June 26, 2011
Pentecost 2
Matthew 10:40-42
Genesis 22:1-14
(prayer)
To me, the story I just read from Genesis chapter 22 is one of the challenging in all of scripture. Not ‘challenging’ in the sense that it is hard to understand – it is quite straight forward, I think. It is challenging because it is a disturbing story – a father willing to murder his son as a seeming act of faith; and (more so) that God demanded this action as a test of faith. It seems against what we expect from parents and what we expect from God!
I worry it opens a door that (to me) feels like it should be nailed shut; is this the slippery slope of using religiosity as a justification for violence and murder?
The challenge (for me) is that even if that is what the text says, can I preach in support of that message? This passage from Genesis is the suggested Hebrew Bible reading for this 2nd Sunday after Pentecost in Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary (This lectionary suggests four passages for each Sunday over a three year cycle: one from the Hebrew Bible (OT), a psalm, a NT letter and a gospel reading). I was tempted to use my discretion to stray away from the lectionary or (since my usually pattern is to pick two of the suggested readings to focus on for a given Sunday) to simply not use the Genesis one. And yet, the challenge is before me and avoiding it doesn’t make it go away.
//
So, let’s begin by stepping back and understanding the context that brought Abraham to that mountain top.
The first stories in Genesis are sometimes called pre-history. They are very old and aren’t easily slotted into an historic date or time period (there are genealogies and people’s ages, which you can add up, but most biblical scholars don’t rely on these to date when Noah may lived or when the world was created). And they tend to be stories that set the world we know into context: legends or myths that explain why the world is the way it obviously is: the origins of the earth and the life it contains, the growth of the human population, the eventual diversity of culture and language among people.
When we get to chapter 12 in Genesis, we seem to find ourselves within a recognizable historical period. Scholars are able to do that because from chapter 12 through the rest of the book of Genesis is really one continuous story that melds history and theology. If fact, the next book in the Bible (Exodus) picks up the story and carries on. It is fair to say that (taking the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy out of the equation [books of worship rules and laws] Genesis 12+, Exodus, Numbers, 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1st and 2nd Kings are basically in historical order!
So, in a way, the story of Abraham is the beginning of the story of the Hebrew people.
[slide] Abraham (originally known as Abram) is one of the sons of Terah; the family lived in the Sumerian city of Ur near the mouth of the Euphrates River.
At some point, Terah made the decision to move the family from Ur to the land of Canaan. But when they made it as far as Haran, the plan changed and they settled there. Haran was located near the head waters of one of the source tributaries of the Euphrates River. Terah lived out the rest of his life in Haran.
It was while living Haran, Abram and God came to agreement. God asks for Abram’s unwavering trust. God asks Abram to just pack up and move to (as God says) “the land I will show you.” Abram was asked to trust God without knowing where God was leading him. In exchange God made a promise to Abram: “I will make of you a great nation.” Abram faithfully followed this call – the land God showed him was Canaan (modern Israel): “to your offspring, I will give this land.” Later this covenant would be summed up by God saying “I will be your God and you shall be my people.” (Lev 26:12)
Abram had traveled with his nephew, Lot, but sometime after they-all arrived in Canaan, they went their separate ways. The problem with God’s promise was that...with Lot and his family gone and Abram being childless (his wife Sarah [originally called Sarai] was assumed to be barren and Abram was already 75 years old when he left Haran), the possibility of a great nation coming from him or any offspring being given the land was very unlikely. Sure, they had followed God’s directions, but “why?”, for what purpose; [slide] Abram was not going to have any descendants from his own bloodline to live in this land!
Eventually (and there are lots of interesting details I am skipping over here), when Sarah (age 91) and Abraham (age 100) did have a son, whom they named ‘Isaac’. Nothing short of a miracle.
Isaac was the practical and theological proof of God’s faithfulness to the promise that “of [Abram will be] a great nation.”
So, Abram had to believe that God was living up to God’s end of the bargain. Today’s passage from Genesis 22 (in a way) is a check on whether Abram was still living up to his end – does he trust in God’s guidance; will he go where God tells him to go?
Isaac was still a young boy, perhaps as old as 10 or 11. Obviously, he had not matured enough to give Abram grandchildren. Isaac was the one and only child of the promise.
God wanted to know how firm Abram was in his faith. Would he still trust in God’s promise of eventual nationhood, even if Isaac’s part in that was threatened?
//
You heard the story. Abram passed the test. It appears that God never intended for any harm to come to Isaac: either Abram would refuse to do the deed (and fail God’s test) or he would be willing to sacrifice Isaac and God would stop it before it went too far.
//
I was reading a Genesis commentary by renowned Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, this past week and he wrote that “If the story of Abraham had ended with the birth of Isaac, we would have a tale of origins. But in [Genesis 22], unexpected things happen. Only now do we see how serious faith is. This narrative shows that we do not have a tale of origins, but a story of anguished faith.” (Interpretation – Genesis, p185)
//
In order for me to explore this passage with any integrity, I cannot see it as a story about God (willing to command the murder of a child) or a story about Abraham (willing to commit that murder) – especially on a baptism Sunday – but I must see it for what I think is truly is - a broader narrative that highlights the strength of the bond of faith that binds people and God. This is not just about Abraham and God, it’s about all of us! It’s not just the people being faithful to God, it also God being faithful to the people: “I will be your God and you shall be my people.” We are in relationship with our spirit-creator – and that affects who we are to each other. Jesus certainly thought that when he linked together two great commandments:
Love God with all your heart, mind and strength (Dt 6:5) and Love your neighbour as yourself (Lev 19:18). God, Neighbour and Self – we are bound together by a covenant faith.
//
It is important for us to remember that (to the ancient Hebrews) who told and shared these stories of faith, God’s motives would never have been the issue. Genesis 22, like other passages hold messages about the people and how strongly they are able to hold to their faith, even in very trying times. Of course, to them, because God is the master of all things, even those trials would be seen as coming from God. In retrospect, God is always present in every good and bad moment in life. The message in Genesis 22 is about faithfulness to the covenant. Abraham comes away from this one looking pretty good!
Abraham is one of those biblical characters (like Job) whose level of personal faithfulness seems to far exceed what the average person may have, even the above average person. Thank goodness for nefarious characters like Moses or Samson or King David, who remind us that God does not give up on people; and that it is never too late for people to live up to their best potential!
//
//
11 years ago, just before I came to St. David’s, this congregation took part in a ‘Welcoming Workshop’ led by the Yellowhead Presbytery. [slide] I remember when I was being interviewed for the vacant ministry position here, there was excitement about trying to live out the church’s (relatively new, at the time) mission statement and motto.
I have to admit that this apparent excitement was one of the reasons why I accepted the Call to be your minister.
I think in the last 15, 20 years churches have made a valuable shift in how they approach people who might venture through their doors. The old model was that people would come in and be expected to fit themselves into what was already here. In other words, a newcomer would feel like an outsider until they had time to figure out all of the ins and outs of the church.
[slide] In 2006 I was a commissioner to the United Church’s General Council meeting. One of things we approved on behalf of the church was a new program of invitation and welcoming for the United Church of Canada – this program was called “Emerging Spirit”. You may recall seeing UCC advertisements in major magazines that encouraged people to deepen relationships with each other through conversation, like they might if they were meeting at the local coffee shop. The main vehicle of this program was a website called WonderCafe.ca. Along with that, the national church provided workshops for congregational leaders – all about true and humble welcoming.
It was a goal of the Emerging Spirit campaign to foster, encourage and create welcoming churches as part of a way to grow as churches of the 21st century. I am pleased that this congregation picked up on much of the thrust of this movement.
This church and others have begun to figure out that (since we are all made in God’s image and we are all God’s people) there must be an equality that precedes any notion of length of involvement. When we are here, we are one: regardless of any boundaries or barriers that might apply in other aspects of life – in the words of the hymn that will end our service later, this house is “where all are named, their songs and visions heard and loved and treasured, taught and claimed as words within the Word.”
It’s about the three-fold relationship which Jesus espoused: God-Neighbour-Self bonded in deep love and compassion.
[slide] Why is welcoming so important? Because, I would suggest, in a way it is a test of our faith to see if we really are prepared to see the Christ in others – that holy ‘spark’ our baptism candle represents.
40‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.’
This passage from Matthew is not saying things exactly as I am expressing here. The passage was part of Jesus commissioning his disciples to go out into the world. The exact context is ‘will people out there be open to what the disciples are saying?’ If they are they are not just welcoming these disciples, but Jesus as well – and even more basically, they are welcoming God.
Welcoming is not one way – it’s not just ‘will people accept you?’ but ‘will you accept them?’
**end**
Are we bound strong enough by faith (to each other and to our God) to endure the challenges that we face? God and Abraham entered into a covenant relationship that was based on each of them being stubbornly faithful to each other and the bond between them.
In the baptism today, we all made promises to support Isabella and her family and to support each other on this shared journey of faith we are on.
//
Let us trust in God’s ability to bind; and let’s trust in our capacity to see the value in sharing deep and strong connections to each other.
Let’s pray...
Welcoming God, create in our community an openness to your presence and an openness to the holy spark in each other. In Jesus’ name and example we pray, AMEN.
#670VU “Precious Lord, Take My Hand’
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
GOOD THINGS
June 19, 2011
Pentecost 1
Genesis 1:1-2:4a
Matthew 28:16-20
(prayer)
The word “genesis” has greek and latin roots: it means ‘birth’ or ‘origin’ or more simply ‘beginning’. The parallel word in hebrew is ‘resheet’. The first word in the original hebrew of the reading from Genesis today is ‘bəresheet’ (בְּרֵאשִׁית) [slide] which is well translated in most English editions of the bible as “in the beginning” – ‘at the birth’. The image being painted by these words is that there is NO story to tell prior to this point – this is the start, this is where it all begins. [slide]
בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים
אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ
Beresheet bara elohim
et-ha’shamium ve’et-ha’artetz
In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth
The text goes on to say...
The earth was a formless void [tohu ve’vohu] and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God [ru’ah] swept over the face of the waters.
Then God said, ‘Let there be light’.
//
This narrative probably found its written form during the time that the Hebrew people from Judah had been sent to live in exile during the reign of the Babylonian Empire (6th c. BCE). The Hebrews had suffered a crisis of faith. For centuries, since the time of Kings David and Solomon, life had been stable for the Judeans. Jerusalem had been built as a new capital city; a temple of stone replaced the wood and canvas tabernacle that had travelled with the people since the time of Moses. For four hundred years, Judah had enjoyed relative stability. For a dozen generations, people had grown to assume that God dwelled with them in Judah, because that is the only place they had ever lived – and when a formal, stone and mortar worship site is built, with an inner sanctuary room called the ‘holy of holies’ where it was assumed that the Spirit of God literally dwelt, how could they imagine things any other way?
That life, those beliefs, were brought to a dramatic close when the people were forced to live as refugee prisoners by the rivers of Babylon. “How can we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:4)
Their captors might have taunted them with claims that ‘my gods are stronger than your God!’ For many of the Hebrew exiles, they may have been worried that this could even be true. Were the gods of the Babylonians really in control of the future?
It is into this context that the creation story we find in Genesis chapter one emerges.
What we heard this morning was an assertion of God’s primacy using the language of sixth century people and their view of what creation entailed.
I am (personally) absolutely baffled by that persistent, vocal minority that unrealistically insist that the creation accounts in the bible are to be taken literally: things really happened the way we read it. Baffling to me! We did not hear this morning how things came into being, but we heard a proclamation that the Hebrew God is the creator of all that was known to exist.
We can see that in this Genesis One story.
‘In the beginning’ (as this story goes) the pre-existing-nothingness is described (metaphorically, not literally) as a dark chaotic sea (AKA the deep...people of antiquity believed the oceans had no bottom) – in this pre-existing-nothingness, the only thing that is distinguishable was the Spirit of God, which (in keeping with the ocean metaphor) is like a wind over the waves: it’s there but it’s illusive.
As the days of this story progress, more of the world known to the 6th century Hebrews emerges. At that time all of the people of antiquity believed the world was flat; we see that expressed in Genesis One. The sky wasn’t an ever thinning atmosphere leading out to open space, but to the people of the 6th c. BCE, the sky was simply a physical roof over the world.
It wasn’t possible for the ancient Hebrews, but if you could fly up to the sky-roof, you could touch it.
As we read Genesis One, the sky-roof had water below it and water above it: ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ (the waters above the roof were the source of rain that could fall down from the sky); the waters below were separated by plots of dry land.
The sky-roof also contained several lights (that were observable by the people of the 6th c. BCE): a great one (the sun) which was seen in the daytime; and stars and a light lesser than the sun (moon) which were on the sky-roof at night – they also could see five of the planets in our solar system (as ‘we’ can with the naked eye), but of course they had no idea they were planets – they saw them as ‘stars’ that moved a bit differently than the other stars across the sky.
It’s interesting that even in our modern world we still use ‘flat earth’ language – the sun rises and sets, the sun, moon, planets and stars move across the sky, when most of the movement we see is because “we” are the ones who are actually moving, as the earth rotates.
Just because we use metaphoric language, doesn’t mean it’s literally true.
The world of Genesis One is made up of three environments: the sky, the land and the water – as the story goes (as the 6th c. People experienced), each environment was made teaming with living creatures: birds, fish and land animals (including humans on the land).
The message of the story –
this is...all...good!
//
The content within the story made sense to people with a worldview from 2600 years ago. It is not a literal account of how things came into being. It is a theological proclamation that God is the source of the order we experience in the world and that this created-order is ‘good’. To me, that far more powerful than a news report of an event.
How ‘we’ tell the story of ‘The Beginning’ has changed as our understanding of the universe has grown, and yet there is still a divine mystery at the heart. How did the big bang, begin its bang? That’s a scientific (and I would add, theological) mystery!
//
I do not believe that the world was created in six rotations of the earth. I do not believe that the first human was made out of dirt to look exactly as we do today (in the same way that an artisan shapes clay on a potter wheel). Female humans were not created out of the rib of a previously created male human; The creations stories beginning at Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 2:5 should not to be taken literally!
But… just because we shouldn’t take them literally doesn’t mean that shouldn’t take them seriously: we should! They are powerful theological proclaimations. We simply must embrace them for what they are. They are faith-filled storied (drenched in rich metaphor) claiming that God is the source of what we know and experience; that God is the beginning of everything; and that we can come to an awareness that we are able to reflect the image of God within our lives.
// And so...
Allow yourself to be challenged to believe these things; don’t get lost in silly debates about whether people from 2600 years ago had any inkling about ‘how’ all this happened.
//
I believe that the discoveries of science (particularly the complexity of the building blocks of matter and life and the vastness of the universe as a whole) make the possibility of a source (a creator) even more compelling.
God does not need to held within human limitations. 2600 years ago, they believed that things must have always been they were and just appeared at some point (that worked for them). Our brightest modern idea about the origins of the universe involve an infinitesimally small, unbelievably heavy, speck-of-everything exploding in a Big Bang and expanding and collecting into all that we see and know today (works for us, right now). Who knows what the people 2600 years from now will believe about the origins of the universe?
But I believe that (from a spiritual perspective), regardless of the best theories of “how”, that behind it all...is ‘a source’ – behind it all...is God and ‘that’ can be an eternal truth for us.
If the pre-existing-nothingness is a dark chaotic sea, you might say God was the wind over the waters speaking the first words of order. If that pre-existing-nothingness is the speck-of-everything, you might say that God was spark that ignited a Big Bang.
Our stories of ‘how’ depend on what we have learned about our own existence based on what we have experienced and observed. Those stories cannot be considered true for all time.
I love the line from Denys Archand’s wonderfully thought-provoking 1989 film, ‘Jesus of Montréal’ where the director of a documentary on the origins of the universe is asked “it leaves a whole lot of questions without answers, huh?” and he responds: “Yes and when you consider that these facts may only be true for a while.” Knowledge and understanding are never complete. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? We wonder and we discover; and we do it all over again.
The ‘how’ questions don’t matter as we read Genesis. What does it tell us about God? That’s the question!
• I believe that the most basic nature of God is that God is the ‘order within the apparent chaos’;
• In the context of the wider scriptural tradition I believe that God is love and that it is the kind of love that transcends reason (to paraphrase Jesus, to love, even when nothing justifies that you should).
• I believe that God is the good that is natural and possible in everything and within everyone.
• I believed that God is an active force is our lives. As Genesis puts it, we bear the ‘image of God’ as live and move and have our being.
//
It’s all about the perspective we choose to take in the world. Perspective is the first theme of the Genesis story: Let there be light! With the addition of light, darkness is broken up and tempered with shadow and depth and meaning. With light...knowledge and understanding can begin; the process of wonder and discover start. Light allows for perspective. Light allows for us to try and understand who we are and ‘whose’ we are. // end //
My hope...is that we can perceive that ‘a purpose of our existence’ is to live as if we have been called to let the image of God shine.
I hope that we perceive the truth that we are part of something ‘steeped in goodness’.
Today, we all took part in the wonderful ritual of Baptism with three little boys and their parents. We proclaimed (in word and action) that God is active in all of us from the beginning to the end of the age.
We have to believe in inherent goodness to be able to baptize and mean what we say.
If we are to be people of hope, justice and love, ‘that’ has to be where we begin.
Good Stuff!! // Let us pray;
Embracing God;
Help us delight in the wonder of your love and in the goodness of your created order. May we reflect your image in all that we do. Amen.
#580VU “Faith of Our Fathers”
Pentecost 1
Genesis 1:1-2:4a
Matthew 28:16-20
(prayer)
The word “genesis” has greek and latin roots: it means ‘birth’ or ‘origin’ or more simply ‘beginning’. The parallel word in hebrew is ‘resheet’. The first word in the original hebrew of the reading from Genesis today is ‘bəresheet’ (בְּרֵאשִׁית) [slide] which is well translated in most English editions of the bible as “in the beginning” – ‘at the birth’. The image being painted by these words is that there is NO story to tell prior to this point – this is the start, this is where it all begins. [slide]
בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים
אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ
Beresheet bara elohim
et-ha’shamium ve’et-ha’artetz
In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth
The text goes on to say...
The earth was a formless void [tohu ve’vohu] and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God [ru’ah] swept over the face of the waters.
Then God said, ‘Let there be light’.
//
This narrative probably found its written form during the time that the Hebrew people from Judah had been sent to live in exile during the reign of the Babylonian Empire (6th c. BCE). The Hebrews had suffered a crisis of faith. For centuries, since the time of Kings David and Solomon, life had been stable for the Judeans. Jerusalem had been built as a new capital city; a temple of stone replaced the wood and canvas tabernacle that had travelled with the people since the time of Moses. For four hundred years, Judah had enjoyed relative stability. For a dozen generations, people had grown to assume that God dwelled with them in Judah, because that is the only place they had ever lived – and when a formal, stone and mortar worship site is built, with an inner sanctuary room called the ‘holy of holies’ where it was assumed that the Spirit of God literally dwelt, how could they imagine things any other way?
That life, those beliefs, were brought to a dramatic close when the people were forced to live as refugee prisoners by the rivers of Babylon. “How can we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:4)
Their captors might have taunted them with claims that ‘my gods are stronger than your God!’ For many of the Hebrew exiles, they may have been worried that this could even be true. Were the gods of the Babylonians really in control of the future?
It is into this context that the creation story we find in Genesis chapter one emerges.
What we heard this morning was an assertion of God’s primacy using the language of sixth century people and their view of what creation entailed.
I am (personally) absolutely baffled by that persistent, vocal minority that unrealistically insist that the creation accounts in the bible are to be taken literally: things really happened the way we read it. Baffling to me! We did not hear this morning how things came into being, but we heard a proclamation that the Hebrew God is the creator of all that was known to exist.
We can see that in this Genesis One story.
‘In the beginning’ (as this story goes) the pre-existing-nothingness is described (metaphorically, not literally) as a dark chaotic sea (AKA the deep...people of antiquity believed the oceans had no bottom) – in this pre-existing-nothingness, the only thing that is distinguishable was the Spirit of God, which (in keeping with the ocean metaphor) is like a wind over the waves: it’s there but it’s illusive.
As the days of this story progress, more of the world known to the 6th century Hebrews emerges. At that time all of the people of antiquity believed the world was flat; we see that expressed in Genesis One. The sky wasn’t an ever thinning atmosphere leading out to open space, but to the people of the 6th c. BCE, the sky was simply a physical roof over the world.
It wasn’t possible for the ancient Hebrews, but if you could fly up to the sky-roof, you could touch it.
As we read Genesis One, the sky-roof had water below it and water above it: ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ (the waters above the roof were the source of rain that could fall down from the sky); the waters below were separated by plots of dry land.
The sky-roof also contained several lights (that were observable by the people of the 6th c. BCE): a great one (the sun) which was seen in the daytime; and stars and a light lesser than the sun (moon) which were on the sky-roof at night – they also could see five of the planets in our solar system (as ‘we’ can with the naked eye), but of course they had no idea they were planets – they saw them as ‘stars’ that moved a bit differently than the other stars across the sky.
It’s interesting that even in our modern world we still use ‘flat earth’ language – the sun rises and sets, the sun, moon, planets and stars move across the sky, when most of the movement we see is because “we” are the ones who are actually moving, as the earth rotates.
Just because we use metaphoric language, doesn’t mean it’s literally true.
The world of Genesis One is made up of three environments: the sky, the land and the water – as the story goes (as the 6th c. People experienced), each environment was made teaming with living creatures: birds, fish and land animals (including humans on the land).
The message of the story –
this is...all...good!
//
The content within the story made sense to people with a worldview from 2600 years ago. It is not a literal account of how things came into being. It is a theological proclamation that God is the source of the order we experience in the world and that this created-order is ‘good’. To me, that far more powerful than a news report of an event.
How ‘we’ tell the story of ‘The Beginning’ has changed as our understanding of the universe has grown, and yet there is still a divine mystery at the heart. How did the big bang, begin its bang? That’s a scientific (and I would add, theological) mystery!
//
I do not believe that the world was created in six rotations of the earth. I do not believe that the first human was made out of dirt to look exactly as we do today (in the same way that an artisan shapes clay on a potter wheel). Female humans were not created out of the rib of a previously created male human; The creations stories beginning at Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 2:5 should not to be taken literally!
But… just because we shouldn’t take them literally doesn’t mean that shouldn’t take them seriously: we should! They are powerful theological proclaimations. We simply must embrace them for what they are. They are faith-filled storied (drenched in rich metaphor) claiming that God is the source of what we know and experience; that God is the beginning of everything; and that we can come to an awareness that we are able to reflect the image of God within our lives.
// And so...
Allow yourself to be challenged to believe these things; don’t get lost in silly debates about whether people from 2600 years ago had any inkling about ‘how’ all this happened.
//
I believe that the discoveries of science (particularly the complexity of the building blocks of matter and life and the vastness of the universe as a whole) make the possibility of a source (a creator) even more compelling.
God does not need to held within human limitations. 2600 years ago, they believed that things must have always been they were and just appeared at some point (that worked for them). Our brightest modern idea about the origins of the universe involve an infinitesimally small, unbelievably heavy, speck-of-everything exploding in a Big Bang and expanding and collecting into all that we see and know today (works for us, right now). Who knows what the people 2600 years from now will believe about the origins of the universe?
But I believe that (from a spiritual perspective), regardless of the best theories of “how”, that behind it all...is ‘a source’ – behind it all...is God and ‘that’ can be an eternal truth for us.
If the pre-existing-nothingness is a dark chaotic sea, you might say God was the wind over the waters speaking the first words of order. If that pre-existing-nothingness is the speck-of-everything, you might say that God was spark that ignited a Big Bang.
Our stories of ‘how’ depend on what we have learned about our own existence based on what we have experienced and observed. Those stories cannot be considered true for all time.
I love the line from Denys Archand’s wonderfully thought-provoking 1989 film, ‘Jesus of Montréal’ where the director of a documentary on the origins of the universe is asked “it leaves a whole lot of questions without answers, huh?” and he responds: “Yes and when you consider that these facts may only be true for a while.” Knowledge and understanding are never complete. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? We wonder and we discover; and we do it all over again.
The ‘how’ questions don’t matter as we read Genesis. What does it tell us about God? That’s the question!
• I believe that the most basic nature of God is that God is the ‘order within the apparent chaos’;
• In the context of the wider scriptural tradition I believe that God is love and that it is the kind of love that transcends reason (to paraphrase Jesus, to love, even when nothing justifies that you should).
• I believe that God is the good that is natural and possible in everything and within everyone.
• I believed that God is an active force is our lives. As Genesis puts it, we bear the ‘image of God’ as live and move and have our being.
//
It’s all about the perspective we choose to take in the world. Perspective is the first theme of the Genesis story: Let there be light! With the addition of light, darkness is broken up and tempered with shadow and depth and meaning. With light...knowledge and understanding can begin; the process of wonder and discover start. Light allows for perspective. Light allows for us to try and understand who we are and ‘whose’ we are. // end //
My hope...is that we can perceive that ‘a purpose of our existence’ is to live as if we have been called to let the image of God shine.
I hope that we perceive the truth that we are part of something ‘steeped in goodness’.
Today, we all took part in the wonderful ritual of Baptism with three little boys and their parents. We proclaimed (in word and action) that God is active in all of us from the beginning to the end of the age.
We have to believe in inherent goodness to be able to baptize and mean what we say.
If we are to be people of hope, justice and love, ‘that’ has to be where we begin.
Good Stuff!! // Let us pray;
Embracing God;
Help us delight in the wonder of your love and in the goodness of your created order. May we reflect your image in all that we do. Amen.
#580VU “Faith of Our Fathers”
Sunday, June 5, 2011
LEAVING AND STAYING
June 5, 2011
Easter 7 (last)
1st Peter 4:12-14 & 5:6-11
Acts 1:6-14
(prayer)
There came a time when the followers of Jesus had to go on without him. Of course, this happened most significantly when Jesus was a arrested and executed by crucifixion. But that wasn’t really the end. Jesus resurrected.
We're also told about a few times after the resurrection that the Risen Christ continued to be with the disciples (with women at the tomb; with Thomas and the others in the upper room), with Cleopas and another disciple on the road to Emmaus with Peter and others, fishing by the Sea of Galilee. But even that kind of relationship came to an end. Jesus ascended.
And yet, the people who were inspired by Jesus still felt a sense of purpose - enlivened by the Spirit – Jesus had promised them that the Spirit would not abandon them – they would continue to have a ‘helper, advocate, counsellor’ in the Spirit.
And so, in that same vein, we continue to celebrate what it is that still brings us together so long after the first disciples gathered around Jesus. We are the Community of the Risen Christ. Within this community is a passion for what Jesus was passionate about – there is mutual support and there is a hope that reaches beyond any limit we can imagine.
//
I am always struck by the faith and persistence of the members of the early church. I am amazed that the “Jesus Movement” survived beyond its first several decades. Look at the reading from the letter of First Peter! “412Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you.”
Life for many members of the early church included a fair amount of difficulty and suffering. The author of 1st Peter describes that this was certainly true for the community who received that letter. Members of that church were being “reviled”; they were “suffering”; they were “anxious”. The letter invited people to turn this experience around – to see these sufferings as badges of honour. We heard the strange language of rejoicing-in-suffering; of being blessed for being reviled.
It is a simple fact of their experience that being part of the early church lead to a certain amount of suffering and contempt by others from the wider community. The message of the letter is that this ‘ordeal’ may test their faith, but the hope of the author is that they will endure this time in the knowledge that God actively cares for them and that God’s grace will ultimately prevail.
The believers were encouraged to be humble, disciplined and alert. They were encouraged to resist the pressures around them that might “devour” the faith they held. Part of this encouragement was to point out that this particular church was not the only one experiencing these kinds of sufferings. It’s strange isn’t it that knowing one is not alone in difficulty can actually be comforting to a degree. The old adage “misery loves company” usually means that sometimes people can negatively get stuck in the low place because they are supported (enabled) in that situation by others. But I also believe that it is true that having company in a miserable time can be helpful. It isn’t as good as having no suffering to deal with, but it is a good response to suffering.
That is the context of today’s reading from 1st Peter: the suffering is happening and the author is responding to that fact. The response we read in this passage seems to have been intended as a theological support for these people who might have been questioning “why they were suffering”.
//
As I was thinking about this passage over the past few weeks, I re-read parts of Rabbi Harold Kushner’s 1981 book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”. I did so, because I (ultimately) find the (implied all or nothing) thesis of the First Peter passage unconvincing – I find it hard to believe that the suffering being experienced by the people of the church was God’s choice for them, that it was a test and for the greater purpose of getting them to really appreciate the Glory of God when it is revealed in the fullness of time.
Kushner uses the story in the book of Job as an example. Job was presumed to be a very good and righteous person. He was the unfortunate guinea pig of a bet between God and (a character called) The Accuser (in Hebrew, the word for accuser is sah-tan’ – eventually, the word would become a proper name within Hebrew theology as ‘Satan’). The bet: Is Job’s righteousness tied to his prosperous and happy life? Would Job turn his back on God if life was less comfortable? The Accuser said yes; God said no. So to test the bet, Job lost everything: his land, his money, his health and even his family. After watching for a while, it appears that God won the bet, Job didn’t understand it, he even complained about to God, but he refused to ‘curse God’. The story ended with God getting his health back and replacements for all of the things he lost, including a new family.
In his book, Kushner speaks of God as being a ‘god of justice’ as opposed to simply being a ‘god of power’. The message in First Peter seems to focus on God’s power. God uses God’s power to allow the suffering for the greater purpose of teaching the people of the church a valuable lesson. And at a certain level, I think this is an attractive notion and could be language that is helpful for people who are suffering – their plight has a greater purpose and so the suffering is not all bad.
In Kushner’s book, he gives example after example of people who have experienced deep tragedy, who have trouble accepting that the reason behind the suffering was to get the lesson. When that tragedy involves the death of a young, innocent child – what sense is there to say that this child had to die for the benefit of their parent’s enlightenment? Kushner makes reference to the book “The Bereaved Parent” by Harriet Schiff and quotes what someone said to her after the death of her young son during an operation. Shiff was told by her clergyman: “ ‘I know that you will get through [this painful time] all right because God never sends us more of a burden that we can bear. God only let this happen to you because He knows you are strong enough to handle it.’ Harriet Shiff remembers her reaction to those words: ‘If only I was a weaker person, Robbie would still be alive.’ ”
It is a phrase I have heard a lot: ‘God will not burden us with more than we can bear.’ I know that it is a helpful statement of faith for many people, I don’t want to belittle that. I am simply bothered by the seemingly random nature of the burden of suffering that I seem to observe in the world. Sure, much of life is quite logically dictated by the choices we make – we reap what we sow for the most part. But it is the exceptions that make a blanket theology about the good being blessed and the bad being cursed hard to swallow: decent, giving, good people suffering; and nasty, selfishly-evil people enjoying the good life. How is that right?
I understand the value of the message in the book of Job and in the letter of First Peter: don’t give up on God – God believes you can get through this, just be patient. I just can’t take it to the next level and say that God wants people to suffer – even if something good might result in response to that suffering.
The proverb ‘God will not burden us with more than we can bear’ is not actually from the bible. It’s close to a passage from the letter of First Corinthians (10:12): ‘No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.’
The word “testing” here refers to whether one can endure the temptation to go against their faith. There is a subtle distinction between ‘God actively burdening us with some suffering’ and ‘God aiding us as we seek to endure the suffering of life.’
That (for me) is the helpful distinction from Rabbi Kushner’s book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”, God is a not so much a god of power, but a god of justice. If our God is a God of Justice, then God will not abandon us in times of trial and difficulty.
That is the theme of the poem by Mary Fishback, about the footprints in the sand, where the person assumes God has abandoned him during the hard times because (at those times) there was only one set of footprints > the divine voice of justice says “my precious child, during those times, it was then that I carried you.”
For all of my concerns about how the author of First Peter penned the theological explanation of suffering, I do like the phrase that we are to “cast all of our anxiety on God”.
Misery not only loves company, it needs it. When a time of suffering ends up yielding some measure of good in our lives, it is (I believe) a result of how much care and compassion we inject into those difficult times. We don’t need to redact the history and say that it was good that we suffered because we learned something valuable. But we can say “in spite of the suffering”, we moved forward in hope and promise and it was that atmosphere of care and compassion that lead to the latent good result. We always would like to relive the time and get the good lesson some other way, but ‘time moves forward not backward for us’ so discussions about what could have been, are seldom helpful because they are not possible.
//
When the disciples of Jesus realized at some point that they would not have the benefit of Jesus in their midst any longer, there was a moment of lamentation. They looked up into empty sky and were stuck in that moment of loss. The message they received was to focus on where they were now and to live this life before them in all faithfulness and devotion. And so they may have gone up on the Mount of Olives with the Risen Christ as their physical companion, but they came down alone. And...their faith was not shaken or broken or irrelevant – they returned to the room in Jerusalem, and the men and women among the group of Jesus’ followers devoted themselves to prayer. The ‘church-after-Jesus’ began.
Over the past 20 some-odd centuries, the church has prospered and struggled. And people of faith have done the same – we’ve prospered and struggled. And...we are still here. That says something.
//
I think we are here because we are drawn to a god of justice – we are drawn to what seems fair, we are drawn to what feels right.
God does not have to be seen as this supernatural, mindless algorithm that simply responds to the inputs we offer with pre-ordained responses. We don’t have to believe in a vending machine sort of God.
We can believe in a God whose essence is justice: a justice based on compassion, mercy and love. We believe in a God that is aware of this moment in time and is able to react to us and how our lives are going. That’s the basic message of the Jesus story the early church too away from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus – that God looks past the ups and downs of our lives and simply loving forgives what fell short.
I can’t say that God only gives us what we can handle – in other words, allowing more pain and suffering for the strong-willed and less for those who could be called weaker. I base this on my own eyes and ears - I have seen good, strong people pushed beyond their limits. And if I have to give God the credit for that, I can’t reconcile that with the god of justice and compassion who Jesus represented in this life.
But I will say that God is actively with us no matter what. God is dynamic and able to respond to the needs of our lives, so that no matter what we are facing, we don’t need to try and handle it alone.
In a few minutes, we will take time to recite together the United Church Creed – let those words “We Are Not Alone” become a life-anthem for you.
Over the next few weeks, we will have the opportunity to share in the experience of baptism with four families. As we do so, they and we will make promises of encouragement and support. When we do take note of the language we will us. We will respond to the invitations to take on these roles with words like, “I will, with God’s help!”
//
When the author of Luke-Acts describes the Risen Jesus leaving his disciples for the last time, at first, they are stuck in the moment, unable to look away from the empty sky. Then the message comes to them, “why are we looking up towards heaven?” There next actions tells us what there answer was – they re-focused on the world they were in, they went back to their community in Jerusalem.
Next week, we will hear another story from Acts that inspires this young community of faith. They will move beyond this moment of separation by connecting with others throughout the known world through their experience of Jesus Christ. They now looked at God in a new way and they knew that this God of Justice and Compassion was with them always.
Even as members of this early church encountered hard times, they would hold fast to that truth: We are not alone. Thanks be to God! That’s our truth as well!
Let us pray:
Help us see, O God, that you are always with us. In Jesus’ name, AMEN
**Offering**
Easter 7 (last)
1st Peter 4:12-14 & 5:6-11
Acts 1:6-14
(prayer)
There came a time when the followers of Jesus had to go on without him. Of course, this happened most significantly when Jesus was a arrested and executed by crucifixion. But that wasn’t really the end. Jesus resurrected.
We're also told about a few times after the resurrection that the Risen Christ continued to be with the disciples (with women at the tomb; with Thomas and the others in the upper room), with Cleopas and another disciple on the road to Emmaus with Peter and others, fishing by the Sea of Galilee. But even that kind of relationship came to an end. Jesus ascended.
And yet, the people who were inspired by Jesus still felt a sense of purpose - enlivened by the Spirit – Jesus had promised them that the Spirit would not abandon them – they would continue to have a ‘helper, advocate, counsellor’ in the Spirit.
And so, in that same vein, we continue to celebrate what it is that still brings us together so long after the first disciples gathered around Jesus. We are the Community of the Risen Christ. Within this community is a passion for what Jesus was passionate about – there is mutual support and there is a hope that reaches beyond any limit we can imagine.
//
I am always struck by the faith and persistence of the members of the early church. I am amazed that the “Jesus Movement” survived beyond its first several decades. Look at the reading from the letter of First Peter! “412Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you.”
Life for many members of the early church included a fair amount of difficulty and suffering. The author of 1st Peter describes that this was certainly true for the community who received that letter. Members of that church were being “reviled”; they were “suffering”; they were “anxious”. The letter invited people to turn this experience around – to see these sufferings as badges of honour. We heard the strange language of rejoicing-in-suffering; of being blessed for being reviled.
It is a simple fact of their experience that being part of the early church lead to a certain amount of suffering and contempt by others from the wider community. The message of the letter is that this ‘ordeal’ may test their faith, but the hope of the author is that they will endure this time in the knowledge that God actively cares for them and that God’s grace will ultimately prevail.
The believers were encouraged to be humble, disciplined and alert. They were encouraged to resist the pressures around them that might “devour” the faith they held. Part of this encouragement was to point out that this particular church was not the only one experiencing these kinds of sufferings. It’s strange isn’t it that knowing one is not alone in difficulty can actually be comforting to a degree. The old adage “misery loves company” usually means that sometimes people can negatively get stuck in the low place because they are supported (enabled) in that situation by others. But I also believe that it is true that having company in a miserable time can be helpful. It isn’t as good as having no suffering to deal with, but it is a good response to suffering.
That is the context of today’s reading from 1st Peter: the suffering is happening and the author is responding to that fact. The response we read in this passage seems to have been intended as a theological support for these people who might have been questioning “why they were suffering”.
//
As I was thinking about this passage over the past few weeks, I re-read parts of Rabbi Harold Kushner’s 1981 book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”. I did so, because I (ultimately) find the (implied all or nothing) thesis of the First Peter passage unconvincing – I find it hard to believe that the suffering being experienced by the people of the church was God’s choice for them, that it was a test and for the greater purpose of getting them to really appreciate the Glory of God when it is revealed in the fullness of time.
Kushner uses the story in the book of Job as an example. Job was presumed to be a very good and righteous person. He was the unfortunate guinea pig of a bet between God and (a character called) The Accuser (in Hebrew, the word for accuser is sah-tan’ – eventually, the word would become a proper name within Hebrew theology as ‘Satan’). The bet: Is Job’s righteousness tied to his prosperous and happy life? Would Job turn his back on God if life was less comfortable? The Accuser said yes; God said no. So to test the bet, Job lost everything: his land, his money, his health and even his family. After watching for a while, it appears that God won the bet, Job didn’t understand it, he even complained about to God, but he refused to ‘curse God’. The story ended with God getting his health back and replacements for all of the things he lost, including a new family.
In his book, Kushner speaks of God as being a ‘god of justice’ as opposed to simply being a ‘god of power’. The message in First Peter seems to focus on God’s power. God uses God’s power to allow the suffering for the greater purpose of teaching the people of the church a valuable lesson. And at a certain level, I think this is an attractive notion and could be language that is helpful for people who are suffering – their plight has a greater purpose and so the suffering is not all bad.
In Kushner’s book, he gives example after example of people who have experienced deep tragedy, who have trouble accepting that the reason behind the suffering was to get the lesson. When that tragedy involves the death of a young, innocent child – what sense is there to say that this child had to die for the benefit of their parent’s enlightenment? Kushner makes reference to the book “The Bereaved Parent” by Harriet Schiff and quotes what someone said to her after the death of her young son during an operation. Shiff was told by her clergyman: “ ‘I know that you will get through [this painful time] all right because God never sends us more of a burden that we can bear. God only let this happen to you because He knows you are strong enough to handle it.’ Harriet Shiff remembers her reaction to those words: ‘If only I was a weaker person, Robbie would still be alive.’ ”
It is a phrase I have heard a lot: ‘God will not burden us with more than we can bear.’ I know that it is a helpful statement of faith for many people, I don’t want to belittle that. I am simply bothered by the seemingly random nature of the burden of suffering that I seem to observe in the world. Sure, much of life is quite logically dictated by the choices we make – we reap what we sow for the most part. But it is the exceptions that make a blanket theology about the good being blessed and the bad being cursed hard to swallow: decent, giving, good people suffering; and nasty, selfishly-evil people enjoying the good life. How is that right?
I understand the value of the message in the book of Job and in the letter of First Peter: don’t give up on God – God believes you can get through this, just be patient. I just can’t take it to the next level and say that God wants people to suffer – even if something good might result in response to that suffering.
The proverb ‘God will not burden us with more than we can bear’ is not actually from the bible. It’s close to a passage from the letter of First Corinthians (10:12): ‘No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.’
The word “testing” here refers to whether one can endure the temptation to go against their faith. There is a subtle distinction between ‘God actively burdening us with some suffering’ and ‘God aiding us as we seek to endure the suffering of life.’
That (for me) is the helpful distinction from Rabbi Kushner’s book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”, God is a not so much a god of power, but a god of justice. If our God is a God of Justice, then God will not abandon us in times of trial and difficulty.
That is the theme of the poem by Mary Fishback, about the footprints in the sand, where the person assumes God has abandoned him during the hard times because (at those times) there was only one set of footprints > the divine voice of justice says “my precious child, during those times, it was then that I carried you.”
For all of my concerns about how the author of First Peter penned the theological explanation of suffering, I do like the phrase that we are to “cast all of our anxiety on God”.
Misery not only loves company, it needs it. When a time of suffering ends up yielding some measure of good in our lives, it is (I believe) a result of how much care and compassion we inject into those difficult times. We don’t need to redact the history and say that it was good that we suffered because we learned something valuable. But we can say “in spite of the suffering”, we moved forward in hope and promise and it was that atmosphere of care and compassion that lead to the latent good result. We always would like to relive the time and get the good lesson some other way, but ‘time moves forward not backward for us’ so discussions about what could have been, are seldom helpful because they are not possible.
//
When the disciples of Jesus realized at some point that they would not have the benefit of Jesus in their midst any longer, there was a moment of lamentation. They looked up into empty sky and were stuck in that moment of loss. The message they received was to focus on where they were now and to live this life before them in all faithfulness and devotion. And so they may have gone up on the Mount of Olives with the Risen Christ as their physical companion, but they came down alone. And...their faith was not shaken or broken or irrelevant – they returned to the room in Jerusalem, and the men and women among the group of Jesus’ followers devoted themselves to prayer. The ‘church-after-Jesus’ began.
Over the past 20 some-odd centuries, the church has prospered and struggled. And people of faith have done the same – we’ve prospered and struggled. And...we are still here. That says something.
//
I think we are here because we are drawn to a god of justice – we are drawn to what seems fair, we are drawn to what feels right.
God does not have to be seen as this supernatural, mindless algorithm that simply responds to the inputs we offer with pre-ordained responses. We don’t have to believe in a vending machine sort of God.
We can believe in a God whose essence is justice: a justice based on compassion, mercy and love. We believe in a God that is aware of this moment in time and is able to react to us and how our lives are going. That’s the basic message of the Jesus story the early church too away from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus – that God looks past the ups and downs of our lives and simply loving forgives what fell short.
I can’t say that God only gives us what we can handle – in other words, allowing more pain and suffering for the strong-willed and less for those who could be called weaker. I base this on my own eyes and ears - I have seen good, strong people pushed beyond their limits. And if I have to give God the credit for that, I can’t reconcile that with the god of justice and compassion who Jesus represented in this life.
But I will say that God is actively with us no matter what. God is dynamic and able to respond to the needs of our lives, so that no matter what we are facing, we don’t need to try and handle it alone.
In a few minutes, we will take time to recite together the United Church Creed – let those words “We Are Not Alone” become a life-anthem for you.
Over the next few weeks, we will have the opportunity to share in the experience of baptism with four families. As we do so, they and we will make promises of encouragement and support. When we do take note of the language we will us. We will respond to the invitations to take on these roles with words like, “I will, with God’s help!”
//
When the author of Luke-Acts describes the Risen Jesus leaving his disciples for the last time, at first, they are stuck in the moment, unable to look away from the empty sky. Then the message comes to them, “why are we looking up towards heaven?” There next actions tells us what there answer was – they re-focused on the world they were in, they went back to their community in Jerusalem.
Next week, we will hear another story from Acts that inspires this young community of faith. They will move beyond this moment of separation by connecting with others throughout the known world through their experience of Jesus Christ. They now looked at God in a new way and they knew that this God of Justice and Compassion was with them always.
Even as members of this early church encountered hard times, they would hold fast to that truth: We are not alone. Thanks be to God! That’s our truth as well!
Let us pray:
Help us see, O God, that you are always with us. In Jesus’ name, AMEN
**Offering**
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