Agents of Life

 

Exodus 1-2:10 

I thought Lincoln was the one who said, “The only thing to fear is fear itself,” but it turns out that was Rosevelt. Apparently, Abraham Lincoln’s famous quote on fear was, “A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.” (aww).

 

Our story today is a story of two kinds of fear. 

First up, the fear of Pharoah. The most powerful person in the land, but he is the new guy – he doesn’t remember Joseph and the way Joseph helped save the whole empire.  There is no basis for his fear of the Israelites, but fear doesn’t need to be rational. Pharoah’s insecurity, his lens of scarcity– what we around here call The Way of Fear—means  he sees them as threat, competition, and danger.  In order to feel safe, powerful, and in control, he must squash them.  

So Pharoah oppresses and enslaves the Israelites. But still, they multiply, and his fear multiplies too, and because fear is contagious and insidious, it spreads, and it makes us see one another as other – not even human – until we can justify doing or saying terrible things and even, ultimately even ending each other. Fear takes over like a cancer, invading minds, bending wills, tarnishing souls, and conscripting human beings as agents of fear and destruction. Soon all of Egypt fears the Israelites, and Pharoah is desperate and obsessed with destroying them. 

 

But a completely different kind of fear is centered in this story. It’s shown first by the midwives, Shiprah and Puah, who happen to be pretty much lowest on the Egyptian pecking order—barren, slave, and female—and who have real reason to be afraid, (what with the command from the Pharoah to murder and all).  And even though they may be afraid for their lives, this other kind of fear is stronger. Twice we are told they fear the Lord.

 

This phrase is used in our bible a lot, but there is no good direct translation or easy idiom to express in English “the fear of the Lord.”   It’s not the same as the Pharoah’s unjustified and self-centered fear, or even justified fear of a powerful, hellbent Pharoah – though the overwhelmed sensation may be part of it. The meaning of “fear of the Lord” is layered, and centers around truly appreciating who God is, so it includes awe and wonder, even trepidation, but also deep trust, respect, gratitude and obedience. 

It might be said that when we fear the Lord, God and humanity are put back in proper position, and we truly, deeply remember whose we are, and so we also bravely and freely live who we are: beloved children of the Sovereign God of Shalom, who brings wholenss and healing, and calls us to love God and one another. There is no higher identity or calling. There is nothing more real or trustworthy.

 

The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, Proverbs tells us. Because these midwives fear the Lord, no matter what is happening to them or around them – and it’s really bad – nevertheless they are living bravely in The Way of God.  And it’s worth noting that while the Pharoah remains unnamed, because it doesn’t really matter who he is, a nameless agent of death –these two seemingly insignificant women are agents of life – and so we know them by name. 

 

The Pharoah’s fear begins in forgetting.  Insecurity and self-preservation drown out the story of belonging, mutuality or salvation, and when that happens, long relationships, like the one between the Egyptians and the Israelites, are lost in the way of fear. 

 

But Shiprah, Puah, and Jochebed and Miriam – they remember: God is God. And so, they trust God above all the authority in front of their eyes, the evil perpetrated by a selfish and fearful ruler, the suffering, damage and death wrought by those in power. 

Right in the middle of all that, they act for life.  They know God will provide. They respond in each moment to our belonging to God and each other by upholding humanity where they can, and speaking up where they can, and being ready to act when and where they can. And God makes a way – for them and through them.  

 

The women in this story are all partners in the salvation of God. They join with the God of life in bringing life.  And the defeat of the evil empire, the freeing of slaves, and the defining story of the children of God that will unfold in the decades to come, which will shape the trajectory of the salvation story for you and me too, is set in motion through the hands and actions of these women: The midwives who saved countless infants and delivered baby Moses into the world, the mother who loved and guarded him and then let him go into the water, the sister who watched over him, and spoke to power and returned him to his mother’s care, and also, surprisingly, the Egyptian princess who drew him from the water and claimed him as her own. 

 

Because while we might expect to see the Israelites as heroes of the story, who we do not expect to see as an agent of salvation is the enemy’s daughter.  At the moment a pampered princess lifts a doomed baby from the river, her life turns toward the other in love, and his role is cast. She will raise him right under the Pharoah’s nose and God will use him to set the people free. 

 

God is greater than our stereotypes, and even our firmly held convictions, and God uses whom God chooses. Not only can God NOT be thwarted, but God’s preferred methods thwart our divisions. No power or principality, no selfish, insecure despot, no extraordinary evil or everyday unfriendliness can derail God’s salvation of the world, and God brings that salvation mostly through ordinary people in acts of simple humanity.  

 

The world is filled with pain and suffering, and none is exempt. But life happens anyway, and death cannot stop it. When in our forgetting we succumb to fear, and our longing to feel safe, powerful, and in control is the biggest and loudest thing, the temptation is to turn inward in self protection, and to make exceptions to belonging. We decide that some people – because of their selfish actions, or cruel words, or stupid beliefs, or contrary votes – don’t belong to us and we don’t belong to them. That they are not our problem or our responsibility, or they have no wisdom or kindness to contribute to our lives, or we have no calling in common or work to share.  But that is not how this works. 

 

That we are in this together, given to each other, is not ours to decide. It’s the proper ordering of thin 

 

I thought Lincoln was the one who said, “The only thing to fear is fear itself.” But it turns out that was Rosevelt. Apparently, Abraham Lincoln’s famous quote on fear was, “A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.” (aww).

 

Our story today is a story of two kinds of fear. 

First up, the fear of Pharoah. The most powerful person in the land, but he is the new guy – he doesn’t remember Joseph and the way Joseph helped save the whole empire.  There is no basis for his fear of the Israelites, but fear doesn’t need to be rational. Pharoah’s insecurity, his lens of scarcity– what we around here call The Way of Fear—means  he sees them as threat, competition, and danger.  In order to feel safe, powerful, and in control, he must squash them.  

So Pharoah oppresses and enslaves the Israelites. But still, they multiply, and his fear multiplies too, and because fear is contagious and insidious, it spreads, and it makes us see one another as other – not even human – until we can justify doing or saying terrible things and even, ultimately even ending each other. Fear takes over like a cancer, invading minds, bending wills, tarnishing souls, and conscripting human beings as agents of fear and destruction. Soon all of Egypt fears the Israelites, and Pharoah is desperate and obsessed with destroying them. 

 

But a completely different kind of fear is centered in this story. It’s shown first by the midwives, Shiprah and Puah, who happen to be pretty much lowest on the Egyptian pecking order—barren, slave, and female—and who have real reason to be afraid, (what with the command from the Pharoah to murder and all).  And even though they may be afraid for their lives, this other kind of fear is stronger. Twice we are told they fear the Lord.

 

This phrase is used in our bible a lot, but there is no good direct translation or easy idiom to express in English “the fear of the Lord.”   It’s not the same as the Pharoah’s unjustified and self-centered fear, or even justified fear of a powerful, hellbent Pharoah – though the overwhelmed sensation may be part of it. The meaning of “fear of the Lord” is layered, and centers around truly appreciating who God is, so it includes awe and wonder, even trepidation, but also deep trust, respect, gratitude and obedience. 

It might be said that when we fear the Lord, God and humanity are put back in proper position, and we truly, deeply remember whose we are, and so we also bravely and freely live who we are: beloved children of the Sovereign God of Shalom, who brings wholenss and healing, and calls us to love God and one another. There is no higher identity or calling. There is nothing more real or trustworthy.

 

The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, Proverbs (9:10) tells us. Because these midwives fear the Lord, no matter what is happening to them or around them – and it’s really bad – nevertheless they are living bravely in The Way of God.  And it’s worth noting that while the Pharoah remains unnamed, because it doesn’t really matter who he is, a nameless agent of death –these two seemingly insignificant women are agents of life – and so we know them by name. 

 

The Pharoah’s fear begins in forgetting.  Insecurity and self-preservation drown out the story of belonging, mutuality or salvation, and when that happens, long relationships, like the one between the Egyptians and the Israelites, are lost in the way of fear. 

 

But Shiprah, Puah, and Jochebed and Miriam – they remember: God is God. And so, they trust God above all the authority in front of their eyes, the evil perpetrated by a selfish and fearful ruler, the suffering, damage and death wrought by those in power. 

Right in the middle of all that, they act for life.  They know God will provide. They respond in each moment to our belonging to God and each other by upholding humanity where they can, and speaking up where they can, and being ready to act when and where they can. And God makes a way – for them and through them.  

 

The women in this story are all partners in the salvation of God. They join with the God of life in bringing life.  And the defeat of the evil empire, the freeing of slaves, and the defining story of the children of God that will unfold in the decades to come, which will shape the trajectory of the salvation story for you and me too, is set in motion through the hands and actions of these women: The midwives who saved countless infants and delivered baby Moses into the world, the mother who loved and guarded him and then let him go into the water, the sister who watched over him, and spoke to power and returned him to his mother’s care, and also, surprisingly, the Egyptian princess who drew him from the water and claimed him as her own. 

 

Because while we might expect to see the Israelites as heroes of the story, who we do not expect to see as an agent of salvation is the enemy’s daughter.  At the moment a pampered princess lifts a doomed baby from the river, her life turns toward the other in love, and his role is cast. She will raise him right under the Pharoah’s nose and God will use him to set the people free. 

 

God is greater than our stereotypes, and even our firmly held convictions, and God uses who God chooses. Not only can God NOT be thwarted, but God’s preferred methods thwart our divisions. No power or principality, no selfish, insecure despot, no extraordinary evil or everyday unfriendliness can derail God’s salvation of the world, and God brings that salvation mostly through ordinary people in acts of simple humanity.  

 

The world is filled with pain and suffering, and none is exempt. But life happens anyway, and death cannot stop it. When in our forgetting we succumb to fear, and our longing to feel safe, powerful, and in control is the biggest and loudest thing, the temptation is to turn inward in self protection, and to make exceptions to belonging. We decide that some people – because of their selfish actions, or cruel words, or stupid beliefs, or contrary votes – don’t belong to us and we don’t belong to them. That they are not our problem or our responsibility, or they have no wisdom or kindness to contribute to our lives, or we have no calling in common or work to share.  But that is not how this works. 

 

That we are in this together, given to each other, is not ours to decide. It’s the proper ordering of things- God is God and we are God’s children, made in God’s image to care for one another and the earth. Period. I don’t get to mistreat or disown siblings in the human family because I fear them or they threaten me, or because they fear me or I threaten them. It doesn’t work like that. 

 

But if we do – fear and threaten each other – will that stop God’s salvation from coming? If we act as agents of fear and death, absorbing and spreading disgust and distrust, undermining connection and reinforcing isolation, does that thwart God? 

No. God will keep using the sisters, mothers, midwifes and enemy’s daughters and do the world-saving anyway.  

 

There is so much more story to come! Moses’ life is just getting started! (Your homework between now and December is to watch The Prince of Egypt!) And while the big, epic tale of the Israelites’ deliverance is a lifetime away, make no mistake, it is coming. 

At the same time, there is no new story. As Ecclesiastes says, there is nothing new under the sun. Evil gonna evil. Humans gonna human. Pharoah Fear is no different now than it was 3500 years ago. But the fear of the Lord is the same as it was then too.  

 

You and I will inevitably fall into trap of fear and sin because we are human, and life is scary. But we’ve been redeemed by the God whose salvation works in and through common people, and who came right into all of this to share in it with us, to die our death, so nothing can dictate the future of the world – or of our own belovedness or belonging - except for God and God alone. 

So we can trust this, that is, we can fear the Lord. In awe and wonder we can appreciate God being God, and in gratitude and obedience we can recognize our calling to love and serve God and our neighbors. The rest is details.  

 

Later on, when the Israelites are free and settled in the land God has given them, and Moses’ earthly journey is almost over, God will give Moses a message for the Israelites, which is this: 

“I have set before you life and death. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him.” (Deut. 30:15-19)

 

Whether the stakes are high and alarming, or life is just ticking along as usual, the choice is set before us again and again.  Each time that happens, may the Holy Spirit help us to deeply remember whose we are, and so we also bravely and freely live who we are. You and I are agents of life. 

Amen.gs- God is God and we are God’s children, made in God’s image to care for one another and the earth. Period. I don’t get to mistreat or disown siblings in the human family because I fear them or they threaten me, or because they fear me or I threaten them. It doesn’t work like that. 

 

But if we do – fear and threaten each other – will that stop God’s salvation from coming? If we act as agents of fear and death, absorbing and spreading disgust and distrust, undermining connection and reinforcing isolation, does that thwart God? 

No. God will keep using the sisters, mothers, midwifes and enemy’s daughters and do the world-saving anyway.  

 

There is so much more story to come! Moses’ life is just getting started! (Your homework between now and December is to watch The Prince of Egypt!) And while the big, epic tale of the Israelites’ deliverance is a lifetime away, make no mistake, it is coming. 

At the same time, there is no new story. As Ecclesiastes says, there is nothing new under the sun. Evil gonna evil. Humans gonna human. Pharoah Fear is no different now than it was 3500 years ago. But the fear of the Lord is the same as it was then too.  

 

You and I will inevitably fall into trap of fear and sin because we are human, and life is scary. But we’ve been redeemed by the God whose salvation works in and through common people, and who came right into all of this to share in it with us, to die our death, so nothing can dictate the future of the world – or of our own belovedness or belonging - except for God and God alone. 

So we can trust this, that is, we can fear the Lord. In awe and wonder we can appreciate God being God, and in gratitude and obedience we can recognize our calling to love and serve God and our neighbors. The rest is details.  

 

Later on, when the Israelites are free and settled in the land God has given them, and Moses’ earthly journey is almost over, God will give Moses a message for the Israelites, which is this: 

“I have set before you life and death. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him.”

 

Whether the stakes are high and alarming, or life is just ticking along as usual, the choice is set before us again and again.  Each time that happens, may the Holy Spirit help us to deeply remember whose we are, and so we also bravely and freely live who we are. 

You and I are agents of life. 

Amen.

A Prayer After the 2024 Election

 

 A Prayer After the 2024 Election

by Kara K. Root

God, election day has happened.

I have fears and worries. 

Dark thoughts keep me up in the night. 

The world seems fraught and fragile.

 I feel defensive, guarded, on edge.

I am protecting

the vulnerable parts of myself,

and thinking of the future I want for those I love:

safety and inclusion,

purpose and connection, 

mutuality and joy,

a life with hope.

 

But I’m convinced this future is under threat.

So I keep listening to the voices, and watching the screens,

 that repeat back to me

 my fears and worries.

At first, this helps. 

My fears are justified! My worries are validated!

But mostly it brings despair.

And I stay defensive, guarded and on edge.

And the world seems fraught and fragile.

And dark thoughts keep me up in the night. 

 

God, election day has happened.

The people I don’t trust, don’t agree with, and don’t know:

They have fears and worries. 

Dark thoughts keep them up in the night. 

The world seems fraught and fragile.

 They feel defensive, guarded, on edge.

They are protecting

the vulnerable parts of themselves,

and thinking of the future they want for those they love:

safety and inclusion,

purpose and connection, 

mutuality and joy,

a life with hope.

 

But they're convinced this future is under threat.

So they keep listening to the voices, and watching the screens,

 that repeat back to them

 their fears and worries.

At first, this helps. 

Their fears are justified! Their worries are validated!

But mostly it brings despair.

And they stay defensive, guarded and on edge.

And the world seems fraught and fragile.

And dark thoughts keep them up in the night. 

 

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy on us all.

 

No matter what we did or did not do, 

no matter what happens in our lives, country, or world,

or what unfolds in all human history,

this remains true:

all people belong to you

 and all people belong to each other.

We repeatedly forget this, 

we skillfully deny this, 

we frequently violate this, 

and we blatantly ignore this,

But our belonging to you and each other 

never stops being true.

 

Lord, may I bravely embrace it.

Make me open. Generous. Kind. Free.

 

After this election day,

Help me to love 

all my siblings in this vast, diverse nation.

Love my neighbors, whose lives touch close up,

and love the strangers to whom I also belong,

as I love my own scared and anxious soul.

Not because any of us deserves it,

more or less than anyone else,

but because you love us all, 

first, last, and always.

 

After this election day,

and no matter what comes next,

held in your love and trusting your belonging, 

may my life contribute to 

safety and inclusion,

purpose and connection, 

mutuality and joy,

a life with hope

for all.

 

Amen.

 

 

In, Through and Despite

Genesis 37, 39-50

This is the story of the family of Jacob” are the opening lines of the 12-chapter novella that wraps up the book of Genesis. It centers around Joseph, Jacob (aka Israel)’s favorite of his 11 sons, (that is, before Ben comes along, making it 12 – the 12 tribes of Israel).  

In 2012, artist Sue Hensel stood at the front of our sanctuary with a large canvas and pastels and drew this image, while I stood at the podium in the back of the sanctuary and read through the entire story of Joseph from beginning to end. 

Every time we came to the phrase, “The Lord was with Joseph” we all stopped and sang it, and then we continued with the refrain periodically throughout the rest of the story.

 

But here’s the thing, every time it’s said, “The Lord was with Joseph” Joseph is in kind of crappy circumstances. He’s sold into slavery, and “the Lord was with Joseph and he became a successful man.”

He’s thrown into jail “but the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love, he gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer.”

“The Lord was with him; and whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper – in the dungeon.”

 

Joseph was 17 when he arrived in Egypt, and into slavery. Being falsely accused by his boss’s wife lands him in that dungeon prison for many years – including the two years the baker who had promised to mention him to Pharoah after Joseph did him a solid had forgotten about him, before suddenly remembering, when Pharoah’s dream could not be interpreted by the top magicians, that one Hebrew guy in the dungeon who was good with dreams.  So by the time Joseph stands before the Pharoah and gets put in charge of Operation Outlast Famine, he is 30 years old.

When this all began, Joseph, whom the text is careful to mention is both handsome and good looking, was a cocky kid, the favorite their father, bragging about his crazy dreams to his inferior brothers and driving them crazy with rage.  

But as we follow the terrifying trajectory of his life, from stability to upheaval, from security to volatility, from ease to agony, from recognition to rejection, again and again, the constant through line is The Lord is with Joseph.  And regardless of where he is or what is happening, God keeps working through for the goodness of others. Joseph had no choice in what happened to him, no control over any of it. God did not spare him suffering, that’s not what God does, God comes into suffering with us.  And the Lord was with Joseph.

 

His brothers’ lives went a different way.  After faking Joseph’s death and selling him to slavers, they had to live with what they’d done. They had to go home and face Dad. And Jacob’s grief was crushing and continuous. He would not be consoled. And the brothers must now keep their terrible secret from their family for the rest of their lives. 

 

When they arrive in Egypt two years into the devastating famine, among the desperate crowds, they have lived these past 22 years as slaves to their guilt and shame. But the one they’d sold into slavery, who spent many of those years in captivity, had been made free long ago.  Unburdened by bitterness, outrage or ego, available to God and to those around him, the 39-year-old Joseph is unrecognizable.

 

It’s not just that his boyhood dreams have come true, and everyone is bowing to him, including his brothers, it’s that he has been formed into a person attuned to God. 

 

Later, after they’ve all been reunited and their father’s grief has ended, after everything Joseph does for his brothers - moving all their families and households there, setting everyone up in the good graces of the Pharoah and on vast stretches of land, promising to continue caring for them all through the rest of the famine, the brothers are still trapped in guilt. They still can’t accept the gift that has been given to them.  When Dad dies, the brothers are afraid Joseph will take his revenge on them. 

 

They scheme to tell Joseph that their father’s dying wish was that Joseph forgive them. But when they do, Joseph weeps. Then, using the phrase that throughout our whole scripture is our alert that what we’re about to hear is the good news that pulls us back into the Way of God, Joseph says, “Don’t be afraid!”

He continues, “Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. No, don’t be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your children.” So, he reassured them by speaking kindly to them.” (Gen 50:19-21)

 

We’ve talked about this before, but I think about it often, that the Greek word for “forgive” means literally, let go. Just let go. Stop hanging onto something, stop feeding it, clinging to it, holding the weight of it. Just let go.

 

Joseph had forgiven his brothers ages ago, but they hadn’t forgiven themselves. They were invited to let go and they kept hanging on. Set free, they were still living in the Way of Fear. 

 

What are we hanging onto that it’s hard to let go of?

 

It might not be guilt or shame; it may be anger or a story of betrayal. But right now, walking through the world in these days and hours leading up to the US election, it feels like everyone is on edge. And I wonder if what we’re hanging onto is fear itself. Apprehension. Dread. 

 

This week Barb Blue preached to me the gospel/good news that pulls us into the Way of God when she texted after her bible study, “There is no election result that can thwart God.”

 

God is about saving us, which is to say, God is about restoring us to shalom – to wholeness, reconnecting us to our maker and all our siblings on this earth. All creation belongs to God, and God cannot be thwarted. And the story of Joseph tells us there is no arrogance or rivalry, no hatred or jealousy, no horrific betrayal, no appalling violence, no cover up, no great success, no accusation or smear campaign, no captivity or languishing, no faulty memory or failed magician, no famine, or scheming, or shame, or guilt, or fear that can thwart God.

Nothing in history, in the present moment, or yet to come is bigger than God’s redemptive plan for the world. There is nobody outside of God’s sights. We’re all in this story.

 

We might have trouble tolerating our smug siblings, we might even imagine doing violence to them or fantasize about sending them far away forever.  Or we might be the ones with the arrogance problem, looking down on our brothers and sisters with disdain. Either way, God cannot be thwarted from working God’s purposes in and through any and every scenario we manage to cook up or mess up. Nothing we can do can stop God from loving the world and saving it, from loving us and saving us.

 

We can’t control what will happen. Or what will happen after that. Simply wanting one thing or another doesn’t make it so, just as fearing one thing or another can’t keep it from coming.

 

So what if, instead, we let go?  What if we accept what is, and decide to assume the inner stance of least resistance to the light that no darkness can overcome shining in us and through us? What if we practiced trusting that the Lord is with us?

 

Today we’re invited into the posture of Joseph. Not the insufferable, 17-year-old Joseph with the bragging problem, but the Joseph who had been through it, whose trust in God was deep and embedded, who had learned through two decades of unpredictability and strain to ride out the waves of both constantly changing circumstances and monotonous confinement, with his heart tuned to God. The Joseph set free by forgiveness who used the gifts he’d been given whenever they were called upon. 

Our biblical ancestors are not examples to model ourselves after, so I don’t want to put Joseph on a pedestal.  But the story is not really about Joseph, it’s about God. It’s always about God. God whose purposes cannot be stopped. And Joseph seemed to learn how to practice assuming the stance that offers the least resistance of openness to God, waiting and ready when God called on him to act.

 

Nearly seven hundred years after Joseph, David, fleeing the wrath of a murderous king (don’t worry- we’ll get to that story!) wrote this:

Psalm 36:5-7 (NLT):

“Your steadfast love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths. You save humans and animals alike, O Lord. How precious is your unfailing love, O God! All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings.”

 

What if we choose to simply move into this world today, tomorrow, and the next day, in the shadow of God’s wings? What if we practice assuming the stance of least resistance to the Holy Spirit, who hovers over chaos and breathes life into dust, hovering over our chaos and breathing new life into our world?

 

It’s not up to us to save the world, that’s God’s job.  Don’t be afraid! Are we in the place of God? As we live our lives and make our mistakes, God is not only present in our personal realities, but God’s larger purposes are unfolding in, through and despite us. We can join in on knowingly, with eyes wide open and hearts and hands readily available to listen and respond to God’s call, or we can join in by accident without our awareness or conscious involvement. We can see it and celebrate God’s salvation, or we can miss it. But we can never stop God’s redemption or prevent God’s presence. God will do what God does, and God cannot be thwarted.

Amen.

 

A Prayer for the 2024 Election

 A Prayer for the 2024 Election

by Kara K. Root

God, election day is near.

I have fears and worries. 

Dark thoughts keep me up in the night. 

The world seems fraught and fragile.

 I feel defensive, guarded, on edge.

I am protecting

the vulnerable parts of myself,

and thinking of the future I want for those I love:

safety and inclusion,

purpose and connection, 

mutuality and joy,

a life with hope.

 

But I’m convinced this future is under threat.

So I keep listening to the voices, and watching the screens,

 that repeat back to me

 my fears and worries.

At first, this helps. 

My fears are justified! My worries are validated!

But mostly it brings despair.

And I stay defensive, guarded and on edge.

And the world seems fraught and fragile.

And dark thoughts keep me up in the night. 

 

God, election day is near.

The people I don’t trust, don’t agree with, and don’t know:

They have fears and worries. 

Dark thoughts keep them up in the night. 

The world seems fraught and fragile.

 They feel defensive, guarded, on edge.

They are protecting

the vulnerable parts of themselves,

and thinking of the future they want for those they love:

safety and inclusion,

purpose and connection, 

mutuality and joy,

a life with hope.

 

But they’re convinced this future is under threat.

So they keep listening to the voices, and watching the screens,

 that repeat back to them

 their fears and worries.

At first, this helps. 

Their fears are justified! Their worries are validated!

But mostly it brings despair.

And they stay defensive, guarded and on edge.

And the world seems fraught and fragile.

And dark thoughts keep them up in the night. 

 

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy on us all.

 

No matter what we do or don’t do, 

no matter what happens in our lives,

or what unfolds in all human history,

this remains true:

all people belong to you

 and all people belong to each other.

We repeatedly forget this, 

we skillfully deny this, 

we frequently violate this, 

and we blatantly ignore this,

But our belonging to you and each other 

never stops being true.

 

Lord, may I bravely embrace it.

Make me open. Generous. Kind. Free.

 

This election day and beyond,

Help me to love 

all my siblings in this vast, diverse nation.

Love my neighbors, whose lives touch close up,

and love the strangers to whom I also belong,

as I love my own scared and anxious soul.

Not because any of us deserves it,

more or less than anyone else,

but because you love us all, 

first, last, and always.

 

This election day and beyond,

and no matter what happens after,

held in your love and trusting your belonging, 

may my life contribute to 

safety and inclusion,

purpose and connection, 

mutuality and joy,

a life with hope

for all.

 

Amen.

 

 

Either Way and Always

Jacob and Esau Embrace, by Robert T. Barrett

Episode 4: In, Through & Despite: Isaac's Family

Genesis 25-33 (especially 25, 29, 32, 33) 

There are those who are so devoted to something that they seem obsessed, willing to do crazy things, like getting up at 3:15 am every day to pray and sing Psalms for 45 minutes.  This is the first of the seven daily prayer times of the monks of the Abbey of Gethesameni  where Erin and I spent the week largely in silence and solitude (when we praying with the monks or passing notes at meals).  At 3:15 am, while the rest of the world sleeps, the monks file into the unrelentingly well-lit church to chant and pray, and then, in their long, quiet robes, slide out of the church into the cold, pre-dawn, starlit darkness. They’d pause their work and return for one more prayer time and Eucharist before I would be awake, happily joining them for prayers at the much more respectable hour of 7:30 am.

Many of these men have been in this Abbey their whole adult lives, living an exacting rhythm of work and prayer, mostly silent. They came there, and stayed there, seeking to worship God. This is the driving force of their lives, and they’ve given up everything else for this one goal. Last week, fifty or so guests left our own lives and phones behind for five days to sip from their deep well of silence and prayer.

On Friday, I did get out of bed and stumble my way to the way-too-bright church to chant with them at 3:15 am vigil. I made it through 15 minutes of struggling to keep my eyes open and my legs from folding under me. Then I couldn’t take it a second longer and would’ve sold my birthright for a pillow, so I snuck back to my bed for a few more hours of sleep. 

Today we meet someone with this kind of singular dedication, someone so important to the scripture story that his life takes up half the book of Genesis. At the beginning of today’s glimpse into his life, he is called Jacob, a name that, depending on how you point your vowels, means “heel,” or “cheater/usurper.” He is the second-born twin, who came into the world literally grasping onto his brother’s foot like he wanted to pull him back inside to be born first.  They fought so much in her womb that Rebekah had it out with God, who told her she had two nations wrestling within her and the oldest would serve the youngest, and indeed their descendants would go on to become the Israelites and Edomites.

Jacob was aptly named. Shrewd and clever, he always had an angle, a play. There are those who see life as a constant battle or game to be won, and Jacob was one of them. 

Deep inside us all, where the most vulnerable and unprotected part of us lives in profound, wordless silence - in the deep, dark, soundless part of us far beneath the bright and noisy surface, most of us don’t actually trust we are loved.  We don’t really believe we belong. We don’t accept that our lives have value. So we try to earn it, maybe by striving to be good or humble, or by disappearing the parts of us we’re ashamed of. Or, we pad our lives with distractions and protections.  Or maybe, like Jacob, we scramble and struggle and fight our way through life, believing if we don’t grab our place, it will be lost. We will be lost. Falling back on our original sin, we don’t really trust God to be God, so we take on that job or ourselves. 

In the opening retreat talk on Monday, at one point Father Carlos looked at all of us sitting there silently staring back at him and gave us a jolt when he blurted, “What? Is the love of God not enough for you?”

For all Jacob’s insecurity about his own unworthiness, and his restless antagonism with the world, he is lasar-focused on one goal. Like those monks, (who are also riddled with faults and foibles, because every human is), Jacob’s life is set toward one thing: the covenant blessing of God to his grandfather Abraham. While he may not trust his own place within it, he absolutely believes the promise of God. He’s devoted to it, pursuing it so doggedly that he’s willing to lie, cheat and steal for it.  He longs for God’s blessing to the point of obsession, to the point of struggling nearly his whole life with other people and with God for something that God had already decided would be his and that God would bring about regardless.

To the more concrete Esau, this blessing is obscure and theoretical. After a long day hunting, food sounds better to him than some far-off blessing, some bigger story he is meant to carry on or future gift he is destined to receive.  And Jacob takes advantage of his brother’s weaknesses and tricks him. Like a kid selling the family Nintendo to his little sister, knowing it’s only a matter of time before she’ll forget and it will be his again (Andy), Jacob has a long-term plan. And when the time comes, with the help of his mother, he follows through.  The blessing Jacob is after is more important to him than his relationship with his brother, more important to him even than his dying father who bestows it. He believes, at this point, that in order to belong to God, he must violate his belonging to others. Jacob against the world! Jacob in pursuit of God’s blessing “which,” as one scholar puts it, “he can never possess as fully as it possesses him.” 

Perhaps the blessing has become an idol, and Jacob has forgotten that it is not something for him to acquire, but for the living God to bestow. 

The night before Jacob goes to meet Esau, what we don’t see in today’s telling, is that he sends his family with all his remaining possessions just ahead of him to camp on the other side of a stream and he stays, the text says, “by his lonesome.”  A stranger approaches and fights with Jacob, wrestling with him all through the dark night. In the thrashing, chaotic hours of darkness Jacob’s lifelong struggle is given a concrete form and foe. When the opponent sees Jacob will not relent, he strikes him on the hip, wounding him, and still Jacob does not let go.  

As dawn begins to break the stranger tells Jacob to release him, and Jacob says, “Not until you bless me!” The figure asks his name, and Jacob answers, a confession of his person, “I am Jacob (the Heel, the Trickster).” The man responds, “You shall no longer be called Jacob but Israel” - which means One who Wrestles with God - “for you have striven with God and humans and have prevailed.” And still, this one refused to answer when Israel asks for a name in return.  

At the end of the week at the Abbey, Father Carlos told me, “God doesn’t come to us unmediated. Only through other people can we know God.”  Jacob doesn’t know his assailant; in the darkness, locked in battle he cannot see the face. And when it is all over, we’re told, “Jacob called the place Peniel” - which means, ‘face of God’- “saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been spared.’” But though God has engaged him on his terms, he hasn’t really seen God, not yet. But God sees him. Instead of expecting him to be someone he is not, God blesses who he is. Like the parent realizing that when you say to the kids, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way” that one beloved child of yours will always, always, pick the hard way, God says, You, my child, shall be called, One Who Wrestles With God. 

But also, through blessing, injury, and new identity, God reminds Jacob-now-Israel in no uncertain terms that God cannot be grasped, controlled, or claimed; God does the claiming. Indeed, the unknowable Divine let him live, but now he must face the wrath of his betrayed twin brother who may not.  

When the sun rises, Jacob, limping from having tangled with the Almighty, goes forward to confront whatever may await him. But instead of the fate he deserves, he finds forgiveness. In on the open arms and weeping embrace of his brother, God is revealed to him. And Israel, overcome, says to Esau, “Seeing your face is like seeing the face of God.”

The love of God is enough for all of us, indeed enough for this whole world. If we really, really trusted the love of God, its enoughness would fill us up and spill out of us to everyone around us. It would sweep us back into our belonging to God and each other, wash away all fear and guardedness, coax our tender selves out of our dark hiding, and quench all of our hot striving.  But this trust! It’s hard! For most of us, nearly impossible. As impossible, perhaps, as willingly forgiving someone a terrible wrong they’ve done to us. We need God’s help as much with being loved as we do loving. We need God’s Spirit to hover over our dark chaos and breathe into us new life and speak over us with joy, It is good!  And some of us will need to wrestle it out.

But God will always work in and through our circumstances and our choices to return us to God and one another, because that is where God determined we all belong.  And God will always work God’s purposes for this world in and through broken and imperfect people.

Amen.

LNPC Bible-Read Journey:

Episode 1: Creation & Sin, Adam & Eve

Episode 2: Flood & Promise, Noah (conversation - no sermon)

Episode 3: Covenant & Calling, Hagar, Abraham, Sarah

Even when we forget

Genesis 12-21 

I spent several days this week gathered in Maine with pastors who have been in a grant together for three years called “From Relevance to Resonance,” seeking to orient our lives and ministry work around the action of God. We gathered to talk about how fast our world moves, and how what keeps us human is not striving to keep up but receiving the resonant moments of uncontrollable aliveness that awaken us to the world and reconnect us to God and each other. And we discussed how we want to lead in the church to help each other pay attention to God. But even these people, who were literally there talking about trusting that God is real and really does stuff, found ourselves forgetting that God is real and really does stuff.  

It’s so easy to slip into thinking that it’s up to us – whatever it is. That we are supposed to make God’s work happen or bring about God’s future.  This is a foolish and dangerous mistake, but nevertheless, there you go. We all keep making it.

And with that, we turn to our ancestor, Abram.  God promises Abram that his descendants will number the stars, and through Abram’s line the whole world will be blessed.  But there is no way for Abram and his wife Sarai to fulfill this promise – they can’t create a multitude, let alone a single child. This blessing has to come from God. 

The covenant God made with all creation back with Noah, to never give up on the world, gets legs in the covenant God makes with Abraham. God chooses one family to know God and be in direct relationship with God, so that through them God might gather the whole beloved world into God’s Shalom, fullness of life.

So, leaving everything they know, all the ties and security they had, uprooted and wandering, Abram obeys. They go where God leads them, with only God’s promise holding them. 

But if you’ve read the whole scripture texts we’re covering today, you’ve seen that they keep on forgetting God is the one leading. And God has to keep reminding them that they are not in it to save their own skin; they are in this life to know and love God, and to let God make them a blessing to the world.  

God didn’t choose Abram and Sarai because of their great character or their unique skills. They were not especially worthy or extraordinary.  They became the people in whom God’s story is concentrated because God’s goodness and mercy can be revealed in any life, every life. God chose these people to be the ones through whom God would bless the world and so that is what happens. 

But it’s a really long wait. Really long, and even though God keeps reminding them their offspring will number the stars and will bless the world, instead of trusting God to fulfill the promise through them, Abram and Sarai get tired of waiting and take things into their own hands. They attempt to produce what God has promised to provide. 

A sure sign we’re NOT living in the covenant love of God is when we instrumentalize others.  When other people are not siblings in the human family who belong to God and to us, but obstacles to resist or despise, or objects to use or discard, we have turned our back on God and each other and made this about saving ourselves. 

So they make their slave-girl into a means to an end. They try to transcend their own limitations and their own embodiment by using her body to do God’s work for God.

Only once this thing they’ve schemed - that denies their belonging to God and violates their belonging to each other - achieves what they’d hoped it would, things get ugly. 

When the pregnancy begins to show suddenly it’s no longer like placing an order from an online shopping site. They are human beings, all, in this together. The way sin plays out, if we remember Adam and Eve, is that when we forget that God is God and we are in God’s loving care, when we violate our belonging in mutuality to one another, what comes next is shame, blaming, hiding and competing. We’ve moved ourselves to the center of our story, so the people around us become a threat. God cannot be trusted, we are lost in the consequences of our sin, unable to free ourselves from the cycles of fear, anger and selfishness that got us there in the first place. We are unavailable to God or one another, and the life-giving moments of resonance that reconnect us cannot be received. We are cut off from the life we are made for, life in relationship. Inaccessible and isolated, we only relate to the world through aggression. 

Remember, in the days of Noah, humankind became so violent, and ‘pursued only evil continually’ that they lost their humanity, and wreaked destruction on God’s beloved creation. This grieved God so badly that God almost wiped everything out, returning the world to nothingness to start over. But God’s deep love for creation and God’s mercy prevailed, and God committed to never give up on us. 

When Sarai abuses the girl she flees to the wilderness, which was like plunging into nothingness, into non-being. It’s the untamed wild where, centuries later, the Holy Spirit will drive Jesus, right after he is baptized. Barren, desolate and dangerous, the wilderness is the physical location of utter isolation. At that time deities were always attached to people and places, so to head to nowhere was to go literally into godforsakenness, to go where the gods don’t even go, to lose the groundedness in time and space that define us as creatures. She is fleeing to most certainly die.

But instead of becoming nothing, nowhere, we’re told exactly where Hagar is. “God found her by a spring of water in the wilderness- the one on the way to Shur.” 

God found her because God was looking for her. God looks for us. God goes where no decent god goes, into the wilderness and nothingness, to find us. God calls Hagar by name-  the first time she’s addressed that way in the story.  God says, Hagar, slave girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going? 

Why does God ask questions? It’s not like God doesn’t know the answers. When Adam and Eve hide naked from God in the garden and God asks, Where are you?  Of course God knows right where they are. So why ask? God asks questions to invite us back into the conversation. God brings us back into relationship and response. God addresses us as persons, and summons us back to the belonging that holds us.  

 “I am running away,” Hagar answers God. 

God meets Hagar in her despair. Tell your story to me Hagar, so it will no longer be what has power over you.Let me bear with you your experience of nothingness so that I may heal you and restore you to your true identity as one whom I care for who is called to care for others.  

After God hears Hagar and ministers to her, God tells her to go back. Not to a place, but to a person, Go back to Sarai. Humbly submit to her.  Instead of Sarai forcing her slave girl to submit, Hagar, seen by God, is going to Sarai in freedom and offering to care for Sarai. It’s Jesus’ Turn the other cheek–  a self-emptying action that requires that you see me as a person with agency, choosing to address you, another person. 

No longer as an object to use, or an enemy to despise, they must encounter one another as persons. From the nothingness of despair, Hagar is restored to personhood and agency, and sent to minister to Sarai, who is trapped in her own wilderness of regret and rage.  

 Then God makes a covenant with Hagar, giving her a future and a promise greater than any wrongs done to her. Her story will live on through generations too numerous to count – a promise mirroring the one given to Abram and Sarai. 

God pulls us out of nothingness and gathers us into the future God is bringing into the world. This is God’s future, not ours. So we don’t get to decide when or how it comes. We get to watch and join in as it comes.

Finally God gives Hagar the name for her son, swaddling him in promise before he’s even born. Ishmael means “God listens.” Then something quite marvelous happens: Hagar names God.  She is the first person in scripture with the boldness to name God. She calls God The God who sees.

Hagar returns to Sarai, and ministers to her in her despair. She shares the story of being found by God; she comes trusting in the promises of a God who sees us.   

Fourteen years later Sarai conceives, and at 90 years old her waiting finally end. God’s promised blessing is fulfilled through utter impossibility, because it’s God who acts, and not we who make God’s work happen or bring about God’s future. And Sarai, whose name meant ‘Princess’ will become Sarah, ‘Mother of Nations.’ alongside Abraham, “Father of a multitude of nations.”

And wouldn’t it be great if human beings just got it and stayed in right connection to God and each other all the time? But we don’t. Abraham and Sarah’s story continues, and they do a lot of dumb stuff with bad consequences. They keep forgetting God is the one leading. And God keeps reminding them that they are not in it to save their own skin; they are in this life to know and love God, and to let God make them a blessing to the world. And our bible includes all of that because this is not about extraordinary people doing great things, it’s about the God who chooses ordinary people to participate in God’s healing and trust in God’s promises together. 

So often in life things feel impossible and hard. But this God moves in impossibility. This God goes to the desolate places where the gods of this world will not go, and asks questions that set us free. This God listens, and sees, and calls us to minister to real people, and live into God’s future with hope. This God is so committed to loving and saving the world that God comes into this world as one of us, vulnerable and weak, and then plunges into the godforsakeness of death, so that not even that death separate us from God. 

God’s covenant with us means God’s grace comes first, before we mess up, claiming us for love. And God’s grace comes last, after all is said and done, claiming the world for love. And in the middle as we muddle, God’s grace continues claiming us for love. 

Humans can be horrible. And humans can be amazing. We can be courageous and loving, kind and brave. And we can be selfish and awful, calloused and uncaring. If the trajectory of the world were up to us, clearly, we’d be doomed. It’s easy to go down that path and assume that’s where it’s all headed. But God is real rightnow, and does stuff right here, in our very own lives, and way over there in the lives we can only watch from afar with sorrow and helplessness. God is real and doing stuff in the world.  We’re invited to trust this and join this.

Today we will baptize Imogen into the covenant family of God, this family that includes Isaac and Ishmael, Hagar and Sarah, Abraham and Noah and Eve and Adam, and you and me too. Her middle name already means “grace” in Japanese, and when we make the sign of Christ’s death and resurrection upon her, her new first name will forevermore be “Beloved, Child of God.”  

And the God who is real will really do stuff in Imogen’s life.  And we are here for it. We’re here to help her watch and join in. We’re here to listen to her stories, and encourage her in ministry, and be open together to those resonant moments we can’t control when we taste the fullness of it all. We’re here to live into the promises of God together, and practice trusting God to fulfill those promises through us. We get to practice living bravely into God’s reality even when it’s impossible, or especially then, seeing the world in all its beauty, and not shying away from its pain, because God comes into nothingness to minister to us and sends us there to minister to others.  

And because we all forget and remember together, one day, Imogen will undoubtedly remind you in some way or another of God’s grace, the love that claims us, and in this way, like those before us, we will continue to live in God’s covenant of shalom that gathers us and holds the world forever. 

Amen.