How long will you go limping along?

It really seemed like the right thing to do.

You know how it goes – you want to provide for your family, for your old age. You want to live the good life, to have fun, do the things you like.

So you do what it takes to give you security. To make sure you have enough.

That’s all we were doing.

When those prophets the Queen Jezebel brought to Israel with her started talking about how Baal was the god of storm, and his consort Asherah was the goddess of fertility, well, what were we supposed to do? Those are the very two things that farmers can’t live without. We need rain; we need our seed, and soil and livestock to be fertile.

Sure, YHWH is God of everything. But it couldn’t hurt to hedge our bets just a little. It couldn’t hurt anything, could it?

So we offered to YHWH and we offered to Baal and Asherah. And it was going pretty well.

But then this guy Elijah shows up. This prophet of YHWH, who couldn’t leave well enough alone.  He gets on King Ahab’s case for marrying Jezebel in the first place, and for allowing her to bring her gods, and trying to get all of Israel to worship them. Elijah declares YHWH says there will be a drought, because we are worshipping other gods.

 Baal’s priests tell us not to worry – after all, Baal controls the rains. Just to make sure – we offer to both YHWH and Baal, and Asherah for good measure.

But the drought comes anyway. And Baal’s and Asherah’s servants get more and more demanding as the drought goes on. No matter what we do, it isn’t enough to satisfy these gods. Soon they start demanding blood offerings – our blood, our children. They say it’s the only way to bring the rain.

We hear that Elijah is over in Phoenicia in Zarephath. Even though there’s famine there too, he’s got food enough to eat –him and the household where he’s staying are being fed miraculously. I wonder why he’s not here, taking care of his own people?

Three years go by and no rains. Finally Elijah shows back up, and King Ahab demands him to call on YHWH to stop the drought. Elijah calls for a showdown between him and Baal and Asherah’s servants.

So we get ready to set off to Mt Carmel to see who wins. There’s a really nice altar to Baal there. You would say they have the home field. 

The rules are pretty simple. Each side will sacrifice a bull, but instead of lighting the sacrificial fire themselves, each will call on their god. The god who is truly God will be the one who lights the fire.

Personally, I think both Baal and YHWH will light the fires. I mean Baal is the god of the storm, right? It would be no problem to set a bit of wood on fire with a good lightning bolt. And YWHW should be able to do the same – I remember the story of YHWH leading us out of Egypt with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. I don’t know what Elijah thinks he’s going to prove with this.

As if he knows what I’m thinking, Elijah challenges me to choose a side, saying to us all:  “how long are you going to limp along with two different opinions. How long are you going to hedge your bets? You can’t have it both ways. You either serve YWHW or you serve Baal. Today you have to make a choice – who will it be?”

Elijah calls for two bulls to be brought out and lets Baal’s people pick their bull first. They take some time – it takes awhile for 450 priests to agree on something! – then select the biggest, juiciest, most perfect bull for their sacrifice.

Elijah lets them go first. The priests start loudly praying, and dancing around the altar. Nothing happens.

Elijah begins making fun of them. Maybe Baal can’t hear them.

They get louder.

Maybe Baal is meditating.

They dance harder.

Maybe Baal is on a journey. Maybe he’s asleep and must be awakened.

They begin to cut themselves, offering their own blood with the bull to Baal.

Nothing happens.

We begin to get restless. The morning has passed, it’s after noon and Elijah hasn’t started his offering. It’s getting close to the time of the oblation sacrifice – the one where we give thanks for blessings and declare our loyalty. It doesn’t look like either Baal or YHWH will receive oblation today.

Finally Elijah turns his back on the 450 prophets of Baal and walks over to the side where YWHW’s altar used to stand. It was torn down to make more room for Baal’s altar, but Elijah starts collecting the rocks and putting the altar back together. This old man, all alone doing such hard work – I send my sons to help him, others offer to help, but he waves them all away.

He finds 12 large stones to put on the top. We know what this means – it’s for the twelve sons of Israel, the 12 tribes, the 10 of us who broke away and became Israel, and the 2 who remained loyal to the line of David and became Judah.

He laid the wood on the fire and the bull. We lean in, waiting to hear how Elijah would call on YHWH. How could one man get the attention of a god, when 450 couldn’t?

Then Elijah did something absurd. He called for water. First, we thought he might be thirsty. After all, he’d been working hard. Perhaps he needed to clear the dust from his throat before he started.

But he wanted more than just a cup. He wanted a lot more – jars full of water. In the middle of a drought!

People began offering water from their water skins. Some ran down to the sea to get water there. Soon there were four jars filled and Elijah commanded them to be poured on the offering.

And then four more.

And four more.

The offering was drenched – water filled the trench around the altar. There was no way this thing would ever light. Was he crazy?

This was absurd. This offering had no chance of catching on fire. It was a ridiculous as…

as impossible as…

as…

as…

as thinking someone in the grave for three days could be raised!

Then, just at the time for the loyalty offering, Elijah held up his hands. We all got silent, straining to hear his simple prayer: “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back." (1 Kings 18:36-37)

Just like that, fire fell from heaven. A fire so hot and persistent that even the stones and water were consumed.

Just like that, the choice was simple. We had put our trust in the wrong things. Things that offered false hope, false security. We hadn’t hedged our bets; we had bought into false promises of security and prosperity. Ashamed, repentant, and truly terrified of a God who could do such things, we dropped to our knees, prostrate before YHWH, and called out, our faces buried in the dust, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your mind, and all your soul and all your strength.”

At our confession, the rains came.

I had thought it wouldn’t hurt to cover all my bases, worshipping Baal and YHWH to make sure we had what we needed. But trusting in something other than YWHW led to death and destruction, drought and famine. Only YHWH brings life.

What about you? Who do you serve?

What are the idols you offer your time, and skills, and money, and allegiance to? Where do you truly place your trust? Who do you count on to save you – your family, your work, your money and possessions, your nation, even the blessings YHWH has given you – false gods are much more subtle in your world.

Those things seem so reasonable – as reasonable as it was to us to call on Baal, god of storms, in time of drought. But those things you trust will fail you; they will be silent when you really need them, as unresponsive and impotent as Baal to the call of all those prophets.

It is YHWH, YHWH alone, who can be trusted, no matter how long the drought lasts, no matter what life throws at you, whose steadfast love and mercy never fail.

How long will you go limping along?

You Laughed! Narrative Lectionary, Year 2, Second Sunday of the Story

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

What do you do when God’s promises seems as impossible as a 90 year old woman giving birth?

You laugh.

Not a laugh of joy.

A bitter laugh – like laughing at a joke that ceased to be funny a long time ago

A laugh of derision.

A laugh of scorn.

Have you ever stood beside the tent with Sarah and laughed that laugh?

I have.

I sifted through stories this week - stories of people who persevered, who were patient, who never gave up and finally against huge odds achieved their dreams.  I could tell you one of them.

But then I realized that the story I need to tell today is my own.  You’ve heard part of my call story.  The good parts - toward the end when the promise became real, the way that first flutter of life in a pregnant woman’s womb makes the baby real, growing larger and closer as the moment of birth arrives.

But what happens when God’s promises come in a place where there’s no hope of life?  

How old was I when I first felt God calling me to ministry?  I’m not sure anymore - 13, 14, maybe as late as 16, or 17.  

But it was impossible.  This was the 1970’s and women could not be pastors.  I raged against the promise:  why would God call me, give me gifts for something that could not be?  Why would God promise what I could not have?

The promise lay lifeless as I went off to college.  Then I found a way I could make the promise real - (not God!):  I could become a youth minister.  Women could do that.  That must have been what God meant!

Have you ever tried to force God’s promise?  Tried to take it into your own hands and make it happen?  If you have then you know how bitter that road can be.  Sarah tried that when she convinced Abraham to have a baby through her slave Hagar, a baby Sarah would claim as her own son.  How later Sarah looked at the child playing in the yard and knew that this was not right- God’s promise was still empty.

I discovered that I was no more suited to be a youth minister at that time than Sarah was suited to have a child through her slave.  This was not how God’s promise would be fulfilled.

It’s a moment when you can lose all faith.  I tried - and it didn’t work.  I must have it wrong.  This is not really what God is calling me to do, not what God promised.

It’s a moment when you can turn your back.  And I did.  I gave up - faith, God, everything.  

For years, like the fool in Proverbs, I said in my heart, “There is no God.”

Was it like that for Sarah?  How many times did Sarah doubt?  

How many times did Abraham? 

Up to that day by the oaks of Mamre, all the promises were made to Abraham.  Three times God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of nations - three times Abraham was promised a son, but only the last time, 24 years after God first called Abraham, was Sarah even named in the promise.  

And Abraham laughed - Sarah, ninety year old Sarah, have a child?

Who could blame him for laughing?  

All that wasted time.  When she was a younger woman - say when God first made that promise 24 years ago, and Sarah was 66 -  then maybe.  She had been barren all their marriage, and even at 66, ‘it had ceased to be after the manner of women with her.’  But she was still younger.  It was still impossible, but maybe not so impossible?

I imagine there was a lot of laughter as as he and all the males in his household were circumcised according to God’s command - and not the good kind.  Scornful laughter, snorts of derision, barks of disbelief.  

Bitter laughter from Sarah as she  watched her husband once more trust in this stale old promise God had dangled before him for almost a quarter of a century.

Now this day, outside the tent, Sarah hears the promise herself.  These men - God’s messengers, or the very Lord God - they came for her.  She was the reason they were there.  They asked where she was, knew her by name.  Promised that she would have a son, not sometime, but in a year!

And she laughed.  A dry bitter laugh of one who no longer has any hope.

And yet - is anything too wonderful for God?  

No because with God all things are possible.

Because God is a God that breathes life into dust,

God is a God who makes a way out of now way.

God is a God who can bring life to dried up dreams, and promises that seem to have withered over the years.

God is a  God who snatches victory from the jaws of death, and bursts forth with laughter from a three-day old tomb.

God is a God who laughs when life triumphs over death.

A joyous laugh - just as Sarah laughed when she held her son.  As she watched this child of laughter - Isaac - grow.

Is anything too wonderful for God?

No.  There is nothing too wonderful for God.

And even when you turn you back on God, God stays with you.  God keeps God’s promises.

Even when you laugh at God.

---

[1] The Simarillion.  I have changed the names Tolkien gave to Eru Illuvtar and the Ainur and Melkor to their Greatest Story (biblical) counterparts in order to facilitate the storytelling to a group who is not familiar with Tolkien’s world.

What was I thinking!?! Surviving the first week of my DMin program

What was I thinking?

It's a question I've asked myself over and over again that first week of my doctoral program as I struggled with writing papers and a sermon and the intense classwork you expect in a 3 week summer program.

What was I thinking?  Am I ready for this?

What was I thinking? Am I smart enough for this?

What was I thinking? I chose to have to write an exegetical paper - again!  I must be crazy!

What was I thinking?

Sitting there on Saturday morning after surviving that first week, I remembered what I was thinking the prevous Saturday as I packed for this adventure.

I knew I'd be busy during the week.  There would be books to read and things to write, maybe some evening discussion with my classmates.  I was sure I wouldn't have time to spare during the week (and I didn't!).

But then there was Saturday and Sunday.  Two long, lonely days looming large on my horizon.  Surely there wouldn't be enough class work to fill them both.  How would I fill those days stuck in seminary guest housing?

What was I thinking?

Well, I wasn't thinking that there would be others in my position, far from home who would also be stranded in the seminary housing.

I wasn't thinking about Chris and Laurie, who love the wonders of the city they live in, and said, "Come and see the Stone Arch Bridge!  And you HAVE to have Izzy's Ice Cream!  And aren't you tired of seminary food, I know this great place where we can go and have good food and great fellowship!" And organized dinner on Thursday night and a field trip Friday afternoon - and then proceeded to tell us of other great places to see and to make some tentative plans for next weekend too.

I wasn't thinking of Trish, who led me into temptation by telling me as we walked to breakfast Saturday morning about the art in the park show right next to our breakfast destination.  I spent the morning immersing myself in beauty with - and this is the amazing part to someone who drags her spouse to these things- someone else who loves art shows!  So many lovely beads.....

I wasn't thinking of Elisabeth or Steven who joined Trish and I in making dinner Saturday night.

I wasn't thinking of Lee who accidentally overheard a conversation with my kids, and asked, "Is everything ok?"

I wasn't thinking of Cindy or Amrela or Lesley who also struggled with the same doubt and fears and asking "What was I thinking?" and yet shared their stories and support as we all begin this new adventure together.

I wasn't thinking of the cohort two years ahead of us that was eager to meet us and share their wisdom and encourage us.

I wasn't thinking of the community that grows when we gather together.

As Trish and I explored the artist's tents and ooh'd and aah'd over the art, I reluctantly moved away from a particular piece of art that was just out of my budget, And then I said, "I just realized we'll be back here next year!"  She responded, "I thought of that too!"

I think in that moment what I understood that this is more than just a class, or a program, or time at continuing ed.  The ten us us are more than classmates - we are a community.

Community is so important.  Humans are social creatures – we were created to be in relationship with one another and with God.  We may admire the myth of the rugged individual pulling him/herself up by the bootstraps, but that’s just not the way we’re designed.  We need each other.  We need God.

That’s why worshiping together is so important.  Yes you can worship God in the middle of a lake or a forest – I’ve done so myself.  But we need each other - just like I needed the others in my Dmin cohort.  We need to bear each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), to rejoice with each other and share each other’s suffering together (1 Corinthians 12:26).  We need to hear the testimony of others who have traveled down the same roads we are travelling, who can proclaim God’s steadfast love and faithfulness at the times we need to hear it most.  And we need give others that encouragement gleaned from our own encounters with God.  As it says in Hebrews 10:24-25:  And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

This is why gathering together as a community of believers, worshiping together, working together, praying and playing together is important.  Sure, God can be worshiped any place and time.  But God knows that we need each other – especially in those times we ask ourselves, “What was I thinking!”    

Charleston: It's Personal.

I know.

You’re tired of hearing about the shootings in Charleston.  It’s old news.  Other stuff is going on in the world, in your life.  Why am I writing about something that happened two weeks ago, all the way across the nation?

Because it’s personal.

The two pastors who were killed went to one of my denomination’s seminaries.  Not the one I attended, but I have dear classmates of color who taught me much about faith and trust and God’s steadfast love and mercy.  I mourn the deaths of Rev. Clementa Pinckney and Rev. Daniel Simmons as deeply as if they were one of my classmates.  Indeed they were my colleagues in ministry, as was Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor and Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton who also were murdered that night.

I can’t imagine the deep shock and grief of a congregation losing not just one, but four pastors, as well as five other congregation members:  Tywanza Sanders, Cynthia Hurd, Myra Thompson, Ethel Lance, and Susie Jackson.  My heart aches for my sisters and brothers at Mother Emmanuel.  While I have never worshipped at Mother Emmanuel AME Church, in seminary I did worship at two AME congregations in Columbus Ohio as part of the African-American Religious Experience class.  I remember being one of six or seven white faces in the congregation as we nervously looked at one another waiting for the service to start.  I remember that nervousness fleeing as we were warmly welcomed as brothers and sisters in Christ, truly included as part of the worshiping community, experiencing the joy of faith in a new way.

The shooter was a young man from a congregation in my denomination.  I said this was personal – it gets very personal here.  I imagine him standing in front of the congregation only a few years ago as they congratulated him on his graduation from high school, presenting him with a gift from the congregation, perhaps a quilt lovingly made by the women’s circle.  I see him as a young teenager on his confirmation day, rejecting the forces of sin, death and the devil, professing his faith, and kneeling at the altar rail as the pastor lays hands on his head and says, “Father in heaven, for Jesus sake, stir up in him the gift of your Holy Spirit; confirm his faith, guide his life, empower him in his serving, give him patience in suffering, and bring him/her to everlasting life.”  I see a 5^th grade boy reaching out his hand for the bread of life the first time he took Holy Communion.  I see a proud 3^rd grade boy clutching the new Bible the congregation has just given him.  I see a young boy in a bathrobe wishing he was old enough to be a wise man instead of a shepherd at the Christmas pageant.  I see a baby, the waters of baptism poured on his head as he was named and claimed a beloved child of God.

He was one of ours.  A child raised to love God and love the neighbor as himself.  Taught to follow Jesus, who gave us a new commandment: to love as he first loved us.  And I wonder how this young man found the story of white supremacy and hate and fear more compelling than the Story in which he was raised?   

It’s time to ask ourselves some questions.  Yes we need to pray.  Pray God comforts those who mourn the nine deaths in Charleston and brings comfort and healing to everyone who suffers from hatred and violence. Pray for the young man who did such a terrible act, for his family, for his congregation.

But we also need to take a long look inside ourselves and ask some hard questions.  We need to repent of our own fear and hatred of those who are different from us. To ask God to open our eyes so that we see in the other someone who is created in the image of God, who is deeply loved by God.  To ask God to open our hearts so we may love with God’s love for the world.     

This is personal.  It's about you and me and the systems of racism and injustice in our societies and how we participate - often without even realizing it - in those systems.  It's about realizing that this could have happened anywhere, in any of our communities.

This is personal.  We serve a God of love, who created ALL humans in the divine image.  Who loves ALL the world so much that God came and dwelt among us.  Lived and died on a cross, because of those systems of power and injustice.  We are called to follow the one who knelt down and washed the disciples feet, commanding them to love - the last act before he was unjustly arrested and crucified.

This is personal. The resurrection is God's resounding "NO!" to the forces of sin, death and the devil.  We are called to bear witness to God's "YES!" to life and love, to stand in the face of hate and death, We need to talk about racism.  We need to listen to those who suffer from it's insidious hold on our society.  We need to name those places where racism, poverty, injustice, violence, hatred and fear still reign - and to take a stand and say "No more!"

This is personal. 

A Story about Stories

This is a story about stories.  Or maybe it is stories about The Story…

               

I love stories.  Ever since I learned to read, I could not get enough stories.  I remember getting my first library card and the wonderful world of stories housed in the basement of the Carnegie Library in Bluffton, Indiana.  My mother, somewhat proudly, complained that I would have all five books I was allowed to check out read before she could get me home.  Trips to the library became a weekly event for me, my nose buried in a book as I walked the sixteen blocks home.  My mother would chide me for reading in low light, and send me, book in hand, outdoors for some fresh air and sunshine.

               A good story grabs me.  I empathize with the characters, usually the heroine or hero.  I have been known to argue with the authors:  “Louisa, what on earth are you doing?  Don’t you know that Jo should marry Laurie? (Little Women)”   I live the story and at the end, I emerge abruptly.  The end of a story leaves me questioning, crying for more.  “What happens next?”  Sometimes, if a story particularly engages me, I dwell in it awhile, taking the story past the place the author saw fit to end it.  Often I dream it.  My daughter particularly loves to tease me about my high school immersion into The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  I read it so many times that I began to dream about it.  But after the unsettling dream of orcs over-running my high school, I put it on the shelf for a time.  Still, I wish I had never told her the story.  When I laugh at one of her strange dreams, she likes to retort, “At least there weren’t orcs in my school!”

                That is another thing about stories.  We love to tell stories.  Humans are storied beings.  No other creatures tell stories about their pasts (at least, I do not think that is what whale song is, but you never know!).  My family shared stories all the time.   My paternal grandmother would talk about how her father immigrated to the United States with his two sisters.  At my great-grandmother’s viewing, I heard the story again about how she, along with a handful of other faithful believers, established their old-world faith in the New World, building a congregation and eventually a church.  Not all the stories were inspirational.  I was troubled by the story about my great-aunt, who because of an illegitimate child, could only be a half member (whatever that meant!) in the congregation.  And some stories were downright embarrassing.  My aunt loves to tell me the story about how, when I was three and the whole family was at the lakes, I waded in and put my face underwater, and would not come back up.  Everyone started shrieking at me, and finally (I do not understand why this was not the first response) my uncle waded in and grabbed me from the water.  I squirm when she tells the story, and marvel that she never connected that experience to the difficulty she had in later trying to teach me to swim!

                Yes, I love stories.  My early faith was built on stories.  I may not have understood worship at that German-Swiss Anabaptist congregation, with its plain slow singing, lengthy prayers and sermons (which were occasionally in German).  But I thrived on the morning Sunday school and the stories: Old Testament stories about creation, Abraham, Joseph, Ruth, David, Elijah; New Testament stories about Jesus and the birth of the church and the missionary journeys of Paul.  I lived those stories as a maid in Sarah’s tent, or a child at Jesus’ feet or one of Lydia’s many servants. They became part of my story.  Thus storied, I never remember a time as a child where I questioned the existence of God.  God was and is and always will be, and I knew it from the testimony of those ancient people and their experience with God in their lives. 

                JRR Tolkien once said that all stories, real or imagined, were part of the Great Story .  I like that.  As my faith has grown - even during the times where I, as John Ylvisaker aptly puts it, “wandered off to find where demons dwell” – I find stories mark pivotal moments in my faith.  Stories attest to the presence of God in my life.  There is the story of my mother’s death.  That last night, I kept watch at my mother’s bedside while she lay dying.  So clearly I remember the coolness of her fingers, the brightness of the town hall tower clock shining in her window.  Then there was the moment when her labored breathing eased and an incredible look of peace came over her.  Agnostic as I was at that time, I could not deny that at that moment, even if I had not been there, she was not alone.  Jesus walked with her during that final journey.

                 And Jesus walked with me, even as I continued to run from him, in the months after her death.  The two Christian co-workers who took the time to sit with me during lunch breaks as I remembered and grieved silently spoke of Jesus’ abiding presence.  Even the novels by Andrew Greely, which I devoured, screamed “presence” and “grace.”  I stumbled back to the community of believers and finally found home where God was waiting with open arms and Lenten soup suppers to nourish both my body and soul.  

                What other stories could I tell?  How we moved to Lima, Ohio – aka Lost In Middle America - ostensibly for my spouse to accept a promotion, only to discover that God, who works in mysterious (and often secular) ways, had brought us to this place!  How I stumbled on my home congregation, Zion Lutheran, through the Internet (yes, I “googled” Lutheran churches in Lima, and they were the only one with a website), and discovered not only a community in which to grow and thrive, but also a new calling.  How God provided for us through that summer that Tim lost his job and I became the sole bread-winner on a part-time job.  I could tell seminary stories: about the last-minute CPE assignment; about the extremely last minute transfer Tim got the day we, after picking up and leaving everything like Abraham, moved into seminary housing; about the day I despaired of purchasing new jeans for my daughter only to find a donation of several pairs in exactly her size on the seminary free table. 

                I could tell you the story of my journey with my daughter into the world of mental illness.  How even in the devastation of receiving her diagnosis of bi-polar disorder, I realized that God was at work here.  We were blessed to have such an array of services for her – in Lima there are virtually no children’s mental health professionals and absolutely no hospitals.  Then there was the day when I learned that to get her into a needed residential program, we had to give custody to the state.  Crying and fighting with insurance and marshalling the efforts of NAMI and the ombudsman, I was surprised by God’s presence again and again in the most unexpected places.  A pastor from Cincinnati, calling to arrange a supply preacher, noted my distress and asked about it.  She then shared her own journey with her daughter through the difficult world of mental illness and residential placement.  During a phone call with my insurance’s mental health specialist, I pleaded for a way out of the terrible decision we had to make, only to have the insurance guy liken my decision to the story of Solomon and the two women claiming the same infant (1Kings 3:16-27).  Talk about being surprised by grace!  There was the professor who listened to me grieve as only someone who had faced the same decision could.  Or the terrible morning when I cried to God in agony and anger, questioning where God was in the pain and heartache and mess, only to be brought to my knees at the foot of the cross, recognizing that God knew – God was there in the suffering and pain, carrying me.  There was no where I could go where God was not (Psalm 139).

                My stories outline my faith journey.  I learned as a child that God loves us.  My rebellion against that love as a young adult later showed me that God never leaves and there is nothing God will not do to find that one lost sheep.  I learned grace in the community of believers, breathing relief in my soul in learning that, although some communities may condemn members to “half salvation” because of certain sins, there is nothing I could do to make God love me less, and – even better – there is nothing I can do to make God love me more!  My story is one of God’s love and provision, presence and grace.

                Telling and listening to our stories are an integral part of faith.   We tell the Great Story and listen to each other’s stories. And in listening, we discover the places where your story and my story met the Great Story - the places where grace prevails, love abounds and God is present.  God listens to our dreams, hopes, desires and stories.  The witness of the scriptures is a dialog between God and the world.  The Gospel we share is a story of good news.  We imitate God when we listen to each other’s stories and our faith communities flourish when active listening and storytelling is practiced.

              The challenge is to discern the story being told in various places in the congregation’s life.  It is easy to discern the story in worship, Bible studies, small group discussions, and pastoral counseling situations.  It can be harder to hear the stories told in the mundane matters of congregational life – the council meetings, budget discussions, annual congregational meetings, for example.  Beneath the surface in each of these, are stories of faith and life and God – we just need careful listening ears to hear them.

             So we’re going to spend some time telling and listening to stories.  Trying to see how our stories connect with God’s story. This month, we’re going to talk about how our stories and the stories of the world around us give voice to our prayers. During the Lent mid-week worship, we will be studying Psalms of Lament, and Jesus’ lament in Matthew 26:36-46.  Each one of these laments tells a story about faith in times of sorrow and trouble.  

How do the stories in these laments offer prayers for ourselves, our community and the world? 

What are your prayers for the church, the world, and all in need?  

What are your prayers for yourself, family and friends?                                                      

These aren’t rhetorical questions.  I really want to know.  

Let’s talk…

Yikes! Sodom and Gomorrah, Incest, Deception, and God's Promises - Genesis 18, 19, 20 and 21:1-7

I read today's chapters in Genesis and thought YIKES!

This is some of what I mean when I tell my confirmation students that the Bible is not rated G.  Or even PG-13.

Sometimes - like today - I'm not sure it would get an R.

Today I read about God's judgement on Sodom and Gomorrah.  How the men of Sodom wanted to rape the men (God's messengers, aka angels) staying with Lot.  How Lot offered them his virgin daughters instead.  Not exactly a candidate for father of the year in my book!  The men then trying to break in by force until the angels blinded them.

Even though the citizens are reprehensible and judgement is looming, Lot and his family can't bear to leave.  They dally and the angels have to drag them out of the city.  Lot's wife can't stand it and looks back, only to be turned to a pillar of salt.

Yeah.  We know this story.

But it gets worse.

Lot takes his daughters and settles way up in the mountains.  They are so remote that there is no one for his daughters to marry,  (Lot's still deficient in parenting responsibility)  So they get dear old dad drunk, and sleep with him to get pregnant.

Abraham has his own failings.  He's afraid that the men of the town of Gerar will find his wife so beautiful that they will kill him to get her.  So he says Sarah is his sister (true, but not the whole truth) the king of Gerar takes her as a wife.

Fortunately God steps in, and Sarah is kept from the king's bed by God's hand.

Mind you, Abraham has already pulled this trick before - with Pharaoh.  Not his finest moment - again.

Yikes!

Just.

Yikes!


Then I read the last part of today's reading - Issac is born,  This child is the beginning of the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham - to bless him and make his descendants number the stars and through him to bless the nations.

And I went back and re-read the first bit of today's reading- where the birth of Issac is again promised, this time with a date given. (Abraham and Sarah have only been waiting on God's promise of a son for about 20 years!)

And then it hit me - God keeps God's promises.

God promises....humans do horrible stuff....God keeps God's promises.

Even when we lie and deceive.

Even when we get so focused on ourselves that we ignore the needs of others.

Even when we longingly look back at those less- than-savory things.

Even when we reluctantly heed God's call.

Even when we can't or don't believe that God will actually follow through and do what God promised.

Even when..... (fill in the blank)

Even when we do not keep ours.


Takeaway for today

• God keeps God's promises

Remembering and Promises Genesis 7, 8, 9, and 1 Chronicles 1: 8-23

There's a lot of repetition in this story.  Bible scholars say that's because there were two different traditions - Priestly and Jahwistic - that told this story slightly differently.  Instead of telling one story and then the other, like the creation accounts, the writers did a mash-up of the two traditions.  So there's a lot of repetition (and some differing details).

The story of Noah's Ark is pretty well known.  We decorate our nurseries with cute boats and a cuddly old man (and sometimes his wife) and those adorable pairs of baby animals.  And the rainbow.

Let's not forget the rainbow.

It's an odd choice for a children's tale.  All humans (except for 8) drown in the flood.  All the animals (except for those on the ark) die.  Everything is destroyed in a cataclysmic rainstorm.

I bet there was lots of thunder and lightning.  Scary thunder and lightning and dead things floating in the water.

This is not a great bedtime story.

But then we read "God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him (8:1)."  God remembered.  And God made the wind blow to dry up the waters.

God remembered.

God re-membered.

God brought everyone on the ark out and re-membered them - made them members again of God's creation.

And God made a covenant -a sacred promise - to never destroy the earth by flood again. And God placed a rainbow in the sky, so God would remember...

That rainbow which delights us is not to remind us of God's promise. No.  It's to remind God of that promise!

Amazing!

No matter how bad things get, God will remember that we are God's children - prone to sin, but dearly loved by God nonetheless.

And that's a pretty good story for bedtime and every time!



Takeaway from today:

• God loves humankind and all creation - warts and all
• God promises to always remember us with love

Starting and Starting Over - Genesis 4-6, 1 Chronicles 1:1-4

It doesn't take long for humans to find trouble.  Adam and Eve start a new life outside of the Garden.  They are fruitful - they have sons.

And where there is more than one child - there is sibling rivalry.

Abel was a shepherd and Cain was a farmer.  The time comes to bring an offering to God, Abel's offering is accepted, and Cain's is not.

Why not?  I'm not sure.  But Bible gives us a clue.  While it just says Cain brought an offering, Abel's offering is the best of the firstborn.  Can we extrapolate that Cain's offering was not 'first fruits', not the best of the harvest?

Cain tries to slide by with any old offering.  But God calls him on it.

Instead of repenting (and bringing an acceptable offering), Cain lashes out against Abel, killing him.

It goes down hill from there.  To the point that by the time of Noah, God is ready for a mulligan.  God looks on creation, looks at God's beloved humans - made in God's own image - and it breaks God's heart (Genesis 6:6).

God's heart breaks.

And God has compassion on creation, on humans.  God charts a new course.

It takes washing the world with a flood.  And it takes the obedience of Noah and his family.

Which we'll read about tomorrow.



Takeaways from today's reading:

• God always encourages us to be our best, to do our best.
• Humans have a tendency to do just the minimum to get by.
• God has such love for us and all creation, that God's heart breaks for us.
• In the face of human sin, God chooses to find a way to bring us back.

Let's start at the very beginning.... Genesis chapters 1-3

Let’s start at the very beginning.  That’s a very good place to start….[i]

The ancient Hebrews would agree.  The beginning of their Scriptures begins with Genesis – a Hebrew word meaning “origin” or “beginning.”  To make sense of their story, of their relationship with God, they needed to start at the beginning.

We need to start at the beginning too.  Humans have always tried to explain where everything comes from.  There are lots of stories of how the earth began - ancient myths, the Biblical accounts, scientific explanation.

I was in 3^rd grade when I first heard about the theory of evolution.  In the 60's they weren’t teaching evolution explicitly to 3^rd graders, but my Sunday school teacher was extremely upset that we might believe this evil theory instead of believing what the Bible clearly said – that the earth was created in six days and on the seventh day, God took a nap.

I didn’t really understand all the fuss.  I was wise enough in 3^rd grade to know that God could do anything, and could do it any way God wanted to.  I figured that since the Bible also clearly said “that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day (2 Peter 3:8),” whether each day in Genesis chapter one was a 24 hour day, or thousands of years wasn’t really important.  After all, God could have created the world in 6 seconds if God choose to.  I wasn’t so sure about the whole humans-evolved-from-a-monkey stuff, but I figured that probably wasn’t important either.  I knew that God created me and loved me. That was all I needed to know.  God could explain the rest all when I got to heaven. 

Ah, the faith of a child!

Fast forward about 30 years.  I was on the confirmation teaching team at Zion Lutheran in Lima Ohio.  I was talking to our new pastor before the first class in our Bible year.  Of course we were studying Genesis.  I casually mentioned that I had no problem with evolution (citing the above reasoning) – after all the order God created the world matched the order evolution stated. 

Not so, said Pastor Kent.  There are two accounts of creation – Genesis 1:1-2:4a and Genesis 2:4b-25.  And the order things were created in those two stories is different.

It was? 

How had I never noticed it before? 

I had to check it out.  I made a chart – and sure enough, the order of creation IS different in the two biblical accounts of creation!  Go ahead – check it out.  I’ll wait…

So - which account is true?  

They both are! 

I teach my confirmation students that the Bible is not about the ‘how,’ it’s about the “Who” (thanks Pastor Kent!).  Put another way, it’s not a book of science – it’s a Book of Faith.  Those ancient Hebrews,when explaining how everything came to be, told two different stories of the beginning.  Both were important statements of faith to them.  Both said something vital about God, and us, and the world. 

The first account tells us something about God.  God is the Creator – of heaven, of earth, of water and land, plants and animals and humans –everything that is seen and unseen.[ii]  The second account tells us something about God and us.  We were created to be in relationship with God – and through God in relationship with each other and all creation.  These two stories set the stage for the rest of the Bible.

There’s one more story in today’s reading:  The Fall.  Serpent tempts woman, woman gives fruit (The Bible never says it’s an apple!) to man. Humans covet God’s wisdom - relationship with God is broken.  God asks what happened, man blames woman, woman blames serpent – relationship with each other and creation is broken.  Sin enters the world.

The last time I preached on this, I noticed something.  God says they can eat from every tree in the garden but one - The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  But there’s another big, capital letter tree in the garden – The Tree of Life.  Adam and Eve can eat from that tree, but they don’t.  They choose the fruit that brings death. 

Why didn’t they eat from the Tree of Life? 

Does this story teach us that God gives things that lead to life, but humans so often choose those things that lead to death?

Looking around our world, I’d have to say yes.

Take-aways for today:

• ·     God made everything.
• ·     Everything God made is good
• ·     God made humans to be in relationship to God
• ·     Left to our own devices, humans will choose death over life
• ·     Sin is broken relationship with God, which also breaks our relationship with each other and creation

How will God redeem this beautiful mess?

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[i] Opening lines from “Do-Re-Mi” from the Sound of Music.

[ii] From the First Article of the Nicene Creed