The Astonishing Event

God. the Creator, the One who spoke into nothing and made everything...

God, had everything been leading up to this?  It was so radical that nobody would have thought to even wonder if it might be possible.  So fantastic, so incomprehensible a move this would be, that all the hinting in the world couldn’t have brought it to mind for anyone.  It was inconceivable. Ludicrous, even. Unthinkable, Impossible.

Ah, but remember? Impossibility is God’s most favorite territory, this Artist’s most preferred medium.

And so the time came for her to deliver.

The time came for the timeless one to enter time.  For the Creator to get created.  To go from beyond to being, from apart to within.  From invincible to oh, so very vulnerable.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing, nothing, nothing.  

Nothing would be allowed any longer to separate God from the ones God loves.  

No more.  

This is it. 

How to prepare? What will it feel like?  

To be one of them, with them, so completely, to dwell within, inhabit, to become flesh. To see human life from the inside, to taste and smell all the things they do, to touch them, to cry the tears of your image-bearers…

Conceiving of it all was one thing.  

Creating it, imagining what they would need, how they would live, and making them for it, watching them in their joy and their struggle, enjoying them and grieving with them, and wishing, always yearning, to be closer, to be connected.  But making it all, seeing it all.  That was one thing.  And that was something.  That was something indeed.  But this, to be what you made –to join them there, to share it all, this is something else entirely.

And now the moment was here. Finally here. God must have been giddy.

And then it happened.  

In pain and confusion, a collision of fear and joy, raw animal instinct and desperate human ingenuity, the extraordinary, ordinary, astonishing event occurred.

I wonder what it was like to draw that first breath? To smell the sharp scent of animals and hear the cacophony of creature sounds and the gentle voices giving you your name.  To feel the scratchy hay, the soft bands of cloth, the strong arms holding you steady, the kiss of a father’s beard, the thump of a mother’s heart beating against your brand new cheek.

But then, no new baby remembers their first things, do they?

The barrier is broken, people. God has come. 

The world will never be the same. 

And neither will God.  

Being where we'd never choose to be

 Psalm 126

Matthew 1:18-30

There are times in life, (we might even say most of life is this way), when things do not go like we’ve planned them to go.  When we find ourselves in utterly new territory, somewhere unimagined, un-planned for, even undesired. 

There are times in life when life directs us more than we direct our lives, and factors outside of ourselves make the decisions for us about where we are going to go, or what we are going to do, and even, who we are going to be.

This is certainly the case for Joseph.  Joseph is not the lead character in this story, so he doesn’t get a lot of press, but even so, he is essential.  The family line of David comes through him, not through Mary – so the prophecies aren’t fulfilled without him.  He is to be the father of this child, the human parent adopting God as God has adopted all of us.  That’s a little mind-boggling.  And yet, Mary at least is given the news awake and in person when an angel stands before her  – she at least has the illusion of control and agrees to participate in this scheme. She is able to ask questions and get clarification about God’s plans and how they might affect her.

But Joseph’s first inkling that his well-laid plans are meaningless occurs when he finds out Mary is knocked up.

The Christmas story – the story of God-with-us - begins with scandal and infidelity (or the strong appearance of infidelity) to this marriage, which was yet to be made complete.  For some reason, when God comes, God comes not only in impossibility– bringing to mind the creation of the universe from nothing, and life and promise from all the barren wombs of old - by taking up residence inside a virgin -  but God also doesn’t seem to mind much what people think about it.  Controversy and the appearance of guilt, the suggestion of wrong-doing cling all over this couple, and would have over just her if Joseph hadn’t decided to go through with the marriage anyway.

We’ve got the Christmas story all soft-lens sentimentalized and “holy”, but these are real people with real relationships and expectations and emotions and secrets, and it couldn’t have felt saintly and nostalgic to Joseph. It must have been a cold shock, betrayal, horror, anger, deep hurt. 

And Joseph doesn’t even get the first-person conversation, the chance to decline before the wheels are set in motion; he finds out secondhand that this is his fate.  Stone her, divorce her quietly, or go along with this whether you want to or not.   Some hand dealt to him.

And then he has a dream, which puts things in a much different light.  And when he awakes he makes his choice.  He says yes to the path he is already on anyway, and agrees to jump in - with all the implications thereof: the guilt it paints him with, the change of his own plans and life direction.  In this unexpected, unwanted life interruption, Joseph finds his new calling.

Would he have said yes to this role if he were asked ahead of time? If he knew what was coming and had a real choice? The fleeing to Egypt to protect his small family from Herod, the returning to Nazareth years later to start all over again, the worry and stress and burden of shepherding this miracle through childhood and adolescence - the enigma of raising God, disciplining God, parenting God, what must that do to you? Would he have said yes to all of it? Would we? 

When you look back at your life, knowing now how painful or challenging some of the things you’ve walked through have been, would you have said yes to them before they came?  

Lucky for us, we don’t have the choice, most of the time, to say yes to all of it, but we usually do have the choice to say yes to one little step in front of us. The one little thing within the bigger picture – for Joseph it was, don’t be afraid to take her as your wife.  That’s it.  Stick with your plans. Marry her anyway. 

And he does.  And his life goes in a massively different direction than he ever could have imagined-  than anyone could.

How do we participate with God in life? Where do we see God? Really, concretely, can you see God in life? Where? How?  I think perhaps, like Joseph, sometimes we see God when we choose to be where we already are. When we decide to open our eyes and our hearts to the possibility that even though we never would have chosen this, we’ll live here anyway. We’ll invest ourselves in this new thing that is our life at the moment. 

I’ve shared with you about my sister and her husband and their 8 year old son’s surprising foray into foster care. They went through the process of entering the system with the dream of one day adopting, and they have found themselves instead with a household full of children that can’t belong to them – a baby and her 2 and 4 year old siblings, and another 2 year old, all with various needs and sufferings. Abuse, neglect, night terrors and developmental delays - my sister’s days are filled with all manner of surprising and unexpected turns. Court visits, home visits, supervised parental visits, doctor visits, and babies visiting college finals.

My sister is exhausted, juggling the child who can’t sleep in the same room as another with the one who can’t sleep alone, the one who cries at night and the one who screams at night and the one who wakes up at 5 am to go and shake the rest of the household awake and bellow at the dogs.  This isn’t remotely what they imagined.

 

But she finds herself in the night, when everyone else is asleep, rocking this sweet baby, with her deep mahogany skin and soft dark curls, resting peacefully in my sister’s arms, she finds herself suddenly wondering how she got to be so lucky.  What had she done to deserve this moment? Holding this little beating heart in a warm bundle in her arms while the moon looks on?  She catches herself, between the fatigue and the chaos, suddenly hearing or seeing one of these little ones in their joy, or in their fear, a moment of washing a foamy head or buckling a small lap into a carseat, and she realizes that she is alive, connected, even, for the moment, contented. 

And I see her, in a situation I could never imagine being in, and one she could never have thought she could handle, and she is somehow thriving, her little family is in this together, making space in their home and hearts for these tiny lives passing through. Being this haven for them. 

And, like Joseph, (and most of us if we’re really living in love), she takes on guilt too.  She is part of a system that is broken, failing them almost as much as it rescues them - she sees how complicated all of it is and that she will eventually give them up too, eventually let them down, and no matter how hard she tries, she can’t save them.  Was it enough? Of course not. But it’s something. And while she can’t tell you with any certainty what will happen tomorrow – how many her household will hold a week from now or six months from now – she has said yes to where she is, and God has met her within it.

This is God-with-us, God who comes in. And God doesn’t always, or usually, give advance warning or veto power. God will do what God will do.

But also, there are no circumstances, no situations, no lives that are outside of God’s incarnation – no places or people with whom God is not already involved, already there, alongside. 

And so often God, life, other people’s choices- or a messy cocktail of all these factors and more - puts us in a place we never would have chosen for ourselves, opens a door and shoves us in a direction that frightens us, angers us, challenges or intrigues us, and then slams the door shut behind us and we’re stranded there - in this new and unrecognizable place, where everything about us looks different in the strange light, and the smell is unfamiliar, and we aren’t sure what to do. 

And while we have no choice, we do have a choice. To say yes to where we are. Or not to.  And I am not even suggesting that the only faithful response is to say yes, necessarily, to wherever this bend in the road takes you.  It might be more faithful to kick and flail and resist with all your might, to die resisting. 

But perhaps, in some of these moments, you are invited to plant your feet, fill your lungs with air and look the moment squarely in the face and introduce yourself.  We’re going to get to know one another, you and I.  We’re going to figure out how to live together, how to share the fridge and take down each other’s messages, because I’m apparently not going anywhere and nether are you, cancer, unemployment, new relationship, empty household.

And there is a freedom that comes from relenting. From choosing, from saying yes to where you already are – even if you didn’t plan ahead of time to be there.  Because the truth is, God can only be found right where you are.  God is not stuck in the past or dangling out the future, and God isn’t writing out some perfect plan you are expected to find and follow – God is right here, in the moment, in the situation, as confusing or unexpected as it may be. You can only really see and welcome God when you let yourself open your eyes and your heart and be where you are. 

This looks different for everyone, but is an invitation for us all.

I have asked a couple of people what it was like for them to be somewhere they didn’t choose, face something they never wanted.

Diane shares her experience this way:

Last May I discovered a lump in my breast.  I had a mammogram and a biopsy and was informed it was breast cancer.  When I learned of the cancer it was a little hard to believe.  I didn't feel sick or look different. Than I got caught up in the swirl of doctor appointments and tests and treatment discussions.  I didn't feel overwhelmed or depressed, and I just wanted to get on with it. 

 I expected to not feel well part of the time and not be able to continue doing all the things I usually do.  But I did expect to continue with most of my work and activities. I thought I would probably join a support group, but then found that there were so many people that I knew or knew of that had had breast cancer that I could just talk with them.

Having breast cancer has affected me a lot with time and scheduling.  I have lots of doctor and treatment appointments and they take priority over other things. And I have a good excuse not to do things I don't feel like doing.  My experience is tremendously affected by my body responding well to chemotherapy and the surgery going well.  My progress has given me lots of hope that I will recover.  Had I had setbacks or not responded well to the treatments, I would not feel as hopeful.

I am grateful that God is part of my life and is there for me.  Also grateful that God has been somewhere in the medical advances that have helped me so much.  God's presence created a sense of peace that no matter what happens God is there. I will probably feel the absence of God if I don't continue to recover, or if the cancer returns.

I feel like I will be a stronger person after this.  There are issues with my business and my family that I will be making some changes in.  Part of that is realizing that life is short and I can't be passive or tolerant about things I am uncomfortable or unhappy with.  The future is right now. It is no longer way off in the distance.

I don't know how it has changed my relationship with God.  This is yet to come and I will be thinking about my relationship with God, family and friends more than I have before.

This month, Barb watched her son, David head down to Florida to face a felony drunk driving charge.  She shared about it this way:

The day of David's trial I prayed for a miracle. Jail time and no felony, time served and no jail, many different outcomes than the actual and deserved verdict. I wanted the phone to show a picture of David when it rang then I would know that he was at his Florida home and safe from all of the dangers he would face in prison. When the call did come and the number was friends of ours who had spent the day with David in court, my heart just stopped and so many thoughts and feelings rushed in that I thought my heart would burst. It was like a part of me died.

Before the trial I had spent a lot of time wondering if only I had been a better mom, if only his father hadn't died, all of the what ifs. Knowing that no matter how much I loved my son, this time I could not fix anything, I just had to stand by and let all of the pain unfold. My mind told me that what happened in court was for the best, but my heart cried for all of the what ifs.

I have encountered God with a ton of prayer. I rely on him to keep David safe.  I do not feel an absence of God, I just know that he is always with me, even when I have pulled away from life God is with this sometimes crazy mixed up person. I may at times be absent, but God has a way of finding me and pulling me back to just where I belong. That may not be where I want to be but I can accept and live with that, given time to think things through.

I do not spend too much time thinking about my future because that who knows if the future is tonight or many years from now. It is very bad medicine for me to go any further than this moment. The future is now.

I have been through some pretty ugly stuff in my life and it was only by God’s grace that I was able to get through it. There have been so many times that I unknowingly put God on a shelf and then realized I had not prayed or thought of him in a very long time, it is usually when I realize that, that pain and sadness has been replaced with the gift of joy and a happy heart. Right now today it is difficult to stop the tears and pain but I do know that no matter who I shut out of my life God will remain steadfast because I am his creation and he loves me very much.

This is the week of Advent that we focus on joy. The week we talk about joy in the waiting.  But as we look at the story of Joseph – at our own lives when we find ourselves in something we don’t choose to be in – as someone said to me earlier this week, joy would be a stretch.

But that’s just it, isn’t it? 

Joy is a stretch. 

It comes when we’re not expecting it, when we’re right in the middle of the sorrow or the fatigue, and suddenly the tiny head shifts on our arm, or the gratitude for family and friends, for the gift of living, floods in and takes us by surprise. And joy stretches us starting right where we are into a moment of eternity.

God is in the midst of it. Whatever it is.  Always.  That’s the promise we celebrate and anticipate in this season.

So let us join our voices with Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist and the Prophets and, not knowing how it might change our lives or what it might do to us, let’s say anyway,

Come, Lord Jesus.




A special thank you to Callie, Barb, and Diane, for honoring us with the sacredness of their stories.

Prophets and Preparers

John the Baptist, oil painting by Jack Baumgartner, used with permission.

Isaiah 40:1-11

Mark 1:1-8

What is John the Baptist doing in Advent?  Wouldn’t he still be crawling around on the floor when the first Christmas rolls around? And yet he is a central figure of Advent, the one who prepares the way, or who cries out, “prepare the way!”, depending on where you put your quotation marks, so both, really.  The grown-up John who comes into the scene after Jesus is grown up too, bellowing in the wilderness about what God was about to do, what God was already doing without us even knowing it...  What’s he doing here?

Who are you John? You Advent invader…

What do you think about out there when the crowds have gone home and the stars are glowing above you and the sounds of the desert creatures and the wind are all the noise that’s left? What keeps you awake, tossing and turning?  What gets you up in the morning, for another day of camel hair and locusts and yelling yourself hoarse with passion and fire? 

You are pissing people off, you know.  You don’t live much longer than this – you’ll die soon for telling Herod like it is and calling him out on his adulterous marriage.  And you don’t get much sympathy from the establishment after your criticism of them and your direct competition – baptism for repentance? Really? The people can get that in the temple. The grace and forgiveness of God is already available.  For a fee… But you do it for free? All the while saying something greater is brewing and you’re just a sideshow, a warm-up act?

I’m sure you heard the story over and over in your childhood, in those few short years your ancient parents had left - between all their prophet grooming, their stories of prophets of old and messages to Israel and encouragement to listen, listen, for the voice of God, the surprise of God that would bring life to deadened wombs and laughter to creaky voices, lay mountains low and raise valleys up, bringing hope and wholeness – between all of that I am certain you heard tell time and again of when Mary came to see your mom, the moment the fetus you bumped belly homes with the embryonic Messiah, as you jumped for joy, recognizing already that everything was changing and there was nothing to do but celebrate it.

And the messages, all those prophets swimming in your mind, taught to you from Torah, spoken in story from your priest father and your devout mother – it must have meant more to you than to others…

did you three carry this secret promise, this crazy truth that you had come from impossibility and God had broken in and nobody knew it yet but the time was coming when they would all see…?

Did you ever forget? And wake up knowing there was something to remember and then have the truth wash over you in wonder once again?  That God was making good on all those promises of old, that God was coming in.

Did you recognize him in the prophesies? Jesus, I mean. Did he seem like the one? Tell the truth now – was he just so ordinary? Or did you know all along? 

What was it like, by the way, the day he came to the river, the day you plunged him under the water and the sky opened up and the voice of God claimed him? After the elation that it had come at last, were you psyched to retire? Be finished with your message? Or was it anti-climactic? Or disillusioning? Who are you now once the one you’ve prepared the way for has arrived in our midst?

If you knew then what you know now, would it all have gone the same?

Mark begins all of it with you, you know. “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God,” then he has you bursting out like you could contain the secret in silence no longer, the message ripening within your young body and mind until you had to get out of the city, flee to the wilderness and give the message room to breathe, give it space to expand or it would swallow you and everything else with its magnitude, power and incredibility. 

The others don’t begin with you – Luke and Matthew, they tell Jesus’ genealogy and his birth, and the book of John starts with the very, very beginning, with the Word of creation, but Mark starts with you.

Where would you begin the story?– I bet you’d go back to those prophets – your lifeblood, your mother’s milk, your father’s breath in your ear, whispering their messages and hope.

 

You’d begin the story by saying there were those who said it was coming… remember those voices? Remember those promises?  Then you’d say, It’s true. It’s coming. It’s already begun. You spoke fantastic visions as well, baptized with the Holy Spirit?  The very Spirit that hovered over the water at Creation claiming and cleaning us? Now?  It was a fact, you spoke these things like they were a fact – preached the future with a present tense. With a bold confidence.  Perhaps because you yourself had come from the impossibility that was becoming.  You believed it and made them believe it too.

I heard someone say once that ‘Repentance is what happens to us when the truth of who we are and who God is enters our lives and scatters the darkness of competing ideas.’ (N.B.W)  What did it look like to see so much repentance on people? Could you see it in their eyes? Was it relief? Joy? The darkness scattering, the truth seeping in… Did their faces change as the light entered their lives?  Did people feel lighter coming up out of the water than they did going down? Did seeing it strengthen your own hope and belief?

Did you know how they looked at you? How they saw you? You must have.  You dressed like Elijah, you sounded like Isaiah, you were a prophet and the people came. They came from far and wide to hear you, catch a glimpse of that modern day prophet who was just like the ones of old.  But the others thought you were dangerous, crazy, threatening.  Did that bother you? Once someone well-known and respected who spoke in front of crowds told me that what was hardest was the admiration, being admired, because you feel you either have to live up to people’s expectations or disabuse them of their notions, is that how you felt? Is that why you were always so quick and forceful to point out that it wasn’t about you at all, that you were paving the way, clearing the clutter, making the paths straight because the one who would bring life to the world was coming -?

I know what’s ahead for you too, John – when you’re in prison and you hear about what Jesus is doing and you send your people to Jesus to ask if he “really is the one who is to come or if we should wait for another?”, when you question if it all really is real.  Even you!  That doubt and fear are such an integral part of faith that even YOU wondered, faltered, you, who told everyone else it was coming, had those scary secret moments when things didn’t look like you thought they would and you weren’t sure if you could trust what you had believed. 

And his answer to you was, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

Did that bring you comfort as you sat in prison, just days away from dying? Did it put it in perspective, that what the prophets had said was really happening, and they had seen it with their own eyes?  Did it bring you peace?

 

I’d bet you never heard that after he sent away your messengers he told the crowd that you were a prophet, just like those of old, actually, more than a prophet, he declared, the One who announced the Messiah.  Then he said, “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” 

I think you would have liked hearing him say that.  About the least being great, the poor and forgotten being lifted up that way in God’s kingdom, I mean.  Maybe even more than his message to you, it would have affirmed that this is all really happening after all- God’s kingdom really is breaking in, showing how upside down we have it all.  You would have liked hearing him say that; I know it.

When you died it crushed him – he left everyone to be alone with his terrible grief.  Did that shake his faith, I wonder, bring him to doubt?  That even though God has begun and the light is in the world, the darkness is still here too, for a time?  How did he reconcile that?

How can we?

What would you say to us now about that, John?

There is no place for you in my nativity, John, you know that, don’t you?  You aren’t even a bit-player here – you come later, and earlier too, actually, but not right then, that cosmos-altering moment when God broke in, when God came for good. 

You come along with your pronouncements in this second week of Advent, and the third too, but you don’t even make it all the way to Christmas Eve.  By then you’ve done your job, you’ve prepared the way and told us to as well, and now it’s all about the main attraction. 

So, what would you have us remember or keep?

What would it look like for us to be ready to receive this Savior when he comes?

You see, we have the benefit of hindsight, we get to see all of this WAY after the fact, so we don’t have to stand on the banks of that river with the mud in our sandals and the insects buzzing around us, listening to you roar out your message and wonder whom to believe –wonder whether what you say is even remotely possible, or whether you’re just another fanatic off his rocker. We know who you are and how it all goes down from there.

So we can ask you now, and we’re willing to hear, what would you have us do? 

How can we be ready to receive our Savior?

Ah, but you’re long gone. You’re silent now.  And so it’s on us. 

See, John, it’s like this every year. 

It might have been all new and amazing to you, but we’ve beat this thing to death with jingle bells and sentiment and buried it in a sea of candy, carols and wrapping paper.  We’ve put Jesus in the manger and we like him there, he’s so cute and clean. 

And it comes around every year, too, so if we really take you seriously, how can we keep on believing? 

Preparing the way, preparing the way, for centuries we’ve been waiting and talking about all of this like it’s real, year after year we prepare the way, like you told us to, but what about it anyway? What should we be doing now? Saying now? Does God still come?  Is God still coming?

We need a little taste of your honey and fervor, I think, a sense of wonder and awe once again, a longing to be stirred enough that it feels like absolute refreshment to be plunged under and feel the water roll off us with all that keeps us in darkness, to be baptized into a promise that holds us even when we can’t see it.  To repent. 

What should we do, John?  Things are a mess, and we’re not very good at doing very much to fix it, and also at the same time most of do the best we can with what we’ve got but still never feel like it’s enough.  What is it all about, John?

But you would never really say, would you?  You’d just point your finger again at him and tell us God has come.  In the flesh.  Right here. 

“I’m just using water, people,” you’d say, “he’ll immerse you in the Holy Spirit, you’ll be surrounded by the life-creating breath of God. 

So get ready.  It will be.  God is coming.  God has come.”

And you’d leave us to the repenting, and let the truth and light invade us once again.

*****

We are here today to do as John did.  To speak fantastic visions of hope and peace like they are a fact, the future unfolding before us, within us.  To anticipate with his same wild joy, the in-breaking of God and prepare for it to happen, whenever, however it happens. 

Last week we took up the call of the prophets, to lament on behalf of a broken world, and today we take up the call of John, to foreshadow a future that is coming, to live from a reality of love and hope and peace that flips all of this upside down.

Today we are eating bread and calling it Christ’s body, even while calling ourselves the body of Christ. We are drinking - grape juice, calling it wine, - then calling it the blood of Christ, and then saying that this means something, that it has something do with life and promise, and it beckons us and seals us into something bigger than we’ll ever understand. Into God’s with-us-ness, and our with-God-ness.

And today we’re welcoming someone into membership, which is to say, we’re celebrating that we are all members of the Body of Christ, but that inside that vast and wonderful identity, those of us here in this place are on loan to one another for this little portion of our journey, and we get to be for each other the ones who fulfill promises made over us by those gone before for this time.  We get to be with each other the lamenters and foreshadowers, the prophets and preparers, who make room for grief, make room for repentance, and who speak words of comfort and hope in a broken world.  We get to be the wild and joyful reminders that God is with us.

So let’s get on with it.

Amen.

Preaching Advent's Absurdity

I've written an article entitled Preaching Advent's Absurdity for Working Preacher's "Craft of Preaching" section for the season of Advent.  Check it out, along with their other great resources for Advent!

Longing with all the Honesty of a Prophet

Advent Candle Lighting 1: Hope

In the beginning was the Word,

and the word was with God, and the word was God.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

The Word has come to live among us.

We come waiting for the light of Christ.

Tonight we remember the Prophets,

who spoke of things unseen,

giving words to the longings of a people

and their God.

Tonight we light a candle for HOPE.

Dear God,

As we begin our Advent journey we pray for hope.

Give us the courage to anticipate hope.

Hope that we are not alone,

Hope that this is not the end,

Hope that you are always with us now and you promise always to be. 

Amen.

Isaiah 64:1-9

Advent is a gift to us-  the darkness and hush of these weeks before Christmas.

A time of preparation and awareness, a waiting that lets us feel our longing for hope.  

But the first week of Advent is always jarring. We’re all turkeyed out and geared up to plunge into the Holiday season along with apparently everyone else in the world – we’re sentimental and ready, but then we come to our scripture to begin us on this journey of prayerful, joyful waiting, and we find either dire end time predictions or disconcerting lament.

Where are you God!? Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down!

Today our wait for Christmas is shaped by a view of life through the eyes of the prophets.  Throughout scripture the prophets have a profound role.  They speak to the people for God, telling the people what God has done, or will do; standing in the gap they interpret God to the people.

But they also raise their voices to God on the people’s behalf.  They interpret the people to God.  They are emboldened to convey the message back and forth, almost like the angels ascending and descending Jacob’s ladder, the prophets are both the messengers of God and the voice of the people’s true experience back to God.

Our lament tonight comes from a people who were driven out of Jerusalem into exile by the Babylonians and have just returned- some sixty years of prayers have been answered and all the hope that sustained them while they were in captivity in Babylon is coming to fruition. Finally! They are free to go home! God is going to help them rebuild and they will be as glorious as of old!

 Only it doesn’t happen that way, and all that kept them hanging on while they were in their wilderness of exile turns out to be false, or at the very least extremely overly optimistic. They return - and most of them don’t, so the disappointment starts there, but those who do - come back to a home different than when they left, it barely remembers them, and it’s not so easy to get it all up and going again. The tension and conflict between those returning and those who had moved in in their absence and those that remained behind comes to a head, and this is not turning out like anyone had believed it would when they dreamed of rebuilding their lives.  They are frustrated and disheartened.

This week our friends Matt & Annamarie were all set to move back to Jordan tomorrow – Blaze had his last day of preschool and said goodbye to his friends and teachers, they packed up and moved out of their missionary housing apartment at Luther, and were spending Thanksgiving with Matt’s family before they said goodbye and eagerly returned home. 

Then on Wednesday Matt fell down the stairs and broke his leg in two places.  Now he’s laid up with rods and pins in his leg and their dream of returning home is postponed a minimum of 8-10 more weeks, and they are really, really disappointed.

I have been watching the well wishes pour in on Facebook, and a few of them have really rattled me.  They imply – or state directly- that God must have some reason for keeping them here, or even that God made it happen and must not want them to go.  

It’s the same as when we tell people at a funeral that God called their loved one home, or pat someone’s shoulder and say God has some reason for the sickness they are going through or the layoff that pulls the rug out from under them. 

It’s our way of coming to terms with the disappointment, I suppose – or avoiding it – our way to try to find hope.  But it’s not real hope, this optimism that keeps God on a pedestal and makes us have to stuff down our disappointment or sorrow and keep a positive smile plastered on.  It’s the stuff of a holiday season, if you think about it.  And while this might be what we’ve decided it means to be a good Christian, or to honor God, it could not be farther from what a prophet does.

In this lament the prophet does a rather astonishing thing, actually.  Even while affirming God’s steadfast love, the prophet lays the blame for the distance between God and humanity on BOTH God and humanity.  Because you were angry, we sinned, because you hid from us, we rebelled. 

God, this is not like we thought it would be. It’s not like we believe it should be. It’s not like we feel was implied in our relationship with you.  We’re mad, and we’re disappointed. And we feel a little abandoned. And we get it, yes, that we abandoned you too and have really dropped our end of the relationship so maybe we even earned this, but you never were one to pay people back by what they had earned – who could stand then? No, you always acted from your own faithfulness and commitment to us, your own unending love, so will you please do that again now?

Where are you God?  The prophet boldly cries.  And this question, we discover, this very human and honest, Where are you God?  is astoundingly not a forbidden cry. It is actually a cry of faithfulness.

Only one that knows God can be there, one that has seen God in the past and believes God is capable of showing up again can utter such a cry. 

Crying out about the absence of God is an act of great faith.  It can come only from trusting in the presence of God, and grieving when God lets us down.  We let God down too-  that’s not in dispute, but here the prophet is holding God to God’s character and capacity – not ours. 

And Advent begins with this view, this call, this voice of the prophets:  To raise up on behalf of all people a great cry of disappointment, to point out God’s absence and wonder if God is going to step in and do something.

We would feel much more comfortable, perhaps, if we just tried to explain away God’s actions or lackthereof; we’re pretty good at big rationalizations that get God off the hook for the state of the world and put it all squarely on human shoulders.   But the odd invitation of both Advent and this text is to hold God to account. And certainly to be aware of what we are asking as well, that human beings would fare poorly indeed if God actually did tear open the heavens and come down and we were scrutinized by the Divine for our own faithfulness and goodness because most of us are rarely very faithful or good - but nonetheless, this text says, nonetheless, we are to come to God and ask for God’s presence.  Not based on our own righteousness or fidelity but on God’s.

And the beauty of beginning Advent this way is the irony that it represents – the prophet speaking for the Hebrew people has no way of knowing that God will indeed come down – God will indeed enter intimately into the scene - just not at all like he is asking for God to.  He has no way of knowing that God doesn’t smite enemies or come to us in power and intimidation with awesome deeds and trembling onlookers– instead God comes in utter humanity, in the weakness and vulnerability of a poor, illegitimate and homeless infant, and experiences all of it with us from the inside.

For the next four weeks our lives are going to get crazy.  We will project onto Christmas irrational expectations and nostalgic optimism, and we’ll spend more money than we should and eat more junk food than we should, and I’m just acknowledging that this is the reality and I don’t want anyone to feel too badly about it, because that’s just how it goes.

 But there is something else going on these next four weeks that is really significant and a lot less noticeable.  And it is this invitation to deep honesty, to step into the shoes of the prophets- to see the world with stark candor and not be afraid to bring our complaints to God, and also to speak into the world the hope of a God who enters in.  A God who comes near. A God who shares all of it.  And joins us just as we are.  That’s quite a celebration to anticipate.

The beginning of Advent is a chance to let down our guard, and our weird pressure about being good or right people, people who believe in the right causes and stand up for the right issues and give to the right charities and never lose sight of the larger global crises and our own cushy existence and earn the respect of our neighbors and our God with just the right attitude and faith.

No, the prophets would say. It is what it is, and we are who we are. And also, God is who God is, so God, will you be who you are?

Advent is a chance to open our eyes and hearts and minds and be brutally, refreshingly honest with God and ourselves.  Some really terrible things happen and are happening.  And we are brokenhearted about it.

And we don’t’ have to have it all worked out – how God comes or what it looks like, so we can’t even make sure we are asking for the right thing with the right motivations - we just have to ask. To speak out of our own deep honesty. 

To answer the incessant invitation of God throughout all of scripture to be in this with God! To drop all the religious and polite filters we usually put on, and to speak right to God who already knows who we are and how it is, and just longs for us to be real with each other, us and God, and who really, really likes it when we are.

We’re called to put voice to the longing. These next four weeks, we function like prophets, or rather, all together like a prophet. With boldness we call God out and are not afraid to lift up to God those things that have broken our hearts and confounded our faith and cry to God, If only you would tear open the heavens and come down?

 Wont you come down, Please?

It’s no mistake that the cry of Advent is “Come, Lord Jesus!”

Someone once said, “Hope is what is left behind when your worst fears have been realized and you are no longer optimistic about the future. Hope is what comes with a broken heart willing to be mended.” (Patricia E. DeJong in Feasting on the Word)

This Advent, let’s be people of Hope.  For each other and for the world that will be rushing through to Christmas with smiles plastered on their faces and God at a distance let’s be prophets who give voice to our longing for God’s compassion and companionship, and who recognize that the steadfast love of God holds us even when it doesn’t feel like it. 

Let’s invite God to strip away our optimism and religion so we can stand bravely with our broken hearts and the world’s broken hearts waiting to be mended.  Let’s not be afraid to see and say things as they are, and then to put our trust in the savior who crawls into it all right beside us.

Come, Lord Jesus!

Amen.

Stewards of the Story

Ephesians 1:15-23

Psalm 100

It’s a week to give thanks.  A week to pause and recognize what a gift it all is, and as complicated, messy and hard as life and relationships often are, we are so grateful for them.  It’s a week to celebrate.

Three years ago this week we had asked people in the congregation what they were thankful for, and we recorded it and played it in worship.  I listened to it again this week, and I want to play it for you.

(Recording of people answering the question, “What are you grateful for?”  Answers included family, nature, freedom to elect our own leaders, hope for an upcoming surgery, health, food, relationships…)

Here’s what I noticed when I heard it again.  Two of the voices are those of people no longer with us – together we’ve celebrated their lives and grieved their passing and benefit still from all the ways they kept the faith while they were among us.  Another voice is someone who stopped in with us for a short time, and moved on somewhere else.  A couple of the voices have grown up some, almost doubled in age from the time this was recorded.  

Another thing I noticed was how present, in the moment, contextual, the things were that people were thankful for.  A new grandbaby on the way, in the womb – surely in preschool by now, right?  Safety for a loved one in the midst of a wildfire so long since turned to fertile soil that new trees and shrubs have sprung out of.  And yet, while gratitude is really contextual, our thanks is also timeless – there are always corrupt and unstable governments, always babies being born and surgeries looming and sky and water surrounding us and our own slowing down bodies with us.  Life is strange.  Always changing, always the same. 

Perhaps this is what it means to live within the Story. There is something enduring, continuing, that is outside and beyond us, but there is also something contextual, something about this moment and these people that links us so intimately with it all as well.

Today we celebrate our part within the Story. The table is set, the china is out, we’re marking the moment.  Pausing in gratitude.

We’ve gathered today surrounded by symbols of our story from the past few months – the tree from the garden, the fire we’ve sat at while listening to the old stories, the pictures the children did of Noah’s Ark, the drawing of Joseph’s saga that materialized before our eyes as we listened last week, and the themes that have arisen from these stories all hanging behind us. 

And all the broken and selfish people we’ve met from long ago, whom God loved and claimed anyway, and through whom the blessing continued, are part of this celebration.   Because all the stories we’ve shared – as strange and prehistoric and archaic as they are- they are not so different from our own stories.  And ours wont end up being so different from those to follow.

Today we celebrate our little spot in the Story.  In gratitude and awe we pause to consider this great thing that has been placed in our hands. This thing that it is to be church together, share life together, stand with each other in suffering and joy and together love and serve and hope for and pray for a world that we’re called to stand with and for as well.  This mysterious and amazing thing that can’t be grasped, but can only be shared, that in some way we are connected with all that has gone before and all that is to come by the steadfast love of God, which never ceases, and by which we seek to be defined.  I’m ready to give some thanks for all of this.

But it’s stewardship Sunday.  If there were ever a phrase that made my skin crawl and my defenses go up, that’s it. “Stewardship Sunday.” The Sunday where somebody stands up and guilts you in to giving your money to the church – where it is implied that faith can be measured and the mind of God can be known, because we talk all about all the things God wants to do if only we would fork over the cash and let God get on with it.  Where the plug for money is subtly woven into every part of the service –  and we’re eased into it like a frog boiling slowly in a pot of water that began lukewarm. 

I was invited a few weeks ago to a jewelry party, which I learned later, was next to impossible to escape from without buying an expensive item; I mean, I might have, but I had drunk the wine and eaten the hor devours, and glanced through the catalogs, so if I slipped out without paying up how would I ever look those women in the face again?  That’s the feeling I get with stewardship – if you want to be here, you’d better ante up, or else, how will you look God, or any of us, in the face again? 

Not to mention the air of desperation about all the pleas we get this time of year – wonderful charities on the brink of shutting down, this child who wont eat if you don’t give, this public station you’ve been mooching from all this time without doing your part, this crisis that rests completely in your self-centered hands, it’s oh so overwhelming.  And I hate it.  And it’s not what God or church is about at all. 

Besides, if we’ve learned anything so far from all these stories within the Story, it’s that God doesn’t need our money, or our power; God will do what God will do, and God has a tendency, actually, to work from impossibility and barrenness, from weakness and faltering faith, with the unlikely people and in the sketchy places we’d rather not be seen.

So I approached this week with a mixture of excitement and dread – wanting to get on with gratitude, celebrating the Story, pausing to be thankful - not wanting to disrupt our true worship and life together by carrying on some campaign for money.  I wanted a chance to communicate how thankful I am for this little group of people who love and serve God, and so I was just going to set stewardship aside, until I realized with a start that beyond all the baggage it has, and all the ways it has come to mean only giving money, we actually talk about true stewardship all the time.  And it is completely tied up in gratitude and celebration.

The word “stewardship” means having the responsibility to care for something which belongs to somebody else – and that is what we do. None of this belongs to us, really, this is God’s Story, God’s ministry.  These people sitting alongside you, they are God’s people. This building, this community we’re planted within, the strangers who walk by on the sidewalk or come in to do yoga, or talk about city planning or paint in the basement, this earth and it’s aching and abundance – it all, they all, belong to God. And we have been invited to care for what belongs to God – alongside God, along with God – to be stewards of the ministry of God, and also, as Paul says, of the mysteries of God.  We prepare a table, hang up a coat, pull out a chair and invite the world to have a seat; we hold open the sacred space where Christ meets us in and through and on behalf of a world. 

Oh, may we be good stewards! For the brief and fleeting time that it is our hands holding the mystery – others are to come and so many have gone before, but for this time and place, for the here and now, it is us! - may we steward faithfully!  This rag-tag bunch of people – with all our different, rich and poignant stories, our joy and our pain, all the things that have made us who we are, people each taking our turn to be the confident ones or the fearful ones, the strong or the weak of body or mind, the doubters or the faith-holders, the givers or the receivers and so often both at the same time.  How marvelous this is! 

God is doing something here and we are part of it, we ARE it – we bear it in ourselves and between us - and thank you God, for the chance to be this, together, for this time! 

We are not "campaigning for" stewardship today.  We are celebrating our stewardship today, which means we celebrate all of the ways we participate, the ways we steward the ministry together, the ways we tell and live the Story, (and I am mostly not talking about money).  I’m talking about praying and cooking and lighting candles and changing diapers and singing and planting the garden and welcoming one another.  I’m talking about honesty and hunger and giving away your bike when someone’s is stolen, and gluing pictures with kids we may never see again as they disappear back into the foster care system but with whom we have one sacred moment, and driving our friend to chemo.

I’m talking about watching other people’s kids grow up to know you as a part of God’s family, their family, a way they see and discover what it means to belong to God; I’m talking about washing dishes and taking the recycling home to put on your own curb, and making quilts to sell so the money can be donated to local charities and handing one another a torn piece of ordinary, store-bought bread with the incredible words, “This is the body of Christ broken for you.” 

I’m talking about intentionally being the people defined first and foremost by the love of God.

And one day, when this little congregation is no more – because NOTHING lasts forever- and when WE are no more than the stories we’ve left behind, others will be stewards, carrying on the Story, living within it, celebrating and struggling just like we have. 

But for now, for this moment, we are the ones in the story, one little group in a vast collection little groups of “we” all over the world. We are the Body of Christ, the fullness of him who fills all in all.  And God’s steadfast love that we get to share here and now, endures forever and ever.  

Today is the end of the church year, Next week we sink into the darkness of Advent, but today we call “Christ the King Sunday,” which means we’re liturgically invited to crane our heads backwards and lean our eyes forwards and recognize the hand of our God from the beginning of time to the end, but most especially right here in our own lives, our own stories.  And there’s an invitation here as well.  It is to participate: oh stewards of the mystery, steward on!  But it begins by seeing that you already do – the invitation now is to notice it. Do it on purpose.  Choose it.  And celebrate it, too.  It is quite something to be invited to be a blessing, quite something indeed.

So together let’s

Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth.

Worship the LORD with gladness; come into his presence with singing.

Know that the LORD is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name.

For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

Amen.

Our "table" in worship - with hands of gratitude created in worship, and our shared prayers of thanks and mourning represented in candles

Blessed & Limping

Genesis 32:22-31

What is the defining moment of a person’s life? The point at which you become you – when everything that has happened to you and everything that will happen converge in a single moment, and who you are becomes real?  All the other moments matter – maybe even more so in the light of this single moment, maybe they all suddenly reveal their meaning, the way they were leading up to or coming out of this moment, anticipating it before it happened, flowing from it forevermore.

For Jacob, this is the moment. When his name is changed.  For Israel, born Jacob, all of life was anticipating or coming out of this moment.  And not just for him- but for all of Israel to come, for the blessing bearers and the people of God from this point onward, this is the moment that sets the trajectory.

The moment Jacob wrestles with God.

But how did he get here? In the dead of night, alone, fighting a stranger in the dark all night long until dawn, struggling to spare his own life?  How does one get to the point where there is nothing else happening but the struggle?  No sound but scuffling and grunting, panting breath and pounding blood, no sensation but falling and gripping and flailing, no awareness but the present moment, mind and body unity of hanging on for dear life so that life will not be lost, and it seems it will never end?

For Jacob, it was a tumultuous journey, and it began with his name.

It is said, that in some ancient cultures, a name could be so closely linked with the bearer of the name as to put words to something of that person’s character.  And so it was with Israel, born Jacob, son of Isaac.  Jacob is the second of twins, holding onto his brother’s heal, and so he is named, he who supplants, the one who takes over, the heel.  

So, perhaps like all of us, from time to time, Jacob lives into his label, he claws his way up and over in his deep yearning for blessing, for recognition, for place and acceptance in this a home where he is his mother’s favorite but his father loves his brother Esau best.

There are other moments, that, before this moment here, Jacob would have said were his defining moment. The biggie. The game changer. And one of them goes like this:

Now Isaac was getting older, and decided it was time to pass down the blessing to his oldest son.  He called Esau to him and told him to go and hunt some game and prepare a savory stew and bring it to him, so that he could bless him. So Esau left to do as his father had said.

But Rebekah heard what Isaac said to Esau and she went to Jacob and told him to quickly go and kill a kid from the flock so that she could prepare a savory dish, and Jacob could bring it to his father and receive the blessing intended for Esau.  But Jacob was worried that despite his father’s failed eyesight, he would be found out and be cursed instead of blessed.  “Besides,” he tells his mother, “Esau is hairy and I am smooth!”  And so they took the skin of a kid and put it on his arms and they put Esau’s clothes on Jacob, and he went into his father, bringing him the bowl of stew.

Hearing Jacob’s voice, Isaac doubted at first that it was Esau, but he reached out his hand and felt his son, and he pulled him close and smelled him.  And apparently this was enough to convince Isaac, who proceeded to give to Jacob his blessing, and the blessing of God.

Just after Jacob leaves his father’s tent, Esau returns, holding the bowl of savory stew he had prepared from his hunt, and tells his father he has returned and is ready for the blessing.  “Who are you?” Isaac cries. 

“I am Esau, your eldest son.”  

And Isaac trembled violently, and asked,  “Then who was it that I blessed? 

Blessed he was, and blessed he shall be!”

Esau cried out with a great and terrible cry, “Then bless me too father, please!”

But Isaac could not. He spoke words of heartbreak to his son instead. And Esau burned with rage towards Jacob, and plotted to kill him as soon as Isaac passed away.

But Rebekah heard what Esau was planning, and called Jacob to her.  “You must go now, to the people of my brother, at least until Esau’s anger abates, then I will send for you and you can come home.  I could not bear to lose both sons in one day.”

So Jacob packed up his belongings, and departed from his people.

And so he leaves, both the betrayer and the blessed.  But blessing or not, Jacob finds himself cut off from his family and sent out alone.  And not long after comes another defining moment. One that most certainly could have been the high point of his life – the unmistakable path-shaper.  And was, for a while anyway…

 On his journey Jacob stops for the night and lays his head on a rock and dreams. He dreams there is a ladder stretching up to heaven and the angels are ascending and descending the ladder between heaven and earth. And suddenly God is standing beside him and says,

 ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; ¹⁴and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. ¹⁵Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’

¹⁶Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!’ ¹⁷And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’

And now the promise rests within and upon this rootless, wandering, undeserving one.  As does a new awareness, both of the blessing and of the terrible guilt of what he has done.  Jacob moves on with the understanding that God is real, God is there, God has made some promises, and life is not merely what you make of it, nor is it yours to make of it what you decide.

Twenty years follow. Twenty years in which Jacob’s cunning and deception are on full display, and so is karma, because Jacob gets from his uncle/father in law the same kind of deceit and trickery he practices. Twenty years pass, during which his mother Rebekah dies without ever summoning him home; his brother Esau and father Isaac move on with their lives, and he himself has eleven children between two wives and two concubines.  Twenty years in which Jacob struggles and strives for success and recognition, in which he knows love and loss, is cheated and vindicated, and all the drama of life and love and families and fortune unfold.  And finally, it is time for Jacob to return to the land of his fathers.

And so he sets out and gets ready to face Esau.  He is terrified.  He does all sorts of things to try to lessen the blow, such as sending gifts on ahead of him in waves so that Esau will receive them first and perhaps be softened towards Jacob.  He has with him everything that matters to him – his wives and children, his flocks and household, and he is aware that in a very short time he could lose it all. 

Which brings us to this night, this moment. The big one that trumps all the other big ones.  The one which could not have been reached without the others, and which makes him who he is.  Jacob brings his wives and kids across the water and then he is alone.  And with no explanation and out of the blue, a life and death struggle with a powerful stranger begins.

This is a good spot to stop for a moment and remember that for all the ways this is Jacob’s story, this is first and foremost God’s story. We must keep reminding ourselves of this as we go, because if we don’t we either dismiss them as someone else’s “stories,” having nothing to do with us and even less to do with reality, or we try to make them all about ourselves – pulling from their lives lessons to apply to our own belief and behavior, turning these messy, complicated human beings into two dimensional characters, archetypes, illustrations and saints. 

But this is God’s Story.  And for that reason it is also Jacob’s, and ours.  But in a far more significant way.

And so we see that before Jacob can face his brother, he must face God, and himself, for that matter. And God must face him.  The one who supplants is now confronted with a force he cannot undermine or overcome.  All night long, he struggles.  And what must this be like? What could be going through a person’s head at a time like this?  Will I die? Will I prevail?  Who am I fighting? And why am I fighting?

Have you ever found yourself sitting in front of a movie, and a sad thing happens to a character – their mother dies or their child disowns them – and you find yourself weeping?  Not for this fictional person at all, but for the places in your own life where you’ve disowned, buried or lost another?  Have you ever found your anger kindled at traffic, or broken technology, or asinine comments from a politician, and realized with a start that the irrational rage bubbling up has a different source entirely? That it may have more to do with broken promises than broken technology, or shame over your own foolish and arrogant comments that have hurt another?

 “In the night,” it has been said, “the divine antagonist tends to take on the features of others with whom we struggle in the day.” (Walter Bruggeman - Genesis)

And so Jacob struggles.  And perhaps all the struggles of his whole life arise and work themselves into and out of this battle.  And a curious thing happens. He doesn’t lose. He holds his own.  And when his assailant realizes he is not giving up or wearing out, that Jacob wont be defeated, he strikes him on his hip.  This is a serious injury, not a battle scar, but a lifelong crippling.  And he says to Jacob, “Let me go, for day is about to break.” But Jacob, the cheeky heel, says aloud the longing of his whole life, and demands that his opponent bless him. 

And so it comes to this – what is your name? Who are you?

And he answers that he is Jacob. Jacob – heel/trickster/overreacher/supplanter.

But the man replies that this is no longer his name.  That now his name shall be Israel – God rules/God preserves/God protects, because he has striven with God and prevailed.  And his belonging shifts, from himself to God.

And then Jacob - because, why not? - demands to know the man’s name; because knowing someone’s name is power, knowing a name is possessing and revealing something about the being it represents.  But the man will not tell Jacob his name, and so while Jacob is given a new name, God remains a mystery.

And there is an unsettled and unsettling ambiguity as to just who is powerful in this exchange, and who is weak.  And there’s an astonishing inference about divine and human roles, strength and weakness, and God’s relationship with humanity that might find echoes centuries later in the Story when the Creator of the whole cosmos hangs limp and broken on a cross, and when the symbols of God’s relationship to humanity are not thrones and trophies, but spilled blood and poured water and torn bread.  Power and weakness, God and humanity, it’s unclear sometimes who is prevailing - What does God want from us? How does God relate with us?  One wonders.

Now the blessed Jacob rises, exhausted, wrung out, injured and made clean. 

“I have seen God face to face and lived.” he says.

And now he is ready to face his brother.

I imagine him passing back through the water and climbing the banks as the sun is coming up, returning to his family and looking different. Broken and whole at the same time. Blessed and injured.  He is made new. And they see him coming over the ridge and squint in the rising sun, looking twice to discern who it is that approaches.

Jacob swaggers, you see. But this one, Israel, he limps.

Because sometimes newness looks like limping.

And so, that day, Jacob is reunited with Esau.  He approaches him in conquered strength, a mighty weakness, with humility and deference to Esau’s justified anger, not expecting mercy, but Esau falls on his neck and kisses him.  And Jacob responds, “Seeing you is like seeing the face of God”, because in the morning light there is something of the face of God in the forgiveness of a brother, just as there is something of a brother’s face in a piercing confrontation with the divine in the darkness.

And it’s not a completely triumphant reunion between brothers, it’s awkward and bumbling, there appears to even be more deception or distrust in the exchange, because reconciliation among human beings is never as clean and simple as we like to think it is, and because we are who we are, and patterns of relating are hard to break.  But there it is anyway.  And when Isaac dies, the two sons, side by side, bury their father.  

And the Story continues.

And it makes me want to know, as I look around this room full of complicated and messy human beings chosen and loved by God, What are our defining moments?  

Where are the places we have been invited, or forced, to wrestle with God? 

Where are the places where everything we thought we were, and the world recognized us to be, gets taken away, and we become, instead, who we are?  

How have you been made new- whole but broken, blessed and also limping?

How does the Story live in you?

I am indebted to Walter Bruggeman's Geneis in the Interpretation Commentary Series... His vivid exploration of these texts shaped my view and approach to this text. His perspective is reflected herein.