Sermons

We are doing services of Lessons, Readings and Carols during the four weeks of Advent. Because I don’t have permission to publish many of the readings, I won’t be posting the services on the website. I apologize for this, but copyright and proper crediting are important.

We’ll be back to regular postings in January.

Peace to you all in these harsh days.

Pastor Linda

Isaiah is another prophet who cried to the Lord for return and saving mercy as first Israel and then Judah were devoured by the neighboring powers. Like Jeremiah, he calls his people to task, but relies on God’s ability to change, not his people’s.

LESSON – Isaiah 63:16-17,19-64:8

You, O Lord, are our father;
   our Redeemer from of old is your name.
¹⁷ Why, O Lord, do you make us stray from your ways
   and harden our heart, so that we do not fear you?
Turn back for the sake of your servants,
   for the sake of the tribes that are your heritage.

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
   so that the mountains would quake at your presence—
² as when fire kindles brushwood
   and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
   so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
³ When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,
   you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
⁴ From ages past no one has heard,
   no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
   who works for those who wait for him.
⁵ You meet those who gladly do right,
   those who remember you in your ways.
But you were angry, and we sinned;
   because you hid yourself we transgressed.
⁶ We have all become like one who is unclean,
   and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.
We all fade like a leaf,
   and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
⁷ There is no one who calls on your name,
   or attempts to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
   and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.
⁸ Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
   we are the clay, and you are our potter;
   we are all the work of your hand.

In the midst of the prophet’s judgment and gloom come a cluster of promises. They glimmer with visions of hope, comfort and restoration. These few chapters of Jeremiah proclaim that after the judgment of exile is over, God will indeed bring the people back to the land of Judah and restore them as a new and faithful people.

 LESSON   Jeremiah chapter 33, the book of consolation:

14 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15 In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 

16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.” 

Even before Thanksgiving dishes are washed and put away, Christmas is in full swing. Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and tomorrow’s Cyber Monday surround and overwhelm the first Sunday of Advent like Assyria, Babylon and Egypt overwhelmed and oppressed ancient Israel. 

And from here it’s a rush to Christmas day and after-Christmas sales. God’s word of objection to the world’s will and way of power, commerce and consumption is seriously muted, made quite irrelevant to the bottom line. We’ve got too much to do in preparation for Christmas, too much at stake in this holiday, to pay attention to the coming of God in Christ. The irony of that will gradually sink in. 

The four weeks of preparation for the Advent of that Word are crowded with parties, shopping, cookie baking, meal planning, over indulging, over buying. It’s a bit discouraging to be an Advent people: to feel the pull of Christmas wonder and fun and holy joy, and yet hold it back, waiting, letting the longing and self-reflection have it’s day. We might recognize and appreciate the once and future sense of Christ’s coming, but even so, we get swept along in the cultural stampede of 20% off sales, this day only.

For some reason, Advent is an unexploited gem. More than a holiday or festival, it is a season – a short season for those of us with short attention spans – just four weeks. I guess wreath and candle sales are the commercial side of Advent, but that’s not much. It’s colors are blues – midnight blue so dark it’s almost black, then gradually lightening blues, brightening to pink and palest blue on the horizon, then gold as the sun rises on Christmas morn. 

It’s appropriate that Advent begins in the dark. That is where prophecy finds us. “Sorrowing wand’rers in darkness yet dwelling,” says the Finnish Advent hymn, “Plaintively sighing with hearts full of anguish…Will you help us soon, will you help us soon?”

It is a perennial question. The prophet’s task is to say “Yes” – to proclaim again the promises, to instill in their people a vision of renewal, of hope… of God.  As ancient Judah could not see the coming onslaught of Babylon, but chose to think God would always protect them as a people, so we in our day, have lived oblivious to social and environmental prophets’ words. We have preferred to stay in the dark on such matters, minding our own business, as though care of creation, the poor, and our fellow creatures is not our primary business. And even if we listen and agree, the doing is another matter altogether when it means substantial change.

Jeremiah’s prophecy was not welcomed. He was imprisoned for his discouraging words, the future of his consolations was too distant to comfort. Yes, Jerusalem would be destroyed, it was inevitable now, but the days are surely coming, he said, when God will bring return and renewal.

Historically, these promises have not been fulfilled in full, and so the day has not yet come for justice and righteousness in the land.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord…

Jewish people are still awaiting this day, this Messiah. Christians believe the day has dawned, but not arrived in its fullness. We, too, wait for peace, for justice and wholeness in the land – and more and more – for the land itself.  Ecological justice is our calling and may be our dread.

But Advent doesn’t give up. Christ has come and Christ will come again, we profess. Dark it may be, but more light and light it grows.

This Advent we are focusing on ELCA World Hunger. You may have noticed ornaments dangling from the garland or the pile of coin boxes by the door.  Each ornament represents a gift – $50 for a goat, $25 to feed a refugee family, $10 to stock a backpack with food, $15 for a rooster, $125 for a micro loan for a woman, $30 for a water filter…on they go. If you would like to give the gift, you take the ornament as a reminder of your offering and place your check in the offering plate. The coin boxes – full of quarters – can make loose change add up. $75 can be stuffed in that small box.

These gifts are little sparks of light for those who dwell with deeper darkness than we do. We can’t buy off our iniquity like carbon offsets. We must also prayerfully consider the lifestyle choices and changes our prophets call us to enact. Advent is a short season. The needs facing us are not.

Jeremiah didn’t have the assurance of Advent to work with, what he warned against was the abandonment of God. In that we have an advantage, but one that perhaps makes us lazy. We trust the love and mercy of God in Christ – that it surrounds us and upholds us, as we should, but the danger is that we rest back too easily and fail to live beyond ourselves.

Our calling as Christians in Advent (and year round) is to wait for the coming of Christ, to work for justice and peace as an embodiment of our faith, and to look for sparks of light, glowing faces, radiant hope in the people of God’s love and concern – that is, I believe, in all people – and in creatures, too. It’s a mix. We are to live in the dark, trusting in the light.

Jeremiah’s parting word for us, from chapter 14:

“You, O Lord, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name. Leave us not.”

November 19

In terms of context, in both of the church lectioneries (Revised Common and Narrative), the weeks leading into Advent are filled with passages from prophets. The destruction and hopelessness of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah provide a fitting backdrop for the end of the church year, and the promised messiah leads us into Christmas and Jesus’ birth. 

This year we’re sticking with Jeremiah. He was a prophet from the southern kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom, Israel, had already been dismantled by the Assyrians with their practice of dissimilating the conquered people – taking them out of their home lands and dispersing them throughout the conquered lands so that they lost their sense of belonging and community and peoplehood. 

Jeremiah is from Judah, but he’s from the northern edge of Judah, from the tribe of Benjamin who culturally and religiously had more in common with the tribes of the northern kingdom than Judah to the south. He is a descendant of Abiathar, one of the two chief priests of King David.

As you might remember, David united the tribes of Israel into one kingdom. Similar to his method of uniting the tribes and nation-states he conquered by taking wives from each of them, he united the two kingdoms religiously by having two chief priests. Jeremiah’s relative was the one from from Israel and associated with worship at Shiloh in the north. The other chief priest was Zadok, from the south, and the two contended for priestly control of royal religion in Jerusalem. It’s very much like the Happy Danes and Holy Danes being brought together here for the first Danish seminary. Good idea, but it didn’t work in practice – religious sensibilities, interpretations and theologies don’t mesh or make allowances for the “other”. Abiathar supported Solomon’s brother to be king after David’s death and so was banished and sent home by King Solomon. And that was the end of the priestly line of Eli.

The passage of time might soften the edges, but not change the attitudes, and cultural animosity lingers for generations. Jeremiah’s strong criticism of the house of David and the royal religion of Jerusalem is due in part to his levitical and Benjaminite heritage. He is not of the house and lineage of David, and through his oracles, presses for a return to the covenant of Moses, to the God who brought them out of Egypt. That’s not really pertinent to today’s reading, but I find it be telling and true. We live in binary systems and can’t seem to free ourselves.  Actually, it is pertinent, because God seems to be insisting on it for these people. But we might get back to that later.

Jeremiah is one of the longest books of the Bible. As a prophet, he begins his work in the year 627 BC at the end of Assyrian rule. Judah was a vassal state of Assyria. The battle of Carchemish in 605 brought King Nebuchadnezzar to power and two years later Judah became part of the Babylonian empire. Jeremiah lives through the Babylonian incursions and conquests, was among the poor left behind to tend the land and vineyards for the Babylonian armies after the exile of 587, and eventually, was forced to go to Egypt at the end of the Babylonian era, just as Persia was rising.  Jeremiah pronounces the death of one world and the birth of another. His critique become messages of destruction uttered against not only Jerusalem and Judah, but also against Egypt, Gaza (the Philistines), Moab, Ammon, Edom, Syria (Damascus), and Babylon making it clear that God is the God of all nations, whether they know it or not.

So, there’s a lot of dread and doom — years and decades of bad news as he is called upon by God to speak to his people and five successive kings who don’t want to hear any of it. Bad news from God is always unpopular, but is treason in times of national threat. To hear that God is using your enemies against you? This was Jeremiah’s calling. 

The hopeful element is that through Jeremiah, the people learned that God was still engaged with them and had a plan for their future, a new covenant that would be written upon their hearts.

We begin at the beginning of the book today – two passages: the first regarding Jeremiah’s call from God, the second, God’s rationale for bringing devastation on the chosen people.

Jeremiah 1:4-10 

1:⁴Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, ⁵“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” ⁶Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” ⁷But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you, ⁸Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” ⁹Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. ¹⁰See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

And from chapter 2, Jeremiah’s message: 

2:⁴Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. ⁵Thus says the Lord: What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?                     

⁶They did not say, “Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that no one passes through, where no one lives?” 

⁷I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruits and its good things. But when you entered you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination. 

⁸The priests did not say, “Where is the Lord?”      

Those who handle the law did not know me; the rulers transgressed against me; the prophets prophesied by Baal, and went after things that do not profit.

⁹Therefore once more I accuse you, says the Lord, and I accuse your children’s children. 

¹⁰Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look, send to Kedar and examine with care; see if there has ever been such a thing. ¹¹Has a nation changed its gods, (even though they are no gods)?  But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit. 

¹²Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord, ¹³for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.”

 “What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?

…my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit.…they have forsaken the fountain of living water and instead have dug out cracked cisterns that can hold no water.”

I mean… ouch.

There is a lot of Jeremiah that seems far away and long ago, and then there are lines like these that jump out of the pages and feel like they could be written by one of our own poets about our own time.

We’ll talk about that.

The first thing I want us to notice together, however, is the tone of God’s words. God is the one who forms – intricately creating life, who creates systems and inter-species interconnections that we are only now beginning to comprehend – trees and microbes and the universe beneath our feet, dark energy beyond our earth – this same God grieves the wandering away of her people, their turning away to the distractions and pleasures that prove to be worthless… or worse. It is this grieving God who sends human agents (foreign nations as well as prophets) “to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow,” and also, in the fullness of time, “to build and to plant,” to begin again. 

There is a strain of philosophy and religious thought that states that God must be immutable and impassible – unchanging and unmoved – the “unmoved Mover”, in Aristotle’s terms. This concept of God was taken into Christian thought by Thomas Aquinas – and, notably rejected by Martin Luther and other reformers. It may be that God does not experience human emotions – outside of the incarnation – but God IS compassion, IS love, IS pathos, IS righteous retribution. God IS these things that are human emotions in a fullness we can’t fathom or experience. God is the One from whom all things flow. So, to say God grieves over the wayward people, is to speak our truth – perhaps projected, but still believing that the God who IS I AM is involved in this human venture and therefore vulnerable and changeable within the divine, living BEING because of us. That is the instigation for the incarnation of God. Why else would God care, if God didn’t care?

Jürgen Moltmann is a German theologian and writer of books such as Theology of Hope, The Crucified God, and God in Creation – all on my bookshelves  — who writes,”A God who is incapable of suffering is a being who cannot be involved. Suffering and injustice do not affect him. And because he is so completely insensitive, he cannot be affected or shaken by anything. He cannot weep, for he has no tears. But the one who cannot suffer cannot love either. So he is a loveless being. Aristotle’s God cannot love; he can only be loved by virtue of his perfection and beauty… in this case, the “unmoved Mover” would be a “loveless Beloved.”*

I stress this point because, if God is an “unmoved Mover”, then these passages and biblical books depict a distant God playing chess with human life and history. And, if God is unmoved by the human predicament, where would be the motivation for divine redemption? Jesus isn’t the face of that kind of God, I would maintain, but is the face of one who is completely invested in human life and welfare. One who is worthy and receptive of our love and worship and prayer.

This all matters as we read the prophetic oracles announcing God’s judgment and destruction coming through the nations from God’s hand. It’s hard to make sense of it in any event, but I think it is necessary to read it with pathos on God’s part – genuine emotional engagement. 

“¹²Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord, ¹³for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.”  This is not petty whining about being ignored; there is anguish and longing and deep frustration in God’s words. God is forsaken, bereft.

The other thing, that only sort of helps, is to realize that God’s ways are not our ways, nor is her timeline our timeline.  Scripture helps us see that generations are sometimes simply place keepers, and that the promise is for another generation, perhaps one net yet born. That’s a really hard word for those of us who pray for specific things, specific people, specific change in our lifetime. But it is here, in these stories. Moses led a generation of Israelites in circles in the Sinai peninsula for 40 years. It was the next generation who were to receive the promised land, not any of those who were led out of slavery. In Jeremiah, God makes promises to the remnant who will survive the Exile and captivity, but mostly the promise lies out beyond them for restoration and return. In Jewish understanding, the Messiah, the Christ, (it’s the same word but in Hebrew and Greek), is always the “one who is to come.” It is the promise of justice, redemption, salvation always on the horizon, not now, not here. The kingdom is always coming. That is true in Christianity, too, and why we celebrate Advent. It is the expectation for Christ to come again, to bring in the fulness of the kingdom, the complete way and reign of God. So, in the meantime, one generation – or even more than one – suffers for the sake of future people’s benefit, for blessings they will never see.

When we read the Old Testament books, it is always in layers – some parts written looking forward with the message the prophet receives, some written looking back, with the prophet or others interpreting what was received in light of what they experienced. They see God equally at work in it all, frontwards and backwards. We make sense of our lives that way, too. Things often make more sense from hindsight.

And like Jeremiah we might be helped to remember that we are put into the middle of an ongoing story. We enter a world we didn’t create. We grow into a life already provided for us. We find ourselves in complex relationships with other wills and motives that began their trajectory before we are introduced. We are living in the middle of a story looking forward and back, surrounded by God, but barely, if at all, aware of that presence.

“What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?

There is a sting to these words, lo, these many centuries later. It implies that the current generation is acting, and soon to be acted upon, out of ignorance. We, too, know that we go after worthless things that seem important at the time. We fill our time with worthless, often mindless endeavors, and our homes and spaces with perhaps expensive, but, ultimately valueless stuff. We are busy with distractions. Busy with thoughts that lead us into dark corners or spiraling ruts. We’re busy trying to keep up pretensions of happiness or success or life satisfaction when nothing is further from the truth. We’re miserable and know it, but won’t admit it or show it. We could change things, shift our values and the way we value time, relationships, money, emotions, faith. We could – probably – do that and be better for it, happier, more valuable as friends and family members, better disciples of Jesus and the values we learn from his gospel. But admitting that we’ve got the wrong end of the stick and have been dragging it along, struggling to pull it or push it or manage it takes too much courage – because then we’d have to refocus, shuffle all the cards and re-deal, and that’s kind of horrifying. 

We can change, but it’s often only when we have to – like the Man’s Prayer from Red Green: “I’m a man—but I can change—if I have to—I guess.” It’s usually illness or injury or a pandemic that forces a change of lifestyle and values. And we’re eager to get back to the way things were before. The words of a prophet didn’t seem to effect change in Jeremiah’s day, any more than they do in ours.

“…my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit.…they have forsaken the fountain of living water and instead have dug out cracked cisterns that can hold no water.”

It’s hard to know what being faithful even means in our world today. I think it means being engaged in the forces we see for good, in trusting that, somehow, God will see it through; that we emphasize care for others over our own momentary wishes or distractions. If we consistently act with kindness and treat people with justice and remind ourselves that we are not God, but are, in fact, desired by God, and redeemed by the once and future messiah who is always coming, just  on the horizon, then maybe that is at least the basics of living within God’s grace.

May the fountain of living water sustain you and keep you coming back to its source.

Pastor Linda

*Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, trans. R. A. Wilson and John Bowden (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 222.

Last week we read of Moses and God’s instruction for how to occupy the Promised Land. This week we have moved ahead 300 to 400 years to David. Between them lies the period of Judges in which Israel was ruled or lead by military leaders like Joshua, Gideon, Samson and Deborah. After an incomplete conquest that left much of the land in the hands of their foes (the original occupants), Israel follows a recurring pattern of disloyalty to God’s instruction followed by oppression from their enemies, cries of repentance, and God sending deliverers in the form of these national or regional military leaders. In the end of the period, Israel descends into idolatry, bloodshed and a disastrous civil war. 

God delivered the people from slavery out of the hand of Egypt, leading them through the wilderness to freedom. The point of the Exodus was that they would never again need to serve another pharaoh: God would be their king – benevolent, seeing, listening, guiding.  However, Israel steadfastly wanted (and seems to need) an earthly king, a human king to stand up against the military kings of their neighbors and enemies, a king to rule over them and give them boundaries and save them from the Philistines.   

The prophet Samuel was instructed by God to anoint Saul as their first king. And when Saul strayed from God’s way, Samuel was sent to Bethlehem, to the house of Jesse.

1 Samuel, the 16th chapter:

1 The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons. …Take a heifer with you, and say, “I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ 3 Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.” 

4 Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” 5 He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.
6 When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 

8 Then Jesse called Abina-dab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 9 Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 10 Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” 

11 … “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” 

12 He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” 13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his older brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. 

Much later in the Bible, Isaiah promises that the Messiah will come from the stump of Jesse, from the house and lineage of David – this Jesse, this David, and here, God tells Samuel, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” If I could read this to you in Hebrew or Greek, there’s a word that would sound very familiar, and probably quite out of place: it’s the word anoint, the anointed one. In Hebrew it is meshiak, messiah; in Greek it is christos, the christened one, the christ. 

It still kind of surprises me to come upon these other christs in the Bible, when I am expecting there to be only one. There are several of them, however, because it is a descriptive word, not a title. Christ is not Jesus’ last name – he is ‘Jesus, the Christ’, the anointed one of God. A christ is what the people wanted and what God repeatedly tries to provide. But the kings of Israel never live up to God’s plan for them. The kings of Israel, the messiahs, the christened, anointed ones, never rise to the level of fidelity and leadership and true servanthood that God expects. They all prove to be… too human, too susceptible to that old adage that power corrupts. The psalm for today, Psalm 51, is credited to David – this ruddy, handsome, chosen one, this messiah with beautiful eyes. He is the best King they get. And yet much of David’s story reveals his monumental failure to live up to his anointing. 

Samuel secretly christens him as God’s chosen future king while Saul is still reigning, and for fifteen chapters, the conflict between these two kings – a conflict neither of them really created – balloons from rivalry and jealousy to deadly hostility. Saul, the recognized king of Israel, who still has a following, periodically tries to destroy his unwanted heir. David eludes his grasp every time. 

Saul’s dynasty is doomed and his reign is blighted and we know it and flinch, watching as he seesaws back and forth between arrogance and humility, savagery and nobility, losing ground not only in God’s eyes, but in the eyes of his family and even in ours as readers of the text.

David’s story, meanwhile, unfurls with what at first seems to be naïve enthusiasm. It soon becomes mixed with craft, cunning, and morally questionable behavior.

 Unlike Saul, David is gifted with favor by nearly all who meet him, including members of Saul’s own family. David becomes a close comrade of Saul’s son, Jonathan, at one time is even living in the palace. When finally forced to flee into the hills outside of Bethlehem, he escapes with several hundred supporters. He is a golden boy, a charismatic leader.

As an outlaw with a price on his head, David leads the life of Robin Hood on the desert frontier. He becomes the leader and organizer of a band of outlaws and refugees, who progressively ingratiate themselves with the local population by protecting them from other bandits. He tries to extort a “protection” payment from one of the wealthiest landholders, and when the man dies – seemingly from the shock of it – David marries Abigail, the new widow (who is described as brave, intelligent and one of the four most beautiful of all Hebrew women). 

His scramble toward kingship continues even after Saul’s death. It takes him seven years and impressive political maneuvering to gain control of the king’s domain. He conquers the Jebusite-held town of Jerusalem, which he makes the capital of the new united kingdom and to which he moves the sacred Ark of the Covenant, the supreme symbol of Yahweh’s presence and protection. He defeats the Philistines. He conquers the Moabites, the Edomites, the Ammonites and the Arameans in what begin as defensive wars, but end with the establishment of a Davidic empire extending over both sides of the Jordan River, and as far as the Mediterranean Sea. David enforced justice in his empire and established civil and military administrations in Jerusalem, modeling them after those of the Canaanites and Egyptians. 

David’s skill as a warrior and empire builder, however, is tested in his domestic life where family conflicts are interconnected with political revolts. To tie together the various groups that constitute his kingdom, David takes wives from each area and creates a harem – understandably not the conditions for domestic bliss. The resulting sprawling family is an extreme departure from the traditional clan structure.  And just when everything finally seems to be smoothing out, just as the story seems to find a resting place, his acquired taste for conquest leads him to desire another man’s wife. King David seduces Bathsheba while her husband is away at battle, covers up his deed by celebrating her husband as a hero when he comes home, and then quickly sends him back to the front lines knowing it will be to his death. 

David is the golden boy of Hebrew scriptures. He’s also brutal, proud, and stubborn – and one who breaks the 10th commandment (the one about coveting your neighbor’s ox and wife) – and then the 6th,… and 7th, and because of that the 5th….. and then the 8th…and you can’t break that many commandments and get the first one right – the one about loving God above all things, above all the beautiful women you might get a glimpse of bathing on their rooftops next door.… But even so – even with all of that sin, intermingled and flowing down, David is still the leader of Israel who bears the promise of God for his people. David is the human being through whose house and lineage the Christ will come, he is the ancestor of Jesus through Jesse’s branch of the family tree.

 All of that should tell us something about sin and judgment and mercy and God. I’m still working on the theme or question of God’s nature.

David is the one through whom God moves to show that God is still about the business of forming a people. As the anointed king, David bears the promise that God will work through him, maintain a relationship of faithfulness with this people, through him, for their sake, in spite of his flaws. In spite of his sin. In spite of his very human human-ness. 

God will be present among the people of God because of – and in spite of – their broken-ness and their need. That’s an interesting God. God will be – is – present among us, with us, because of, and in spite of our need.

We know this, because David is not the model of perfection… far from it.  That is a pretty good clue into the nature and shape of our hope. Perfection is not a litmus test for salvation. Strength is not the standard we must all meet in order to merit redemption. Holiness may be something we grow toward- maybe- but moral forthrightness doesn’t seem to be God’s expectation – look at David (and Abraham and Moses and Jacob and Noah and Jonah and… the list goes on).  I find that interesting – and a little unsettling. 

The thing that is true about David is that his ears are tuned to hear the word of God. He is pitch perfect in recognizing the living word of God when it comes to him even as criticism, even as a sting implicating his own sin, his own behavior. He recognizes it, and claims it, and asks for God’s presence – with him – in it. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right sprit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me, but restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with your free Spirit.” – psalm 51, composed by David in his shame. 

The only sacrifice we are able to offer, and which God will not despise, is “a broken and contrite heart.” Against the bluster of his outer wiles and charisma, the psalms portray the insight, love, trust and humility of David’s inner life with God.

Those aren’t the descriptors of leadership that human nature wants to rally around. For all his rascally traits, the outward appearance of David is more our ideal, our vision – we, who look at outward appearances. We want strength, courage, good looks, wit, intelligence, height, someone who carries himself/herself with dignity –  human nature does actually admire a certain amount of arrogance in our leaders, the show of confidence that comes from believing oneself to be absolutely right; we want to follow in the wake of someone with a healthy dose of entitlement… for some reason we are comforted by that.  Even in times of peace, we want the qualities of a warrior king, not a servant leader. We want to know in advance what policy and position David will take in regards to Goliath. A servant king won’t really cut it when you’re up against the Philistines, or so we would presume.

Why is God so hung up about servant leadership? Why not be about infinite power and strength, absolute rule? What is the “right hand” of God for, if not to protect and clear the way for the chosen people – or for all people?  Why not create a world of peace, right relationships, orderly, equalized living? Is it possible that we have the wrong image of God? That we look for power, glory and might when God is actually about presence, wisdom, compassion, humble being? Not ruling?

That idea may sound kind of feeble, but for whatever reason, God creates humans with the power and might and the ability to choose – even to choose poorly – as David often did, as we often do.  God wielding absolute power would be God playing with us as with paper dolls, clay creations, clay animation. But God blew his spirit into those clay creatures and made them intelligent, curious, willful people… images, reflections, glimpses of God in human form.

The gift of free will has the consequence of self-determination, and that will always be a mixed gift. We can never choose to simply love, our loves are too conflicted, our vision too short sighted.

David is far from a perfect moral example, but he knows the God to whom he needs to return. He has stayed in a relationship with this Lord of his calling. He is honest before God and relies on God’s mercy and compassion and vision: The one who does not see as mortals see nor judge as mortals judge, but who looks instead upon the heart, the One who can create a new heart and restore a right spirit, the only One.

Pastor Linda

We left Moses last week being captivated by a bush that burned, but was not consumed and from which the voice of God spoke.

Moses did go back to Pharaoh and his people in Egypt, and he, his brother Aaron, sister Miriam, (and God) managed to get them out of the house of slavery.  40 years pass – you can read all about that on your own this year –  and now Moses stands on the edge of the promised land, addressing his people in a very long farewell, which includes this: 

Deuteronomy 6:1-9

“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, ²so that you and your children and your children’s children, may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. ³Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.

⁴Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. ⁵You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 

⁶Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. ⁷Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. ⁸Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, ⁹and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

The second reading comes from Leviticus chapter 19, verses 19 and 34

Part of a list of laws concerning ethical relationships, Leviticus 19:18 states, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Verse 34: “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”

All Saints Sunday is not a biblical festival – in that there aren’t biblical passages that specifically fit with it, or cause it to be, in the same way that Jesus’ birth stories fit with Christmas or the resurrection stories give rise to Easter. However, the definition of a saint is “holy one”, hagios in Greek, and stories of the Holy Ones are found throughout scripture: the patriarchs, prophets and other Old Testament figures are claimed as saints in addition to those we encounter in the New Testament.  Moses certainly fits the characterization – so it’s not too odd to preach on an Old Testament text for All Saints day, but I’ve really struggled with it this time around.

My difficulty isn’t with Moses; it’s with the context of the reading in connection to the war between Israel and Hamas. This is one of those times when I’d much prefer to read the passage and give no background. But shirking something difficult is also a lost opportunity for our collective depth of thought, so, on we go.

Deuteronomy is literally the second giving of the law – formulated as a very long sermon or lecture spoken by Moses to the Israelites as they are about to enter Canaan, the land promised to their forebears and briefly occupied by those forebears – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as resident aliens before a drought and famine sent them to Egypt, where they eventually became enslaved. The first reading of the law was in the book of Exodus early on in their time in the wilderness.

Now, that original generation has died and the new, greatly multiplied generation is about to take the land by force, instructed by Moses’ understanding of God’s word – a word that includes the commandment to wipe out all the current occupants of the land. 

Deuteronomy 7

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you— ²and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy. 

²⁰Moreover, the Lord your God will send the pestilence against them, until even the survivors and the fugitives are destroyed. ²¹Have no dread of them, for the Lord your God, who is present with you, is a great and awesome God. ²²The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to make a quick end of them, otherwise the wild animals would become too numerous for you. ²³But the Lord your God will give them over to you, and throw them into great panic, until they are destroyed.”

There’s quite a lot more of that instruction. The setting for this greatest commandment – to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength – to be God’s holy people, is cast in terms of wiping out 7 other tribes of people, destroying all traces of their gods and shrines, and taking possession of land and homes and orchards that they did not build. There are pages and pages of instructions and fine points — the difficulty is with the ways and means of occupying the promise.

Two things: as I’ve said before, the first 5 books of the Bible, called the Torah, were put into final form by at least three different traditions of editors, the latest being at the end of, or just after, exile in Babylonia 600 or 700 years after the events narrated in the Torah took place. 

Jewish understanding of scripture was that it was in flux, changeable as God inspired them to understand the holy word in different ways to meet altered circumstances. So, Moses’ words may have been altered several times over the editorial processes as they spoke to different situations of the Israelites social/political/religious life. We’ll never know. As the Babylonian exiles tried to make sense of their catastrophic situation, they looked back to these early stories for rationales of their failure and God’s punishment and for continued hope of the promise of blessing. Their own judgment of their history is that they persistently failed to uphold the law and these commands and so incurred just punishment. Moving into the promised land and wiping out every previous occupant was one of the failures. That didn’t happen. Remnants were left. They did intermarry and make treaties, thereby undermining the purity of their religious lineage and practices.

Today, especially in this latest version of the war between Israel and Palestine, Zionist Christians point to this particular step – the necessity of current Israel taking back the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and occupying it solely (wiping out the Palestinians) – as a key action that will initiate the kingdom of God coming again in final fulness.  When we pray, “Come Lord Jesus, may your kingdom come,” that is what a certain element of our Christian brothers and sisters is looking for. They are routing for Israel in this war, not for Israel’s sake, so much as for the kingdom to come, for the end time prophesies to click into place. 

So, the scriptural context of this holy commandment to love, is complicated on many levels of theology and geo/political perspective.

The second thing is to point out that alternative actions were also always part of the ancient Israelite holiness codes. They did not have a black and white or static understanding of God’s will for them. The multiplicity of laws were set in place to safeguard the core. Leviticus is the handbook for priestly and communal behavior. Chapter 19 begins with the commandment, “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy” (19:2). The rest of the chapter, then, instructs the Israelites on how to “be holy.” The list of laws includes many having to do with relationships, from honoring parents (19:3) to loving the aliens who live in their midst (19:33-34). To “be holy” has to do with treating other people with justice and mercy, caring for the poor (19:9-10), being honest (19:11-13, 35-36), having respect for elders (19:32), and, in general, acting with moral and ethical integrity. 

At the heart of these laws is “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (19:18). It is part of a unit of verses instructing the Israelites not to hate one another, not to take revenge or bear a grudge against one another, but to love one another.

At the end of the chapter, it says this: “The alien who resides with you shall be the same to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” The commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” is to be understood, then, as applying not only to the inner group or family. The command is to love the “alien,” the foreigner, the outsider to one’s community, as if they were your own. 

When Jesus is asked by the religious authorities which commandment is the greatest, he responds by quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Asked to define the neighbor, Jesus tells the parable indicating that it is the enemy and religious outsider, the mixed blood Samaritan, who acted with mercy, integrity and love. 

So who is a saint? One is holy who follows these two commandments: loving God with all of your being and behavior, and demonstrating that holy love toward people – all people, not just the people who are like us or are easy to love.

If this is still the standard, then sainthood remains a difficult achievement.

I read an essay by New Yorker columnist David Brooks this week, entitled, “How to stay sane in brutalizing times”. He suggests two mindsets – the first is learned from the ancient Greeks who adopted a tragic sensibility. He writes, “This sensibility begins with the awareness that the crust of civilization is thin. Breakdowns into barbarism are the historic norm. Don’t fool yourself into believing that you’re living in some modern age, too enlightened for hatred to take over.” 

He lifts humility and prudence from the Greek tragedies saying, “The tragedies that populated Greek stages sent the message that our accomplishments were tenuous. They remind us that it’s easy to become proud and conceited in moments of peace. We begin to exaggerate our ability to control our own destinies. We begin to assume that the so-called justice of our cause guarantees our success. Humility is not thinking lowly of yourself; it’s an accurate perception of yourself. It is the ability to cast aside illusions and vanities and see life as it really is.”

The second mindset is from the Abrahamic faiths. He writes,

“This mentality celebrates an audacious act: the act of leading with love in harsh times. Of course there are toxic people in the world [who are] not going to change just because [their] opponents start feeling warm and fuzzy toward [them]. Genocidal fanatics … need to be defeated by force of arms [and the power of law].

“But most people — maybe more than you think — are peace- and love-seeking creatures who are sometimes caught in bad situations. The most practical thing you can do, even in hard times, is to lead with curiosity, lead with respect, work hard to understand the people you might be taught to detest.

“That means seeing people with generous eyes, offering trust to others before they trust you. That means adopting a certain posture toward the world. If you look at others with the eyes of fear and judgment, you will find flaws and menace; but if you look out with a respectful attitude, you’ll often find imperfect people enmeshed in uncertainty, doing the best they can.

“Will casting this kind of attention change the people you are encountering? Maybe; maybe not. But this is about who you are becoming in corrosive times. Are you becoming more humane or less?”

____

Becoming more humane is a good place to begin in becoming a Holy One. Being a good human creature is a good launching pad; getting back to our origins in the humus, the dust, the beginnings of God’s image imprinted on us, however marred or dingy it has become. The Holy ones in our lives stand out because they emanate love and humility and a deep kind of peace or joy that isn’t really commensurate with reality. They have found something truer to follow.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, (Jesus added that one) and with all your strength. ‘ ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 

Neither of these commands are easy or straightforward. They might get you into trouble. Biblical saints were mostly in trouble, so don’t let that worry you. 

Rise up, O saints of God, rise up in love for the sake of the world in great need of humble and compassionate zeal. God will go with you.

A lot has happened since we left Jacob last week.

Because I have tarried so long in Genesis, I’m going to skip over the long story of Jacob’s family and how they ended up in Egypt.

The book of Exodus begins several generations later, when trouble is brewing for Jacob’s quickly multiplying descendants. A new pharaoh has come to power who fears the foreigners. He makes slaves of all these once-honored guests, forcing them to build grain storage cities for his profit. He does not seem to realize that his cruelty will ensure the very thing he most fears.

Three short readings from Exodus, from chapters 1, 2, and 3         (1:8-14; 2:3-10; 3:1-12)

1:8 “Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Jacob’s son, Joseph.  The king said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we.  Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”  Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh.  But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.  The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites,  and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor.”

The pharaoh’s second move in the story is more violent and illogical than the first — he decides to kill off his future slave force, all the male babies who would otherwise grow up to work for him. The Hebrew midwives he recruits to carry out his plan, telling them to kill the babies at birth, ignore him. When summoned for questioning, they offer explanation wrapped in insult: “The Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women. They are strong. They give birth before the midwife arrives.”

Into this conflict Moses is born: his mother hides her newborn son for three months.

Chapter 2:3 “When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river.  His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.  The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it.  When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said.  

Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?”  Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s own mother.  Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it.  When her child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Thus the king fails to recognize that he is being thwarted not by boys growing into soldiers, but by five women acting from their instincts for courage and kindness – two midwives, a mother, a sister, and his own daughter all help save a baby who – one day, will set this enslaved people free.

Moses is neither fully Egyptian nor fully Hebrew, and eventually his dual status forces him to choose between safety and loyalty on the one hand, and justice on the other. He chooses justice, killing an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite slave. And, learning that his deed was witnessed, he flees to the land of Midian, where he befriends and marries into a priest’s family. Meanwhile, the pharaoh dies, but the living conditions for the Hebrew people remain intolerable. 

Chapter 3:1 “Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.  There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.  Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.”  When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”  Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.  Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings,  and I have come to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.  The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them.  So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”  But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”  God said, “I will be with you…..”

Hymn #574 Here I am, Lord

These passages provide the iconic Sunday School scenes of baby Moses floating in a basket, life in the Pharaoh’s palace, the burning bush and the revelation of the mysterious, untranslatable, unutterable name of God. As prominent as these scenes are, however, the key to the passage is God’s self-revelation as the kind of deity who hears the people’s misery and responds. For the rest of the biblical narrative, this is the God who “has brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” And for the rest of the biblical narrative, Israel is the people delivered from oppression, the people who are to remember and recall the mighty acts of God.

But Moses, standing barefoot before the mysterious and fearfully fascinating bush doesn’t yet know this. With good reason, he questions the call. “Who am I to go, who am I to do this thing? I am a shepherd, for goodness’ sake – I was an adopted son of the oppressor, I’m a murderer on the lam, I have this speech impediment. Why in the world would you send me — back there!? Surely there is someone else…there has to be someone else…” 

God’s response is to counter Moses’ objections and move directly to the promise that God will be with him. And Aaron will go, too. I bet that wasn’t the kind of comfort Moses was looking for. Illustrated children’s Bibles and religious art depict the bush, the theophany, the presence of God that is purely speculative. I think we can all imagine the stricken face of a terrified Moses. The artwork doesn’t show that even though the dialog strongly hints at it. Perhaps it is to give Moses his dignity. His fear is something we’d rather not notice, knowing as we do, the leader he becomes.

“I will be with you” is not at all the same as, “I will do this for you.”

“I will do this for you” isthe kind of God we want to have, the kind of church we want to be part of, the kind of life we want to live. We want the God who goes there for us, into the danger and valley of death, the God who acts with might on our behalf, who acts — so that we don’t have to. That’s what we want and expect from God, isn’t it? Especially on this side of the crucifixion of God’s son, the once and for all – doesn’t that apply to every situation?   If God can create the entire world and all that is in it, can’t God end oppression and violence and hunger without Moses’ help, without our input, without my involvement?  It seems a ridiculous proposition, that somehow we are required to assist, or worse yet, that it is our calling to do it, that you are to be the one who is to go, to act in God’s stead. Yet, over and over, that is the message this God delivers: “Go, I will be with you.”

You have to know by now, that I am a homebody, one who wants to stay put, to dig in, to honor roots. Maybe you’re like that, too. So I find this an unsettling theme, and I wonder what, if anything, it implies for those who stay.

Adam and Eve – standing barefoot in the garden – were clothed replacing their fig leaves with more wearable garments and were shown the door. “Out you go. Go tend and till the earth out there, contend with the dust from which you came. You can’t stay here anymore, but do not fear, I will go with you.”
Caught in the murder of his brother, Cain feared for his life, but God sent him away saying, “I will be with you.”
Abraham and Sarah received the word of God, “Go from your father and your mother’s home to the land that I will show you.” Hagar and Ishmael were banished from Abraham’s camp, but God found Hagar reassured her that Ishmael would thrive and said, “I will be with him.”
Now again with Moses – “Go”…. there are objections…bargaining…. but “No, Go, and I’ll be with you.”

It’s an uncomfortable message. We can’t stay in Eden, we can’t stay at home, we can’t stay hidden safely away wrapped in a robe and slippers reading the Sunday paper about the world outside our door. “No, but Go, and I’ll be with you.” It doesn’t promise that things will be easier, that an aura of safety or peace will surround us. It isn’t a message intended to comfort us, but is intended to show us the holy work, the human need, and connect the dots. 

“Letting go and letting God” is a modern slogan that is very helpful in recovery, but wasn’t available to Moses. It completely misses the terror and anguish of being held in God’s presence. It implies that God will do it for you, take care of you, make your troubles disappear. It short-circuits the Agony and Ecstasy of standing barefoot on holy ground and being commissioned for God’s purposes. God’s claim on their lives makes these ordinary people who became biblical characters braver than they could ever have realized at the time.

The age of prophets in the biblical model may have passed, but prophetic calling in our age is still a thing. God still afflicts the comfortable conscience for the task of comforting the afflicted. The biblical word sending us out is still the way God works. We are called to be euanglion, messengers of the good news, critique-ers of culture, purveyors of justice, voices in the wilderness, companions to the underdog.  We can’t stay in Eden or at home or hidden away and still consider ourselves to be Christian. Passivity and isolation and selfish personal comfort, complacency are not compatible life choices with the life of Christ or the calling of God. These ancient stories still have the power to convict us.

To Moses the prophet, God’s identity and purpose are revealed for the sake of easing human anguish. Elie Wiesel, a Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor, reminds us that the only thing that makes any difference in the world is that we should care about someone else enough to do something, to act, to speak. Indifference effects nothing and offers no hope. God declares to Moses, “My identity, my name will be manifest in my actions.” At the heart of this revelation of God is compassion for others, and this has shaped our Christian theological tradition – has altered the shape of Christian lives – perhaps even yours – ever since.

This is, as you know, Reformation Sunday, and it may seem an odd reading for the day. But, it’s not.

Reformation isn’t something simply to celebrate – to look back on as an origin story and say, “Yay!” Martin Luther believed the church of his day – and actually, the church of every day – needs to be in a constant process of re-formation. It begins with Liz’s favorite word, “discernment”, with holy imagination – in asking questions like, What are we about?  How do we connect to God’s story or Christ’s invitation? Where are the needs in our local area, in our circles of influence? What do we need to let go of? What help do we need? If you sit quietly and open your mind, can you hear God say, Go? “Go do this hard thing, this compassionate thing. Go do this neighborly thing. Go out, beyond your self. I’ll go with you.” 

Reformation is always about going, not staying. No living system or organism can stay the same. Change is essential to life, to a living faith, and to faithful living.

God is likely not calling to you grab you passport and go far away (even though the world-wide news is heart wrenching and compelling). Most of us won’t need to leave home. But, we might need to re-form priorities, or change attitudes, or ask real questions that can face us with complicated, challenging responses, or pluck up courage to be vulnerable and act even when we are afraid. Reforming the church is personal before it is institutional, it is an active, intensional desire to engage in God’s holy work.

“Go,” God says, “and believe this, I will be with you.”

Last week we heard about Isaac and his near death experience. As we know, the knife in Father Abraham’s hand was quickly repurposed – used to cut the cords that bound Isaac instead of being used to kill him, and a ram was sacrificed in his place. These events took place to everyone’s great relief – perhaps to God’s as much as to the other principal players. 

This week Isaac is an old man. Nothing much is told of the intervening years except that he marries Rebekah and they have sons – non-identical twins, Esau and Jacob.

In Genesis chapter 25 the boys are born. Jacob comes into the world gripping his brother Esau’s heel. His name means “to follow” or “to come behind”  or “heel grabber”  and we will soon learn that he is one. Jacob is a scoundrel, a trickster. Brotherly love is not in his tool bag. In the second episode related about their lives, Esau returns home, famished, from a long day of hunting, and the scheming Jacob greets his hungry brother with a pot of stew bubbling on the stove. Esau wants the stew; Jacob wants the firstborn’s birthright. For the price of bread and lentil soup, Esau swears an oath relinquishing his rights.

These boys might not be role models for intelligence in one case, or integrity in the other, but they are real models – they seem like real people. Sibling rivalry, skewed family values, jealousy, favoritism, greed, disappointment, deceit – it’s all here in the Bible and in the families that might live in your neighborhood. There are cultural differences, but the dynamics are familiar.

The story continues:       Genesis 27 :1-4, 15-23

“When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, “My son,” and he answered, “Here I am.”  Isaac said, “See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death.  Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me.”
But Rebekah was listening and told her favorite son Jacob to bring two choice kids in from the flock outside their door; and she made a feast and took the best garments of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob;  and she put the skins of the young goats on his hands and on his neck.  Then she handed her son Jacob the savory food and the bread that she had prepared.  So he went in to his father, and said, “My father”; and he said, “Here I am; who are you, my son?”  Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, so that you may bless me.”  

But Isaac said, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” He answered, “Because the Lord your God granted me success.”  Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near, that I may touch you, and know whether you are really my son Esau or not.”  So Jacob went up to his father Isaac, who felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”  His father did not recognize him, but, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so Isaac blessed him.
Even though Isaac isn’t entirely convinced that he’s got the right son, he bestows the blessing based on touch and smell and food.  He exclaims: “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed. May God give you the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine. Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!”

That’s it; the blessing has been spoken. It cannot be retracted or repeated.

When Esau returns home and discovers the deceit he is in a rage, but what can he do? In summing up what has just happened to him, Esau alludes to yet another meaning of Jacob’s name when he says, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright; and look, now he has taken away my blessing.” 

Jacob “the deposer, deceiver, double-crosser.”

Jacob crosses every line that presents itself in the story. No rule, no tradition, no relationship appears to be out of bounds as he schemes to get what he wants. In short order, he alters the line of inheritance, disrupts the chain of blessing, disrespects his father, and puts his brother out in the cold. I hope you don’t have a brother like this. 

But Jacob’s win isn’t decisive – it isn’t even obvious. His is not a happily-ever-after, healthy-wealthy-and-wise kind of blessing. 

In fact, in the next episode, Jacob is on the run. He has won what he wanted from his father, but can’t stay around to enjoy it. Esau, in addition to being hairy, must be quite a bit bigger than Jacob, and could beat the stuffing out of him – and Jacob, having pulled off the heist of a lifetime, but expecting retribution, finds himself on the run – alone, somewhere between the home that he has left behind and the refuge he seeks with his mother’s brother.  His path leads through the wilderness – through the place where demons dwell.

In this next section of reading, Jacob is portrayed as a fugitive fleeing for his life; a vagabond wandering between a conflict-ridden past and an uncertain future. How hollow his stolen blessing must feel about now, with a stone for a pillow and the Milky Way his only covering.     

Chapter 28 (10-17) 

“Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place.  And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.  And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring;  and 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.          Know 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.”   

Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!”  And 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.”

So, contrary to appearances, Jacob is not alone. The dream reveals that his resting place is full of busy angels,  divine “messengers.” These beings are purposeful in their coming and going on steps joining earth to heaven. They are on the move doing God’s work in the world, and he is surprised to discover that he has been a guest in the “house of God.”

In his dream, God repeats the promises made to Abraham and Isaac for land and heirs and prosperity, to be blessed in order to be a blessing to others, but there is also a promise that is unique to Jacob.  God promises to bring Jacob back home. Partly, this is a promise that speaks to his unique situation of being on the run, but also, it stands as a promise many generations into the future. I’ve said before that this book of scripture probably received its final editing during the time of Israel’s exile in Babylon – which would make this promise to their forefather all the more poignant.

When Jacob awakens from his dream he finds to his surprise that the place has not been changed by God’s presence. He looks around – the desert is not blooming, there are no snow angel prints in the sand – but Jacob is changed. Professing God’s presence in this rather ordinary place, he builds a monument of remembrance, converting his “pillow” into an altar in the world.  He calls this place without a name “Bethel” — which means the house of God.

Jacob’s discovery that God is in this place – and the fear he feels – remind us that God is in every place, each rock and tree and field and pond bear the presence and activity of the divine. It’s worth a little fear. This land is only ours for a generation. It belongs to the future and to the past. We are stewards for only a moment. The trees will outlive us, the piles of stones we pull out of a field, the polyester pollution we leave behind, the plastic islands in the oceans. Is this not worth building an altar of stones set here and there to bump our shins against to help us remember?

In what seemed like a desperate, lonely flight, Jacob discovered that he is in good company. 

 Just as Jacob left his home in Beersheba, so God departs from his “house” in the heavens to join Jacob on the road. The blessing is on the move. We aren’t told why Isaac had only one blessing to give, leaving Esau to weep and plan for revenge when he arrived too late and found that Jacob had taken the blessing, but when God renews the promises of land and descendants, God compares Jacob’s descendants to dust: “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.”

The metaphor spreads divine blessing far and wide. Dust blows around, it settles deep and thick in some places,  produces a fine covering in others. Dust floats in the air – little moats refracting sunlight. Compared to the single blessing Isaac had to give, God seems to be indiscriminate – or at least exponential.

Jacob’s story is a long one, and for a story that’s 3 to 4000 years old, it’s quite well written and interesting. I commend it to you. Through the twists and turns it follows the path of blessing – teaching us something along the way. Jacob doesn’t get what he wants simply because he wants it and because he’s been blessed. And Esau doesn’t seem to suffer for not receiving his father’s blessing. After 20 years they are reunited.  Jacob is a wealthy man – wealthy in terms of wives, children, flocks and herds and staff. He separated from his father-in-law and is coming back home when he learns that Esau has gotten word and is heading out to meet him. Esau is coming with 400 men. Jacob feels an old dread rising: Esau and his murderous threats. He strategizes to protect his wealth and placate his brother, dividing his family and herds sending them ahead in different batches while he stays behind on the far side of the river, pacing in the dark, accompanied only by his schemes and fears.  And in the starless night, he is attacked.

Genesis 32:24-31

²⁴Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. ²⁵When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. ²⁶Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ ²⁷So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ ²⁸Then he said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, (The one who strives with God) for you have striven with divine and human beings and have prevailed.’ ²⁹Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. ³⁰So Jacob called the place Peniel,(the face of God) saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ ³¹The sun rose upon him as he passed Peniel, limping because of his hip.” 

Jacob’s story reaches a climax here at the Jabbok river ford. He doesn’t do much after this, the narrative soon passes on to his children. But we’re given this episode to think about our struggles with God. The scene is dark and broody and confusing. The dialog ambiguous. This encounter with God has no ray of starlight beaming through the terror of Jacob’s dark night of the soul, there’s nothing comforting in the sound of silence as Jacob paces. Instead he is pounced on from behind.  He ends up struggling, fighting, grappling with God. 

It’s not such a far-fetched tale. It happens on the world stage and in individual lives.  Have you ever felt tripped up or pounced upon or under attack by God? And are there times when you wrangle with God just to fight, because you don’t know how else to face the pain of some situation? We hang on, demanding something good to come from the struggle.

Jacob wouldn’t let go of his adversary until he received a blessing, but the end seems more like a tie than a triumph; an exhausting fight to the death, that ends not with death but with a wounding, a mark, a limp, a sign that the God of blessing doesn’t keep one safe, that we may strive and wrestle and still not be particularly enlightened, but rather that the process itself might be the blessing.

If Jacob’s story speaks a truth about us, it also speaks a truth about God.

Wrestling is the most intimate sport. God is not content to stand aloof and direct matters from afar. God is engaged bodily, face to face, breath to breath. One can’t keep much dignity wrestling. As we continue to read, it becomes clear that God is willing to lose all dignity for the sake of his beloved creation and creatures, to become as humbled and vulnerable as it takes to save us and transform us and connect to us.

Jacob walks away. Before he crosses the river and continues toward his meeting with Esau, he names the place of his struggle. Peniel – here I met God face to face and yet I survived. When Jacob and Esau do meet, completely at odds with Jacob’s expectations, Esau runs forward to embrace his brother, and kisses him and weeps, and Jacob – stunned – says “Truly, to see your face is like seeing the face of God, for you have received me with such favor.”

Being reconciled to God opened Jacob’s eyes to be reconciled with his brother, and to see God in his brother’s face. 

This story doesn’t have a clear moral or obvious meaning, but it lifts up several things – the value and importance of struggling with God, with faith, with our identity; the value and importance of confession and asking for forgiveness, of reconciliation; the value and importance of claiming the name that God bestows. Names can limit us, hurt us. But names can also heal and make alive.

And so a part of what we do each week, I believe, is to be reminded once again of our name in God’s sight and our identity in Christ, so that we might go out into the world reconciled and forgiven, as God’s own beloved, and – stunned by it –  see and pronounce – perhaps even with words – the face of God in all whom we meet. And this story reminds us, again, that being blessed doesn’t necessarily show, or change our situation according to our timeline of expectation. God’s blessings tend to show best, most clearly, in hindsight. If you can see a blessing at the time it is bestowed, build a little altar in the world to mark the spot and give thanks.

A couple years ago, I don’t remember how many, one of you asked if I would preach on the texts and stories that aren’t chosen by the lectionaries, so that we aren’t cycling through the same set every three or four years, but would get a broader view of scripture.

I think this is a good idea – but it’s a bumpy ride, because the texts and stories not chosen are often not chosen for a reason – they are difficult or complicated to listen to and think through, and, to be honest, most congregations don’t want to try. People generally come to church to be inspired, to leave feeling good, with a vague sense of familiarity with what is being preached, and don’t come expecting to leave with difficult questions hanging in the air.  Cain and Abel, for example, don’t appear in any preaching cycle. Theirs is not a particularly edifying tale…  but still it is important and an interesting story on many levels. I think Genesis is a book to read and to work through – and, especially in light of what’s happening in the Middle East between Palestinians and Jews this week, these stories are amazingly pertinent. So, these are the reasons I’m picking my way slowly through instead of hitting the high points and best loved episodes. My perspective on Genesis is that the early chapters are attempting to tell us about the nature and will of God and the nature and ways of people… and to point out the gulf that separates these natures. 

The key, I believe, is to read Genesis through the lens of, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” That should be the banner heading each week. I believe that is the heart and essence of God’s will for us. It was to be the guiding principle of the ancient Israelites and it is what Jesus taught and lived 2000 years later.  I think these early, mythic stories are told to explain our behavior and our difficulties with living this ethic, of upholding this minimum standard of life before God.

Last week we pulled a thread of Abraham’s saga to follow Sarah’s part in the covenant and the promise of Isaac. The thread tugs at two other stories. After Isaac’s birth, Sarah decides that Ishmael (Abraham’s son with her handmaid/slave) is competition for her own son’s inheritance. She tells Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael out of the camp, out into the desert to wander and die. Abraham is loth to do this because it is his first-born son, but God tells him it will be okay, and in fact, God hears Ishmael’s cries and provides for them, repeating the promise to Hagar that Ishmael will become the father of a mighty nation. That storyline ends in this way: ^21:20 “God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. ²¹He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.”  Ishmael and Isaac reunite a few chapters later to bury their father. Judaism credits Abraham through Ishmael to be the father of the Arab people, and Abraham through Isaac to be the father of the Jews. After Hagar and Ishmael leave, we are told that Abraham, his family and itinerant herder household continue to prosper as resident aliens in the land of the Philistines. There is a seemingly random interlude at the end of chapter 21 describing a peaceful co-existence covenant that Abraham forms with King Abimelech and the establishment of the well of Beer-sheba. 

And then, when Isaac’s storyline picks up again, we wish that it hadn’t.

Genesis 22 

After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ ²He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.’ ³So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt-offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. ⁴On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. ⁵Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.’ ⁶Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. ⁷Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘Father!’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ He said, ‘The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?’ ⁸Abraham said, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt-offering, my son.’ So the two of them walked on together.

9 When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 

¹¹But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ ¹²He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’ ¹³And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt-offering instead of his son. ¹⁴So Abraham called that place ‘The Lord will provide’; as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.’

15 The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, ¹⁶and said, ‘By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, ¹⁸and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.’ ¹⁹So Abraham returned to his young men, and they rose and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham lived at Beer-sheba.

The word of the Lord……. Thanks be to God

Sarah was wrong, of course. 

So was Cain.

They assumed love is a zero-sum game. God chose Abel’s offering. Ishmael was Abraham’s firstborn son. Therefore, Cain and Sarah reasoned, in order for the second to ‘win’ the father’s affection and recognition, the first must be removed from the equation. Love can’t possibly encompass both equally, favoring this one’s art or that one’s scope while cherishing both together.

I think we would say that God’s love can easily, readily, willingly, whole-heartedly, eagerly cherish not only both, but all. But that fear, that kind of self-doubting envy of the other runs deep. It’s the scarcity model – always fearing there won’t be enough for us if someone else gets plenty. We understand the logic of Cain and Sarah even as we cringe at their actions. And we don’t believe that God acts in that way, being the God of creation and love. We believe God is loving and good. And so we are shocked by scriptures like today’s.

“Abraham.” “Here I am, Lord.” “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”

Where did this come from? The cherished, promised son through whom, according to God’s word, Abraham and Sarah create nations and kings, this son is to be killed? 

God’s logic is illogical. 

And God’s request is ungodly. 

The neighboring religious cults practiced human and child sacrifice, we are told, but the God of Israel, the one God, the God of life, always condemned it. Punished it. And Abraham, who came back time and again to argue and bargain for the lives of those in Sodom didn’t speak a word of protest? “³So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt-offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him.”

We don’t know which of these aspects of the story is worse.

Jewish rabbis and scholars since Medieval times onward have left behind written explanations and ponderings about this, too, of course. I try to read Jewish commentaries as well as Christian thought. The Akedah, as this passage is called, meaning “the binding,” became in Jewish thought the supreme example of self-sacrifice in obedience to God’s will and the symbol of Jewish martyrdom. Both Abraham and Isaac were bound. Abraham is hemmed in behind and before. How does one find a way forward when the choice is between love of God and love of your own God-given child?

Christian Bible headings call this story the sacrifice of Isaac. Christian commentaries (not surprisingly) jump to Christ – there are so many similarities in the language and imagery to God’s beloved, innocent son, who carried his own wooden cross to the place of death, three day’s journey through the wilderness, the sacrificial lamb God would provide, like a ram caught in the thickets, discovered as a substitute for our death. It’s all there in this ancient story.  And it’s fine and beautiful in prefiguring the Christian faith – except that in this reading and others in the Old Testament, God rebukes human sacrifice, staying the hand of Abraham. 

In Hebrew it’s called the binding, and that is helpful,  because there are four characters who are bound. Isaac, of course is tied with the cords of death. We don’t hear much from him on this journey, other than his wondering about the lamb for the sacrifice as he carries the wood on the way up the mountain. The lamb, Abraham assures him, God will provide.

Abraham, too, is bound. He has followed the guiding hand of God for decades believing in the promise of heirs and descendants. Finally, at a very old age, when his wife Sarah was beyond the way women, they are given this beloved son whose name means delight and laughter. And God, who has promised progeny as numerous as the stars, as plenteous as the sands of the shore, now says offer this only child of promise as a sacrifice. We are told it is a test, Abraham is not told that. For Abraham to disobey the command of God is wrong, and to obey this command of God is wrong. Abraham is stuck between the love of a father for his son and the love of God with whom he has a history and who asks – who demands – to be trusted. It is a terrible, fraught, binding place to be.  

Sarah is not part of the story. She is not mentioned either biblically nor rabbinically. However, we have affinity for Sarah. She is bound by silence, by gender, by the cloak of invisibility. She is an unseen, unrecognized victim of this word of God. In Sarah, we find a person to embody our agent-less suffering, our inability to understand, the taken-for-grantedness of those occupying the background of life… Sarah is us, in our human condition, bound by the indeterminacy, the necessary incompleteness of God’s plan, the effect of decisions and actions that fan out beyond the predictable, expected conclusions. 

But God, too, is bound. 

God is bound to our limited understandings, our misunderstandings of God’s will and way, our misunderstandings of God’s voice.

As it stands, this story is a polemic against the sacrifice of human lives for the mistaken understanding of God’s will.  God’s love overrides God’s law. “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” God says through Hosea. “A broken and contrite heart, a humble spirit are acceptable offerings,” the psalmist says for God.

In the 1967 Six-Day War, when for the first time the generation of founders were too old to fight, and their children fought in their place, the akedah remained a powerful symbol. In a post-war collection of interviews, The Seventh Day: Soldiers Talk About the Six-Day War (Hebrew: Siaḥ Lohamim, 1967; English, 1970) a father is recorded who said: “We do knowingly bring our boys up to volunteer for combat units…. These are moments when a man is given a greater insight into Isaac’s sacrifice. Kierkegaard asked what Abraham did that night. What did he think about? … He had a whole night to think…. It’s a question that touches on the very meaning of human existence. The Bible says nothing about it… For us, that night lasted six days” (p. 202).

The weariness and pain of the akedah come to the front after the Yom Kippur war. The poet Menahem Heyd writes: “And there was no ram – /and Isaac in the thicket.// And the angel did not say lay not/ and we – / our son, our only son, Isaac.” (“Yiẓhak Halakh le-Har Moriah” (“Isaac Went to Mount Moriah”), Yedi’oth Aharonot, December 28, 1973.) 

The pain is particularly intense because no ram came to replace Isaac.

This current version of the war between Israel and Palestine is a war of extremists willing to sacrifice their sons and daughters, their souls for a cause. It is political, not religious, not godly, not a holy war. There is no one to stay the hand of slaughter. There is no ram caught in the thicket. Palestinians are not Hamas, they are people forced from their land and homes by Israeli settlers and walls. And Jewish people are not the state of Israel to be sacrificed for political means or exterminated. They are people. We watch the news with horror and fear for where this war will run over and spill out of the small container of Gaza and Israel and the West Bank. We pray for a ram to be spotted in the thicket, some new alternative, some faithfulness to the God of love and recompense… some hope. 

Abraham’s test still speaks. “Are my human creations capable of trust,” wonders God. “Are they capable of listening for my voice, of discerning the way of life in the midst of Chaos and death?” 

Abraham’s test speaks to the binding of our lives — choices we have to make when it seems no right choice can be made, or those times when we are carried along, swept up within a powerful force without choice, or when our voice isn’t heard, times when we seem to occupy the acted upon background.

How do we hear God’s word when it contradicts our will? Do we listen beyond our fear, or follow, or trust, or open our minds to the possibility of a ram stuck in the thicket behind us? How do we unbind Isaac? Do we have the nerve to answer, “Here I am. Speak, Lord, and I will listen?” Jesus complained of those who have eyes but do not see, ears but do not hear. The life of faith is not one to undertake without our whole hearts and intellect and strength. It demands no less than the best, most flexible, adaptable, creative spirit we have to offer. 

In the early rabbinic period, the Akedah found it way into the people’s public prayers of intercession and it stands for you: “May the God who answered Abraham our father on Mount Moriah answer you – hearken to the voice of your crying this day, and loose the cords of your binding.” 

Peace be yours this day.