Monday, June 26, 2017

Children Playing at Peace



June 25, 2017
Genesis 21:8-21
8 The child [Isaac] grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. 10 So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” 11 The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. 13 As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” 14 So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.
15 When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” 19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.
20 God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.


Sermon:
Once upon a time, there were two little boys. One was lighter-skinned, one darker-skinned. They shared a father. These half brothers didn’t know they weren’t of the same standing, as one was born to a slave woman and the other to a wealthy woman. They played together as equals, because that’s what children do until they’re taught not to. Their mothers did not always (okay, ever) get along. One had all the power and privilege; the other was property. Her name was Hagar. Hagar didn’t even have a say when Abraham needed a womb to carry his child. She resented the woman who made that happen: Sarah, his wife. She resented cleaning her floors; she resented being looked through like she wasn’t a person; she resented her boy being kept away from the finer educational opportunities. 
Sarah, in turn, resented Hagar. She was jealous of her fertility, and bitter about her ability to have dignity no matter how undignified a task Sarah gave her to do. No, these women did not like each other at all. But their boys were a different matter.

One day, as the boys were playing and laughing together (that Isaac nearly always laughed), both mothers looked on. For a moment their eyes met across the plain, and silently (in the way women do), they came to a decision together. They hated each other, yes. But their boys would not. 
They let the boys keep playing together. Specifically, Sarah let those boys play together, and play they did. Ishmael, though seen as less-than because of his skin color and mother, was an older brother, through and through. He taught Isaac how to tend the sheep, and was always in charge of whatever fantasy game they invented. Isaac, though first by privilege and inheritance, adored his older brother, mimicking his every move. Ishmael was his hero. 

The boys’ love for each other eventually thawed the frosty hearts of their mothers. You couldn’t notice it at first, but in tiny ways, Sarah started being easier on Hagar. She stopped mocking her openly, gave her more comfortable tasks, and finally, one night many years later, as Hagar placed Sarah’s plentiful dinner before her, and turned to go eat her own meager meal by the fire, Sarah put a hand on her arm. She asked, not told, her if she’d like to share her table. 

Hagar rightly expected it to be a trick, but it wasn’t. She saw genuine repentance and kindness in Sarah’s eyes, and so she did sit with her, that night, and nearly every night since, for dinner. And so it happened that two little boys, half-brothers, taught peace to generations after them, all because they were allowed to play together.

…but that’s not what happened, is it? Those two little boys, one lighter-skinned, one darker-skinned, weren’t allowed to play together after all. When their mothers’ eyes met across the field that day, Sarah’s were filled with rage. She heard the echoes of a lifetime of unjust judgment and patriarchy ring in her ears: “Barren. Less than a woman. Less than a slave. Empty. Nothing.” Trapped in her own bitterness, she then exacted that same unjust sentence on a child who’d done nothing wrong, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac!” she shouted to her husband Abraham.

If the boys were allowed to play together, then they were equals. And so were their mothers. And Sarah wasn’t so sure that, when measured up to the dignity and fertility of Hagar, she would come out on top. She couldn’t allow that to happen. Hagar and the boy had to disappear.

Hagar wasn’t asked, of course. She was ordered to go into the wilderness of Beer-sheba with her son Ishmael, a sentence somehow so-called justified by God. Abraham gave them a puny skin of water and a few crumbs, but she knew it was only to make himself feel less guilty. The water gave out soon, even though she never dared drink even a mouthful, so Ishmael could have it all. Though parched with thirst, her tears flowed freely as she laid the child she’d had no choice in having (or loving) under the shrub that gave the most shade. She wandered away, a broken person, less than a person, which is perhaps what Sarah wanted all along.

She tried to stop her ears to the cries of the boy, but she couldn’t. Each one broke her more than the last. But she wasn’t the only one listening. God was. God heard the desperate cries of that abandoned child, and spoke to Hagar, “Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.

They survived, and God was with the boy, and he grew strong, making the wilderness his home. He missed his little brother desperately, but the look on his mother’s face when he mentioned Isaac made him eventually stop saying his name. 

And slowly, in the way that often happens, the bitterness and anger of parents got passed on to those boys, until playing together seemed childish, foolish, and even reckless. Isaac was told Ishmael was dangerous and cunning, a threat to his inheritance, and eventually he believed it. Ishmael was told Isaac wanted only to enslave and defeat him, and eventually he believed it. 

They came together to bury their father at Hebron many years later, but there was no love between them. Brothers in blood, but strangers in spirit. It turns out they shared an inheritance, after all: one of brutality and bitterness. And thus the spiritual children of Isaac and Ishmael – Jews, Christians, and Muslims – have struggled with that inheritance ever since, fighting even over the very burial ground of that common father Abraham.

But just because Sarah made a very wrong choice the day those boys played together, does that mean we have to keep making that choice? Thanks be to God, the answer is no. We don’t. We don’t have to let our prejudices and fears poison our children’s chances at peace. 

We can change the course of this sad story. Sometimes, the only way to interrupt the cycles of hatred and injustice, of oppression and conflict, is with creativity, with art. Art doesn’t take sides; it doesn’t demand a particular interpretation or indoctrinate those who experience it. It simply offers itself, freely and honestly. One such offering comes to us from Jewish poet Shin Shalom. It is named “Ishmael, Ishmael,” and speaks from the perspective of a conflicted Isaac. 

Ishmael, my brother,
How long shall we fight each other?

My brother from times bygone, 
My brother, Hagar's son, 
My brother, the wandering one. 
One angel was sent to us both, 
One angel watched over our growth -
There in the wilderness, death threatening through thirst, 
I a sacrifice on the altar, Sarah's first. 

Ishmael, my brother, hear my plea: 
It was the angel who tied thee to me ... 

The caravan progresses, out of breath,
Crossing the desert, a march to death.
But we have seen a mission divine,
Eternal secrets are thine and mine.
Why should we blind each other’s eyes?
Let us be brothers; brother, arise!
The heat of the desert has narrowed our mind,
Our common grazing ground we cannot find.

Let us remember our father’s kind heart,
Let brothers never again from each other part.
Remember “the well of the Living God Who sees me,”
Let bonds of friendship bring me to thee.
Time is running out, put hatred to sleep. 
Shoulder to shoulder, let's water our sheep.

If once upon a time, a mighty conflict that rages still was born through two little boys who weren’t allowed to play together, can you imagine all the good that can be done with even the tiniest of actions? It is time to put hatred to sleep, to create space for the brothers and sisters of this weary world play at peace. 

Because one day, there will be two little boys, one darker-skinned, one lighter-skinned, one Christian, one Muslim, playing together. And the world will begin to know peace. 
Is this story just a fairy tale? Is that day today? 

That, my friends, is up to us. Amen.

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Waiting to Laugh

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June 18, 2017
Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7
1The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day.2He 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.3He said, "My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant.4Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree.5Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on-since you have come to your servant." So they said, "Do as you have said."6And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, "Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes."7Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it.8Then 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.
9They said to him, "Where is your wife Sarah?" And he said, "There, in the tent."10Then one said, "I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son." And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him.11Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.12So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?"13The LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, and say, 'Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?'14Is anything too wonderful for the LORD? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son."15But Sarah denied, saying, "I did not laugh"; for she was afraid. He said, "Oh yes, you did laugh."
1The LORD dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as he had promised.2Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him.3Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him.4And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.5Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.6Now Sarah said, "God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me."7And she said, "Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

Sermon: "Waiting to Laugh"

What’s the longest you’ve ever had to wait for something, I wonder? For me, it was 25 years. 25 years I waited for God to make good on a promise from another life, when I had another name. I was Abraham, not Abram. Sarah wasn’t Sarai anymore. But none of that “descendants like the sand on the seashore” promise had come true. We became what you might call expert waiters (which is just a fancy way of saying we were experts at disappointment).

After God changed our names with a ridiculous promise, we believed it for a while. Any little fleck of sun through the trees was a sign; any unexpected rain was a message from God; any internal nudge was God’s voice. Only it wasn’t. It was just the sun; just the rain; just indigestion. That promise became as old and weathered as our old bodies, and we stopped talking about it (which is a just a fancy way of saying we gave up).

I’d stared at those oak trees in front of our tent for decades. They were just trees: bark and leaves, roots and branches. But on that day, they became something different altogether. And so did ol’ Sarai and Abram. We became our new names. 

It was the heat of the day, and I was getting too old to be working in it. So, I perched myself outside the tent to try to get the best of the fickle breeze. I was admiring those old oak trees, and to tell you the truth, I was a bit jealous of their haphazard, thoughtless ability to give birth to new trees. Sarah and I told ourselves we didn’t need anything else in life (which is just a fancy way of saying we settled). But, jealous as I was, those trees were comforting, sheltering. They put my soul at rest. As I watched those fertile trees, suddenly in the wavy heat of the day, something else appeared in their shade. 

People. But not quite like any people I’d ever seen. I had thought my heart was only full of blood and obligation, and so it was quite a shock when I felt a real stirring (that wasn’t indigestion). I intuitively knew, the way you know when you meet the love of your life, that these strange foreigners were from God. 

I was surprised at how fast my old legs could take me — I ran to them, calling them holy names like “Lord” and begged not to pass by. Those old oaks became the holiest of sanctuaries and I asked them to stay, to rest, and to let me show them kindness. They agreed, and settled down to rest in that shade. I pulled out all the stops: freshly made bread, a fatted calf, curds and milk! Ah, you don’t sound that impressed. Trust me, on a hot day, you can’t beat curds and milk, y’all.

Anyway, I fed them because that’s just what you do when a stranger comes your way on a particularly hot day. I waited, wondering what might happen, or if these silent strangers had any message from God for me. 

Finally, one of them, wiping away his milk mustache, smiled and simply asked, “Where’s your wife Sarah?” 

With a shock I realized I hadn’t told them my wife’s name. The little flicker of faith in me burst to life, and I dared to hope that maybe God remembered a long-ago promise. 

It turns out, God never forgets God’s promises. That foreigner said the most shocking news as if he were simply reading the morning news: “I’ll be back to visit you again, in a year. By then, your wife Sarah will have had a son.” Sarah was of course listening from the tent and started laughing. And she never really stopped: we named the boy Isaac, after all, which means “he laughs” in our language. 

I’ve heard a saying from time to time (I have been around a while). 
“If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” 
Now, I don’t mean to be rude, but that seems awfully backwards to me! I say that if you want to find out God’s plans for you, follow your laughter. It will show you the way.

What, I wonder, is making you laugh these days? Not laugh at  someone, or with a sarcastic, desperate tone. I mean really laugh, belly to toes, eyes streaming tears of delight. When was the last time you laughed like that? How was God speaking to you through it?

If you feel like laughter is a luxury you can’t afford, that life is too heavy or you’re too old or tired for such frivolity, I’ll tell you this: you need laughter now more than ever. I’ll also say this: Sarah and I never would found our laughter — and our Isaac — if I’d let those strangers pass us by. If I hadn’t made my tired legs and heart run to them, welcome them, show compassion to them, we would have gone on laugh-less the rest of our days. If I hadn’t recognized that those old resting oaks were actually holy ground meant to be shared, we never would have lived into our new names. We would have been Abraham and Sarah, proud and solid on the outside, all the while remaining Abram and Sarai, bitter and afraid on the inside.

Do you want to laugh? Welcome the stranger in. 
Do you want to laugh? Don’t give up on God, or yourself. 
Do you want to laugh? Open yourself to the possibility that God is always doing a new thing, even (and in my case, especially) late in the game. 

Find your laughter. Find your life. 
I promise you, it’s worth the wait. 

Amen.

Sunday, June 4, 2017

You Shall Live

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June 4, 2017 - Pentecost
Ezekiel 37:1-15 
The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 
8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then God said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10 I prophesied as God commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11 Then the Lord said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 

12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”


Sermon: “You Shall Live”

I’m not sure anything is as terrifying as not being able to breathe. I was 26 years old, a seminary senior and on a trip with fellow students to Jamaica to study the church there. There had been a malaria outbreak in Kingston, so we all needed anti-malarial meds. They made me very sick to my stomach. Eventually, we decided I needed to see a local doctor, and we did. He prescribed an anti-nausea medicine (one that is not prescribed in the States due to the prevalence of allergic reactions).

After a few days of taking this, with an increasingly tight throat, it got bad. It was actually during our last night’s dinner with the president of the seminary we were visiting. During his prayer at the start of our meal, my tongue swelled, and my throat began to close. I got to the hospital in time, thank God it was just across in street, but I’ll never forget it. I was traumatized for weeks after that about not being able to breathe.

Fast forward to last Thanksgiving. I was in Texas with my family and eating a bowl of fruit for breakfast. Suddenly, my whole mouth went itchy and, again, my tongue started swelling. My mind went straight back to Jamaica and I was terrified. Thankfully Benadryl did its job, and I was okay.

I saw an allergist as soon as I got back to NC, and though I tested positive for grape allergy, she was sure it was a fluke, and my reaction was caused by some environmental allergen instead (since I am allergic to so many things). I wasn’t convinced. Even grape juice at communion Christmas Eve gave me a rash. It wasn’t until April that I got tested again and confirmed that I do in fact have a grape allergy. I was given an Epipen that I must keep with me always. Because there’s nothing as scary for me as not being able to breathe. (I now only take the bread at communion, just to be safe. Joanna Hipp and I joke that, with her avoiding the bread because of her allergy and me avoiding the juice, we make a full communion together.)

Right in the midst of all my anxiety surrounding this, I went to Credo in March; that wonderful conference aimed at creating healthier pastors, and thus healthier churches. They packed us full of things: consultations, conversations, worship, visioning. And then, abruptly, they stopped. We had 4 whole hours to just sit, pray, and meditate, in total silence. Some in our group dubbed it “Introverts Revenge.”

And so I plopped down in an old recliner by the window of our retreat center with my Bible and journal. And I waited. It didn’t take long for my health-related anxieties to surface in the silence. Instead of running from them, or indulging them, I just examined them, as objectively as possible. What was I truly afraid of? The answer hit me as immediately as God’s response to it. I was afraid of not breathing. And God had an answer for me: Ezekiel 37. It came to mind in the unbidden way the Spirit often speaks.

“Mortal, can these bones live?”
The bewildered response: “Surely you know, God!” (with its subtext “I hope you know!”)
The patient promise to a bare-bones faith: “I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.”

Of course, God wasn’t just promising oxygen. God knows we can be breathing but not really living.
God used a different word: ruah. Breath, wind, spirit.

I will cause spirit to enter you, and you shall live.

As I sat in my comfy old recliner by that window, I realized that I didn’t just need breath in terms of oxygen. I needed God’s breath, God’s Spirit, to fill my anxious spirit with hope.

If Pentecost is the promise of anything, I believe it’s the promise of that. That God’s Spirit meets our bare-bones anxious spirits, again and again, refusing to abandon us to the dry valleys of fear.

Now, I’ll be honest: I’m still, at times, in the irrational workings of anxiety, terrified that I’ll not be able to breathe. I know where my Epipen is at all times, even as I speak to you now. 

But I also, with the help of a wonderful, faithful therapist, carry an emotional and spiritual Epipen at all times. And it is these words: “I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.”

Maybe on this Pentecost day, you need the Spirit to come like a blazing tongue of fire. And if you do, I hope She comes like that for you.

But maybe, like me, you instead need the Spirit to come like your next deep, calming breath, and the one after that, and the one after that, until you forget to worry so much, and breathing itself becomes a peaceful prayer.

Sometimes, like in Ezekiel’s case, that Breath, that Spirit, wants a little help. “Prophesy to the breath,” he was told. He bade that Breath to come from the East and the West, the North and the South, and it did. An entire people were brought back to life.

Who does that for you, I wonder? Who’s your prophet? Who is that person who dares to speak life to you?
And for whom are you called to be that prophet? To remind them of God’s powerful Spirit when their faith is nothing but bare bones?

Like I said in the beginning, maybe there’s nothing as terrifying as not being able to breathe. But that being said, maybe there’s nothing as celebratory as a single breath; as holy, as joyful, as resilient as a single breath.

We may not always have easy moments, but we do have this breath, and the next, and the next, as many as God gives us. The Breath of God within us, working life in us from the inside out. That is God’s Pentecost promise to this world. And, even on our hardest days, isn’t that worth celebrating? God’s Spirit is with us all, through those prophets who dare to gather holy breath from the most far-flung corners of the earth. We can breathe. We shall live. Thanks be to God! Amen.