A Garden of Doom and Hope

sermon by Carrie Eikler
Jeremiah 29

One of my favorite, though perhaps unsung cities, is Minneapolis. OK, St. Paul too…the twin cities, Minneapolis-St. Paul.  And it’s not because of the Mall of America.  I was introduced to the Twin Cities when Torin’s younger brother Josh and his partner Saro lived there.  There was something about the cold weather and the warm people that endeared it to me.

If I were to live in the Twin Cities, I would most certainly NOT consider it living in exile as it has a vibrant cultural life, social justice awareness, good restaurants, and alternative economies.  But it is still a city… which means green space is limited, vast open places to run around in are somewhat rare, probably far more concrete and metal than dirt and grass.

But that doesn’t stop people from growing gardens.

It doesn’t prevent people from connecting with the Source that runs deep beneath the concrete and steel.

For some, it has inspired them to be more intentional about this growing…about this connection.

Fritz Haeg is the artist-in-residence at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and he has let his art loose on many of Minneapolis’ most common green spaces.  The front yard.

Haeg’s project is called the “edible estate” and it is something he calls both provocative and invitational.  He works with families in the cities to show their neighbors how they can grow their own food in the space they have not considered before.  The space that generally has just been a burden to mow and look tidy and impressive for those passing by or the neighbors.  And he finds that the best gardens are grown in the places you would least expect them…in well-to-do neighborhoods where manicured lawns are important…and in run down neighborhoods where once there were grassy lots of trash and debris.  These are the provocative places for the best gardens.

But lest you think these are simply mini-farms with rows of corn growing in the front, these edible estates are more than simply about food production.  Haeg calls them pleasure gardens that also produce food.  “The point” he says “is to make visible food production in the city, but in a very pleasurable way. [The whole point] is for everyone to look at this and think, “I could do this too.  If nobody else does it in the neighborhood, at least everyone gets to watch and look at it.  Those little kids growing up on that street who may not otherwise recognize that food grows on plants coming out of dirt, they get the reminder every day.”

[pause]

When God speaks to the Israelite people in Jeremiah, he is speaking to a group who have faced provocation…

A desperate group

A people who have seen their holy city of Jerusalem, destroyed, their homes pillaged, their lives crumbling around them.

These people who, if you would ask them, who are you, what name would you give yourself, they would say “God’s chosen people” now must add to that description…

Exiles.

They must face their new home in Babylon, some in Egypt.  And the prophet Jeremiah sends them a letter.  Certified no doubt, with the mark of respect stamped right on it so they know this is not just the words of one man, but the word of God.  In the scripture, you notice, there are all these names, as we read we can hope…one of these people will surely find the solution, queen mother?  The king?  The court officials?  Artists, smiths?  At least…maybe these messengers will bring good news…

Surely this letter will say, God will return you to your home.

Surely this letter will say, “Don’t worry, I’m taking care of it.”  Take a nice vacation and you’ll be back in two weeks.

Opening the letter, like Charlie waiting to see if he has golden ticket for the chocolate factory, it says

Buck up. 

No, maybe not buck up.

Maybe more like…Yeah, this is the way it’s going to be.  This is the new normal.  This is your life.  This. Your home is with me, and I am with you…here.  Make this your home.

[pause]

Build homes.

Plant gardens.

Eat.

Make love.

Have children.

Flourish.

It is possible. 

[pause]

Beautiful…but…not quite…what they were hoping for.

As Fritz Haeg stands in his gardens in Minneapolis, thousands of years and thousands of miles from the exiles in Babylon and Egypt, he sees these urban gardens, perhaps like the exiles did as they envisioned those gardens they were to create.  Haeg says that his gardens sit between hope and doom.

A garden that sits between hope and doom. (?)

He says that of course, the garden evokes hope because it is beautiful, everyone can benefit from it.  “When you see a garden like this, of course you think, wow what if everyone in the city did this?”  And there is excitement.

“Then, maybe your mind snaps to the opposite extreme” he says.  “[You think this] is ridiculous, nobody can do this; nobody has time for it.  The soil is too polluted, the air is too polluted, and nobody has time to grow food in this way.  You can list all the reasons why we can’t and shouldn’t and won’t do this.”

And for him, this is where the best gardens are planted.  This place between hope and doom.  

He takes the ideal notion of what the city he wants to live in,

 creates some small piece of that vision,

and then puts it into the least likely part of the city. 

The beauty is in the contrast between “the city we want and the city we have” he says.

[pause]

When we first arrived at Morgantown, I had the seminary chip on the shoulder that most new pastors do, and honestly, is something that a lot of churches want.  That chip has energy, enthusiasm, and vision.  I prided myself on bringing the good news to you, to speak about the city, about exiles and immigrant, about our call to social justice, to peacemaking, to welcoming, to radical discipleship, praxis, action…

It took me a while, but slowly I realized that while these are messages close to my heart, and yours, I found…they were probably the least challenging for me to preach and for you to hear.

It took me a while, but slowly I realized that the messages most challenging for me to preach and for you to hear were not about calling you to action, but calling you to reflection.  Calling on you, and me, not to always turn your gaze outwards, but calling your gaze inwards once in a while.

It took me a while, but I slowly came to terms with that.  It took me a while, but I slowly convinced myself that this wasn’t a cop out, but what this community, and myself needed.

This is a congregation that plants gardens, literally and figuratively.  You are out there working in the city, connecting with exiles, loving your neighbor.  After a while I realized that our church didn’t always need to be reminded to do God’s good work because all of you are.

What I realized is that your spiritual life is the garden where you perhaps see yourself straddling the line between hope and doom

Spirituality, a notion that seems so beautiful, so inviting, so alluring

And yet…do we have time for it?  Is my spirit too polluted?  Is it too much work?  Is it a nice idea, but beauty will never win over productivity?  Is it too close?

Sometimes, dear friends, the place we can feel most like an exile, is in our own hearts.  When we don’t feel at home there.

When we wonder how this garden will be watered when what we have experienced for so long is dryness and drought.

Sometimes the garden of our souls is overrun with weeds and pests and nothing is blooming and…where do we even begin?

How do we recognize the contrast between
                              the spirit we want and the spirit we have.

In the children’s book The Curious Garden a little boy named Liam lives in a city that has no green, no gardens, everyone stays indoors.  It is dirty and polluted. But Liam loves being outside in spite of it all.  One day he comes across an abandoned railway bridge.  He climbs onto the railway and sees a little patch of green with a few small flowers, struggling to survive, but still opening themselves to the sun.

Over time, Liam begins to care for the garden.  “Liam may not have been a gardener” it says “but he knew that he could help.  So he returned to the railway the very next day and got to work.  The flowers nearly drowned and he had a few pruning problems, but the plants patiently waited while Liam found better ways of gardening”

How many of you feel that this is the point where you are in your exile-garden-soul.  You try things, trial and error, some work, some don’t.  And you can get discouraged…

But your soul waits patiently while you find better ways to tend it…

“As the weeks rolled by, Liam began to feel like a real gardener, and the plants began to feel like a real garden.  Most gardens stay in one place.  But this was no ordinary garden.  With miles of open railway ahead of it, the garden was growing restless.  It wanted to explore.  The tough little weeds and mosses were the first to move.  They popped farther and farther down the tracks and were closely followed by the more delicate plants. 

“Over the next few months.  Liam and the curious garden explored every corner of the railway”

And what Liam discovers after months of tending this garden is that the most surprising thing that popped up…

… were new gardeners.  By the end of the book, this brick and steel and concrete city that was given over to desolation, became green: ivy growing up buildings, gardens on rooftops, flowers popping out of abandoned cars. 

A little garden, perched between hope and doom, just a patch of green in exile.

[pause]

 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.

What is this garden within you?  This place of doom and hope?  Plant it, water it, pray over it, invite others into it and bless them with the fruit that does and will come from it. 

And, above all, call upon God, the ultimate Gardener, Tender or our souls, to walk before you, and alongside you. 

Inviting Her to kneel with you as dig your hands into the deep earth of His love.

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.

May it be so…

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.

Wrestling with Scripture

1st part of a sermon by Carrie Eikler

In the TV drama, Angels in America a character named Joe reflects on a small childhood obsession:

“I had a book of Bible stories when I was a kid.  There was a picture I’d look at twenty times every day: Jacob wrestles with the angel.  I don’t really remember the story, or why the wrestling—just the picture.  Jacob is young and very strong.  The angel is a…beautiful man, with golden hair and wings, of course.  I still dream about it.”  And Joe concludes, “It’s me.  In that struggle.  Fierce, and unfair.  The angel is not human, and it holds nothing back, so could anyone human win?  What kind of fight is it?  It’s not just.  Losing means your soul thrown down in the dust, your heart torn out from God’s.  And he concludes, But you can’t not lose.”

Friends, when it comes to faith, there is a lot of wrestling involved.

Prayer?  Wrestling.

Worship?  Wrestling.

Scripture?  Definite wrestling.

When I think of some of the serious wrestling in my faith life, and maybe you can commiserate, the angel I wrestle with is not the lovely, blond, beautiful angel of Joe’s picture bible.  It is more like a huge, stinky, Mexican luchador, with a mask on so I can’t see its face, and a little too much spandex for my liking. 

But I have to say, scripture is one of the biggest wrestling matches I have, my biggest luchador. It is ink on page and while there are as many interpretations of it as there are stars in the sky, there is something that makes this book…indeed, this Holy Book, a red herring for many Christians.  Don’t touch it.  Don’t change one jot or tittle.  Take it word for word and even if you don’t understand it, don’t question it.

Do you wrestle with scripture?  You know I do, as you can already tell.  There is so much that I find offensive, hateful, misogynistic, racist, violent,  un Christian (and unJewish, really) unGod-like…in my interpretation.  In my understanding.

 

Today my friends, I want to simply share with you one of the ways (and there are more than one way) that I engage this wrestling match with difficult scriptures.  In the next few weeks we are going to be encountering some scriptures in Genesis that are difficult for by Torin and me, and likely you.  And a lot of this process is based on my particular interpretation of the Bible—the 10cent seminary word here is hermeneutic—my interpretation.  It may not be your hermeneutic, and if not, thank you for at least allowing a space to share with you my process.  And yet, it may spark something for you.  I hope so.

Just like the angel of God who wrestled with Jacob, wrestling with scripture is a holy act.  It engages us, touches us, makes us engage it, touch it.  And no matter how we end up after wrestling with it, as Joe in Angels in America, you can’t not lose.  Because you will be transformed.

So most of you know I don’t give point-by-point sermons.  Point 1, point 2, point 3.  Well, today I am giving myself grace to deviate from that. 

 

When I think about wrestling with scripture, I see three phases: the preparatory phase, the unearthing phase, and the application phase.

The preparatory phrase is deeply spiritual for me.  When presented with a difficult scripture, I first note the feeling that arises in me.  Is it anger?  Fear?  Disgust?  Delight? Complete and utter exhaustion.? I sit for a while and wrestle with that feeling, without judgment.  And really, we can give thanks to these scriptures for calling something out within us to work with, to attend to, to engage.  Better a passionate response, than no response.

After I sit with those feelings, I note my assumptions.  How have I heard this scripture before?  What have been the sermons I’ve heard on this?  What is, for lack of better terms, the conventional moral of the story.  What have I always been told this story “means”?

Then after I get in touch with my initial reactions and assumptions, I pray.  That might seem an obvious step, but this is special prayer of clearing.  I ask God to clear what may be blocking me from hearing new word, not dismissing my feelings or throwing them out the way.  Not denying what I like or dislike Not disregarding everything I have learned, but to clear a path, or at least a space within my heart for a word of God to come shining through in new ways.

Now I don’t know if that is the easy part or the hard part, this preparation.  It probably has to do with the state I’m in emotionally, or the particular scripture I’m getting ready to wrestle with.  But the next part of my lucha-my struggle-is quite different.  This is where I try to dig deeper into the text. The “unearthing” phase.

I read the scripture again, reminding myself that this was not written by someone like me, living in my time, shaped by the course of history and social movements and wars and influential people and political decisions that have shaped me.  Honestly, the writers of scripture have little to resemble us in many ways.  So to jump to an easy conclusion about what these people “really meant” about God is wrong. ( I don’t usually call things so blatantly wrong, but this I will: to jump to an easy conclusion about what these people “really meant” about God is wrong)

In fact, the time span of all the books in the Bible cover thousands of years of literature.  Think about Barbara Kingsolver and St. Augustine writing their experiences of God and put them into a book and call it Holy and that’s about the extent and more so of what we’re looking at in the Bible!

This comes from the culture of the near east, with many micro-cultures within: Hebrew,  Syro-Phonecian, Roman, Greek.  This was written over two thousand years ago in a predominately patriarchal culture.  In this culture, because most scriptures were written by men, lifting up men’s position, placing superiority of men over women, speaking of God as man…this does not mean that is how God wants us to live.  It means these scriptures were written in a time when society shaped itself around these social structures.  It is how people saw their world in that time, for good or for ill, and is bound to shape their interpretation and writing.  It does not mean they are social structures God wants for our time or for God’s kingdom.

 

Scripture also has many genres.  Some are theological historical books, a retelling of history where the author tried to see God’s hand at work in the shaping of their history: Exodus, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, these are theological histories.  There are books of poetry: of course, the psalms and the erotic and overlooked and underappreciated Song of Songs.  There are books of the law such as Leviticus. There are narratives: Genesis, the Gospels, Ruth, Esther, where the focus is on the characters and the development of a plot and weaving in danger and suspense and love and all that good stuff of a novel.  There are letters: Paul!  There is wisdom literature: the Book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes.  Apocalyptic literature: Revelations and Daniel.

When wrestling with scripture I must acknowledge the different types of literary genres to help me read it.  I don’t look to take away from my reading of Maya Angelou’s poetry the same thing I would take away from reading read a biography of Pope John Paul II or the political works of Noam Chomsky.  So I can’t approach all the books of the bible with the same lens.  I ask myself not just what is being conveyed, but how is it being conveyed.

So all this stuff is kind of heady.  But another way I like to unearth scripture is to approach it as if it were a prayer.

There are many types of prayers and while you may not be able to name them, you have certainly experienced them.  Prayers of praise, prayers of thanksgiving, prayers of affirmation, prayers of petition and intercession-where we ask for help, prayers of confession.  Often times the scriptures reflect some type of sense of these prayers.

And it is the prayer of confession that I have found helps me with some of the more troubling scriptures.  I can’t tell you what an impression it made on me when in seminary a professor said “We can’t always read scripture looking for direction or instruction.   The stories weren’t all written with that mind.  Sometimes the stories are written as confessions.  Confessions of people believing God was telling them to do something—kill, pillage, rape—and the consequence show the folly of that.”

Sometimes when approach difficult texts, I have to read them as confessions.  I don’t do this as an apologetic or to dismiss the gravity of the situation.  But I can’t look at all scripture as prescriptions—telling me what to do—but sometimes I must read it as descriptions—showing us what people tried to do, and showing us consequences.

 

And finally, I read scripture with the belief that it is a living word. I believe that the text itself grows in meaning as I engage with it.  That I am changed, and in some way, the text grows and changes as well, presenting itself to a new culture, with new challenges and insights.  I’ll explore more next week these last few items: reading scripture confessionally and with the belief in the living word …

Because next week we will have a chance to practice this. Next week we are going to look at Genesis 16:1-16, a text that I struggle with, and maybe you too.  But we are going to begin the wrestling today As we move into waiting worship, I am going to read that text and invite you into the preparatory phase and I invite you to continue engaging with this text throughout the week.

As I read this scripture note what feelings arise in you.  If you have heard this text before, consider what you have heard about it, how you’ve heard it preached on before, what is a moral?  Or maybe, where does your mind jump to conclusions?  Note that and this week, be in prayer for a clearing.  That God may bless those, but also gently make space for a new revelation.

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian slave-girl whose name was Hagar, ²and Sarai said to Abram, ‘You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.’ And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. ³So, after Abram had lived for ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave-girl, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. ⁴He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. ⁵Then Sarai said to Abram, ‘May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my slave-girl to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!’ ⁶But Abram said to Sarai, ‘Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please.’ Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she ran away from her.

7The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. ⁸And he said, ‘Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?’ She said, ‘I am running away from my mistress Sarai.’ ⁹The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Return to your mistress, and submit to her.’ ¹⁰The angel of the Lord also said to her, ‘I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.’ ¹¹And the angel of the Lord said to her,
‘Now you have conceived and shall bear a son;
   you shall call him Ishmael,
   for the Lord has given heed to your affliction.
¹² He shall be a wild ass of a man,
with his hand against everyone,
   and everyone’s hand against him;
and he shall live at odds with all his kin.’
¹³So she named the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are El-roi’; for she said, ‘Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?’ ¹⁴Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi;
it lies between Kadesh and Bered.

15Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.

¹⁶Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

[Waiting Worship]

As we go into this week of wrestling, receive this blessing from Carter Heyward:

May we realize that God’s blessing upon us—that for which we have
wrestled, some of us for so long and so fiercely—is that we be empowered
to welcome and bless those who, like Jacob, indeed, like most of us,
do not deserve to be blessed.

May we sustain the confidence and courage, the compassion and humor,
to realize the sacred power in this stunning opportunity which is ours
today, and will be ours, forever.
(pause)
This blessing will not be taken from us.

I Want to be an Open Place

sermon and communion by Carrie Eikler
Acts 17:22-31

So Paul took his stand in the open space at the Areopagus and laid it out for them. "It is plain to see that you Athenians take your religion seriously. When I arrived here the other day, I was fascinated with all the shrines I came across. And then I found one inscribed, to the god nobody knows. I'm here to introduce you to this God so you can worship intelligently, know who you're dealing with.

"The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn't live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn't take care of himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don't make him. Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. He doesn't play hide-and-seek with us. He's not remote; he's near. We live and move in him, can't get away from him! One of your poets said it well: 'We're the God-created.' Well, if we are the God-created, it doesn't make a lot of sense to think we could hire a sculptor to chisel a god out of stone for us, does it?

"God overlooks it as long as you don't know any better—but that time is past. The unknown is now known, and he's calling for a radical life-change. He has set a day when the entire human race will be judged and everything set right. And he has already appointed the judge, confirming him before everyone by raising him from the dead."

                                                                         (Acts 17:22-32; The Message)

I like how Eugene Peterson’s reframing of this story starts out with “Paul took his stand in the open space at the Areopagus…”

I want to be an open space.  I want to be in the place of Paul, in an open space standing within and among people.  

I want to be an open space, surrounded by culture and infused with the questions.  Not taking for granted that it is what it is… challenging the notion that how it has been is what it will forever be.  I want to be an open space surrounded by beauty and questions.

I want to be an open space ... a space that makes room for Athenians and Jews, Romans and Christians, Gay and straight, Muslims and Hindus, Republican and Democrat, Scientists and Creationists, those who love McDonalds and those who love sushi.  I want to be the open space where they all can come, and dwell and feel loved.  And see God.

I want to be an open space.  I want the unknown God to come into this open space.  Not so we can finally see Or ultimately understand.  Not so the unknown is finally codified in our understanding, but so the unknown can dwell richly in the midst of our not fully knowing it in the bliss of what it means to have something we can’t control in the presence of One that loves us no matter what we do to it that has been present throughout time And what…does that even mean?

I want to be in an open space where I am exposed to this God and we can join together in, as Peterson says, a radical life-change.

I want to be an open space. Do you?

What does it mean for you to be an open space?

What does that even look like?

 

Well for Paul, standing in the midst of the cultural and intellectual capital of Greece, we see him being surprisingly…open.  He addresses them in the context of their culture.  He even refers to God in ways that their poets have spoken: “for In him we live and move and have our being; as even some of your own poets have said.”

He begins with a common area of interest and speaks to them with respect.  He speaks of the “unknown God,” with whom they are familiar.  He uses vocabulary they understand.  Not dumbing down or demeaning.  And yet he delivers the gospel in its entirety and without watering it down.

Now maybe this was all tinged with sarcasm.  Maybe he said it with gritted teeth.  Whether or not Paul intended it to be a moment of openness, does not diminish the fact that this is a snapshot of what we encounter every day. 

Every day we wake up in a world with people like us and people different from us.  With different beliefs in God and values and politics.  Which is why I’m not saying I want to be like Paul.

Nope, I sure don’t.

I am saying, I want to be like the space Paul is in.  An open space.  

And there is the tricky part, I think.  To be an open space, we think we have to acquiesce to every cultural whim every expression of truth, every claim every belief and say, “OK, I guess I will believe that.”  But I don’t think that is what it means.

But to be an open space, We need to entertain those who believe differently.  To show hospitality within our beings, in our conversation, and our interaction.   

To be an open space, we must know who we are and what we believe, so we can live our lives grounded while at the same time reaching out to those who are different.  I like to use the image of a tall tree, with roots going deep, deep into the ground and branches that reach out to provide shelter and shade and a resting place for all manner of creatures.

It’s not necessarily to claim their beliefs as our own, but to claim that we are connected.  To claim the two greatest commandments: to love God, the God who created these wildly different people—and to love those people.  We are indeed siblings, of one God.  Children of the Creator in whom we live and move and have our being.  

And friends, it seems like open spaces are fewer and fewer these days.  When conversations are cut down to tired tag lines or sarcastic memes on social media.  Where who’s in and who’s out in our hearts is based on what people believe about global warming or gay marriage or taxes, Open spaces are rare.

So, no friends, I don’t seek to be just like Paul: eloquent, pointed, passionate with the ability to slide in a zinger to the elite.  I want to be that open space where he stands, and you stand and whoever you don’t really agree with stands.

And in that open space, where we see each other face –to-face brother to sister, sister to brother, open before God in whom we live and move and have our being, in that open space we will see one  another....  And maybe reach out, and claim one another, as beloved.

Just like Jesus did, stretching out his arms to embrace the world.  And as he stretched out to embrace us he stretched his arms in welcome around the table, instituting a ritual that for two thousand years has reminded us that we are one with him, with God, with the Spirit, and yes, dear friends, one another.

So you are invited to participate in embodying that reminder that in Christ we are all called beloved children of God.  In preparing our hearts to come to this table, I invite you to turn in your green sing the journey songbook to #170.   We are going to speak this invitation in unison.  Hear it as an invitation for yourself,  but also hear the words of your sisters and brothers inviting you to join them at the table....

This is the Welcome Table of our Redeemer  and you are invited.

Make no excuses, saying you cannot attend; simply come, for around this table you will find your family.  Come not because you have to, but because you need to.

Come not to prove you are saved, but to seek the courage to follow wherever Christ leads.

Come not to speak but to listen, not to hear what’s expected, but to be open to the ways the Spirit moves among you.

So be joyful, not somber, for this is the feast of the reign of God,where the broken are molded into a Beloved Community, and where the celebration over evil’s defeat has already begun.

Let us pray…
Hospitable God,
Who has created an open space before us through bread and cup
may we see the place set for us so that, in turn, we may welcome others
to your table.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.

[communion taken]
 
As the bread and cup, settles in you, becomes one with you, as you are one with God, may you be blessed by being part of this.  May God bless your journey this week as you move into the world of those very much like you and those very different.  And by coming to this table, may you be transformed into an open space where all can experience the Grace of God, the Peace of Christ.