"While the Christian is the one who exists between two incomings, looking back to one in love and looking forward to the other with longing, the current moment is claimed to be awash with the Spirit."
Peter Rollins How (Not) to Speak of God
All our Advent readings were full of this duality: the coming of Christ, both the one that happened some two thousand years ago and the one we hope for that hasn't happened yet. Here we are right in the midst of Christmas (remember, in the Church, Christmas is a season of twelve days), and this is what I want to be doing: basking in love for and of and by God. I want to revel in the reality that God so loves us that God took human form and was pleased, yes, pleased to dwell with us. I want to love this God, adore this God, enjoy this God. I want to take time simply to be delighted and to brim over with love from my deepest places. I want it to be like that first night with my first child. I couldn't stop looking. Sleep wasn't even interesting; gazing at my beloved, this baby, was all I longed for and the very reason for being.
Some time later, soon perhaps, I will wonder about this second coming of Jesus, but now this first coming is enough. God is so beautiful, so utterly amazing. How could such a One be? How is it that such a One is present to me, lovable by me, held in some real sense by me? I don't understand this God I am loving. No, I still don't understand this daughter i've been loving for some sixteen years. But full understanding isn't required. I adore; I long for; I behold; I hold. And I know myself forever changed.
This is, I suppose, what it means to be "awash with the Spirt" -- to be so overwhelmed with love for the One who loves us that we are forever changed, that all is forever changed.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Who is this God and How do you Know?
“This full, radiant, glorious experience of God in Jesus Christ eventually revolutionized the whole concept of God, so that the word God itself was reimagined through the experience of encountering Jesus, seeing him act, hearing him speak, watching him relate, and reflecting on his whole career.” (Brian McLaren A Generous Orthodoxy 82)
I’m reading this book by Brian McLaren, a book about some of the changes that seem to be happening in American Christianity. Actually, it’s about McLaren’s own theology, which as he describes it, is evolving in reaction to changes in contemporary theology, new ways of thinking, and new experiences. Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence and an important thinker who believes (along with a lot of other people) that we are in the midst of a new Reformation, says “I am sure that the generous orthodoxy defined in the following pages [of McLaren’s book] is our 95 theses.” She sees the ideas McLaren presents as key to our new, emerging articulation and practice of our faith.
So, one of the issues in McLaren’s book is, simply, what is God like? During the last Reformation, Martin Luther and others proclaimed that Jesus is the best representation of God we have. Jesus is the version of God we can begin to get our minds and hearts around. If we want to know what God is like, look to Jesus.
I am intrigued by this idea of reimagining. The word reminds me that theology is our trying to describe One who is ineffable, utterly beyond our capacity to fully express, even perhaps to fully know. Yet, we are in relationship with this mind-popping God, and part of being in relationship is trying to understand, to know the other. So, we imagine. We propose. We attempt to put words to our experience, and we wrestle with the words left behind by others who have experienced God.
Think about it. How do you know who God is?
I’m reading this book by Brian McLaren, a book about some of the changes that seem to be happening in American Christianity. Actually, it’s about McLaren’s own theology, which as he describes it, is evolving in reaction to changes in contemporary theology, new ways of thinking, and new experiences. Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence and an important thinker who believes (along with a lot of other people) that we are in the midst of a new Reformation, says “I am sure that the generous orthodoxy defined in the following pages [of McLaren’s book] is our 95 theses.” She sees the ideas McLaren presents as key to our new, emerging articulation and practice of our faith.
So, one of the issues in McLaren’s book is, simply, what is God like? During the last Reformation, Martin Luther and others proclaimed that Jesus is the best representation of God we have. Jesus is the version of God we can begin to get our minds and hearts around. If we want to know what God is like, look to Jesus.
I am intrigued by this idea of reimagining. The word reminds me that theology is our trying to describe One who is ineffable, utterly beyond our capacity to fully express, even perhaps to fully know. Yet, we are in relationship with this mind-popping God, and part of being in relationship is trying to understand, to know the other. So, we imagine. We propose. We attempt to put words to our experience, and we wrestle with the words left behind by others who have experienced God.
Think about it. How do you know who God is?
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Time To Begin Anew
Well, I became overwhelmed and distracted by other things. Life got away from me. I wish I could report that this is a novel experience for me, but "life gluttony" appears to be my favorite sin.
One option would be, of course, to simply give up on the blogging idea. But words call to me, and I find myself honing my sense of my own vocation, being clearer about what my abilities and joys actually are. Sure, the dishes still need to be done, and classrooms still need to be kept cleaned, but there needs to be room for what is truly important.
So, today, on this second Sunday of Advent, I begin again. I read, and I write. I'm going to write every day, for actually I have found that I am most faithful to daily disciplines. I'm going to share some of what I'm reading: engagements with all kinds of texts.
For today, here is a poem Tracy Keenan, our minister at Covenant and my friend, shared with me last week. I find it reverberates still:
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, "Christ Climbed Down"
Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candycanes and breakable stars
Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no gilded Christmas trees
and no tinsel Christmas trees
and no tinfoil Christmas trees
and no pink plastic Christmas trees
and no gold Christmas trees
and no black Christmas trees
and no powderblue Christmas trees
hung with electric candles
and encircled by tin electric trains
and clever cornball relatives
Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory
in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck creches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery
and where no televised Wise Men
praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey
Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no fat handshaking stranger
in a red flannel suit / and a fake white beard
went around passing himself off
as some sort of North Pole saint
crossing the desert to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
in a Volkswagon sled
drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
with German names
and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
for everybody's imagined Christ child
Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no Bing Crosby carollers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30
with Midnight Mass matinees
Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary's womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody's anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable
and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest
of Second Comings
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
I did a really terrible thing last week. I wheeled around, going out the back door to my car, to a daughter at least as stressed as I was, and I raged something like the following: "Do you know what Christmas and your birthday are becoming for me? The season when I can't possibly buy enough to give you what you want! The season when I worry about money every minute."
Oh, my. Well, it's true that the season of Advent is a akin to Lent: a season of preparation that involves confession and repentance. Apparently, I decided to sin boldly in order to give myself more opportunity to repent. My poor daughter. It's enough for her to be responsible for her own life, but to make her responsible for the mess inside me is a bit much.
I'm good at railing against consumerism, but I let it get its hooks in me. I become entangled in some absurd religion in which shiny things assure emotional connection and mother-daughter intimacy. How foolish can I be?
So, I read this poem and this scene from my life, and I repent. I "turn" to another way of being. I choose life. I remember the words of Christian mystic Meister Eckhart: "We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born."
One option would be, of course, to simply give up on the blogging idea. But words call to me, and I find myself honing my sense of my own vocation, being clearer about what my abilities and joys actually are. Sure, the dishes still need to be done, and classrooms still need to be kept cleaned, but there needs to be room for what is truly important.
So, today, on this second Sunday of Advent, I begin again. I read, and I write. I'm going to write every day, for actually I have found that I am most faithful to daily disciplines. I'm going to share some of what I'm reading: engagements with all kinds of texts.
For today, here is a poem Tracy Keenan, our minister at Covenant and my friend, shared with me last week. I find it reverberates still:
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, "Christ Climbed Down"
Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candycanes and breakable stars
Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no gilded Christmas trees
and no tinsel Christmas trees
and no tinfoil Christmas trees
and no pink plastic Christmas trees
and no gold Christmas trees
and no black Christmas trees
and no powderblue Christmas trees
hung with electric candles
and encircled by tin electric trains
and clever cornball relatives
Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory
in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck creches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery
and where no televised Wise Men
praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey
Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no fat handshaking stranger
in a red flannel suit / and a fake white beard
went around passing himself off
as some sort of North Pole saint
crossing the desert to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
in a Volkswagon sled
drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
with German names
and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
for everybody's imagined Christ child
Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no Bing Crosby carollers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30
with Midnight Mass matinees
Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary's womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody's anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable
and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest
of Second Comings
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
I did a really terrible thing last week. I wheeled around, going out the back door to my car, to a daughter at least as stressed as I was, and I raged something like the following: "Do you know what Christmas and your birthday are becoming for me? The season when I can't possibly buy enough to give you what you want! The season when I worry about money every minute."
Oh, my. Well, it's true that the season of Advent is a akin to Lent: a season of preparation that involves confession and repentance. Apparently, I decided to sin boldly in order to give myself more opportunity to repent. My poor daughter. It's enough for her to be responsible for her own life, but to make her responsible for the mess inside me is a bit much.
I'm good at railing against consumerism, but I let it get its hooks in me. I become entangled in some absurd religion in which shiny things assure emotional connection and mother-daughter intimacy. How foolish can I be?
So, I read this poem and this scene from my life, and I repent. I "turn" to another way of being. I choose life. I remember the words of Christian mystic Meister Eckhart: "We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born."
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Genesis 23: Sarah dies
Reading of Sarah's death right after the last story in which Abraham seemed willing to offer up their son always reminds me that we didn't hear from her during that chapter. If this were a novel rather than a biblical account, can you imagine the scene? Jewish writers have composed midrash (commentaries on scripture) about this -- particularly more recently when consciousness of the absence of women's voices led many into writing midrash again. Midrash ask questions of the text that the text itself sometimes may or may not be interested in -- they aren't theology exactly, though they can be. Midrash remind me that the stories of the bible are to be lived with, pondered, chewed on, explored. Asking anything is fair game; bringing the story into your own life and concerns is vitally important. I'm not saying that we can make the Bible say whatever we want -- when we read well and read scripture in light of scripture we find ourselves engaged with and sometimes wrestling an Other that is far from containable and definable. But we are always looking for, listening for the Word of the Lord in and through these words, the words God would speak to us.
Scholars will tell you that this chatper is part of the Priestly tradition, reminding us that many hearts and minds worked to compose what we call Genesis. These writers were concerned with the proper way to do things and the consequences of doing things the right and the worng way. In many ancient cultures, burying your dead in a plot of land gave their heirs a holy claim to it. This is a foreshadowing of how a faithful people will dwell in the "Promised Land."
Scholars will tell you that this chatper is part of the Priestly tradition, reminding us that many hearts and minds worked to compose what we call Genesis. These writers were concerned with the proper way to do things and the consequences of doing things the right and the worng way. In many ancient cultures, burying your dead in a plot of land gave their heirs a holy claim to it. This is a foreshadowing of how a faithful people will dwell in the "Promised Land."
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Genesis 22: The Akedah
Here we go: the binding of Isaac, that wretched story where God asks a man to offer up his own child. I know more than one person who would happily rip this page of scripture out of our Bibles. This, this is the sort of story, some would say, that gives God a bad name. It’s that cranky, unpredictable, jealous, wholly unreasonable God of the Old Testament again. We really do want to share our faith you know, to learn the Bible and share it with others, but these stories from the Hebrew scriptures seem to be obstacles to that. They are so hard and they speak of scary, awful, deeply painful and challenging things that we don’t want to think of, let alone share with people we are trying to get to like God. So, this, this is the God who adores us? You can just hear the reactions: who would want to believe in a God who would ask such a thing? Abraham was either delusional or your God is cruel. You could use this sort of thing to justify all sorts of horrors. We know; we’ve seen the sort of things you people do in the name of religion.
So, here we are with our Bibles open to Genesis chapter 22. What are we supposed to do with this?
I’ve heard it argued that this story is actually in here as a sort of explanation as to why the Israelites as opposed to other peoples in the region did not sacrifice children to their God. Some read this as an analogy, a foreshadowing perhaps of God giving up God’s own son, God’s only son, Jesus, as a sacrifice. That explanation seems to make some people feel better. You can imagine how much ink has been spilled trying to digest this story, to make it palatable. But maybe we should forget the fancy theologizing and all the mechanizations and gyrations we might do to fit this story into however it is we understand God and how God works. Maybe we should just read the story.
Of course, what does that mean? What is it to read? Some of you may know that I have a draft of a dissertation hidden away somewhere. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure where it all is. I sometimes stumble across a chapter when I’m looking for something else. The work I did was about reading novels and how readers make meaning. I argue that reading is an intense, intimate, complex interaction between the words on the page, the experiences and the reality created by the consciousness behind those artful phrases, and the world of the reader, the collection of experiences and feelings and ideas held by the person reading. Reading a book then is entering into a living relationship, negotiating meaning by relating to what we encounter. Reading is relational. We relate to the story, take the stuff of our lives and let it engage with, talk to, struggle against, imbibe this other’s experience and way of telling it.
Reading scripture together, hearing the word of God proclaimed is even more relational and intricate and mysterious, for we believe that the Holy Spirit, even yet, even now, is at work in us, embodying language and doing God’s work within us. So, let us read and let us pray and let us hear the voice of the Lord.
“After these things. . . .” These three words should stop us in our tracks you know. It means, there is a context here; there are things that have happened before now that make “now” possible and meaningful and the rich reality that it is. This isn’t some stranger that woke up one day and claimed a voice in his head told him to do something crazy. We are about to read about a drama that takes place between two parties (yes definitely it involves others Isaac who certainly has an interest here and the vividly absent Sarah even), but the story here is what happens between Abraham and his God. Do you remember Abraham? Do you know his story? We’ve got the whole great 66 books of the Bible to tell us something of God, not to mention all the stuff of our lives with God, and we have the preceeding ten chapters that tell us a great deal about Abraham.
The story begins in chapter 12. Abram, son of Terah, had already followed his father away from Ur in Mesopotamia, that land between the rivers Tigris and Eurphrates. He and his wife, Sarai, were settled in Haran, and Yahweh says to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” What happens next is amazing. We read, “So Abram went, as the LORD had told him.” This is impressive stuff.
But not everything Abram does is impressive. Abram was way below the Sea of Galilee, past Bethel, past Jerusalem even, when a famine broke out in the land, so Abram went to Egypt. He was almost there when he leaned over and said to Sarai, “You know you are really beautiful, and I’m afraid these people will kill me and take you for a wife, so let’s tell everyone you are my sister and they’ll let me live.” But someone from Pharaoh’s household hears about how beautiful this woman is and Sarai is taken in as a concubine. Her “brother” Abram makes out well with this; he’s paid with sheep, oxen, slaves, donkeys, camels, but Yahweh is not pleased and the Pharaoh and his house suffer great plagues. Pharaoh has a fit, “Why did you not tell me she was your sister. Take her and get out of here.” Personally, this story has never won Abraham any points with me. Abram is not perfect. It’s clear here that God has God’s eye on Abram and Sarai, and Abram doesn’t seem to know that yet. He knows Yahweh told him to go and he went, but Abram hasn’t yet learned exactly who he’s dealing with in this LORD.
After Abram and his nephew Lot part company because the extended family has simply gotten too big, life is prosperous, but it isn’t peaceful for long. Another war has broken out and his nephew is taken captive. Abram leads his men into battle and rescues Lot. The King of Salem (or Jerusalem) Melchizedek brings out bread and wine, for he was priest of El, the God Most High, and he blessed Abram, in the name of the maker of heaven and earth.” Yahweh speaks again, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram laments, “I have no son.” And Yahweh reassures, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them. So shall your descendants be.”
“And Abram believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Centuries later Paul will write, “Abraham grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised to him as righteousness.” It’s not a creed, a set of theories, posing the right tenets that will save us. We don’t remember Abraham as a great theologian. We are saved in relationship with the Holy One, as we act in faith to be in right relationship with our God. This relationship is marked with a ritual and after sundown in the darkness, a smiling fire pot and a flaming torch pass between pieces of Abram’s offering, and Yahweh makes a covenant with Abram.
Time keeps passing, as is its wont, and still, no child, and Sarai is clearly well past child bearing years. The couple is in their 60s now. What could God be thinking? How will God possibly keep this promise? Maybe, maybe she thinks, we’re supposed to help. Maybe God means for us to take the initiative her. She gives Abram her slave-girl, her handmaiden, and tells her husband to conceive a child with this woman, for, legally, that child will belong to Sarai, as well as to Abram. Abram consents; Hagar conceives, and you’ve all watched enough television to know what happens next. Neither Sarai nor Hagar feel whole or safe or beloved or properly honored now. Sarai is mean, and Hagar runs. The angel of the LORD finds Hagar by a spring of water in the wilderness, and assures her that her son, Ishamel, will be the son of many. It is Hagar, a slave girl, one used to be cast aside that now speaks with the Holy One. She names the LORD who spoke to her, “You are El-roi.” She says, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?”
God calls us and offers us each to be an opportunity for God to bless the world. If we truly take seriously our roles as living temples of the Holy Spirit, of the living, healing, loving, forgiving and resurrecting God, the world will be blessed by God’s work through us. As people of faith we know that God may well tell us to go somewhere without telling us what will happen when we get there. We know we may not always be full of trust and our acts may sometimes belie our faith, but we also know that God will teach us and not give up on us. It is possible for us to grow in faith and in love and to love the Lord our God with our whole hearts.
So, here we are with our Bibles open to Genesis chapter 22. What are we supposed to do with this?
I’ve heard it argued that this story is actually in here as a sort of explanation as to why the Israelites as opposed to other peoples in the region did not sacrifice children to their God. Some read this as an analogy, a foreshadowing perhaps of God giving up God’s own son, God’s only son, Jesus, as a sacrifice. That explanation seems to make some people feel better. You can imagine how much ink has been spilled trying to digest this story, to make it palatable. But maybe we should forget the fancy theologizing and all the mechanizations and gyrations we might do to fit this story into however it is we understand God and how God works. Maybe we should just read the story.
Of course, what does that mean? What is it to read? Some of you may know that I have a draft of a dissertation hidden away somewhere. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure where it all is. I sometimes stumble across a chapter when I’m looking for something else. The work I did was about reading novels and how readers make meaning. I argue that reading is an intense, intimate, complex interaction between the words on the page, the experiences and the reality created by the consciousness behind those artful phrases, and the world of the reader, the collection of experiences and feelings and ideas held by the person reading. Reading a book then is entering into a living relationship, negotiating meaning by relating to what we encounter. Reading is relational. We relate to the story, take the stuff of our lives and let it engage with, talk to, struggle against, imbibe this other’s experience and way of telling it.
Reading scripture together, hearing the word of God proclaimed is even more relational and intricate and mysterious, for we believe that the Holy Spirit, even yet, even now, is at work in us, embodying language and doing God’s work within us. So, let us read and let us pray and let us hear the voice of the Lord.
“After these things. . . .” These three words should stop us in our tracks you know. It means, there is a context here; there are things that have happened before now that make “now” possible and meaningful and the rich reality that it is. This isn’t some stranger that woke up one day and claimed a voice in his head told him to do something crazy. We are about to read about a drama that takes place between two parties (yes definitely it involves others Isaac who certainly has an interest here and the vividly absent Sarah even), but the story here is what happens between Abraham and his God. Do you remember Abraham? Do you know his story? We’ve got the whole great 66 books of the Bible to tell us something of God, not to mention all the stuff of our lives with God, and we have the preceeding ten chapters that tell us a great deal about Abraham.
The story begins in chapter 12. Abram, son of Terah, had already followed his father away from Ur in Mesopotamia, that land between the rivers Tigris and Eurphrates. He and his wife, Sarai, were settled in Haran, and Yahweh says to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” What happens next is amazing. We read, “So Abram went, as the LORD had told him.” This is impressive stuff.
But not everything Abram does is impressive. Abram was way below the Sea of Galilee, past Bethel, past Jerusalem even, when a famine broke out in the land, so Abram went to Egypt. He was almost there when he leaned over and said to Sarai, “You know you are really beautiful, and I’m afraid these people will kill me and take you for a wife, so let’s tell everyone you are my sister and they’ll let me live.” But someone from Pharaoh’s household hears about how beautiful this woman is and Sarai is taken in as a concubine. Her “brother” Abram makes out well with this; he’s paid with sheep, oxen, slaves, donkeys, camels, but Yahweh is not pleased and the Pharaoh and his house suffer great plagues. Pharaoh has a fit, “Why did you not tell me she was your sister. Take her and get out of here.” Personally, this story has never won Abraham any points with me. Abram is not perfect. It’s clear here that God has God’s eye on Abram and Sarai, and Abram doesn’t seem to know that yet. He knows Yahweh told him to go and he went, but Abram hasn’t yet learned exactly who he’s dealing with in this LORD.
After Abram and his nephew Lot part company because the extended family has simply gotten too big, life is prosperous, but it isn’t peaceful for long. Another war has broken out and his nephew is taken captive. Abram leads his men into battle and rescues Lot. The King of Salem (or Jerusalem) Melchizedek brings out bread and wine, for he was priest of El, the God Most High, and he blessed Abram, in the name of the maker of heaven and earth.” Yahweh speaks again, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram laments, “I have no son.” And Yahweh reassures, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them. So shall your descendants be.”
“And Abram believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Centuries later Paul will write, “Abraham grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised to him as righteousness.” It’s not a creed, a set of theories, posing the right tenets that will save us. We don’t remember Abraham as a great theologian. We are saved in relationship with the Holy One, as we act in faith to be in right relationship with our God. This relationship is marked with a ritual and after sundown in the darkness, a smiling fire pot and a flaming torch pass between pieces of Abram’s offering, and Yahweh makes a covenant with Abram.
Time keeps passing, as is its wont, and still, no child, and Sarai is clearly well past child bearing years. The couple is in their 60s now. What could God be thinking? How will God possibly keep this promise? Maybe, maybe she thinks, we’re supposed to help. Maybe God means for us to take the initiative her. She gives Abram her slave-girl, her handmaiden, and tells her husband to conceive a child with this woman, for, legally, that child will belong to Sarai, as well as to Abram. Abram consents; Hagar conceives, and you’ve all watched enough television to know what happens next. Neither Sarai nor Hagar feel whole or safe or beloved or properly honored now. Sarai is mean, and Hagar runs. The angel of the LORD finds Hagar by a spring of water in the wilderness, and assures her that her son, Ishamel, will be the son of many. It is Hagar, a slave girl, one used to be cast aside that now speaks with the Holy One. She names the LORD who spoke to her, “You are El-roi.” She says, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?”
God calls us and offers us each to be an opportunity for God to bless the world. If we truly take seriously our roles as living temples of the Holy Spirit, of the living, healing, loving, forgiving and resurrecting God, the world will be blessed by God’s work through us. As people of faith we know that God may well tell us to go somewhere without telling us what will happen when we get there. We know we may not always be full of trust and our acts may sometimes belie our faith, but we also know that God will teach us and not give up on us. It is possible for us to grow in faith and in love and to love the Lord our God with our whole hearts.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
The Cry of Ishmael
Genesis 21: 11-21
This is not the first time Hagar has found herself weeping in the wilderness. The first time she had run away after being treated harshly by Sarai. The angel of the LORD comes and sends her home; she says of herself that she had seen God and lived – an astonishing event for anyone, but for a woman and a slave? Almost too incredible to fathom. Here in chapter 21, Hagar’s grief is even greater, for the child has been born, and her son has drunk the last of the water, and she has left him to die, trying to move away from the sound of her cries until she simply seems to drown them out with her heart-rendering wailing. This time she has been sent away by the father of her child. This time God has approved of the banishment. This time she must be utterly lost. Any parent reading this text and allowing it into our hearts, must ache, must try to pull away from the horror of the image of our dying child.
But in this text, this time, the action seems motivated more by Ishamael and his cries than by Hagar. God hears the voice of the boy (a familiar motif in the Hebrew Scriptures: people cry out, people wail, and God hears and God responds). God shows her a well, water to sustain her and her son, and God assures her that they will live, that Ishmael will father a people.
And so it happens. The descendents of Ishmael, relatives of the Hebrew people, flourish. Many, many centuries later, some four hundred years after Christ has come, these people will turn to God in a way that seems strange perhaps to their Jewish and Christian neighbors. The descendents of Ishmael cry out that there is indeed One God, the One to whom we are called to submit. Islam is born.
What are we to make of our family tree? The promise, God says, comes through Isaac. The covenant that God had in mind when calling Abraham, that covenant is through Isaac and his descendants. But now we see that God is God of all peoples, revealed through relationship particularly with Jews, but God of all. Paul says that Gentiles are grafted onto the family tree through Christ, that they, we, become adopted children.
Wouldn’t we do well to remember that the people born of Ishmael are on the tree too? God heard his cry. God answered.
This is not the first time Hagar has found herself weeping in the wilderness. The first time she had run away after being treated harshly by Sarai. The angel of the LORD comes and sends her home; she says of herself that she had seen God and lived – an astonishing event for anyone, but for a woman and a slave? Almost too incredible to fathom. Here in chapter 21, Hagar’s grief is even greater, for the child has been born, and her son has drunk the last of the water, and she has left him to die, trying to move away from the sound of her cries until she simply seems to drown them out with her heart-rendering wailing. This time she has been sent away by the father of her child. This time God has approved of the banishment. This time she must be utterly lost. Any parent reading this text and allowing it into our hearts, must ache, must try to pull away from the horror of the image of our dying child.
But in this text, this time, the action seems motivated more by Ishamael and his cries than by Hagar. God hears the voice of the boy (a familiar motif in the Hebrew Scriptures: people cry out, people wail, and God hears and God responds). God shows her a well, water to sustain her and her son, and God assures her that they will live, that Ishmael will father a people.
And so it happens. The descendents of Ishmael, relatives of the Hebrew people, flourish. Many, many centuries later, some four hundred years after Christ has come, these people will turn to God in a way that seems strange perhaps to their Jewish and Christian neighbors. The descendents of Ishmael cry out that there is indeed One God, the One to whom we are called to submit. Islam is born.
What are we to make of our family tree? The promise, God says, comes through Isaac. The covenant that God had in mind when calling Abraham, that covenant is through Isaac and his descendants. But now we see that God is God of all peoples, revealed through relationship particularly with Jews, but God of all. Paul says that Gentiles are grafted onto the family tree through Christ, that they, we, become adopted children.
Wouldn’t we do well to remember that the people born of Ishmael are on the tree too? God heard his cry. God answered.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Genesis 21: 1-10
Genesis 21: Part One, verses 1-10
When I was little and we were late leaving for someplace, five children and my mom already in the car and waiting for Dad, I remember my mom muttering not quite under her breath, “That man is slower than God.”
Sometimes waiting for God to reveal something, or answer something, or keep some promise can seem like a lifetime. For Abraham and Sarah, the first real fruit of God’s promises did almost take a lifetime. Finally though, Isaac is born, and just as the psalmist will later write, “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30) Finally Sarah is laughing not with skepticism but with joy, deep and grateful and powerful joy.
I imagine that she must have fed off of that joy for quite some time. I bet that she was kind to the neighbors, forgiving to her husband, that she hummed while she worked on most days. I wonder if she wasn’t even friendly with Hagar, that other woman who had given birth to her husband’s other son. When we are feeling blessed and our joy overflows, we can be lavish with life, with our attention and forbearance and acceptance. We can afford to be generous, for we are ever so aware of all we have been given and absolutely every good thing seems possible.
But this doesn’t last forever. No, in my experience it never does. I have never been able to hold onto this joy, this abundant love and lavish grace for long enough. God does something marvelous, and I know myself to be beloved of the Holy One, and something opens up in me so that I am able to be free and whole and generous. And then, the luster of it all wears off, I guess. The everyday reasserts itself, and I fail to notice the blessings inherent in the everyday. There is no longer enough love in me to go around, it seems. I close up and hoard again, need to guard what “little” I have.
This seems to me to be what happens to Sarah. Isaac is weaned. Her baby, the only baby she will ever have, is grown into a child. Life must seem to be rushing by so fast. “Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac.” Suddenly there is not enough to go around, and she says to her husband, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” There are not enough goats or sheep or tents or valuables to trade. There is not, I suspect, in her eyes, enough love. What was lavish is now not good enough. Someone must be hurt.
We all know this drama. We’ve lived it. Sometimes we’ve been Sarah, and sometimes we’ve been Hagar. What do you think it will take for us to spend more time in the lavish places, to be more aware in every moment of the abundant and steadfast love of the One who made us and who made that other, of the One who adores us and also adores that other? Why won’t we believe that there is enough of the good stuff, enough of the love, to go around?
When I was little and we were late leaving for someplace, five children and my mom already in the car and waiting for Dad, I remember my mom muttering not quite under her breath, “That man is slower than God.”
Sometimes waiting for God to reveal something, or answer something, or keep some promise can seem like a lifetime. For Abraham and Sarah, the first real fruit of God’s promises did almost take a lifetime. Finally though, Isaac is born, and just as the psalmist will later write, “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30) Finally Sarah is laughing not with skepticism but with joy, deep and grateful and powerful joy.
I imagine that she must have fed off of that joy for quite some time. I bet that she was kind to the neighbors, forgiving to her husband, that she hummed while she worked on most days. I wonder if she wasn’t even friendly with Hagar, that other woman who had given birth to her husband’s other son. When we are feeling blessed and our joy overflows, we can be lavish with life, with our attention and forbearance and acceptance. We can afford to be generous, for we are ever so aware of all we have been given and absolutely every good thing seems possible.
But this doesn’t last forever. No, in my experience it never does. I have never been able to hold onto this joy, this abundant love and lavish grace for long enough. God does something marvelous, and I know myself to be beloved of the Holy One, and something opens up in me so that I am able to be free and whole and generous. And then, the luster of it all wears off, I guess. The everyday reasserts itself, and I fail to notice the blessings inherent in the everyday. There is no longer enough love in me to go around, it seems. I close up and hoard again, need to guard what “little” I have.
This seems to me to be what happens to Sarah. Isaac is weaned. Her baby, the only baby she will ever have, is grown into a child. Life must seem to be rushing by so fast. “Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac.” Suddenly there is not enough to go around, and she says to her husband, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” There are not enough goats or sheep or tents or valuables to trade. There is not, I suspect, in her eyes, enough love. What was lavish is now not good enough. Someone must be hurt.
We all know this drama. We’ve lived it. Sometimes we’ve been Sarah, and sometimes we’ve been Hagar. What do you think it will take for us to spend more time in the lavish places, to be more aware in every moment of the abundant and steadfast love of the One who made us and who made that other, of the One who adores us and also adores that other? Why won’t we believe that there is enough of the good stuff, enough of the love, to go around?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)