(Proper 7)
Genesis 21:8-21
Romans 6:1b-11
Matthew 10:24-39
This morning we embark into that long season of liturgical green. The Sundays after Pentecost will continue all the way up until the beginning of the next church year with Advent late in the fall. One of the names we give to these green seasons is ordinary time. We are not focused on a particular holy day or a season with its individual character. This is ordinary time. A reminder that God is with us even in the ordinary times of our lives. Ordinary time also gives us the opportunity to systematically work our way through large portions of Scripture.
And what Scripture readings we are offered today for this beginning of our journey in ordinary time!
There are some real gems in these readings. The Old Testament story is about Ishmael. You may remember that Abraham and Sarah found themselves childless and they despaired of ever having a child. So, as was the custom of the time, Abraham fathered a child with Sarah’s Egyptian slave, Hagar. That boy was Ishmael. Later, against all odds, in their old age, Sarah bore Abraham a son, Isaac. Today’s story is about Ishmael, although he is named only indirectly. He is just dismissively called “the boy.” Except that, in the Hebrew, he is named. One of the sentences begins “God heard.” In Hebrew that is “Ishmael.” That’s a gem in Scripture. This cast out boy has a name that means God hears. And his mother, a slave in the household has an intimate conversation with God, or an angel of God (in Genesis it’s not always easy to tell the apart). Marginalized and of no account, but she speaks to God.
Then in the epistle there is Paul’s passionate theology of baptism… passionate and faithful, but a bit obscure to interpret in terms of our daily lives.
And there is some very rich stuff in the Gospel. Again and again Jesus says do not fear. Do not be afraid, Jesus reassures us. The hairs on your head are counted. God knows you that well. And values you. You are of great value to God…. at least more value than bunch of sparrows.
From amongst these readings, I could pluck any one of these gems and preach on that. And I’ve often taken that approach when presented with readings that contain both gems and difficult parts. Pluck out the gems and ignore the difficult parts. We all do that with Bible. From the strongest literalist to the most liberal interpreter… we all pick out our favorite parts and ignore others. But today’s difficult parts are just too big to ignore. There are many large elephants in the middle of today’s room of Scriptural passages. There are multiple really difficult parts in both the Old Testament reading and the Gospel. Some of these can be softened a bit by scholarly interpretation. Some not so much.
The story we heard from Genesis is sometimes called the sacrifice of Ishmael. If you look at it closely it has striking parallels to the story we call the sacrifice of Isaac. Which (hip hip hooray!) we’ll hear next week.
Like that story it includes the uncomfortable piece of God setting a test for Abraham’s trust. God says to Abraham… trust me… send your eldest son out into the wilderness with a crust of bread and one jug of water… the price of your trust is your son. Today’s story also includes what some call the “scandal” of election. Isaac was designated to be the father of the covenant, the progenitor of God’s elected, God’s chosen people. Ishmael, on the other hand is written out of the story of God’s people. His status could at best be described as separate, but not equal. Yes, God listens to and cares for Ishmael and Hagar as outcasts. But it is God who made them outcasts! And if that weren’t enough, what bothers me most in this story is that God provides a well. For Ishmael and Hagar that well literally saves their lives. But how can I proclaim that as good news when today children of Abraham are dying in the dessert all the time for lack of water. Faithful children of Abraham… refugees, many of them literally children, forced to flee poverty or violence. Dying every day in the desserts of Sudan, Syria and Arizona.
Those are the elephants in the Old Testament reading! Moving on to the Gospel.
Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” Jesus said.
Jesus said, "For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother”
Jesus said, “Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
I think I have preached before on the context of Jesus words in Matthew’s Gospel. Understanding that context provides at least one way to interpret Jesus’ harsh words. Many of those to whom Matthew wrote were already facing the situations Jesus’ describes. Because of their choice to follow Jesus they faced conflict in their communities and within their families. So perhaps Jesus’ words, as Matthew presents them, describe a present reality rather than predicting a future reality. They are meant to reassure those people who have chosen Christ… the words suggest that Jesus understands and even expected what the people were facing. That interpretation helps, for me at least. The elephant is smaller, but still there.
So, given the extreme challenges of these readings, I asked myself what I could offer to you today. It is my task and responsibility to share and proclaim the Scriptures. What can I preach? I can only offer you my own personal reassurance, based on my own experience, that I’m better off with the Bible than without it. It has been my experience that the more I read the Scriptures, the closer I know myself to God and the more deeply I feel God’s love. Tempting as it may be, with passages like those appointed for today, to read less of the Scriptures or to discount their value, my experience has taught me the immeasurable reward of reading more.
It tells my story and the story of people I know and God is a part of that story. I know people like Sarah who had so many wonderful qualities: full of faith, gracious with hospitality, and a good sense of humor. Who in this passage is consumed with petty jealousy towards the son who is not hers. And I know people like those for whom Matthew wrote. People who are afraid, especially afraid to claim their faith. Whose backbones in the faith need bolstering. These stories speak of God’s abiding presence with them.
With his usual pithy wit, Frederick Buechner writes about the Bible in his book Wishful Thinking:
In short, one way to describe the Bible, written by many different men over a period of three thousand years and more, would be to say that it is a disorderly collection of sixty-odd books which are often tedious, barbaric, obscure, and teem with contradictions and inconsistencies. It is a swarming compost of a book, an Irish stew of poetry and propaganda, law and legalism, myth and murk, history and hysteria. Over the centuries it has become hopelessly associated with tub-thumping evangelism, and dreary piety, with superannuated superstition and blue-nosed moralizing, with ecclesiastical authoritarianism and crippling literalism. Let him who tries to start out at Genesis and work his way conscientiously to Revelation beware.
And yet—
And yet just because it is a book about both the sublime and the unspeakable, it is a book also about life the way it really is. It is a book about people who at one and the same time can be both believing and unbelieving, innocent and guilty, crusaders and crooks, full of hope and full of despair. In other words it is a book about us.
And it is also a book about God….
The great Protestant theologian Karl Barth says that reading the Bible is like looking out of the window and seeing everybody on the street shading their eyes with their hands and gazing up into the sky toward something which is hidden from us by the roof. They are pointing up. They are speaking strange words. They are very excited. Something is happening which we can’t see happening. Or something is about to happen. Something beyond our comprehension has caught them up and is seeking to lead them on “from land to land for strange, intense, uncertain, and yet mysteriously well-planned service” (Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Men, 1957).
To read the Bible is to try to read the expression on their faces. To listen to the words of the Bible is to try to catch the sound of the queer, dangerous, and compelling word they see to hear.
It is reading the reality and presence of God through the words and experience of others. And it has been my experience that the more I read, the closer I know that God is to me and people I know and love. The more I read the more clearly I see and feel God’s love and care. The more I read the more I feel myself led deeper into the wonder of God’s kingdom.
For most of us, summer provides some measure of leisure. Make good use of that leisure. Read the Bible.
