SCRIPTURE: Genesis 22:1-14
TEXT: 14aSo Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide”; THEME: God loves us. INTRODUCTION Amy Jill Levine, New Testament Professor at Vanderbilt University Divinity School recorded a series of lectures on the Old Testament Stories. She said something in these lectures that I’ve never heard before. In them she says that the books of the Old Testament were written during the time of Israel’s Babylonian Captivity, around 700 B.C. when a written language was beginning to emerge in Babylon. Up until then the Hebrews used an oral history to pass their stories down from one generation to the next. While captive in Babylon, their children were learning Babylonian stories, so they decided to write down their history. In doing so, they also took a few of the popular Babylonian stories and rewrote them with Hebrew themes. Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac is one such story, the details and characters of the story have been changed along with an added Hebrew twist. SCRIPTURE In stories, like a good joke, the characters and details can be change, from one telling to another, as long as the message or punch line of the story remains the conveyors of truth. I’ve always had problems with this passage, because from my New Testament perspective of the Old Testament, God does not test us, as we should not test God. But here it is, God wants to test Abraham. This passage begins with “After all this” What about the 25 years of waiting to have a child with Sarah and wandering and wondering around waiting for land and an heir? Wouldn’t God know of Abraham’s devotion already? This is my first hint, that the god in this story may not be the God that we know. The second hint is that God is about Love and relationships. The description we have of God’s love is confident in its self. Love does things to build someone else up, it is patience, it is kind, it is happy for others, it is humble, it is comfortable when others are given attention, it has respect for others, it is other-centered, it is tolerant of those who may be different, love forgives, love speaks the truth in ways that brings light, love protects, love trusts, love hopes and love is steadfast. (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7). I am going on a bit of a rant, then I’ll come back: Love does not play mean tricks on others for their own amusement. Love does not require proof of love but loves anyway. Love does not manipulate the people they love. Love does not sacrifice innocent people for their own ends. Love does not marginalize the helpless. Love is not violent. I’m back. The god (small ‘g’) portrayed here is not our God, but a Babylonian god, who sacrifices for favor, goes on heroic quests for favor, violently vanquishes foes for favor and is deeply flawed. It’s just that they changed his name to a capital ‘G’ for the purpose of retelling this story. This story was familiar to the first readers in Babylon, but with a surprise ending. This is a Babylonian story about child sacrifice. Two people go up the hill and one person comes down. (Amy Jill Levine, observes that in the retelling of this story, coming down off the mountain, the rewriters forget to name Isaac, so two people come down the mountain). The irony of this story comes in verse 14 when Abraham calls this place “the Lord will provide” because, God never required a sacrifice in the first place and it wasn’t God who was testing Abraham because God already knew where Abraham stood with God. But the punchline of this story is not to kill your kids so that you can have a better life for yourself. Don’t participate in the Babylonian practice of child sacrifice because everybody else is doing it. Trust in the God that loves you and the knowledge that God is there to help you, no sacrifice necessary. How many knives do you think this story took out of the hands of Hebrew fathers? This the point of the story. APPLICATION How is the story of Abraham and Isaac our story? Don’t make our God into a Babylonian god who vanquishes evil with the violent act of sacrificing his son for your life. Google is a wonderful resource, I googled the Babylonian Creation Story and came up with Cliff Notes of clashing Titans whose guts create the heavens and the earth, a cleansing flood that that was supposed to wipe out human beings except a husband and his wife survive. One god had to convince the other god with soft words that it’s okay. Then there was a fruitless search to the underworld for immortality. Sacrifice was used heavily to appease and solicit favor from powers beyond human control. But this is not how sacrifice work for the Hebrews, who already have the favor of God, being loved, and made in the image of God. Unlike the cosmic powers of the Babylonian gods, there is no form of justice that has to be balanced, paid back or satisfied. Our God is above any perceived cosmic force and does not answer to anyone. This challenges us to rethink what happens on the cross of Jesus and ask if God actually does require a violent sacrifice of God’s son to wipe away our sin? We already have favor with God simply because God never stops loving us. If this is so, then should we shift our focus at Easter off of the cross and focus more on the disturbance of the Resurrection? Focusing on life after death and what it means to live as resurrected people. CONCLUSION Don’t give up the God that you know for a god who tests us to see if we are worthy. When we realize that this is not our God, but a retelling of a story to keep us from sacrificing our children for our own selfish fears, then like at the end of Creation, we can enjoy a Sabbath time with God and each other. This story changes the punchline, not to kill Hebrew babies, but to be free in the gracious love of God and life. Don’t t get caught up in a God who is testing or judging us to see if we are obedient enough to deserve to be loved to life. If God is saying don’t kill your kids, then why would we think that God would sacrifice his Son to die violently as a payment for our sins on the cross. Could the twist to this story be; God loves us and gives up power, to show us a love that creates life in us beyond our death? God, through Jesus, shows us a love that forgives and is more powerful than any payment procured from a violent act. In fact, love is the only thing that can create immortality in resurrection.
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SCRIPTURE: Genesis 21:8-21
TEXT: 13As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” THEME: There are more stories about God. INTRODUCTION Today is the first Sunday that I am going to preach here then make my way to Iao UCC to preach. Christophe will meet me there and play the piano for Iao. Don’t worry I am not trying to take over their church or create a merge with our churches. Our three churches, Kaahumanu, Wailuku, and Iao are unique and minister to different segments of the Wailuku Parish. Merging our congregations would homogenize and pasteurize our ministries. But I do believe that there are somethings we could do in collaboration, with each other, that would support each other’s ministries and create new opportunities to do different things. I also need to say that the observations from today’s passage maybe different from what we may have heard, but that is part of a theological journey God has had me on. That is not to say that what we have believed is wrong, but for us to be open to understand this passage in another way. That is the nature of scripture, each time we read it we can discover something new. You don’t have to agree with me, just be open to a different observation. During this season of ordinary time or Pentecost, I decided to preach a series from the lectionary passages that have to do with food, guests, and tables. I lumped all of the gospel reading from Matthew first, and did the same with the passages from Genesis. So far, if there is any theme that seems to be emerging, it is that the community of God is for all people, all cultures, rich and poor, and even creeds. That’s just a simplistic way of saying, tax collectors and sinners are welcomed to sit and eat at Christ’s table. SCRIPTURE Genesis has us getting back to our roots. From the very beginning what God creates is “Good” not perfect. Perfection is unchangeable, divine, worthy of worship (that’s not us), but ‘good’ is changeable and has the potential for amazing improvement or terrible decline. We are certainly not worthy of worship. So then, we can understand the story of Adam and Eve not as the introduction of sin, but as a coming-of-age story of accountability. They are old enough to know better and are held to standard of being responsible for their actions, good or bad. The sin here is not disobedience, but not taking responsibility for what they have done and then blaming others instead of fessing up, and asking for forgiveness. Sin, contrary to popular belief, does not disqualify us from the love of God. God does not stop loving us until a worthy sacrifice pays the price of our disobedience. We are human, not perfect and expected to do good sometimes and bad at others. God would continue love us irregardless of our imperfections, just as we do with our children. If we, as humans can still love those who hurt us, shouldn’t God be able to do the same? This is exactly the story we have today with Abraham and Sarah. A beautiful segue to today’s passage. Abraham and Sarah finally had their baby, and Abraham throws a baby Luau. As the festivities play out, Sarah sees Ishmael (about 14 years old) playing with his younger sibling Isaac (about 2) and has a chilling realization, “Isaac’s inheritance, promised by God would somehow have to be shared with his half-brother Ishmael.” This is the same fear that Supremacists have about having to share the resources, land, opportunity, richness of our America with others. And so they keep systems of slavery in play and enforce immigration laws that make it restrictive for immigrants to become citizens of the Land of the Free, even though they are the descendants of former immigrants. This is what I love about the Bible. The Bible is not a record of our successes and victories, but a collection of our stories with God good and bad. In this passage we have to admit that Abraham was a slave owner and his wife a racist. Perfection is not a prerequisite for being the people in relationship with God, being able to grow, change, and be transformed by love is. God can forgive us so we can do better. Abraham loves Ishmael. He is part of his family, even if, as a result of his not fully trusting God. He is willing to live out the responsibility of his decision, until this ugly side of Sarah is revealed. Distressed, God comes to Abraham’s aide and tells him to do as Sarah asks, because it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for him. As for Ishmael, God will make a nation of him too, because he is also Abraham’s offspring. If we stop here, one of the things we should get from this story is that there are stories about God from the descendants of Ishmael and his family, as well as from Isaac and his descendants. Stories of God’s works, guidance, protection, provision, healing, care and character from two streams. Then Genesis gives us the first story of God working at the beginning of the Ishmaelites. Abraham prepares a box lunch for Hagar and Ishmael; one bread and a bottle of water and sets them free into the wilderness. When the help from Abraham’s household is gone, Hagar is prepared for Ishmael and her to die. There are crying prayers of desperation that God hears. Their lively hood no longer dependent upon Abraham, but on God. God sends an angel. Whenever an angel says, “Do not be afraid” be prepared for something new and good to happen. A well is revealed as the outcasts are lifted up. There are God stories beginning in the lives and family of Ishmael and Hagar. APPLICATION We have a theological lens, that has been developed through our study of our stories of God in the Bible. We have our own stories, and case studies that challenge our concepts and theories about God. When we also have stories of others, that are undeniable activities of the Holy Spirit we have to reconcile a God who works in multiple cultures, people families nations and territories. What can we learn about God when we listen to other stories? A friend of mine has been involved in AA for several years. Southern Baptist in background, he knows the identity of the Higher Power like how the Apostle Paul talked to the Athenians about the UNKNOWN GOD (Acts 17). The people in this group do not say Jesus Christ or God but over the course of these meetings, their lives are transformed by the Higher Power. The Dali Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have struck up a friendship. When Krista Tippet asked him about it on her pot cast On Being, he said, “Yes. Do you really think that God would say, "Dalai Lama, you really are a great guy, man. What a shame you're not a Christian.”?” “I think God is just thrilled because no faith, not even the Christian faith, can ever encompass God or even be able to communicate who God is. Only God can do that.” This leads me to what I heard our new General Secretary and President of the United Church of Christ say about the future of our church. She talked about intra church, where it is not enough for us to learn to be a broader community from other denominations, but that if we listen carefully enough, we can learn from other faiths, traditions, cultures, and beliefs. This is like learning more about the wisdom of God from the Dali Lama, or the Compassion of God from the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, or the interconnectedness of God from the professor of anthropology at Princeton University, Agustin Fuentes. Be respectful of others. Have a holy curiosity. Ask questions, listen, and prayerfully run what you have heard through our theological grids, pray about it, see how it matches up with the stories in the Bible and what more we may have to consider. CONCLUSION We are far from perfect, There is so much more for us to learn, We do not own the market on God, only one piece. God has chosen to have stories in other people, faiths, cultures, and territories. If we listen to their stories, there is a good chance that our piece of the story may be illuminated by pieces of their story and we’ll have a better story about God. SCRIPTURE: Genesis 18:1-15, (21-17)
TEXT: 6Now Sarah said, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” THEME: God of surprises provides signs along the way to keep us on track. INTRODUCTION As an Ordinary Time, lectionary theme, we will be looking at the passages that focused on food, guest and table. We are moving from the Gospel of Matthew to the readings found in Genesis around the family of Abraham and Sarah. In today’s lectionary offering, we see three unexpected table guest who are an encouragement along their journey. SCRIPTURE This story has unexpected guests, thin walls, an overheard conversation, and laughter. Sort of how God sees things, orchestrating a chance meeting for encouragement, for those on a journey of faith and hearing just what we need to hear to continue on. Let me give us a back story. When God creates in the beginning of Genesis it is ‘good,’ with the potential for doing more good or not. We were not declared as ‘perfect’ beyond improvement or change, so being sinless was never an expectation of our goodness. So, the story of Adam and Eve in the garden is actually about coming of the age and taking responsibility for their actions. They are to fess up for their actions good or bad and bear their consequences. When they don’t, God does not stop loving them, but replaces fig leaf loincloths with garments of skins and teaches them how to farm. Later Genesis fills in more stories until we get to our ancestral family; Abraham and Sarah. They are given a promise of descendants as many as the stars in the sky, land and a nation, but they are old and don’t have any children. So the least they can do is to travel towards the land God has for them. Mamre is a stop along the way in that journey, when Abraham sees three men standing near him and invites them in for refreshments. He orders up a few veal gyros as they asked about Sarah. These strangers are an encouragement to Abraham and Sarah to keep on course and presents a tangible timeline of when a promise will be fulfilled. Although Sarah is on this journey too, when she hears their prediction, she laughs. Caught off guard, surprised, relived, and happy. On a study on laughter, found that what makes us laugh has elements of surprise, whimsy, and a turn towards the unexpected, caught off guard, we let out a chuckle. When what follows is a series of events that take us down a road of adventure, laughter, unstoppable laughter ensues. APPLICATION What surprises is God showing us through signs, words of encouragement, promises, visions from the past, or visitors? How do we see beyond what we think is possible, to something new, or unexpected? Jann and I met up with the group going to General Synod from Hawaii in SFO connecting to their flight to Indianapolis. We got in at 6 in the morning. Exhausted we checked into our hotel and fell asleep. Later that evening we met for dinner. My unexpected table mate was Andy Bunn, the Executive Director of the Hawaii Conference Foundation. He is a former attorney from ChunKerr, the firm we hired to help us with the Mission Grounds Affordable Housing Project. His former responsibility at ChunKerr was on sub dividing property for condos and his former protégé is our current attorney. I was able to ask him a few of our questions about the Site Control Document that the Council has been wrestling with. Basically he said that although the language seems to be talking about selling the property its is not and we are able to retain ownership of our property and section off a portion for this project. He has also offered to talk to our Council. This was a conversation over dinner that was an encouragement along the way of the journey we have been on. At the airport leaving Indianapolis, Dorothy Lester, our former ACM was on the flight. She was seated next to Robin Lunn, the former pastor of Makawao Union. I found out that before becoming a pastor Robin had been a structural architect. We had a discussion about different uses churches in the Salem Oregon area and how some churches in close proximity of each other are collaborating their efforts, to share and utilize resources like how we have been talking. I said to her, why didn’t we have lunch together while you were on Maui? She also was an encouragement along our journey so I got her email. CONCLUSION I mapped out scriptures and sermon topic that I wanted focus on before I left for General Synod. When I sat down to write this sermon, I felt like Abraham sitting on the porch of my tent, in a lawn chair, when strangers of encouragement suddenly arrived. The laugh I gave out was sort of gave out a kind of a ‘huh’ sound. A laugh of sorts that said, “We’ll see where all of this ends up.” |
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April 2024
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