A sermon preached at
Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 22 June 2014 by Mr. Abraham Peterson. The scripture readings
that day were Genesis 21:8–21, Romans
6:1b–11 and Matthew 10:24–39.
Do you ever get scared
of what’s in the Bible?
Do things written in
this “Holy” book ever frighten you for how evil they are?
Do you ever wonder how
some things ever made it in and if they’re actually true?
Do some verses or
stories lead you to disbelief?
Maybe. Maybe not.
But these verses from
Genesis today are like that for ME…
Today, our story quite
clearly depicts human life, full of jealousy, revenge, hate, and murder. Today is a great reminder of the drama of
human life!
So, a quick recap…
God calls Abram and his
family, tell him he’ll be a great nation. Abram is 75 and Sarai is 65. They leave and go to Egypt where Sarai is
then taken into the Pharaoh’s harem… At age 65.
Story sound mythical yet? Shenanigans
ensue in Egypt. They leave Egypt and we
presume Hagar, this new Egyptian slave, is now with them. But Sarai has this burden over her – first,
she is repeatedly shown as lacking faith, and second, and worse, she is
childless in a society that is based on inheritance, that centers on male
dominance, patriarchy, and lineage.
Barrenness is a shameful
burden for her and she does shameful things to remedy the situation. She takes her slave, her possession, and
forces her to have sex with Abram so that he can have a male inheritor. Hagar conceives, but this causes tension,
jealousy from Sarai, about which Abram is quite laissez fiare, so Sarai
abuses Hagar and Hagar understandably runs away. Then, after Hagar returns, Sarah conceives
and decides she has no need for Hagar, so tells Abraham to send her and her
son, Ishmael, into the desert to die… PHEW!
So, these verses are
quite honest about human life in all its messiness. That’s not what scares me. It moves into God – and THAT is where I get
nervous.
Based on the drama
above, what’s the next step for God?
Well, SUPPOSEDLY God agrees to Hagar’s death sentence. This woman is caught in the crossfire of
Sarah’s doubt and her jealousy, between her fear and her pride. And clearly Abraham doesn’t really defend
justice in this situation – in fact, he is just as complicit, and in some ways
worse for he enables Sarah’s wicked scheme.
But God.
But God.
Usually in my sermon’s I
say “But God” to mean that humans do things one way, BUT GOD does things
another… Usually God does things a better way.
Usually God’s the good guy.
Usually… But here… Here,
not so much.
Now, some people want to
say that God knew what was going to happen and was going to save Hagar and
Ishmael. Some people say this
demonstrates the miracle of God’s goodness.
Some people say this is a way for God to become the hero of the story…
but that is like saying we need the holocaust to know God’s goodness, that we
need June 4th to see how great God is… as if Evil is needed to
understand God’s goodness. That seems
insensible, irrational, and similarly scary.
Here God is complicit in
this violent abuse; God encourages this casting out; God goes ahead with
Sarah’s death wish for Hagar. Here God
agrees, ENABLES her wicked behavior. God
doesn’t say, “That’s a bad idea to kill them” or “Don’t abuse your slave and
don’t cast her into the desert.” God
supposedly says, “Don’t worry about it.”
AND God does not stop Hagar’s horrors at the hands of her owners.
For me, when I read that
God does not stop this injustice, MORE when God allows Sarah’s jealous, wicked
heart to be so cold and calloused that she can condemn this concubine she
created… I start having my doubts.
Not of God. I don’t doubt God.
I doubt these authors
who put words and intentions in the mouth of God. I doubt these humans who have strung together
the tales of scripture and have given God a voice that somehow agrees with
them…
This is NOT a divine
book after all. These are not the words
FROM God. These were not transcribed in
the presence of the Almighty like an ancient oracle or a modern court reporter. These are words ABOUT God. Our words, our human words about the divine
reality we feel and find in our lives.
This book is not the
revelation of God. As Christians, we say
there is ONE revelation. We say the one
revelation of God is Jesus Christ and that all others, like this Bible, only
point to Jesus Christ. The Bible is not
the Word of God – Jesus is the Word of God!
Too many Christians have
lost that; too many Christians have forgotten that the Bible is just a book,
not a divine book, but a book. It is
simply stories strung together, stories that struggle and try and often fail at
comprehending God.
Why? Why do the Bible stories fail?
Because WE all struggle
and try and often fail at comprehending God.
And as I work at Lutheran Theological Seminary and spend time in
theological institutions, I can reassure you all it is not just the laity who
misunderstands God. It is not just the
“common person” that lacks eyes to see; it is often, and perhaps MORE often
that theologians, pastors, preachers, and priests miss the point.
Yes, I’m in there
too. As the preacher today, I put myself
into that category of those who don’t understand, who struggle and fail to
comprehend God.
Yet here I stand, trying
to walk through these verses with you…
Maybe these verses seem
far away, seen distant, seem ancient.
Maybe these verses lack meaning because we can’t see them happening
today.
Hagar. She’s a slave, given from one person to
another, forced to travel, forced into sex with her new owner, forced to bear
this new owner’s child, and then forced to return after she runs away... Only
to be sent into the wild with no horse, no donkey, none of the excessive wealth
of her master – sentenced to death by starvation in the desert BY the people
who forced her to have a baby BECAUSE she bore the son that she was forced to
bear in the first place.
Seems pretty far away.
So… maybe Hagar’s own
story is not familiar to us today, but what about the other parts? What about the jealousy of Sarai toward
Hagar? Or Sarai toward Ishmael? What about Sarai deciding that she was
incapable, in this case, of bearing a child, and so she cuts corners? What about Abraham justifying his harmful
behavior to please his wife? What about
getting God on his side to allow him to do things that others (us) see as
unjust?
Yeah… these things seem
a bit more like our lives today.
This story IS an image
for us today, too. It’s an image OF
us. This is like the church…
Well, like the story of
Abraham, have similar divisions within the family – two children where one gets
cast out. One of these children gets to
stay and one of these children is sent off to die. One feels a more legitimate claim to God’s
blessings to Abraham.
In the church, some feel
they have a more legitimate claim to God, God’s grace, God’s blessings.
Some feel they live
better – they obey more; some feel they are the true children of God because
they read the Bible a certain way, because they pray a certain number of times,
because they serve more, or because they convert more people.
Some people think they
don’t live in sin, they don’t unravel family values, don’t endanger the morals
of society, aren’t a burden on the church or on society. Some people think they have more claim to God
and so they cast the other out.
They use their power and
privilege, their sense of superiority, and they cast out those who often
already feel like slaves, throwing them out to die in a desert of loneliness,
isolation, and despair.
Maybe we don’t believe
there are those in our midst who feel like slaves, maybe we don’t think there
are those who suffer. Here at Kowloon
Union, I find that hard to believe.
Last Sunday we
celebrated Refugees and Asylum Seekers – people fleeing conditions that enslave
them to fear and injustice only to be enslaved again by a system that seems to
forget them, to neglect them, or worse, to abuse them.
Or think of this Sunday
when we have a forum for sisters and brothers who also fight a system of
slavery that allows them dissimilar rights, wants to silence their voice,
condemns and casts them away. If people
cannot find solace in the church, where can they find it?
If their communities and
families and places of employment and even countries have thrown them aside,
and the church casts them out… If they have nowhere that is safe… If they have
been left in a desert of isolation, injustice, and fear… And if the church is
just as complicit… Well, I hope you can see my horror.
I hope you can see my
horror at how today’s verses implicate God in this idea of casting out. When God reportedly says to Abraham, “Sure –
kick the slave and her son out to die,” I get nervous. I get nervous because I know this is a story
not about history, but about us, about the church. I get nervous that people have used God to
support their abuse, their fiendish acts of emotional or physical violence
against others. I get nervous thinking
God would ever join in abuse, enabling others to be cast out. I get nervous thinking of the God we find in
Jesus drawing the circle smaller or closed to people on the margins, people
hurting, people enslaved, abused, alone.
I get nervous. In fact, I get more than nervous.
I don’t believe it.
I do believe Abraham may
have wanted to justify his and Sarah’s repeated abuse of Hagar and brought in
God to be on his side.
But I don’t believe God
really says, “Sure, cast Hagar and Ishmael out.”
I believe that we may
want to justify our fear and oppression of those who are different, those we
don’t understand, those we don’t even know and subsequently call “issues.”
But I don’t believe God
really says, “Sure, cast the gays and lesbians and transgender and bi and queer
folks out.”
I believe that we may
want to close our eyes, turn away, hide, and have God with us to enable our
behavior.
But I don’t believe God
really says, “Sure, cast the hungry, the destitute, the lonely out.”
I don’t believe that God
ever condones slavery, genocide, holocaust, abuse of women, the foreigner, the
queer. We do those things, however, and
we try to drag God along. Like these
verses, we drag God in to justify us.
And that creates a scary
story. A scary story like we read today
in Genesis.
So we turn to verse
17. “Do not be afraid.”
We turn to our Gospel
reading. “Do not fear.”
The most long-standing
admonition in all of scripture – Do not be afraid! Do not fear!
Fear is what caused
Sarai to abuse Hagar.
Do not fear.
Fear is what caused
Sarah to cast out Hagar and Ishmael.
Do not fear.
Fear is what causes us
to cast out the stranger, the one we don’t understand, don’t know.
Do not fear.
Fear is what causes us
to cling to ancient words rather than the living Spirit.
Do not fear.
Fear is what drives us
to slippery slope thinking, that just because we take one step, that opens the
door to everything imaginable. (Like the
fear people will soon want to marry their pets or animals or…)
Do not fear.
Fear is what creates
“us” versus “them” and fear puts God on “our” side.
Do not fear.
Fear is what ruins
us. Robs us of life and joy. Kills us.
Fear is what destroys
community, terrorizes the church, and sends us spiraling into abuse… abuse like
casting each other out.
Do not fear.
Embrace the goodness of
God. Embrace the life in the
Spirit. Embrace each other.
And do not fear.
Amen.
# posted by Kowloon Union Church : Sunday, June 22, 2014
