Exodus 3: 1-15
Matthew 16:21-28
There is fighting in Libya. Hurricane Irene made landfall and is working the way up the East-coast. An earthquake struck Washington DC. All the things that technology was supposed to do for us, and thus far, we have access to many bits of in formation and we become distracted by many things. I am never certain if when something happens, I am supposed to TWEET first, or FACEBOOK, to send a TEXT or LINK-IN, or EMAIL, and wonder why we cannot simply TALK TOGETHER FACE TO FACE? We now are developing APPS for anything we could want to do, but HOW this affects us, and who we are becoming, we have not yet come to know.
Yesterday afternoon, I had a wedding, and as the guests were entering I heard a voice from decades ago a man we had known in college in the Midwest 35 years ago was walking up the steps. In that lull after the wedding and before the reception begins, we visited together with quick and deep summaries of the important events and circumstances in our lives. He described his partner and how they had met a dozen years ago. As a very gentle and soft-spoken man, I was not surprised nor concerned that he described having come to the awareness that of knowing himself, and that he was gay. And the way he described it, the process of coming to know who he is and claiming who he is, I responded: “I have never thought of it this way before, nor heard it described as such, but I think most of us, speaking for myself, I also have spent most my life searching for who we are, at 53 still questioning what I want to be when I grow up. That has been punctuated over the years with marriage and children, education and experiences, but for you it has seemed to have been focused on your most intimate commitment.” With all the distractions of life, jobs and careers, the economy, worries about children and pets, we lose sight of what we hold most dear, what we believe and who we think we are.
The story of Moses begins here, not in a palace, not in the Temple, not while doing the most grand of things, but rather the most mundane. While this orphaned Hebrew child may think he knows who he is, raised in the household of the Pharaoh of Egypt, who recently witnessed the racism and prejudice of an Egyptian beating a slave, and instinctively struck and killed the abuser, tried to get away from his past, tried to go to a new place, marrying and herding sheep for his father in law Jethro a priest and leader of Midian. STILL, God knows who he is, where he is, what he has done, and God cares.
We often become distracted reading this passage, by the burning bush. After all, it's FIRE, and yet the bush is unharmed, not consumed by burning. Listening to the story in context, it is as if, the whole point of the burning bush is to DISTRACT MOSES FROM DISTRACTIONS. Seeing the bush out of the corner of his eye, he could no longer look down at his feet. Seeing the bush burnt but not consumed he had to take his eye off the sheep, off the path, off his worries and doubts and regrets, and look up. Moses had to pause his TEXT MESSAGING about what he saw and GO SEE rather than TWEETING about it as an observer he was Called to participate. From that moment of DISTRACTION, there is no longer concern about the burning bush, but GOD who speaks and is present with Moses here on Holy Ground. What a perfect metaphor for the CHURCH, WORSHIP, being the COUMMINTY OF FAITH to one another, we were never supposed to be an Institution, Perfect, we were never to be the IDEAL. As brilliant as the sermon may be, as much as we may rehearse and practice, despite the brilliance of the windows, the majesty of these gold pipes and the music created, all of worship is to DISTRACT US from OUR DISTRACTIONS to consider what is of value, who we are and where we are going. This is a passage about a Calling, a vocation, the seriousness of what we believe to how we live.
Like many of you, I had a mentor growing up, going to school, the early years of my career, who has now gone. Whenever I returned, he would ask the same Biblical question, “What's the latest theory about the TETRAGAMMANON?” When first he asked I was not certain what TETRAGAMMANON even was, but quickly came to know he was referencing Moses' 4 letter name for God.
In that this mentor had also gone to seminary and been a preacher, I thought of all the things that have not changed since you went to seminary probably at the top of the list of what has not changed is the meaning of this 6000 year old name for God. But deferring to his wisdom and experience and concern, I thought it a teaching exercise, so attempting to prove my knowledge recited “YHWH is so holy, we never speak it, but seeing the letters instead choose to speak ADONAI. The Word YHWH is the Verb TO Be, so anything that has being God is in it. Literally, “I AM WHO I AM, I AM WHAT I AM and WHAT I HAVE DONE and WHAT I WILL BE.” He smirked replying that “I AM WHAT I AM” is the catch phrase for POPEYE the Sailor, not the God of all Creation, Lord and Redeemer.
Over the years, I had struggled to understand and come to explain what I thought this mentor was asking. Now that he has died, listening to the text again, We hear the VERBS of what is said from the bush: “I HAVE SEEN,” “I HAVE HEARD,” “I HAVE KNOWN” are part of a recurrent identification from God, the fourth verb of which is “AND I HAVE REMEMBERED” the promise.
The point of the name for God, is not which is the prettiest name, or only as an explanation of identity, but that of all places, in this most common, most mundane, while taking sheep to pasture, Moses sees the BUSH that is a Reality, it is on fire and it is not burned. If Moses had simply heard a voice, while doing his task, the words would have been intangible, invisible, like theory, idea or philosophy, Abstract WORDS only something to know; but this bush is real and the burning is real, and it not being burned by the burning is also real, so the words that are said, that this is Holy Ground, that God IS, and God SEES, and GOD HEARS, and GOD KNOWS and GOD REMEMBERS, and that no matter how far away we may run, God is with us, all that is the REALITY. The Winds and rain and flooding of Irene have been the story of the last 72 hours, the tremors of Washington have already ceased, be those the ones of politics or those deeper in the earth, the fall of a dictatorship, even the intrinsic worth of our homes and land, and the problems of this week, all is distraction, all will pass. What Moses discovers is real, is that as much as he tried to run away from who he was, to hide what he had done, God sees, God hears, God knows and God remembers the promise. That is the FOUR PART IDENTIFICATION OF GOD, the Tetragammanon.
As much as we try to “Create” ourselves, as much as we try to hide our secrets and what bothers us most, the Burning Bush is physical evidence God knows and is not distracted by who we are. God accepts us, and stays with us through all our arguments, until finally we are left without distractions.
We recall the question of Jesus to the Disciples “Who do People Believe is the Messiah, and Who do you think I Am?” to which Simon replies with the Confession “You are the Christ, son of the living God.” Yet, the meat of the revelation comes here afterward. For just like Moses having found the Bush, Simon found the right response, each now have the resources to know who and God is, Christ is, but each is also very human, responding to adversity, to obstacles and threats with “NO, God forbid.” The core of the Confession in response to Jesus is the Christ, the Redeemer, Son of the Living God, is to cut through all distractions to say “Yes, AND he suffered and died, that nothing, not suffering, not death, not anything which may frighten us CAN EVER separate us from the love of God.” That is the meaning of Salvation.
Amazing, when we see and hear and know and remember the Promise that nothing can ever separate us from the Love of God, suddenly all the storms and distractions, the TWEETS and POKES and PINGS, the FRIENDING and UNFRIENDING, the Crises of the Day, even the anxieties about who we really are, all seem to fall into place.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
August 21, 2011 "Biblical Juxtaposition"
Exodus 1:1 -2:10
Matthew 16:13-20
Part of our desire for control, the means by which we make the world our own is through knowledge and understanding, to be able to plan with confidence, to make happen what we desire. But as much as we plan out for our children where they will live, where they will go to school, what they will study, there are circumstances of this life that surprise. What we do with those circumstances, how we choose to respond, these are acts of faith!
For the last hundred years and more, a controversy has swept Western Culture...whether we choose to believe Genesis' account of Creation, or whether we choose to believe in Evolution from a Big Bang. The Bible makes emphasis through juxtaposition, through Irony. The ultimate irony being that from a people who have biologically and culturally evolved, we have faith in God. There is irony that the more technologically advanced we have become, the more predisposed, absolutist and intractable.You have to be Democrat or Republican, you have to be rich or poor, for or against. The great joke of Western Society is that The Bible is Counter-Cultural! This sacred manuscript beginning in Ancient Mesopotamia long before the Caesars, before Alexander the Great, this foundation of morals, law, human culture, faith and ethics, emphasized MULTI-TASKING before we learned to use our opposable thumbs for typing on a Smith-Carona let alone an iPod or iPad. The Scriptures routinely explain one idea in tension with another; we only understand freedom when set against the backdrop of slavery, we only understand defiance when set against an absolute degree of control; we understand grace over against Law; we understand hope in the midst of loss and despair.
Our ancestors had two stories of where they came from. The first is that our ancestors were Nomads, wandering Arameans, descended from a childless couple. We possess these many ancient stories of Adam, of the Tower of Babel, of Noah, of Abram who while free, a nomad traveling the earth like the wind, he possessed no Land, no Name, and no Child. There was also the reality that our parents and grand-parents for generations had been slaves in Egypt. The Bible is not concerned with trying to determine which is right, which will win, the Bible draws the threads of all the parts of reality together.
The Book of Exodus begins with a series of Names taken from the conclusion of Genesis. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob was the father of 12 sons and several daughters who along with their families settled in Egypt during the great drought and famine. At that time, Jacob's family numbered 70 persons, and Jacob's favorite son: Joseph, whom he thought he had lost was the most powerful person in all Egypt. In the midst of this drought and famine in a foreign land, the descendants of Abraham, our ancestors multiplied just as commanded in the book of Genesis. Eventually Joseph and all of their generation died off. There came to power a new Pharaoh who no longer honored what had been established in the past.
There are many forms of exterminating a culture. We have heard story after story of Genocide, from Esther to the Holocaust, from Rwanda to the Middle east and Africa, where one race attempts to eliminate another. To control the economy, to control the means of production, to deny education are also means of eliminating others. To consciously make another people slaves, is an attempt at control, at domination, at denial of their humanity, the reality is that both the slave and the master lose their humanity. According to Anti-Slavery International, the oldest organization tracking this, there are currently 20 million people who are slaves, sold for as little as $15 a head.
Ten years ago, we began relationship with refugees from South Sudan. How wonderful that we have come to know these persons and Jacob and Santino, John and Martha, Andrew and Mary Ninkir. We have often referred to the story of their village being burned and the children walking across the country. The fact of the matter is that throughout Africa, India, China, South America, Europe and America today, there are still slaves. 20 million people.
The Book of Exodus is wonderful in its subtle portrayal. This new Pharaoh, the leader of the nation who is responsible for the welfare of their people creates an economic recovery plan of building Storehouse Cities. Pyramids filled with food for future generations, but built by human slaves. The first means of CONTROL, the first means of extermination of this people that have grown numerous, is slavery. But it seems the more harsh the slavery, the more humanity is denied, the more they reproduce. The second means of CONTROL is to kill all the male babies at birth. The foolishness of Pharaoh is not thought through because by killing off the male babies, he is killing off the future workforce, future slaves to build his pyramids. But Powerful and Mighty Pharaoh, ruler of the Ancient World gives orders to the Midwives to kill the baby boys. What is the role of a Midwife? To do whatever is necessary to preserve the life of those being born, and Pharaoh commands them to do the opposite. Now names are important to us. One of the most loving acts parents provide are to give their child their name. And in the wedding celebration, the couple choose their identity and name. In this story from Exodus we have very few and important names. What is the name of the Pharaoh who built great food storehouses? What is the Pharaoh's name who ordered murder? What is Pharaoh's daughter's name? We do not know. What are the names of the Baby's mother and father, we do not know. But the names of the MIDWIVES, those who trust God and defy the Pharaoh are named Shiphrah and Puah, “Life” and “Fulfillment”.
SO in an act of CONTROL, of increasing desperation, Pharaoh bypasses the Midwives and goes directly to the parents, telling them when you give birth to kill their children. To demonstrate what lunacy this is, Pharaoh has a specific means of murder, they are to throw them into the River. But the name of the River in Egypt is The Nile, meaning SOURCE OF LIFE. So the people are to follow the laws of Pharaoh by killing their children in the Source of Life. We do not know the name of this couple, the Bible tells only two things, they are of the House LEVI, meaning the holy order of the Priesthood and they love their baby.
This un-named woman acts in faith. She does what the Pharaoh commands placing her child in the Nile but she does so recalling the story of Noah, fashioning an ARK of gopher reeds and bitumin and pitch to make it waterproof. AND she appoints the child's sister to act as witness. A witness is not an innocent bystander caught unaware who reports what they think they saw. A witness is intentionally appointed to observe and to bear testimony, if possible to intercede to act in faith. The baby who is brought up out of the Moss and Water, is given an Egyptian Name: MOSES and a nurse who is his own mother.
As much as we try to control, try to know and understand, there are conclusions which surprise us. There are times in which juxtaposition is not one idea against another, so much so as one idea informed by another. According to Matthew, Jesus and the Disciples were talking as they walked together, and Jesus asked Who do people believe is The Messiah, the Savior, the Son of Man? And they gave all the traditional answers. Then Jesus asked “Who do you think I am?” Putting A and B together Simon responded “You are the Son of God!” Now up until that moment, no one in all history had put together that the Representative of Humanity, the Son of Man, would also be the Son of God. That these two were united in one life was a new thought a new reality, that God had become human. In response Jesus gives Simon a Nick-name, a name meaning two different things. Up until then there was no name Peter this has become adopted by our culture, the name Cephas has the same root origin as “Petrified” like in Petrified wood that becomes like stone. However, “petrified” can also refer to being immobilized by fear. Cephas can mean the Moveable Stone, this brick that will be used, as well as this immense immovable rock. The problem for the Church is that at times we have been elements, bricks used to build society, at times we have been an immovable wall, at times we have acted in fear, and at times, we have been able to be transformed from being one thing like a tree into something different and permanent like stone.
The question for us as a People of Faith is not which are we, Rich or Poor, Right or Wrong, Republican or Democrat, but whether we can serve as Witnesses for what is going on in the world. Whether we will make connections, between which companies own which subsidiaries, which movies and television shows are paid for by which advertisers, what are the connections between governmental policies and human lives, and are we willing in our places of comfort and security to recognize that slavery and inhumanity still exist.
Matthew 16:13-20
Part of our desire for control, the means by which we make the world our own is through knowledge and understanding, to be able to plan with confidence, to make happen what we desire. But as much as we plan out for our children where they will live, where they will go to school, what they will study, there are circumstances of this life that surprise. What we do with those circumstances, how we choose to respond, these are acts of faith!
For the last hundred years and more, a controversy has swept Western Culture...whether we choose to believe Genesis' account of Creation, or whether we choose to believe in Evolution from a Big Bang. The Bible makes emphasis through juxtaposition, through Irony. The ultimate irony being that from a people who have biologically and culturally evolved, we have faith in God. There is irony that the more technologically advanced we have become, the more predisposed, absolutist and intractable.You have to be Democrat or Republican, you have to be rich or poor, for or against. The great joke of Western Society is that The Bible is Counter-Cultural! This sacred manuscript beginning in Ancient Mesopotamia long before the Caesars, before Alexander the Great, this foundation of morals, law, human culture, faith and ethics, emphasized MULTI-TASKING before we learned to use our opposable thumbs for typing on a Smith-Carona let alone an iPod or iPad. The Scriptures routinely explain one idea in tension with another; we only understand freedom when set against the backdrop of slavery, we only understand defiance when set against an absolute degree of control; we understand grace over against Law; we understand hope in the midst of loss and despair.
Our ancestors had two stories of where they came from. The first is that our ancestors were Nomads, wandering Arameans, descended from a childless couple. We possess these many ancient stories of Adam, of the Tower of Babel, of Noah, of Abram who while free, a nomad traveling the earth like the wind, he possessed no Land, no Name, and no Child. There was also the reality that our parents and grand-parents for generations had been slaves in Egypt. The Bible is not concerned with trying to determine which is right, which will win, the Bible draws the threads of all the parts of reality together.
The Book of Exodus begins with a series of Names taken from the conclusion of Genesis. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob was the father of 12 sons and several daughters who along with their families settled in Egypt during the great drought and famine. At that time, Jacob's family numbered 70 persons, and Jacob's favorite son: Joseph, whom he thought he had lost was the most powerful person in all Egypt. In the midst of this drought and famine in a foreign land, the descendants of Abraham, our ancestors multiplied just as commanded in the book of Genesis. Eventually Joseph and all of their generation died off. There came to power a new Pharaoh who no longer honored what had been established in the past.
There are many forms of exterminating a culture. We have heard story after story of Genocide, from Esther to the Holocaust, from Rwanda to the Middle east and Africa, where one race attempts to eliminate another. To control the economy, to control the means of production, to deny education are also means of eliminating others. To consciously make another people slaves, is an attempt at control, at domination, at denial of their humanity, the reality is that both the slave and the master lose their humanity. According to Anti-Slavery International, the oldest organization tracking this, there are currently 20 million people who are slaves, sold for as little as $15 a head.
Ten years ago, we began relationship with refugees from South Sudan. How wonderful that we have come to know these persons and Jacob and Santino, John and Martha, Andrew and Mary Ninkir. We have often referred to the story of their village being burned and the children walking across the country. The fact of the matter is that throughout Africa, India, China, South America, Europe and America today, there are still slaves. 20 million people.
The Book of Exodus is wonderful in its subtle portrayal. This new Pharaoh, the leader of the nation who is responsible for the welfare of their people creates an economic recovery plan of building Storehouse Cities. Pyramids filled with food for future generations, but built by human slaves. The first means of CONTROL, the first means of extermination of this people that have grown numerous, is slavery. But it seems the more harsh the slavery, the more humanity is denied, the more they reproduce. The second means of CONTROL is to kill all the male babies at birth. The foolishness of Pharaoh is not thought through because by killing off the male babies, he is killing off the future workforce, future slaves to build his pyramids. But Powerful and Mighty Pharaoh, ruler of the Ancient World gives orders to the Midwives to kill the baby boys. What is the role of a Midwife? To do whatever is necessary to preserve the life of those being born, and Pharaoh commands them to do the opposite. Now names are important to us. One of the most loving acts parents provide are to give their child their name. And in the wedding celebration, the couple choose their identity and name. In this story from Exodus we have very few and important names. What is the name of the Pharaoh who built great food storehouses? What is the Pharaoh's name who ordered murder? What is Pharaoh's daughter's name? We do not know. What are the names of the Baby's mother and father, we do not know. But the names of the MIDWIVES, those who trust God and defy the Pharaoh are named Shiphrah and Puah, “Life” and “Fulfillment”.
SO in an act of CONTROL, of increasing desperation, Pharaoh bypasses the Midwives and goes directly to the parents, telling them when you give birth to kill their children. To demonstrate what lunacy this is, Pharaoh has a specific means of murder, they are to throw them into the River. But the name of the River in Egypt is The Nile, meaning SOURCE OF LIFE. So the people are to follow the laws of Pharaoh by killing their children in the Source of Life. We do not know the name of this couple, the Bible tells only two things, they are of the House LEVI, meaning the holy order of the Priesthood and they love their baby.
This un-named woman acts in faith. She does what the Pharaoh commands placing her child in the Nile but she does so recalling the story of Noah, fashioning an ARK of gopher reeds and bitumin and pitch to make it waterproof. AND she appoints the child's sister to act as witness. A witness is not an innocent bystander caught unaware who reports what they think they saw. A witness is intentionally appointed to observe and to bear testimony, if possible to intercede to act in faith. The baby who is brought up out of the Moss and Water, is given an Egyptian Name: MOSES and a nurse who is his own mother.
As much as we try to control, try to know and understand, there are conclusions which surprise us. There are times in which juxtaposition is not one idea against another, so much so as one idea informed by another. According to Matthew, Jesus and the Disciples were talking as they walked together, and Jesus asked Who do people believe is The Messiah, the Savior, the Son of Man? And they gave all the traditional answers. Then Jesus asked “Who do you think I am?” Putting A and B together Simon responded “You are the Son of God!” Now up until that moment, no one in all history had put together that the Representative of Humanity, the Son of Man, would also be the Son of God. That these two were united in one life was a new thought a new reality, that God had become human. In response Jesus gives Simon a Nick-name, a name meaning two different things. Up until then there was no name Peter this has become adopted by our culture, the name Cephas has the same root origin as “Petrified” like in Petrified wood that becomes like stone. However, “petrified” can also refer to being immobilized by fear. Cephas can mean the Moveable Stone, this brick that will be used, as well as this immense immovable rock. The problem for the Church is that at times we have been elements, bricks used to build society, at times we have been an immovable wall, at times we have acted in fear, and at times, we have been able to be transformed from being one thing like a tree into something different and permanent like stone.
The question for us as a People of Faith is not which are we, Rich or Poor, Right or Wrong, Republican or Democrat, but whether we can serve as Witnesses for what is going on in the world. Whether we will make connections, between which companies own which subsidiaries, which movies and television shows are paid for by which advertisers, what are the connections between governmental policies and human lives, and are we willing in our places of comfort and security to recognize that slavery and inhumanity still exist.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
August 14, 2011, "Shifting Paradigms"
Genesis 45:1-12
Matthew 15:10-31
Our Scriptures this week, demonstrate the difference between understanding what you have known and believing what you hope will be, a shift from knowing the Promise through what has been to Dreaming of a new and different future yet to be revealed. The difficulty of Israel was how to connect from Ancient Stories of our Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to the reality that for generations we have been slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt. The Passover, the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments, the Wandering in the Wilderness and coming into the land as a new Nation, Freedom and the Law, all this only make sense against the context that our ancestors were slaves. So how does a people, a culture, shift from the beloved histories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Moses?
Joseph is different from the Patriarchs before him. The last many weeks we have shared the stories of Abram, who left home and family to follow God, believing in a Covenant Promise of a Land and Name and as many children as there are stars in the heavens. We shared the Promise of Isaac, whose name means laughter, and the joy that was brought to this family long after they imagined possibility. We recalled how Sarah had used her Egyptian handmaid Hagaar to get a son under her control, then was jealous of Ishmael, when far beyond her time she conceived and bore Isaac, that Sarah wanted the Egyptian's baby Ishmael put to death, instead Abraham sent him into the wilderness where Ishmael's crying was heard by God.
We emphasized that Isaac was a model of the Promise, questioning whether Abraham would be willing and able to sacrifice the Promise, to sacrifice Isaac, or if possessing, he would abandon faith in God. After Abraham, we followed his son Isaac who fell in love, but he and his wife each played favorites among their twins, until her twin Jacob tricked his brother Esau out of his birthright by using Esau's hunger, his need for food. Having tricked his brother, Jacob deceived their father Isaac, then ran away to a far distant country, where he took as a wife Leah and Rachel the woman he truly loved, and also conceived by their handmaidens, after decades returned with his family to wander with God, following the Promise of a Land and Name and Generations in the land of the Canaanites.
The Patriarch Jacob had 10 sons and a daughter, when his beloved Rachel gave birth to her first born Joseph, then years later Baby Benjamin and she died in childbirth. Jacob, like his parents before him played favorites, that while he loved all his children, he treated Joseph differently. We remember the Coat of Many Colors, every color reminiscent of the lush Promise of the Garden of Eden. Some paradigms seem universal to all families. The elder ones are the first born and doted upon as infants, but by the time younger children come along not only have the parents been worn down, when the younger ones come of age we tend to have more time to listen and talk together, sharing hopes and dreams as adults. Joseph uses his relationship with their father Jacob against his brothers, tattling on them as younger children often do.
Joseph recognized from the first, that he was different from his brothers. What may not be immediately apparent is that Joseph was also different from the Patriarchs before him. Where Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, had all been focused on the Promise of God, Joseph never mentions the Promise, rarely even mentions God, Joseph instead is a Man of Dreams, who believes in the power of his Dreams. Rather than a Promise of Land and a Name and Children, in Joseph's Dream all his brothers bow down before him. In another, his brothers, his mother and father, are as the Sun and Moon and Stars, that all bow to the earth before Joseph. As the third of four children, like Joseph I recall spying upon and tattling on the older ones. I also recall being suspended by my ankles and dropped through the haychute by those same brothers. Joseph's brothers drop him into a pit, then devise to sell him into slavery to Ishmaelites. The brothers return to their father Jacob, and deceive him to gain the love he had for Joseph. But Jacob is inconsolable in his loss of his son. Jacob retreats into himself, believing the promise is no more, the child he loved is dead, he focuses only upon his loss.
Joseph gets into all kinds of trouble when away from family, when away from the Promise of God. Eventually, Joseph finds himself in the Pharaoh's dungeon, imprisoned as a slave. But it is here that Joseph uses his dreams and interpretation of dreams. Joseph, like his father before him, could have wallowed in grief, mourning the loss of what had been. Instead, Joseph uses his dreams to benefit his others, the cook and butcher who feed him, eventually even guiding the Pharaoh's Dreams.
After the Recession two years ago, the political games of the Debt Ceiling, and the turbulence of the International Stock Market these last several weeks, many of us have lost sleep.Two years ago, when the Housing Market Recession began, I recall forecasts that it would take two years for our Economy to recover to where it was. A month ago, the forecasters described another two years before things would be back like they were before. With the losses and gains of this last week, does anyone remember what the values used to be?
Last night I had a dream. I was down at the water's edge, when Seven Fat Porkbelly's came down to drink, and they drank with a great thirst, but the lake was still replenished. Then Seven Sickly Scrawny Pork-bellies came down, and these consumed the seven fat Porkbellies. And I recalled the Dreams of Joseph and Pharaoh, except that just before I awoke I heard a voice proclaim, “Stay away from the Porkbellies, you are Kosher.”
Joseph is a different Patriarch, from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They each believed in the Promise of God, they spoke with God and followed God, knowing God heard their cries. Joseph's is a Civil Religion, Joseph rarely even mentions God exists. Joseph believes in his Dreams. But when given the opportunity, when his brothers are in need of food and he has all the power, instead of retribution, instead of recalling past hurts and losses, rather than being focused on forgiveness Joseph loved his brothers, and acts for their future, letting down his guard, to reveal who he really is to them. And it here, that Joseph describes God has been present using all our circumstances, even the ones that seemed to be for evil turned out to be for a purpose that benefitted life.
We live in changing times, times when old Paradigms, old ways of thinking and relating seem out of touch. There are certain of Jesus' words that strike us as being out of touch, especially harsh when it was not needed. Others have looked at this collection of passages in the 15th Chapter of Matthew and guessed that he had a bunch of miscellaneous stories so put them all together; but I think there is a link here, that it is not the way things were created, not the circumstances that present themselves that are good or bad or evil, but what we choose to do with them, whether we choose to act as if this moment is a circumstance of healing of faith or not, whether we see God in this moment and act in faith or only by our past devices.
How odd, that Matthew does not identify this woman who seeks out Jesus as being a Gentile, a non-Jew, as being a woman of Tyre or Sidon, as he was wandering through that non-Jewish region, but instead, rather than identifying her as a Greek or a Roman, she is named as a Canaanite. She has no individual name, but is identified as one of the Rejected People of the Old Testament, one of those displaced by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses and David and Solomon. She seeks Jesus out. The automatic response is rejection, the Messiah has come for God's own people. Over the years, I have heard many describe frustration with this passage, that they actually prefer the company of their dogs to their own children, or that their dogs were better trained. I think perhaps the meaning of the words is not that Jesus insulted her as a Dog, or as a Rabid Wild Beast, but as a Pet, a member of the household who is not a son or daughter. But still she presses to change the relationship, she acts in faith. Matthew is unique among the Gospels, for Matthew Jesus is not only the Messiah, not a dispenser of miracle cures healing the whole world, but repeatedly in addition to caring for the crowds, he responded to someone from outside the faith community, the Gerasene Demoniac who identified himself as “Roman Legion”, this Canaanite woman, who themselves crossed the boundary of distance to act in faith, to believe life could be different and asked for help.
Too often, we in the faith community, are like the Sunday School teacher beginning a lesson on the Parable of the Publican and the Sinner who each went up to the Temple to pray, and though the Teacher has a wonderful, insightful lesson prepared, begins the class with a prayer “Thank God we are members of this Presbyterian Church not like that Publican who condemned the Tax Collector.” We need to question changing our paradigms, considering whether we have lived in the past, held back by our losses and grief, whether we have judged others as Canaanites, and whether we act only to fulfill our dreams, or if we could envision that God uses even our circumstances for life, helping others to believe.
Matthew 15:10-31
Our Scriptures this week, demonstrate the difference between understanding what you have known and believing what you hope will be, a shift from knowing the Promise through what has been to Dreaming of a new and different future yet to be revealed. The difficulty of Israel was how to connect from Ancient Stories of our Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to the reality that for generations we have been slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt. The Passover, the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments, the Wandering in the Wilderness and coming into the land as a new Nation, Freedom and the Law, all this only make sense against the context that our ancestors were slaves. So how does a people, a culture, shift from the beloved histories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Moses?
Joseph is different from the Patriarchs before him. The last many weeks we have shared the stories of Abram, who left home and family to follow God, believing in a Covenant Promise of a Land and Name and as many children as there are stars in the heavens. We shared the Promise of Isaac, whose name means laughter, and the joy that was brought to this family long after they imagined possibility. We recalled how Sarah had used her Egyptian handmaid Hagaar to get a son under her control, then was jealous of Ishmael, when far beyond her time she conceived and bore Isaac, that Sarah wanted the Egyptian's baby Ishmael put to death, instead Abraham sent him into the wilderness where Ishmael's crying was heard by God.
We emphasized that Isaac was a model of the Promise, questioning whether Abraham would be willing and able to sacrifice the Promise, to sacrifice Isaac, or if possessing, he would abandon faith in God. After Abraham, we followed his son Isaac who fell in love, but he and his wife each played favorites among their twins, until her twin Jacob tricked his brother Esau out of his birthright by using Esau's hunger, his need for food. Having tricked his brother, Jacob deceived their father Isaac, then ran away to a far distant country, where he took as a wife Leah and Rachel the woman he truly loved, and also conceived by their handmaidens, after decades returned with his family to wander with God, following the Promise of a Land and Name and Generations in the land of the Canaanites.
The Patriarch Jacob had 10 sons and a daughter, when his beloved Rachel gave birth to her first born Joseph, then years later Baby Benjamin and she died in childbirth. Jacob, like his parents before him played favorites, that while he loved all his children, he treated Joseph differently. We remember the Coat of Many Colors, every color reminiscent of the lush Promise of the Garden of Eden. Some paradigms seem universal to all families. The elder ones are the first born and doted upon as infants, but by the time younger children come along not only have the parents been worn down, when the younger ones come of age we tend to have more time to listen and talk together, sharing hopes and dreams as adults. Joseph uses his relationship with their father Jacob against his brothers, tattling on them as younger children often do.
Joseph recognized from the first, that he was different from his brothers. What may not be immediately apparent is that Joseph was also different from the Patriarchs before him. Where Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, had all been focused on the Promise of God, Joseph never mentions the Promise, rarely even mentions God, Joseph instead is a Man of Dreams, who believes in the power of his Dreams. Rather than a Promise of Land and a Name and Children, in Joseph's Dream all his brothers bow down before him. In another, his brothers, his mother and father, are as the Sun and Moon and Stars, that all bow to the earth before Joseph. As the third of four children, like Joseph I recall spying upon and tattling on the older ones. I also recall being suspended by my ankles and dropped through the haychute by those same brothers. Joseph's brothers drop him into a pit, then devise to sell him into slavery to Ishmaelites. The brothers return to their father Jacob, and deceive him to gain the love he had for Joseph. But Jacob is inconsolable in his loss of his son. Jacob retreats into himself, believing the promise is no more, the child he loved is dead, he focuses only upon his loss.
Joseph gets into all kinds of trouble when away from family, when away from the Promise of God. Eventually, Joseph finds himself in the Pharaoh's dungeon, imprisoned as a slave. But it is here that Joseph uses his dreams and interpretation of dreams. Joseph, like his father before him, could have wallowed in grief, mourning the loss of what had been. Instead, Joseph uses his dreams to benefit his others, the cook and butcher who feed him, eventually even guiding the Pharaoh's Dreams.
After the Recession two years ago, the political games of the Debt Ceiling, and the turbulence of the International Stock Market these last several weeks, many of us have lost sleep.Two years ago, when the Housing Market Recession began, I recall forecasts that it would take two years for our Economy to recover to where it was. A month ago, the forecasters described another two years before things would be back like they were before. With the losses and gains of this last week, does anyone remember what the values used to be?
Last night I had a dream. I was down at the water's edge, when Seven Fat Porkbelly's came down to drink, and they drank with a great thirst, but the lake was still replenished. Then Seven Sickly Scrawny Pork-bellies came down, and these consumed the seven fat Porkbellies. And I recalled the Dreams of Joseph and Pharaoh, except that just before I awoke I heard a voice proclaim, “Stay away from the Porkbellies, you are Kosher.”
Joseph is a different Patriarch, from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They each believed in the Promise of God, they spoke with God and followed God, knowing God heard their cries. Joseph's is a Civil Religion, Joseph rarely even mentions God exists. Joseph believes in his Dreams. But when given the opportunity, when his brothers are in need of food and he has all the power, instead of retribution, instead of recalling past hurts and losses, rather than being focused on forgiveness Joseph loved his brothers, and acts for their future, letting down his guard, to reveal who he really is to them. And it here, that Joseph describes God has been present using all our circumstances, even the ones that seemed to be for evil turned out to be for a purpose that benefitted life.
We live in changing times, times when old Paradigms, old ways of thinking and relating seem out of touch. There are certain of Jesus' words that strike us as being out of touch, especially harsh when it was not needed. Others have looked at this collection of passages in the 15th Chapter of Matthew and guessed that he had a bunch of miscellaneous stories so put them all together; but I think there is a link here, that it is not the way things were created, not the circumstances that present themselves that are good or bad or evil, but what we choose to do with them, whether we choose to act as if this moment is a circumstance of healing of faith or not, whether we see God in this moment and act in faith or only by our past devices.
How odd, that Matthew does not identify this woman who seeks out Jesus as being a Gentile, a non-Jew, as being a woman of Tyre or Sidon, as he was wandering through that non-Jewish region, but instead, rather than identifying her as a Greek or a Roman, she is named as a Canaanite. She has no individual name, but is identified as one of the Rejected People of the Old Testament, one of those displaced by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses and David and Solomon. She seeks Jesus out. The automatic response is rejection, the Messiah has come for God's own people. Over the years, I have heard many describe frustration with this passage, that they actually prefer the company of their dogs to their own children, or that their dogs were better trained. I think perhaps the meaning of the words is not that Jesus insulted her as a Dog, or as a Rabid Wild Beast, but as a Pet, a member of the household who is not a son or daughter. But still she presses to change the relationship, she acts in faith. Matthew is unique among the Gospels, for Matthew Jesus is not only the Messiah, not a dispenser of miracle cures healing the whole world, but repeatedly in addition to caring for the crowds, he responded to someone from outside the faith community, the Gerasene Demoniac who identified himself as “Roman Legion”, this Canaanite woman, who themselves crossed the boundary of distance to act in faith, to believe life could be different and asked for help.
Too often, we in the faith community, are like the Sunday School teacher beginning a lesson on the Parable of the Publican and the Sinner who each went up to the Temple to pray, and though the Teacher has a wonderful, insightful lesson prepared, begins the class with a prayer “Thank God we are members of this Presbyterian Church not like that Publican who condemned the Tax Collector.” We need to question changing our paradigms, considering whether we have lived in the past, held back by our losses and grief, whether we have judged others as Canaanites, and whether we act only to fulfill our dreams, or if we could envision that God uses even our circumstances for life, helping others to believe.
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