children, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren… and so on and so on and so on… that is how many you will have. Beyond your ability to count.

 

And Abram, perhaps chastened, perhaps with his seventy-five-year-old, maybe at this point eighty-year-old eyes full of tears, nods. And he believes. And that makes both God and Abram feel better.

 

So, three things about this man, and about us. First: God’s promises can be a long-term proposition. This is a lesson Abram learns over and over again. This is a lesson we learn over and over again. Have any of you ever had a Big Hairy Audacious Goal—a goal like, say, losing a bunch of weight, or starting your own business, or starting a family—and you realized, one day, that it just wasn’t going to be as simple and straightforward as you had originally imagined? The promises of God are like that. They can be believed. But you will have time for stargazing while you wait for them.

 

And second: being a faithful man or woman, being a righteous one, does not mean silent acquiescence during your long wait. Sometimes being faithful means voicing our complaints to God in loud and clear tones. I learned this at a young age by means of a book in which a young girl began her prayers, “Are you there God?” In times of duress, in times of trial, in times of disappointment, and long-term waiting, when we are not sure any more just what God’s promises for us are, a shout out—a hearty “Are you there God?” may just be the most true, most profound, most holy and righteous and faithful prayer we can pray.

 

And third: we are blessed so that we will be a blessing. Blessing is not something we accrue, like coins in a piggy bank. Blessing is something that passes through us, like the air that fills our lungs and then becomes a part of the life cycle of plants, or the food that strengthens our bodies and then becomes energy for our living. We are not receptacles for blessing, we are conduits. We are vessels. The blessings are meant to flow through us and on to the rest of God’s beautiful and broken world.

 

The promise of children for Abram will come true, but it will take a long time. There will be more false starts, more attempts for the humans involved to take matters into their own hands, more time for the promise to be in jeopardy, and just more all-around bad behavior. And in his lifetime, Abram will see, not a sky full of children, just two, Isaac and Ishmael, whom tradition believes to be the fathers, respectively, of today’s Jews and Muslims. Abraham will end his days, perhaps, gazing at the stars in wonder and realizing: faith, trust  in the promise might just be enough.

 

And we, perhaps, can draw from his story the lessons of trusting in God, and of voicing our complaints in faithful relationship, and of being a blessing where we can. And, maybe, of the holy act of simply looking up and out at something infinite, mysterious, and beautiful. Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Story Begins: A Sermon on Genesis 2:4b-7, 15-17, 3:1-8

The scripture can be found here...

The summer season is drawing to a close, but one of the greatest gifts of our travels and our visits, our reunions and our celebrations, is the opportunity we have to share stories with one another. Think of it: Friends gathered around a campfire, or perhaps a backyard fire pit. You and someone you love side by side on a beach or at an outdoor café. Family members normally scattered across the miles, all, for a brief moment, seated around the same table. And the stories begin to flow…

We tell one another the stories of the high points, the mountaintop experiences (sometimes, literally!). How we participated in a triathlon, or ran a 10-K for charity. How our child graduated with honors, or threw the Hail Mary pass that won the big game. How we finally grew the perfect heirloom tomato, or bowled a perfect 300 game, or became grandparents. How we overcame our fear of swimming or flying or being alone.

And we tell one another the other stories, too. Stories of the crisis at work, the loss of the job, our kid’s first fender-bender, our loved one in the hospital, in rehab, in the doldrums. We may even share the story of the one in prison, or going through a painful divorce, or an ugly custody battle. The stories aren’t always happy. Sometimes they’re hard. Sometimes they make us want to weep. But they’re our stories, and the stories of those we love, those we call family, community.

Stories delight and entertain us, and teach us. Stories remind us of who we are, and of the kind of world we live in. And stories bring us closer together.

This morning we begin a year-long project of immersing ourselves in the story and stories of scripture, in a way we have never done before—not as a congregation, anyway. We begin a time of reading through the bible in canonical order—that is, in the order the stories are set out for us. We will read highlights, the major episodes of scripture, and we do this for several very specific reasons. First, we do it in order to learn—to see scripture not as we often do, a collection of disparate stories, letters, songs and histories, but as one story, a Big Story, with a definite arc, a shape, and a theme—a story that starts one place, and ends in another. I’m going to tip my hand and tell you the theme right up front: The story of scripture is the story of God’s amazing love for us. It is a story worth learning! Second, we do it in order to be reminded of who we are. The stories of scripture are our stories, the stories of the people of God across time. These stories belong to us, they speak to us, and they include us. And finally, we do this, we read through the bible together, in order to recognize that we are all in this story, not simply as uniquely created individuals, but as a community, as God’s community. We do this to be reminded that the story of scripture is a story of belonging.

Our passage this morning begins in the second chapter of Genesis, the first book in the bible, and it is the bible’s second creation story. Those of you who were here last Sunday had the opportunity to read responsively the first creation story, the beautiful liturgy of the seven days of creation, the one in which God sees that the creation is very good. This second story focuses in on the creation of humanity. In this story, we are told, “then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). And so, the first thing the story of scripture tells us today, the first thing we learn, is that humans are intimately connected with the rest of creation, particularly the  earth. In fact, the Hebrew words are connected in a way you can hear immediately. The Hebrew word for human is ’adam and the word for earth is ’adamah. The ’adam was formed from the ’adamah. The earthling came from the earth, the human came from the humus.

We are connected to the earth, not separate from it. We and the earth together are part of God’s creation. So much so, in fact, that, the ’adam, the human, is told to “till and keep” the earth—Hebrew words that also mean “serve and protect.” Our responsibility towards the earth, given us by our Creator, is to serve and protect it. This is a far cry from our usual relationship with the earth. But this is, apparently, one of the things we were created to do: to participate with God in the work of Creation, by guarding it.

The next thing we learn in today’s story is that God puts limits on the human. God draws a line and says, “This far and no further.” The item in question is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. What’s amazing is that this prohibition is couched in terms of absolute abundance. “Any tree,” God says to the human. “Any tree, except this one.” And the reason seems to be a good one: If you eat of that tree, God tells the human, on that day you will die.

But we learn, in the same moment, practically, another truth about human nature: To know that something is off limits is often to know how very, very much we want it. This is a pretty universal human experience, but one that is highlighted by the conversation with the serpent, who points out something that ends up being true: “You will not die.”

We are used to thinking of the serpent in this story as an evil figure, even a figure we associate with Satan, the Tempter. But that is to miss out on a lot of the symbolism the serpent would have held for those who first gathered around a fire pit to hear this story. In the ancient world, especially this part of the ancient world, serpents were wisdom figures. In fact, the Hebrew word translated as “crafty” here, is translated as “prudent” elsewhere. The serpent is wise. It has some truth to offer. And one of the truths the serpent highlights is that same thing that every dieter knows, that is borne out in studies of three-year-olds who are told they can play with every toy except the one in the box: it is the truth of the desirability of the forbidden fruit.

The woman and the man, together, eat the fruit God has forbidden them from eating. Please notice—there is no seduction, there is no greater guilt on the part of either of them. And the serpent is right: they don’t die. Was it a test, one they failed? Was it God-as-overprotective-Parent, trying to keep the newly hatched children from learning all life’s difficulties too soon? I think all those layers are possible interpretations of the story, as is the traditional Jewish interpretation: this is a coming of age story. This is the story of the original humans learning a hard truth about themselves: the ability to discern good from evil does not equate to the ability to choose good over evil. Just because we know the right thing to do doesn’t always mean that we choose it. In the hot mess that is the human psyche it quite frequently means just the opposite.

The humans are ashamed—see how they try to cover up their nakedness, just as we so often try to cover up our own bad deeds, or even our uncomfortable deeds, or even the deeds of those we love who have somehow messed up—such a human impulse.

God the Creator does not destroy the disobedient humans. But in the part of the chapter that comes later, God gives them clothes to wear, and sends them off to another place to live, a place where they’ll be fine, though they will certainly have to work harder than they would have had to in the garden. Is the garden childhood? And the exodus from the garden adulthood? Hard to say. But know this: the Creator of the garden and of the humans does not abandon them. God does not wash the divine hands of these disobedient children. They still belong to God. They still belong to the earth they are called to serve, and they still belong to one another. God still tends to their needs. The God of the Old Testament is shown, in this first encounter with these disobedient children, to be a God of compassion and mercy, a God who is kind while being just. And that is the true beginning to the long and beautiful story of God’s relationship with us. God is a God of justice, compassion, kindness and mercy. We belong to God, and nothing can change that. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Faith Countdown: One!

Scripture can be found here and here...

So, if you’re me, and you’re writing a sermon with the title “One,” the first thing that is going to happen is this: songs are going to go through your head. First, U2:

One love

One blood

One life

You got to do what you should

One life

With each other

Sisters
Brothers

One life

But we're not the same

We get to

Carry each other

Carry each other

And then, Sondheim and Bernstein:

Make of our hands one hand

Make of our hearts one heart

Make of our vows one last vow

Only death will part us now.

Make of our lives one life

Day after day one life

Now it begins, now we start

One hand, one heart

Even death won’t part us now.

And finally, Ed Kleban and the late, great Marvin Hamlisch:

One singular sensation, every little step she takes

One thrilling combination, every move that she makes

One smile and suddenly nobody else will do

You know you'll never be lonely with you-know-who

One moment in her presence and you can forget the rest

For the girl is second best to none, son

Oooh! Sigh! Give her your attention

Do I really have to mention she's the one.

One. Love songs, songs about the struggle to love or the joy of loving, inevitably come to this. You are the only one for me. We are separate but we are one—somehow, we share one soul. And strange as it may seem, there is actually much in there that does indeed connect with the sense of “One” that we find in today’s readings.

Tradition holds that Deuteronomy conveys to us the words of Moses, and sees the whole of this book as his deathbed memoir, written or dictated on just the other side of the divide between the wilderness and the land of promise. Perhaps we can think of Deuteronomy as Moses’ love song to God… and to God’s people. And the passage we have read this morning is a particularly memorable verse of that song.

It is hard—in fact, it’s just about impossible—to overstate the importance of this verse. Author Lauren Winner writes about it from a unique perspective. Raised in a Jewish family with somewhat secular leanings, she embraced Orthodox Judaism while an undergraduate at Columbia University, and converted to Christianity in her twenties. In her book, Mudhouse Sabbath, Winner reflects on Jewish practices that still resonate within the context of her newfound faith. This is from the chapter titled, “Mezuzot/ Doorposts.”

The practice of affixing a mezuzah to one’s door finds its origin in a passage from Deuteronomy: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words…which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart… You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house: In obedience to that verse, Jews purchase special tiny scrolls of parchment on which are calligraphed fifteen verses from the sixth and eleventh chapters of Deuteronomy (the verses in which the command to inscribe them on your doorposts is found). The parchment is hidden inside a decorative case or tube. Both the parchment itself and the plastic or ceramic or silver or wooden case are called a mezuzah… These are the boxes you see outside the doors on Jewish homes.[i]

Winner goes on to tell of the many varieties and designs of mezuzot (that’s the plural form),  and she notes that, while it’s not unusual to see them on the doors of apartments in Manhattan, with its large Jewish community, it is a much rarer thing in Charlottesville, VA, where she grew up. She writes:

The mezuzah, which interrupts the smooth line of the doorframe and juts into your line of vision, is a proclamation. A mezuzah—like the Chanukah menorahs, which Jews are enjoined not only to light, but to set in their windows—is a real, visible, public witness, a declaration to anyone who would walk by that this is a Jewish home. The people who live here are Jewish, and they are proud of it.[ii]

In a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious world, it is still a somewhat startling notion to proclaim, with a little box or tube attached to the doorpost of your house, “He’s the One”—the God of Israel is the God whom we, in this household, worship, the One, alone.

How do we Christians make this proclamation, or, if you will, sing that love song: that the God of Abraham and Sarah, and Moses and Miriam, and Jesus and Mary, is the One God whom we worship? Orthodox Judaism offers its adherents many tangible, visible ways to make that proclamation, from the manner of dress to the types of foods that are eaten to the mezuzah on the doorpost. How do we Christians do it?

In the early days of the church, during the time of persecution by the Roman Empire, the sign of the fish was used to indicate Christian meeting places and to distinguish friends from enemies. The word fish in Greek is Ichthys, and the Greek letters, Iota, Chi, Theta, Ypsilon, and Sigma, form an acrostic for the Greek phrase “Jesus Christ God’s Son, Savior.” Here’s how it worked: “…when a Christian met a stranger in the road, the Christian sometimes drew one arc of the simple fish outline in the dirt. If the stranger drew the other arc, both believers knew they were in good company.”[iii] Beginning in the 1970’s the use of the sign of the fish saw resurgence among Christians, the most notable (and the most often poked fun at) being the omnipresent plastic car fish. Think of it as a kind of whimsical love song to the Savior: One moment in his presence, and you can forget the rest, for the man is second best to none, son. He’s the one!

But the problem with any symbol, whether it is a fish on the car or a little box affixed to the doorpost, is that the symbol can lose its meaning by virtue of its very omnipresence. We can become dulled to the truth behind the symbol if we see it everywhere, or even cynical about symbols if those who bear them don’t live up to the ideals the symbols seem to promise.

Paul, who wrote to the church in Galatia, offers another insight into just how we might sing a love song to our God who is “the One”: by virtue of our baptism into the life of Christ, we too are made one. “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:27-28). Bringing new meanings into an old love song, the life of Christ makes of our hands one hand, and makes of our hearts one heart, and makes of our lives one life.

This is a much harder love song to sing, this is a much more challenging proclamation to make, than simply placing a symbol of our faith on the car or in the doorway or around our necks. To be one in the Spirit, one in the Lord, as the song goes… that is the mark of Christianity as it was both lived and witnessed in the earliest days of the church. And the truth of the matter is, we are not always at ease being asked to consider ourselves “one” with… well, with whomever it is that pushes our buttons, or makes our skin crawl, or simply makes us mad. People we don’t like. People we don’t get. And, especially, people we don’t know. Our one faith in our one God and God’s one son Jesus call upon us to join in that oneness, and that, my friends, has to be the very hardest thing we are asked to do in the life of faith.

We are one… with people whose features and skin are different from ours.

We are one… with people who love differently than we do.

We are one… with people whose politics are different from ours.

We are one… with people whose financial security is different from ours.

We are one… with people who think about God and Jesus differently than we do.

We are one… with people who pray differently than we pray.

One life with each other, sisters, brothers… One life but we're not the same. We get to carry each other, carry each other…

We are one… and if we cannot sing this song, if we cannot live into this proclamation of the oneness of God and the oneness of life in Christ, we will be like that church that made the news this week because, and I’m quoting directly here, it closed its food bank because it attracted too many poor people.

Hear, O Union Presbyterians. The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. The Lord our God, the Lord is one—one singular sensation, every little step God takes. One thrilling combination, every move that God makes. One moment in God’s presence, and we can forget the rest. And so there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of us are one in Christ Jesus. There is no longer poor or rich, gay or straight, Republican or Democrat, for God has made of our hands one hand, made of our hearts one heart, made of our lives one life. Now it begins. Now we start. One hand. One heart. One life. All of us, singing God’s love song as One. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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[i] Lauren Winner, Mudhouse Sabbath (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2003), 131-132.

[ii] Ibid., 137.

[iii] Elesha Coffman, “Ask the Editors,” Christianity Today, October 26, 2001.

Behold! We are doing a new thing....

Courtesy of Ryan DeLap, Union Presbyterian Member and techno whiz, we now have-- ta da!!!-- digital sermon recordings. Because, it's 2012, darn it!

Scripture can be found here.

Herewith, the first recording, of last Sunday's sermon. Enjoy!

Faith Countdown: Two!

Scripture can be found here...

Yes or No. Black or White. Right or Wrong. Up or Down. One of the first lessons we learn as children has to do with understanding opposites. Dark or Light. Happy or Sad. Dirty or Clean. Good or Bad.

Some of those opposite pairs come with hard lessons attached. Gentle or Rough. Kind or Mean. Winner or Loser. Living or Dead. And sooner, rather than later, most of us, at a very young age, learn which of those is preferable, like my next door neighbor, who learned, to the eternal consternation of his mother, that Dirty was definitely preferable to Clean, because it usually meant he’d been having more fun playing at the beach or running through the marshes.

The number two seems inevitably to be the number of  “Either/ Or.” It seems to represent a “this way or that way.” Two presents us with a choice. Two is the number of difference or division.

Let’s take, for example, the election season, which is now upon us, much like an outbreak of the plague. I know that you know that I have my political opinions. It has ever thus been so. And I know that you have your political opinions. And my guess is that some of us agree with one another in lots of areas, but disagree in others. And some of us agree on nearly everything, or perhaps disagree on nearly everything. And yet… here we are on a summer morning, when we might instead be out on the links or sleeping in or enjoying a tasty brunch somewhere. We are able to come together to sing, to pray, to worship God, because it is meet and right so to do. We are able to gather as one, despite our political differences.

And such togetherness does not require church to make it happen. On Thursday evening three hundred or so people of many ages, and, I imagine, many faiths, and many political persuasions, too, gathered at Arnold Park to hear a concert by the Vestal Community Band, a truly lovely and consummately American pastime. And as we enjoyed the strains of music by George Gershwin and Irving Berlin and John Philip Sousa, we came together as one.

But to read the newspaper, or to listen to the radio or TV news or, heaven forbid, to get a taste of politics as it is manifested online, in places like Facebook and Twitter, one would have to believe the political divide of this country is an infinitely large chasm between the two major parties, a gap that nothing can bridge. To choose one candidate is Right and the other is Wrong. One candidate is Hitler and the other is Jesus returned. One candidate is the Everyman, and the other is Hopelessly Elitist. Or even, one candidate is on the side of the Rich and the other is on the side of Everyone Else—the 1% versus 99%.

In our reading from the gospel of Mark, Jesus seems to be highlighting this particular divide.

“Beware of the scribes,” he says, “who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation”  [Mark 12:38-40].

Beware, Jesus says. Beware those who get a little too excited about the fancy clothes they’re wearing. Beware of those who get a little too pleased with themselves when John and Jane Q. Public recognize them on the street. Beware those people who always get the choicest tables at the fancy restaurants, just because of who they are and the power and influence they wield. They are not just eating the good veal; they’re eating the poor for supper (metaphorically speaking). God is not pleased.

Then Jesus positions himself where he can watch people making their financial offerings to the temple. And many people place large amounts of money in the treasury. Just then a woman walks up to the offering box and places in it two copper coins, valued at precisely one penny. She is described as a poor widow. “Poor”: we know what that means. She doesn’t have enough to live on. That’s what it is to be poor: to not have enough. As for “Widow”: In the biblical era, to be a widow means to be cut loose from the protection of the extended family unit. A woman’s value in that era resided primarily in her connection to a man, whether her father or her husband or even her son. A woman who is described as a widow is outside that system. She has no one.

Here is how Jesus describes the woman’s gift to the temple treasury:

“Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on” [Mark 12:43-44].

In a gesture that might, to us, seem foolhardy, an act that, frankly, I would discourage anyone in this congregation from making, the poor widow has given away money that she needs. We are used to interpreting Jesus’ words about her as being high praise. Look, we think Jesus says. How generous. Be more like her. But in good conscience, I have to tell you that not all scripture scholars interpret what Jesus says here positively. Some hear in his words anger that this woman is bankrupting herself in the presence of those who are giving so extravagantly. The sale of a fancy item out of one of their closets could feed her for a year.

I think it’s important to hear exactly what Jesus says here. He gives no evaluation of the widow’s gift, good or bad. He simply states a fact: She has given more than the others, because what she has given costs her more personally. Her gift is a sacrifice. Jesus doesn’t say whether that’s good or bad. He just describes what he sees.

Still, it’s hard to hear these verses all together—the condemnation of the scribes side by side with the description of what the poor widow gives—without drawing some conclusions. And we’re back to division. The Rich versus the Poor, the 1% and the 99%.  Can the number two possibly get us out of this bind? Can we, somehow, get beyond this Either/ Or scheme of things? Remember that lovely evening in Arnold Park? Can’t we all just get along?

As it happens, the number two has two main meanings. Either it means division and difference. Or, it refers to the double portion.

The double portion shows up in scripture in all sorts of ways. The double portion was the typical inheritance of the oldest male child. Then there is the double call—“Moses, Moses,” [Exodus 3:4], or “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” [Acts 9:4]; God making sure we hear the divine voice.

And the double portion shows up in Ecclesiastes:

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help.  Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone?” [Eccl. 4:9-11]

But the double portion is most significant in the familiar story of the manna. When God’s people were wandering in the wilderness, and they had no food, God sent them manna to eat, a flaky substance whose name in Hebrew seems to mean, “What is that stuff”? It’s described as being “like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey” [Exodus 16:31]. Elsewhere it is described, simply, as bread from heaven. And to ensure that the people did no work on the Sabbath, on the day before the Sabbath God sent a double portion of the manna—they could gather what they needed for two days on that day. But if they gathered a double portion any other day, the manna spoiled and rotted [Exodus 16:1-36].

I think these stories are connected.

The poor widow puts in two copper coins, and they carry with them layers and layers of meaning. They signify her poverty, yes. But they remind us of her trust as well. They tell us that what looks to us like a paltry offering is, in fact, a sign of her trust that God will provide, just as God rained bread from heaven in double portions for her ancestors. The two coins signify division—the Rich versus the Poor, the Self-Aggrandizing versus the Self-Emptying. But they also remind us that two are better than one, because if one falls, the other will lift her up. They remind us that we are better together than we are apart.

In this already fairly poisonous political season, it is easy to fall into the belief that what divides us is more important than what brings us together, that it really is Either/ Or. Republican or Democrat. Liberal or Conservative. Rich or Poor. I hope that we can thoughtfully examine that belief. I hope that we can carefully weigh what we say. We can choose to speak and to act, even across that mythically large political divide, in a way that either brings us closer together or a way that drives even more and larger wedges between us.

One way to bridge the divide is to seek with sincerity to understand one another better. There’s a new book called, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, and it offers some insights into, not simply the positions, held by different groups, but the essential values underpinning those positions. Author Jonathan Haidt makes the case that liberals hold dear the essential values of fairness, caring for the weak, and liberty. Conservatives share these values, though they are nuanced slightly differently, but they also highly value respect for authority, loyalty and sanctity. And here’s the part that excites me: the author finds that people are able to speak across divides and build bridges to understanding when they start to recognize and respect those motivating core beliefs.[i]

Our God has created a world of stunning and amazing diversity and distinctiveness. To believe that we can only see ourselves and one another as “Either This Or That” is to ignore the resplendent beauty of God’s creation, and, frankly, to ask very little of ourselves. We can be both distinctively who we are as individuals, and we can come together as one, to worship our almighty and all-generous God, or to hear the strains of music as they float through the soft air of a summer night. Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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[i] Nicholas Kristof, “Politics, Odors and Soap,” The Opinion Pages, The New York Times, March 21, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/opinion/kristof-politics-odors-and-soap.html?_r=3&src=tp&smid=fb-share#comments.

Faith Countdown: Three!

Scripture passages can be found here (John 18:15-18, 25-27) and here (John 21:12-17)...

Did it ever seem to you as if the stories of your childhood were filled with threes? Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf. Three Blind Mice. Any number of stories featuring three wishes. Growing up in Italy, children learn the tales of the Three Oranges and the Three Fairies; in Norway, the Three Aunts and the Three Princesses of Whiteland; in Germany, the Three Dogs and the Three Little Birds.

And of course, when I posed the question to friends, what do you think this sermon on three will be about, I got everything from the sublime to the ridiculous. People wondered whether I would be preaching on Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, or Peter, James and John, or Matthew, Mark and Luke, or on the Trinity. On the other hand, they wondered whether we would be reflecting together on the three Musketeers, or Olga, Masha, and Irina, the three sisters from the Chekhov play, or perhaps that other literary trinity, Larry, Moe and Curley. I even had the suggestion: A priest, a rabbi and a minister walk into a bar…

The number three is just the right number. And scripture is filled with threes. In the Hebrew scriptures, there are three great patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; in Genesis chapter 18, three “men” appear to Abraham to inform him that Sarah will bear a son within the year… but as the story progresses, they are no longer referred to as “three men,” but rather, as “the Lord.” And flying in the face of the idea that the God of Hebrew scripture is a God of wrath and judgment, the three attributes most often ascribed to God there are graciousness, compassion, and loving-kindness. In the New Testament, the gospel of John tells us that the ministry of Jesus lasted three years. And then there are the three-day episodes: Jonah in the belly of the great fish; Jesus as a boy, lost/separated from his parents; Saul blinded, Jesus rising from the dead on the third day. The cardinal New Testament virtues are Faith, Hope and Charity (or love), though a Facebook friend did propose a sermon on Faith, Hope and Chocolate.

Instead of all these, we turn today to the late chapters of John’s gospel, and hear the story of the three-fold denial of Jesus by Simon Peter. As Jesus is being led through his arrest and trials, Simon and another unnamed disciple are trying to follow and at the same time keep a low profile. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind what the stakes are here. Jesus is likely to die. And if he dies, anyone who is associated with him is in danger of the same.

Peter is asked three times whether he knows Jesus. The first two times, he is asked whether he is a disciple, a follower of Jesus, a word that literally means, “learner.” The third time he is asked, simply, whether he was in the garden with Jesus at the time of his arrest. Each time Peter says no. And as he is saying his third denial, a cock crows—which tells Simon Peter something devastating. It reminds him that for all his love, for all his learning, for all his following Jesus, still, Jesus knew that this moment would come. At a moment of danger, Simon Peter would turn away.

I don’t know which is worse, letting down someone we love or letting ourselves down. Each comes with its own particular peril. Not too long ago I was reminded of an episode from my childhood by means of a diary from the year I was in eighth grade. In January of that year, after a series of falls, my mother was diagnosed with a progressive degenerative disease of the nerves in her legs. A doctor at a large Philadelphia research hospital told her she would be in a wheelchair within five years; she was 53 at the time.

She reached out to me, asked for help around the house. I can empathize, now, with how terrified she must have been, the thought of losing her mobility at such a young age. I must have seriously disappointed her, because I kept, tucked in this diary, a letter she wrote to me, filled with her frustration and anger and disappointment. Reading it almost forty years later was still a kick in the gut. I don’t think I was a particularly bad kid. But I know I must have been pretty self-involved. I let my mother down, and in so doing, I learned something about myself that was uncomfortable, even shameful, but it was the truth.

For Peter, I imagine the sound of that rooster signaling morning was a wakeup call of devastating proportions. He learned something about himself, about the depths or shallowness of his devotion, in that moment, to Jesus.

And then, we’re in chapter 21, and the world has turned upside down, and up right again. Jesus was killed. And then Jesus was raised from the dead. And in the aftermath, as a kind of epilogue, we have this scene on the beach that starts with disciples back in their fishing boats, back to the beginning, almost as if the “Jesus event” had never even occurred.  You remember the story. Simon Peter announces, “I am going fishing,” and four others join him. They are out all night in the boat, but catch nothing. In the morning, Jesus gives them a suggestion about placement of the net, and they haul in 153 fish (a number scholars absolutely cannot agree about, symbolically or otherwise). Simon recognizes Jesus and jumps into the water to get to him as quickly as he can.

They have a barbecue on the beach, a fish fry. After their weary bodies have been fed, Jesus asks: Simon, so of John, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you, Simon Peter answers. Feed my lambs, Jesus replies.

And this happens again. Simon, do you love me? Yes Lord, you know I do. Tend my sheep.

And again. Do you love me? And now—Simon is hurt. Maybe because someone asking something three times is an excruciating reminder. It is kick in the gut time. Again. And Simon Peter is just the tiniest bit defensive now. Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. Feed my sheep.

In scripture, three is another of the perfect numbers—it is the number of divine perfection. And it represents everything that is real, solid, substantial, and complete.

So Simon Peter’s denial of Jesus is real, solid, substantial, and complete.

Just as Simon Peter’s affirmation of loving Jesus is real, solid, substantial, and complete.

And here is the real, solid, substantial, and complete truth about human nature. We are broken. We fail. We let one another down. We hurt one another, we deny one another. We don’t show up. A pastor was at a Christian rock concert in Austin, Texas, talking to a man who was a self-described Jesus freak, “just living in the joy of the Lord, reading his Bible every day and praying to Jesus and… playing Christian rock on his stereo.” And this pastor asked the man whether he went to church or not, and he said that he’d had a hard time finding a congregation where he really felt at home and inspired, where he fit in. “I don’t know,” he said, “it’s just so boring!”

The pastor asked him, “Do you love Jesus?”

“Yes, I do. I love him with all my heart.”

“Would you die for him?”

“Yes, I would.”

“You would die for him, but you won't be bored for him?”[i]

This is the real, solid, substantial and complete truth, about every single one of us. We are broken and partial and incomplete. We let one another down. We don’t make the bed or fold the laundry or side with the person who is being bullied or denied his rights or killed.

And this is the real, solid, substantial and complete truth about God: God sits us down at a table or on a beach and feeds our weary bodies and souls, and then offers us second chances and third chances and one hundred and thirty third chances, chances without limit.  Beloved child, do you love me? Yes, you know I do.

And that is the place of pure joy. That is the place where we are invited, day by day, in this life of faith. We are invited to sit at the table where we will be fed with the very life of God. And that life includes looking around to see what we can do to make someone else’s life a little better, a little less lonely or filled with hurt or fear. Feed my sheep… an invitation that has about three trillion possible applications, the need is so great and the so-called sheep are so many.

And so we gather around this table, knowing the real, solid, substantial and complete truth about ourselves and about God. And the truth about God is so overwhelming, that it simply swallows up the truth about us, in a great sea of grace and blessing and joy. God will supply our need. We will be blessed. We will turn and bless God’s world. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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[i] Brian Stoffregen, “John 21:1-9, Third Sunday of Easter, Year C,” at www.crossmarks.com (http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/john21x1.htm).