Wrestling Continued ...

2nd part of sermon by Carrie Eikler

Last week we began the process of talking about how we wrestle with difficult scriptures.  Scriptures that make us uncomfortable, or even offend us.  I compared this to the wrestling match Jacob had with the angel, which why I decided to include that scripture again.  To remind us of the very real, physical effects holy wrestling can have on us.

I went through the process suggesting we start out with spiritual preparation and invited you into that on Sunday.  I invited you to hear Genesis 16:1-16, a scripture that I struggle with and note the initial feelings and assumptions you may have about this story: the conventional moral that is often heard, the insight into who God is that is often presented.  And I asked you to pray for a clearing through all of these preconceived notions that may prevent you from hearing the living word.  Now for those of you who weren’t here, or didn’t watch it online, we are going to hear the text again and I’ll invite you to do a quick scan of these things.  What initial reactions arise in you?  What do you like or don’t like?  How have you heard this story?  I invite Linda to read this scripture to us again and will have just a moment of silence afterwards…[Genesis 16:1-16].

So, I ask you, to begin with…what are some of your initial reactions?  Feelings?  Questions?  Go ahead and share them out loud.  Good thoughts about it, critical thoughts…[space for sharing]

My initial reaction is one of anger towards God.  It seems as though God tells Hagar to go back into what seems to me an abusive relationship, not least of all to return to slavery.  My mind quickly goes to all the abused women who have been told it is the duty to return to abusive partners, or who feel they can’t leave for fear of what might be done to them or their children.  And even though the harsh treatment is from one woman to another,  I fear that this story could be set up for abuse itself, saying God favors women’s roles (as wives and mothers) over women’s safety.

I also feel pity. Not just for Hagar, but also for Sarai who faces infertility. 

Honestly, I don’t feel anything for Abram expect resignation. 

Now there are other feelings I have…but that’s enough for now. J  Essentially, I feel anger and pity.

This is not a scripture that we hear as much as Noah’s ark, or the Beatitudes so to come up with a common moral of this story may not be so easy as others.  But maybe you’ve heard sermons on this before?  Let’s tell one another perhaps what you’ve heard about this…[pause for sharing]

Well, again, not able to really pinpoint “popular sermons” on this scripture, I feel as though I see a theme emerge of trust.  Trust that God knows what is best.  Trust that God will give you strength, even if you are scared.  Honestly, this is a very good theme, I’d say!  But I sometimes get rubbed the wrong way when we say “trust” but…who really knows what that looks like?  How do we trust with doubts?  How do we trust with fear for our lives, or our children’s lives?   Trust is not something that we can just be told to do.  Trust is something we need help in showing what it looks like.

So I’ve heard…. [summary of congregational sharing]

and I’ve heard… [summary of congregational sharing]

Now is the time when we pray a prayer of clearing.  So I invite you to do that with me right now.  Take a deep breath, and holding all the feelings that you have shared, or not shared but hold within your heart, hold them out to God…

God, take all of this
All these feelings, all these assumptions,
all these tapes in our heads playing over and over again,
and give me a new word.
A living word.
Make a space within my heart where the wrestling can rest,
and I can flow in your wisdom and grace and insight and love.
Amen.

Next in the “Carrie’s steps to wrestling with scripture” is the unearthing phase where to some extent we get to know the time and place and context this scripture was written in.  As I said last week, this is especially important for me as I use this process in preparing for sermons, and may seem less important in devotional life, but I’ll reiterate a few items to at least keep in mind.

We cannot jump to conclusions about what scripture means because it was written in a different time, a different place, and a different culture from us, in a different language from our own.  This most certainly does not mean we cannot learn from it, or apply it to our lives.  It just means we can’t be so quick to say “Ah, this it what it means”…even literally. 

Last week I spoke a bit about literary genres and mentioned that Genesis is a narrative, indeed, it is a family narrative, telling the Hebrew story about how the earth came to be, how people were created, how the Hebrew nation grew.  We know that other cultures and traditions have creation stories, flood stories, family stories.  It looks at Israel’s history through a theological lens, and God is very much a character, the same as Abraham and Hagar and Cain and Eve.  God speaks, moves, is present, and is engaged with.  This isn’t the case in other books of the Bible.  Other works has God as an “out there” deity to be looked at.  In Genesis, God is part of the story, to be engaged with.

Which is why this moment with Hagar and God is so intimate.  God comes to Hagar, through an angel, which in Genesis is almost to be seen as one and the same-just as we might talk about Jacob wrestling with the angel is the same as Jacob wrestling with God.  And God, or the angel, proclaims a blessing on Hagar and a prophecy, not unlike the one the angels speak to Mary upon conceiving Jesus: “Now you have conceived and shall bear a son…”

So what about the whole polygamy thing?  This is definitely a product of a different time and culture.  (This is why I think we should be slow to say we base our virtues of family values on the Bible.  Which family in the bible? J ).  Or the fact that Hagar was a slave?  We don’t really understand the implications of this culture where slaves could become wives, or how wives interacted, or who was superior.  But aside from all that,  I think it is enough to say…let’s look at the verbs that are used in describing this relationship.

Above and beyond what generally takes place in a slave-master relationship, the author deemed it fit to say that Hagar looked with contempt, that Sarai degraded her,  that Hagar ran away.  Whatever the make up here is, something broke free of the norm and caused Hagar to flee.

So we’ve done a little literary research, a bit of wondering about social make up.  So what?

Well if anything,  it reminds us  (as I’ve said before) that what we are wrestling with here is so far from our immediate understand that maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to take meaning from it but… we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it either.  The mysteriousness of the text can be an entry point into the mystery of the one to whom the text points.

Last week I said that one way I wrestle with difficult scriptures is to look at them as confessions.  This is one way I look at the history of Israel, with the bloody violence and the continual language of feeling as though God deserted them and then God came back, but then they failed, and God deserted them again.  It’s very confessional in nature.

But I can approach a narrative like this in a confessional way, as well.  Not in that I am saying the author wrote it as a confession, but I approach my reading with a confessional heart.  Where is there pain in this story?  Where have people, in my estimation, acted unjustly towards another human being, or the earth, or even turned against God.  And rather than saying “they” did these bad things, I quickly hold  mirror up with the text and ask, how have I (for personal confession) or “we” (for social confessions) acted in a similar, human, fragile—yes, sinful—way.

This time that I approach the story, it is in a very personal way—and again this isn’t what you will get out of it.  I approach it as a woman who has successfully bore three children into this world.  I am confronted with the pain and frustration of millions of women who have lost children, or have been unable to conceive.  I trust I do not look upon them with contempt, as Sarai felt Hagar did, but this calls me to sensitivity and awareness of those who cannot, or choose to not, bear children.

We can also look at this confessionally: how has a history of slavery shaped our current lives together?  How has abuse shaped women’s lives and their fleeing from or clinging to God?  How can you give a word of love and protection to women facing such difficult choices: not saying “God sent Hagar back, so you go back too” but saying God provided Hagar with protection and we want to provide you with protection.  So instead of lingering in anger towards the text or God, we ask what is ours to do in situations where people are facing fear and abuse.

But above all, we can approach scripture confessionally, knowing the impact and abuse these scriptures have had on perpetuating cycles of violence.  We confess we have been part of a Christian community that has used its holy text to oppress.  These stories remind us of that and awaken us to the louder call throughout scripture: to bring justice to the captives and dignity to all God’s children.  Again, we don’t let the uncomfortable feelings paralyze us, we ask God,:what are you calling us to do?

Now this doesn’t solve all the troubling things that might arise in us.    Coming up with these answers will take more questions, more wrestling.  And I hope you do that work and continue to ask scripture these questions. In a culture where we want everything yesterday, approaching difficult stories and let them work themselves out within us over time is not enticing.

But sometimes, my friend, it is a necessary step in the struggle, to pause in wrestling.  Not to give up, but to sit in hopeful expectation.  Many times when I pray for clarity on difficult scriptures, I sit with God and I don’t have any expectation that God will give me the answers.  At that time, in the clarity of a Google search. 

I do believe that in quiet waiting and fervent prayer, God plants a seed.  And that seed is watered by living Christ’s path and loving with Christ’s love and confessing into Christ’s grace.  And an answer will be revealed in time.  A connection, an insight.  And I’ll go on to wrestle with something else.

And I have a final confession—and this where outgoing pastors get a sense of freedom and perhaps get into a little trouble—I have to confess that one of my frustrations being a pastor is that in standing here every other Sunday and wrestling with difficult texts is that I feel the burden to convince you.  To make it make sense to you.  To find the application for you.  To take the questions or struggles you might be facing with this text and find a nice, tidy, palatable answer.  Even when I’m not sure I have it.

Now, maybe you expect that and maybe you don’t.  This is a struggle of many congregations and pastors.  I am not going to convince you of anything, or assuage your anger or answer your questions in a 15-20  minute sermon.  What I hope I have done in my time here, is help you to ask the questions.  To encourage you to ask the questions, not of me or your pastor now or in the future, but to ask God the questions.

I will have considered my time with you fruitful if you feel you are not only able to approach God with your struggles and questions, but I will feel I have done my job if you feel compelled to do that.  Enticed to be frustrated.  To feel it is worth it.  To see opening the scriptures, wrestling with the scriptures, and coming away without answers but more questions not as a failure or a cop-out, but as well with your time and spiritual energy.

And I trust, like Hagar, that no matter what I am returning to in my struggle, or what lies ahead, God is present.  God will protect.  God will bless.