Wrestling WITH God.

B Pentecost18 2015

September 27, 2015

Genesis 32:22-30

Mark 14:32-36

Readers: Narrator, Man, Jacob

Narrator: The same night [Jacob] got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said,

Man: Let me go, for the day is breaking.

Narrator: But Jacob said,

Jacob: I will not let you go, unless you bless me.

Narrator: So he said to him,

Man: What is your name?

Narrator: And he said,

Jacob: Jacob

Narrator: Then the man said,

Man: You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.

Narrator: Then Jacob asked him,

Jacob: Please tell me your name.

Narrator: But he said,

Man: Why is it that you ask my name?

Narrator: And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying,

Jacob: For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.

+          +          +

Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Whenever I hear someone say, “I have no regrets…”  I just have to wonder. Come on… who wouldn’t want to go back to their Jr. Hi self and whisper a few tricks and tips in his or her ear. Who doesn’t want a “do-over” every once in a while? 

Sometimes we even get tricked into believing that regrets define us.  They mark us as “the person who wishes I had raised my children differently” or “the person who should have taken that career change for meaning.”  We might get so focused on our regrets, we see them as our whole identity “wanting a better relationship with my family” or “the one who hurts people,” or “the one who makes unforgivable mistakes” or even “I am afailure.”

Jacob gets tricked like that. The one who’s name means “trickster” or more literally, “heel.” He has been a swindler, a trickster, a betrayer, a fraud… a heel.  Jacob is facing the consequences of his own actions at this moment in the sacred story when he is going home.  Last time he saw his twin brother Esau, Esau had sworn to murder him, because Jacob had stolen his birthright and his blessing from their dying father.

It’s a heart wrenching story, Jacob’s childhood, of one child being chosen over the other – and it wasn’t Jacob. Jacob – he got this name when, at birth, he came out grasping his brother’s heel.  And second to Esau he had always been, al least to their father Isaac.   Which came first, the name or the behavior?  It’s hard to tell… but Jacob had certainly acted like a heel, stealing what was not rightfully his – an elder brother’s birthright and blessing.  Though I really don’t get why two minutes older means a status change and why a father has only one blessing to give… But the sacred story tells us, Jacob, the one who was not chosen, has stolen the chosen-ness from his brother. 

And now, after having run away from his murderous brother 20 years ago, and knowing Esau is heading toward him with 400 men… Jacob is facing his past, his regrets.  This is one of those painful homecomings where the past looms larger than the now, where the landmarks take Jacob closer and closer back into an old, old story about himself.  Jacob is facing what he did to his father and his brother.  He is facing his fear of death, fear of broken relationship with Esau, maybe even broken relationship with the God who wouldn’t approve. And so he sends across the river all of his livestock and his servants and also his whole family… in order to be alone, to wrestle with the demons of his past… or, in this case, maybe in all cases, to wrestle with God. 

Jacob sends away his wives and his children and he grabs hold of the only thing left – God’s steadfast presence.  And Jacob wrestles with his taunting thoughts… He’s going to kill me.  I do this.  I did it with my Uncle Laban too – though he tricked me just as well.  But I’m the one.  I trick people.  I’m a thief and a scab.  I’m a heel! Here I am, about to be caught in the trap of my own making!  I betrayed my brother.  I deserve his wrath.  God help me! 

And God wrestles back. Here is God, coming to Jacob in the night.  Or rather, God’s already there.  God is always already there.  It’s not that God comes to Jacob, it’s that Jacob seizes God who is ready and waiting to wrestle! 

There, in the middle of the night, Jacob says, “I will not let you go!”  You have promised me, even when I wasn’t sure I believed it.  You have promised me that you would make of me this great nation, blessed to be a blessing, graced to be graceful. 

You have promised me /and I am holding you accountable to your promise, God.  With fear, mind you, because I am not worthy of it!  I am not worthy of this promise.  I don’t know why you keep promising me these good things.  Especially when I am a jerk and a trickster and I steal things from my brother and I make him so mad he wants to kill me.  I don’t deserve special treatment, your blessing, but you have promised to bless me.  And I want that blessing.  I want that grace!

All night Jacob wrestles and struggles with this promising God who will not let him go// God who says at daybreak, “What is your name?”  And I imagine Jacob has to admit it is not the name he wants.  “Heel” is not the name anyone wants.  It is not the name he wants…anymore.  And God says, no longer is your name Jacob, heel.  Now your name is Israel for you have striven with God and with men and you have prevailed. God lays hands on Jacob in this holy moment and marks him forever the man who’s struggling is WITH God, not without him: seeking God’s blessing, God’s affirmation of his value as God’s own beloved.  And belonging to God, bearing his mark.

His new name is Israel.  Here is the first time this name is spoken.  The whole people of Israel who have striven with God and humanity – and have prevailed. The descendents of Jacob/ and Abraham, his grandfather before him. 

Israel – People who are blessed, who are numerous, who cover the earth with God’s grace and promise.  The people who do not let God go.  Who do not let God’s promises go.  Who hold God accountable to God’s promises.  Who say to God, I do not deserve it, but I want those promises anyway. 

Jacob wants God’s promises.  The whole nation of Israel wants those promises.  We, who are grafted in to Israel, into the Hebrew family alongside Christ our brother.  We want to be in that promised community too. To be God’s chosen people.  To bear the name that reminds us when we’ve forgotten – that we are the people who struggle WITH God.  We accept the responsibility, the mantle, the honor… to be blessed to be a blessing, graced to be graceful. 

And so God drenches us in the waters of baptism and births us anew into this family of grace. God is the God who has created us and has given us our very breath and life, has given us the joy of relationships and laughter, God who has given us security in community.  A community that holds onto the promises, even when we’re struggling.    In this birth at the font God washes away the past that clings to us, the regrets and mistakes, the selfishness and sin.  “God delivers us from sin and death and raises us to new life in Jesus Christ.  We are united with all the baptized in the one body of Christ, anointed with the gift of the Holy Spirit and joined in God’s mission for the life of the world.”[i]

God’s mission that all might have life.  That all might know that God is a God of promises and blessings and grace.  That all might be welcomed to God through the light of Christ.  That all might bear the mark of the struggle that God struggles with us.  The mark of the cross.  The mark of this beloved and belonging relationship.  The mark of falling into Grace with God.

Amen.

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[i] ELW Baptism Liturgy

Who's Laughing Now?

B Pentecost17 2015

September 20, 2015

Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7

Mark 10:27

For AUDIO Click Here.
Sermon begins after the scripted reading.

Readers: Narrator, Abraham, Man, Sarah

Narrator: The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said,

Abraham: My Lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on— since you have come to your servant.

Narrator: So they said,

Man: Do as you have said.

Narrator: And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said,

Abraham: Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.

Narrator: Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate. They said to him,

Man: Where is your wife Sarah?

Narrator: And he said,

Abraham: There, in the tent.

Narrator: Then one said,

Man: I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.

Narrator: And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying,

Sarah: After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?

Narrator: The Lord said to Abraham,

Man: Why did Sarah laugh, and say, “Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?” Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.

Narrator: But Sarah denied, saying,

Sarah: I did not laugh;

Narrator: for she was afraid. He said,

Man: Oh yes, you did laugh.

Narrator: The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him.  And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Now Sarah said,

Sarah: God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.

Narrator: And she said,

Sarah: Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.

Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Last week we started with God’s story of creation – particularly creating us… for relationship.  We’ve flown right past the stories of when things went sour: the snake in the garden, Adam and Eve’s sons Cain and Abel – first generation murders, the wickedness of the whole world that God “solves” with a flood, except it doesn’t solve anything.  Over and over again humanity keeps turning away from the God who created them.  It is hard for me to stomach how quickly we forget the goodness for which God created us: the goodness of stewardship of the earth and each other, the companionship and creative spark… how quickly we turn to use these things against God’s will for us.  Trying to overpower one another, rather than follow the lead of our empowering God.  Trying to claim for ourselves the title of ruler of our own creations, rather than honor the God who is the maker of all.   It’s really quite amazing how persistent God is.  If we were to read Chapters 3-18 of Genesis, story by story, we would see how messy it is.  And over and over again how quickly humans turn away from God’s desires and how strongly God desires reconciliation and right relationship with us – God has all this amazing grace for us over and over again.

And God’s efforts for relationship continue here, with the covenant with Abraham and Sarah.  Last March we made that woven cross now framed and mounted on the wall between here and the nursery, a symbol of what God is doing among us, weaving us into covenant community.  A community of people bound together by God’s Grace. 

The covenant God makes with Abraham and Sarah, is that they will parent a multitude.  A whole nation of God’s people will come from these two.  A nation that will count more numerous than the stars and will be graced to grace the world.

But, as you have figured out, there is a problem.  Sarah and Abraham think there is a problem anyway.  Abraham is 99 and Sarah is 90.  God doesn’t see this as a problem.  But they do.  Abraham and Sarah are incredibly faithful people.  They have listened to God’s command to move across the country.  They have endured famine.  They have challenged God, asked for proof of God’s promises.  They are deep-in with God.  Deep in relationship.  Worshipping God as their creator, praising God for all good things that come to them, and listening to God, they have tried to help God, even, accomplish what he has promised.  The promise of a baby. 

And so here it is that The Lord shows up.  Three “men,” show up at Abraham and Sarah’s tent.    Abraham and Sarah rush to provide food and shade for the guests that Abraham has begged to stay.  Did he know who they were at that point?  It is not clear.   But this gift of generosity and hospitality tells us something about Abraham and Sarah, and the kind of grace they were already showing the world. 

And the men stay, and they talk, they tell Abraham many things about The Lord’s plans… but first… it is this promise, once again.  This is the fourth time Abraham has heard this promise.  The first time he was 75 years old.  It’s 24 years later.  Imagine what that promise was like to hear When they were 75 and 66?  Fantastic I’m sure. (Sarcasm). Impossible!  But then God just keeps promising… and promising… and promising… is it any surprise that Sarah sees God like a deadbeat parent who never actually shows up for a playdate?  She has let go of the monthly anticipation, she no longer runs through her mental calendar for every bad piece of fruit she ate.  She hasn’t imagined the twinge of that butterfly movement in her abdomen for years.  Some of us here have felt that specific loss of a future hope for a baby. 

So when Sarah hears it for the 4^th time, she laughs at God’s promise, because what else is there to do?  She has let go of God’s promise.  But with this laugh, //Sarah falls into faith. // She falls back into the loving arms of God, back into the relationship, back into trusting God.  Yes, you heard me right, Sarah falls back into faith. I don’t mean she manages to come to some personal mental mind-game to convince herself once more that this baby thing will happen.  No, she hears the promise again and she laughs out of her scorn, her calloused heart, her disbelief.  Sarah hears the promise dredging up her history of failure – she couldn’t produce a child, she resents the child she allowed Hagar to have in her stead.  And she knows, she can laugh or she can cry.  

And God takes her hard, pained, laughter.  What she thinks is her failure.  And he redeems it. 

God says, no, my child, what you think is failure, I see as the perfect opportunity.  Maybe I could have fulfilled this promised through Hagar and Ishmael, maybe there was some surrogate or adoptive opportunity.  But in this story, the world needs to know that this whole family of people I have chosen has come into being through my hand alone.  Through my miracle-gift to you. 

I will take your supposed failure, your hurting heart, and your cynical laughter.  And I will give you a new life.  A life of hope and wonder.  A life of mystery and trust.  A life of joyful laughter. 

She has given up this promise, it is no longer hers to hold.  But God has not given up on her.  God sees her and knows the promise he has made, and God is using her story to stretch our understanding, once again, of what God’s promises looks like – children born of women who are barren, to men who are well past virility… and God’s promises look like youngest children being made king, and in the strangest move of all, God coming to sacrifice his own life, that we might know God’s total self-giving love. 

God’s promises looks like Grace.  Like complete and total grace.  You can’t earn it, you don’t deserve it. You have given up on it.  But it comes, it breaks in to your predictable world with unpredictability… turning our tears to laughter. 

God laughs with her when that baby comes into the world.  The baby bearing the mark of this story as his name – Isaac, which means, Laughter.

Isaac, whose birthstory bears witness to us… that even for us God will turn our despair into joy.  Our pain into pleasure.  Our scars into wisdom. God can use anything, even the most painful history we hold, the thing that feels most like death… that is death to us… that is what God will use to make in us new life.  A new life with God. Like Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel and Noah and his family, and Sarah and Abraham… all the characters of God’s Sacred Story that keep falling, just to find out that God is still with them!  Waiting for that last laugh of exhilarating joy, just you wait and see.

We’ll keep falling too.  But God will be sure, we’re falling into grace.

Amen.

Narrative Lectionary... IN THE BEGINNING...well, not quite the beginning.

B Pentecost16 2015

September 13, 2015

Genesis 2:4b-25

John 20:21-22

For AUDIO Click Here.
Sermon begins after the scripted reading.

Narrator 1: These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

Narrator 2: And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man,

God: You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.

Narrator 1: Then the Lord God said,

God: It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.

Narrator 2: So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.

Narrator 1: So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

Man: This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.

Narrator 2: Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

You have identified the first value of Bethlehem as The Illuminating Word of God.  You may have heard me preach on this before…it will not be the last time.  This value is the very reason we enter scripture differently this fall.  Instead of hearing a collection of stories from a particular gospel, we will begin at the beginning of God’s Word as we know it.  God’s Word that begins “In the beginning” and ultimately is expressed to us and for us in Jesus.  In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.  For this is what God “says” – it’s God’s Word– this is God’s message of grace. 

We are told in this story today that God’s will is to create and relate.  Millennium BEFORE Jesus was born in Bethlehem, God was sending the same message.  The message of complete and total grace.  Out of nothing, out of the dirt, God graces us with existence and relationship.  This is our journey this fall… together we will fall into Grace, fall into the Sacred Story, fall into the epic tale of God and the ones whom God loves.

We will trace the grace from the garden of Eden, to Isaac born to Sarah and Abraham, through Jacob, the scoundrel, and from Moses to the Israelites great covenant of the 10 commandments, by way of Ruth to the people’s cry for a king, just to land in the prophets (Elijah, Hosea and Isaiah) as they remind God’s people of the grace of this determined God who wants to be their king.  We will tell the story of God’s grace even in exile, because grace is most present when the fallen need to be redeemed.   And we will come to Christmas with a whole new understanding of what God is about to do with this baby in this manger, for we will have seen God’s grace come over and over again, until finally God picks a particular time and place to take on human form, to live out the self-sacrificing grace of loving us to a human death, and breaking the condemnation of death into new life. 

We are walking on holy ground. Like Moses, God may ask us to remove your shoes.  Take a minute to remove that which protects you.  Take off the hard soles that prevent you from feeling every rock and stick beneath your feet.  Take off the armor around your heart that stops you from thinking too deeply about where God might be showing up.  God’s showing up right here. 

The creation story from Genesis 2 that we heard today, is just the beginning.  But most of you have already noticed.  It’s actually not the very first story in scripture.  Genesis 1 is also a creation story.  These two stories of creation are different, and there is much to be explored about their differences, sort of like having four gospels that all tell the story of Jesus.  The two creation stories are set side-by-side so that we might get to know more of the innumerable things there are to know about this God who wants to grace us with his presence. 

You may know by heart what comes before in Genesis 1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” and each day of creation is accounted for in a neat 7-day week, and all that God creates is acclaimed as “Good.”  All of creation is created good, and is intended for good.  God has every intention of shaping and claiming creation for the beauty of connectedness and balance: light/dark, night/day, land/water.

Which makes it all the more noticeable when we get to verse 18 in Genesis 2 and God says “It is not good [///] that the [human] should be alone.”  What? It is Not Good?  Something God has created is not good… YET.  For while God creates the Adam out of the adamah, the human made of humous, the God-shaped-dust… God creates not just a piece of great pottery, but a BEING meant for relationship. For the God who is relationship put that imprint upon us.  The God who is relationship created us to relate to God!  And for being  together in family units, in congregations, in communities… as the grace opportunity to learn to forgive and to love the way God does.

God creates the woman, another God-shaped-dust, because animals, as wonderful as they are, just don’t make the same kind of equal helpers that other humans do.  Here too, is another way God creates in his own image.  Just like the woman, it is God who is named an “ezer,” a “Helper” in the rest of the Grace Story. Like in Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, our very present help in trouble.”  Or, you may know this one, {sing line:} Here I raise my Ebenezer – that line is about raising a monument to our ultimate helper, our ultimate grace-giver – God!  Eve is created as Adam’s helper, as Adam is for her, she is the only one who could equal him, and the completion of the created order of complimentary pairs.

Here, at the beginning, God creates us.  The Bible story starts with our ever-present, eternal God deciding to start time, to bring into being with his very breath, a whole world filled with wonder.  And a particular species – homo sapiens – who are created with an imprint of God’s image.  Created for the very purpose of relationship with the creation around us, and with our God. 

Millennium before Jesus, God puts in place the world that Jesus will one day enter.  What possessed God to do it?  It looks like God, in God’s three-in-one self, wouldn’t think of existing on one’s own.  No, God birthed life at the beginning because that’s what God does.  Out of the three-in-one God, the God that IS relationship, a relationship is born.  A relationship with us.   What more powerful grace is there, than the love of our ultimate God for the insignificant beings, that in relationship to God, are made significant. 

As we continue on this journey through God’s Word, I’ll be filling-in the in-between stories, as it is helpful.  But I am sure that some of you will be curious to crack open a Bible and see for yourself what we’ve missed.  You will have Devotional Inserts each week to help you with that.  There are bookmarks for you to take home and put in your Bible, so you can stay connected to the arc of the Grace Story, even if you cannot be with us on Sunday.  And you can join us on the first and third Wednesdays for ‘Bible and Wine’ and get another whole level of Bible – the New Testament, to be ready to more deeply understand the Grace story.

This week, as you, church, disperse into the community, as you put your shoes back on for the daily grind.  You may take a little more notice when God’s holy image shows up in your life.  In the desire to create something; be it a spreadsheet or a website or a drawing.  In the desire to relate, to love your pet or your spouse or your child, 

regardless of how lovable they may be at that moment.  In eating your veggies, or tending and harvesting your garden, may you remember the garden that God plants us in: the dust out of which we have come and the breath that makes us like God, and the ongoing care that God has to help us bear fruit. 

The air we breathe, the water drink, the dirt we till, the dirt we are.  That’s grace. 

Let’s fall into it together.

Amen.