Look at the Stars: March 17, 2019

Year C, Lent 2                                                                         

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18                                                                     

            I started the ordination process when I was 26.  I had just finished my 3^rd year in seminary, so things were a little backwards for me.  Typically you enter the ordination process before going to seminary. Therefore, when they told me ordination was probably 2 years out (and that was only because the Bishop was supporting an expedited process), that seemed like forever.  It wasn’t-- but at age 26, it felt like forever.   People kept telling me to be patient and that, “God’s time is not your time.”  That was really annoying…because what can you possibly say to that when the vocation you are pursuing is one  that expects that not only will you trust God, but also talk to other people about the importance of trusting God?  I was told by a mentor that I needed to be careful that I never gave the impression (to anyone in authority) that I was in a hurry and certainly that I should not complain to anyone about how long it was taking. That turned out to be very good advice.      

            Thankfully God doesn’t have the same rules about complaining.  Because if God did, Abraham would never have become the father of a nation and one of the fathers of our faith. Then again, he had more to complain about than I did.  God had picked Abraham out of obscurity to be a leader.  He had promised Abraham, that if he obeyed him, he would be given land and children.   The piece about children was extra important to Abraham because by the time God called him, his wife Sarah was already considered barren, which means they were a bit on the older side.  Despite their inability to conceive, God had promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the dust of the earth. Yet by the time we get to our reading for today, decades have passed since that initial promise---Abraham had done everything that God had asked of him--- and he and his wife were still childless. 

            Thus, when God came to him and declared, “Do not be afraid…I am your shield; your reward shall be very great”---Abraham’s response was a little exasperated.  Now, obviously, I wasn’t there, but I imagine Abraham reacting a bit like this:.

         He essentially said, “You haven’t even come through on the first promise you gave me.  I want a child!” God’s response is interesting.  God didn’t say, “Look, your time isn’t the same as my time.  You need to be patient.” He said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.  So shall your descendants be.” He didn’t defend his promise or the lack of progress on that promise.  He expanded the promise.  He said to Abraham, this is bigger than you can possibly imagine.  Forget the whole dust of the earth analogy I used before, now I want you to imagine the stars of the sky.  That is how vast your progeny will be. 

And you know what, that was all it took for Abraham.  He believed.  He still had some complaining to do---but he believed.  Minutes later when God again promised him acquisition of land, Abraham asked him to give him some proof.  It’s not that Abraham didn’t believe God’s promise. He did.  But he needed something tangible.

            That’s when things get a little weird in our reading.  God asked Abraham for some animals that could be sacrificed.  He asked Abraham to cut the animals in two and then Abraham fell asleep.  When it was night, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between the two halves of each animal.  After the smoking pot and flaming torch passed between the sacrificed animals, the Lord made his covenant with Abraham.  Really, he affirmed the covenant that he had already made.

            Let me break down the imagery of the smoking fire pot and flaming torch.  First of all the Hebrew word translated to covenant means, “to cut.” Thus, cutting the animals in half symbolized creating/cutting the covenant.  In this scene, the smoking pot and flaming torch symbolized the Lord and by passing through the cut animals, the Lord was showing Abraham that he was the one making the promise.   By passing through these dead animals, God was deepening the promise by making it about life and death.  One commentator (Rolf Jacobson) described this by giving God these words: “I pledge my very life as surety of this promise.  If I fail to keep this promise, let me be slain just as the goat, the sheep and the ram were slain.”[1]  It’s hard to get more tangible than that.

            Here’s the thing about God.  God always keeps his promises.  Sometimes it takes a little longer than we would hope.  It would be many more years before Sarah would conceive her first born.  And it would be even more years before God would make that ultimate sacrifice that he predicted that night with Abraham—sacrificing himself. 

We are in the season of Lent.  Every Sunday, Jesus comes a little closer to his death. While God did keep his promise with Abraham, God’s people did not hold up our end of the deal. We still could not commit to a relationship with God.   But God never breaks promises and God never gives up on his children.  His love is so deep and so wide, that God will do anything to redeem that love, even if it means dying on the cross.  So despite the fact that God did not break his promise, God decided that the only way we could see his love was by sacrificing himself. 

            It’s ok to complain to God.  Because if you are complaining, that means you are still talking.  If you are still talking, that means that you still have hope.  And as long you maintain that sliver of hope, God will find a way to break through and show you how deep and wide his love for you is.  When God told Abraham to look at the sky and try to count the stars, he wasn’t just reminding him of the number of ancestors he would have.  He was encouraging him to look outside of himself.  So often, we can get caught up in our own worries (or the worries of those closest to us) that we forget to open our eyes wide enough to see the evidence of God’s love that is all around us. 

During Lent we emphasize the importance of inner reflection and examination.  That is important.  But sometimes when we are doing that internal reflection, we are just talking to ourselves instead of talking to God, or more importantly, listening to God.  God’s love is deep and wide. It lives within us and beyond us.  If for some reason, you can’t feel God within you, look outside.  Maybe, do something trite like watching the sun set over the water or gaze at the stars on a clear night or listen to a particularly powerful piece of music or maybe just take a deep breath and remember how lucky you are to be breathing when for so many, breathing is agony.  Then when you have that experience, send me an e-mail or give me a call because I need reminders of God’s majesty and love as much as each of you.  Hopefully, that is what we are for one another in the church, evidence of God’s love, a love that will never give up.

---

[1] Rolf Jacobson from Working Preacher: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4001

Walking in Shadow: December 9, 2018

Year C, Advent 2                                                                 

Luke 1:68-79                                                                           

            My husband and I did not have any advance notice when we learned that a baby would be placed with us.  We received the call the day of our son’s birth and were told we had to pick him up the next day.  It was a 12 hour drive.  Fortunately we had a lot to discuss in that 12 hour drive.  One of the topics was what we would name him. We had not talked about names.  It was just too hard to discuss tangible things like names and registries when we had no idea when we would have a child.  During those 12 hours we narrowed it down to a few names.  However, as soon as we saw him, we knew none of those names would work. He didn’t look like an Isaac or a Jacob.  We had Joshua for 3 days before we settled on a name.  By then we were already sleep deprived and completely overwhelmed with the suddenness of it all. Once we settled on the name Joshua and announced it to our family, I looked at my husband, who is also an Episcopal priest, and asked, “What’s the biblical meaning for Joshua.” He said, “God saves.  It’s the anglicized version of Jesus.”  I replied, “We just named our child Jesus?  Because having two priests as parents isn’t bad enough, now we put the entire salvation of the world on him?” While this concerned me a little, I was too tired to come up with another name and we had already told the whole family.  Jesus it was.

            Naming a baby is a big deal. It always has been. Our psalm today isn’t actually from the Book of Psalms. But it is still considered in the psalm genre. It is Zechariah’s response to the birth and naming of his son.  Zechariah and Elizabeth had wanted children for a very long time. However, Elizabeth was considered barren as she was past the age when woman normally had children. In today’s digital age, we have all kinds of creative birth announcements--but I challenge any of you to find a more unique birth announcement than the one Zechariah received. 

He was in the temple offering incense to God.  Most Jewish priests only had this opportunity once in their lifetime.  It was an extraordinary honor. According to Jewish belief at the time, he was about as physically close to God as any human could be.  He was there at the altar in a cloud of incense when an angel appeared to him and said, “Do not be frightened, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard.  Your wife Elizabeth shall bear a son whom you shall name John.”

            Now since we are in church and this is the Bible, we don’t think too much of this kind of birth announcement. But consider it for a moment.  Imagine if you experienced that today, or heard about it today. Would you believe it?  Probably not, even if it was on the internet, we would assume it was some kind of hoax.  Angels don’t deliver messages to regular people.  Therefore, we really can’t blame Zechariah for reacting with disbelief.  He asked the angel how could this be as both he and his wife were old.  Well apparently this did not please the angel and Zechariah was struck mute. (My husband has a theory that striking Zechariah mute was actually an act of mercy because who knows what would have happened to him if he went and told his dear wife that she was too old to have a baby.)

Whether his muteness was a punishment or a gift, I cannot help but think about how hard that must have been….to be mute for 9 months, after such an extraordinary thing happened.  He probably didn’t try to communicate the event since he didn’t believe the angel’s words initially. However once Elizabeth told him the astounding news that she was indeed pregnant…imagine how he must have felt. Did he try to write the story all down, or did he still doubt and wonder? 

            I like to think that he held it inside himself and turned it over in his mind and heart while he marveled as his supposedly barren wife’s belly grew.  He must have communicated with her eventually as she knew that her son’s name was to be John.  In our reading for today, a group of family and friends was gathered 8 days after the birth for the circumcision. This was also where they traditionally named the male child. Elizabeth shared that his name would be John, but the friends and family wanted confirmation from the father.  Since he could not speak, he wrote the name out.  “His name is John.” It was then and only then when Zechariah was able to speak again.  You would think the first words out of his mouth would have been something like, “The craziest thing happened to me…”  But no, the text tells us that the first thing he did was praise God and share the prophesy that we heard today as our psalm. 

The prophesy started with praise of God and ended with words about who his son would be.  “You my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, To give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.” That seems like a lot of pressure on a kid.  I might have named my child after Jesus, but at least I didn’t declare him a prophet.  However, then Zechariah switched gears a little. He said “In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high will break upon us, To shine in those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and guide our feet in the way of peace.”

Zechariah’s son did not end up having a very easy life.  His job was to prepare people for Jesus. He did that by talking about sin and judgment, but also offering opportunity for forgiveness.  In the end, he was killed because he insisted on speaking truth to people in power.  He did all of that because he truly believed that Jesus was that dawn that would break through the darkness.  Sometimes when we read these stories in church, we find ourselves relegating them to the past.  John was the prophet who paved the way for Jesus.  But then he died.  Even Jesus, who died and was resurrected, seems to stay relegated to the past.  We cannot leave these stories in the pages of our Bible.  We still need a dawn to break upon us.  While we have experienced the light of Christ, we still find ourselves dwelling in darkness and the shadow of death.  We have accepted darkness and death as our cultural norm.  In Advent we are reminded that while we may feel as though we are surrounded by darkness, we are merely walking in shadow.  If there is shadow, then that means there has to be light somewhere. The light is always there if we look long enough and never give up hope. 

The angel told Zechariah to name his son John.  John means, “gift of God.”  We might not all be named John, but we are all gifts of God and children of God. We are all here on this earth to remind people that Jesus isn’t dead.  We are here to remind people that even the longest night will come to an end.  Morning always comes.  My husband and I waited for a baby for 7 years and there were times when I felt suffocated by the hopelessness of it all.  Morning doesn’t always come as dramatically as a newborn, but it always comes.  Sometimes it comes with rain and clouds, but behind it all, we know the sun is there.