A Body of Living Sacrifice (Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost)

Romans 12:1-8

 1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. 3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6 We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7 ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8 the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

            You woke up this morning and made the decision to come to worship. That’s great. You got out of bed, maybe you showered, picked out your clothes, ate a bit of breakfast, maybe a cup (or two) of coffee. Those of you with children probably had to wake them up, make sure they got ready, had a bit of breakfast themselves (maybe they skipped the coffee). Then you jumped in the car and found your way here to the corner of Nisbet Lake Road and Pleasant Valley Road for worship at ten o’clock, and most of you got here on time. Some of you even came a whole hour earlier for Sunday school, and still a few of you got here before that for deacons’ meeting or just because you get here before everyone else in your Sunday school class. However or whenever you got here is irrelevant at the moment because, well, you’re here now, and that’s great.

            Now, there are a number of folks who aren’t here: some because they’re not really “church folks” who come regularly, some because they’re on vacation, sick, or working, some because they’re visiting other churches, and then there are some who aren’t here because so much of their time is taken by the general rhythms and complexities of life that to take an hour or so to come to worship would be sacrificing more than they can truly bear. Because in our present culture where “money makes the world go ‘round” and “time is money” the seconds, minutes, and hours we feel we possess are extremely precious. So in many ways, some of you are to be commended for being here today, sacrificing some of those precious minutes of your life in order to worship the God and Savior of the universe.

            But I’m not sure I’d put it like that. Don’t get me wrong, being here for worship is extremely important, and I know your time is valuable. The Church (and the local congregation) is absolutely essential in the life of faith; the writer of Hebrews upholds the practice of meeting together regularly in chapter ten of that epistle.[1] I suppose, though, what I mean is that I wouldn’t necessarily call what we’re doing here today a “sacrifice.” You see, that word once had a much different meaning, a meaning that involved much more than showing up to sit on a padded pew in an air-conditioned room for one hour a week. That word once carried with it the image of a gilded temple and vested priests; that word once sounded with the racket of a crowd gathered with all manner of animals and produce, of the clanging metal of gongs and cymbals; that word once reeked with the smell of fire, smoke, incense, and burnt animal flesh. That word “sacrifice”—especially in the context of ancient, Judeo-Christian worship—once brought to mind the long process of choosing the best of what one had in order to bring it to the temple so that it could be offered on an altar of fire for God. That word sacrifice was a whole lot grittier than it is today.

            I suppose the change in that word began to take place with those first Christians, those who understood Jesus’ death to signal the end of such bloody sacrifices. Those Christians realized that God could not be kept in a temple-shaped box, and with the resurrection of Christ, they realized that God could not be kept in a grave-shaped box either. Death, so to speak, was no longer listed in the order of worship. However, these early Christians knew that behind the very act of ritual sacrifice was a much larger truth, for you see, God no longer required the blood of a goat or the burning of wheat from those who sought to follow God. No, but God in Christ was still calling forth from his followers the same sense of sacrifice in the way they lived every moment of their lives—and Christ continues to call us to do the very same thing today, with every moment of our lives.

            This is what the apostle Paul is getting at in the text we’ve read here today. He’s spent the first eleven chapters of this epistle to the Romans making his grand theological arguments, and in verse one of our text today he writes, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” With that word “therefore” Paul is saying that because of the deep, complex, theological description of God and Christ he has laid out in the preceding words of this letter, those who call themselves followers of Jesus are called—not to continue the bloody business of animal sacrifice, but— “to present [their] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [their] spiritual worship.”[2] In other words, the sacrifice of animal flesh and the first fruits of one’s harvest may no longer be required upon an altar, but the sacrifice of one’s life—a life lived in order to bring the kingdom of God to its fullness on earth as it is in heaven—that is the renewed definition of sacrifice.

What’s more, the phrase translated as “spiritual worship” can also be understood as “reasonal worship,” implying that this is something of the mind, as if it ought to be common practice, common sense to those transformed by the Holy Spirit.[3] You see, Paul is not calling for some kind of disconnected, over-simplified, check-your-brain-at-the-door kind of worship. Far from it! In fact, just listen to what he says in verse 2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” There are an awful lot of words in that little verse that have to do with thinking, and it’s because Paul understood that command that echoes through the ages and the pages of Holy Scripture: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind [emphasis mine].”

Now, the truth is, too many folks don’t want to engage their minds in worship (or in any other arena of faith for that matter). In this age of technology it’s far too easy to type our spiritual inquiries into unfathomable depths of Google and be satisfied with the most popular answer or the answer that best suits our immediate circumstance. I think in many ways Paul’s words about non-conformity and discernment have just as much to do with those things we witness within the modern sub-cultures of Christianity as they do with those things that bombard us from the so-called “secular world.” This redefined, “living sacrifice” form of worship to which we are being called is one that requires more form us than a simple appearance when the role is called; it compels us to be fully engaged with our whole selves, and that most assuredly means our minds!

However, lest we be too quick to use our minds to reflect on our own grand deeds and our singular accomplishments, the apostle says in verse 3: “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” Paul writes these words through the grace given to him, yet I have a feeling they weren’t received with a whole lot of grace, especially from those who were guilty of thinking more highly of themselves that they ought to think! One of the recurring issues in many of Paul’s letters in the New Testament is the division within congregations caused by those who view themselves in one way or another as being better than others in the congregation: sometimes this is manifested as racism (divisions between Jews and Gentiles), classism (divisions between the rich and the poor), or even as differences over giftedness as some saw their gifts as better or more important than the gifts of others. The truth is these sorts of divisions only began with the congregations of the first century, for they still plague congregations today!

That is why it is so important to hear Paul’s words, not only in verse 3, but in the rest of the text before us this morning, for Paul goes on the say in verses 4 through 8: “For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.” Paul pulls out his favorite metaphor for the Church: the body, and he does this in a brilliantly connective way in his whole redefinition of sacrifice as presenting one’s entire body as a living sacrifice. I don’t believe this is coincidental at all. In fact, I think Paul means to make that connection in order for us to understand worship as both an individual and communal act.

In verses 4 and 5, Paul describes the unity of the body of Christ, that we are all one body, but each of us within the body serve a different purpose, and he goes on to list some of those purposes and gifts in verses 6, 7, and 8. What is so important to note here, however, is that Paul never once says, “this gift is the most important,” or “this gift is better than that gift.” Not once does Paul ever even so much as hint at the notion that there are some people in the body of Christ who are in any way, shape, form, or fashion better than anyone else. I’m not better than you. You’re not better than me. That person over there isn’t better than that person over here. The lifelong church member who’s given thousands of dollars to the ministries of the church isn’t any better than the newcomer who hasn’t even so much as placed a penny in the plate on Sunday, nor is the person with perfect attendance in Sunday school any better than the person who’s never seen what nine o’clock looks like on a Sunday morning in this building. Those of you who’ve gathered in this room this morning are not better than those who aren’t here, and those who show up to other things you don’t aren’t better than you either!

Paul warns about this created sense of self-importance because it can sour worship—true, spiritual, reasonable worship, the kind of worship that looks like a living sacrifice. He warns about this holy haughtiness because it can divide the church and fool us into thinking that we don’t have to think, that we don’t have to bring our whole selves into the sacred space of worship, that we can leave our hearts and minds in the parking lot but parade on in with our egos. Each one of us is given the amazing gift of God’s free grace, yet so many of us refuse it because we see it’s reflection warped by the way others who call themselves believers speak about one another, the way they treat each other.

May we begin to correct this misrepresentation of God’s grace today by offering ourselves as a living sacrifice. May we be living sacrifices, each of us, as we give the whole of who we are (our heart, our soul, our strength, and our minds) to God for the work of God’s kingdom. May we be people who are non-conformist, not allowing the world or even others in the popularized “church” to influence us without the discernment that comes from the Holy Spirit. May we be people who do not think highly of ourselves, believing that we are better than anyone else. Above all, may we be a united body which celebrates its diversity in giftedness, ideas, and perspectives so that we may offer this body we call First Baptist Church of Williams as a living sacrifice to God, not only when we meet in this room for the hour we mark as “worship,” but in everything we do and say in all the places we may find ourselves. May we strive to be holy and acceptable to the God we love, serve, and worship.

Amen.  

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[1] Hebrews 10:24-25.

[2] N. Thomas Wright “Volume X: Acts, Introduction to Epistolary Literature, Romans, 1 Corinthians,” The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes. Abingdon Press: Nashville, TN (2002) p. 703.

[3] see margins of NRSV.

What Defiles (Tenth Sunday after Pentecost)

Matthew 15:10-28

10 Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, "Listen and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles." 12 Then the disciples approached and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?" 13 He answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit." 15 But Peter said to him, "Explain this parable to us." 16 Then he said, "Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile." 21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." 24 He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." 26 He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." 27 She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28 Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.

            It’s 2014. Aren’t you just a little disappointed that no one has invented a time machine yet? I mean, just think of how convenient that would be; think of all the wrongs that could be put right. You could simply jump in your handy time machine, and with the turn of a few knobs, the flip of a few switches, or (given that this would likely be a modern, advanced machine) the launch of an app, be transported back in time. Just imagine it: you could go back and keep your younger self from making the decisions you now regret, or you could wind the dial back to the early nineties and warn the world about Billy Ray Cyrus and his “Achy-Breaky Heart”(not to mention Miley, but we won’t go there). You could travel back to the eighteenth century and tell the founders of this country to be a little more specific when they write the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; that might actually keep some folks from fighting and claiming they know exactly what the founders meant when they said this or that. You could travel back two millennia and find yourself on the parched terrain of ancient Judea, somewhere between Gennesaret and the villages of Tyre and Sidon, and when you arrive there, you could observe those ancient Pharisees and their commitment to dietary laws and religious requirements related to hand-washing.

You could hear how Jesus calls these hypocrites and cites Scripture calling them out on their vain attempts at honoring God with their words and rote actions while their hearts are far from God and God’s intentions. You could even witness firsthand the words we’ve only heard in transcription and translation this morning in verses 10 through 20 as Jesus explains that what goes into one’s body is not what defiles it or makes it spiritually unclean. Eventually, Jesus says, that stuff winds up in the toilet and in the sewer! What defiles is what comes from the heart, “For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile." If you could travel back to that time and place, you might even hear one or two of the disciples say “Oh snap!” as Jesus “left that place and went away to the [Gentile] district of Tyre and Sidon.”

But if I had a time machine, and I traveled back in time to the original occurrence of our text this morning, I know exactly what I would do: I’d ask Jesus: “Jesus, why did you call that woman a dog?”

You see, after Jesus lectures the Pharisees in the first twenty verses of this chapter, he passed through a Gentile territory when Matthew tells us in verse 22, “Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’" Now, this may seem like your ordinary, “person-shouting-at-Jesus-to-heal-a-family member” incident from the gospels, but this one is different, especially the way Matthew tells it. This woman is a triple offender when it comes to breaking some cultural rules of the day. First, we’re told by Matthew that she is a Canaanite woman. Now, here’s the thing: there weren’t any Canaanites living in the first century (strictly speaking),[1] so why did Matthew use this term to describe this woman? Well, if you were to look back over the history outlined in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) you’ll find that the Canaanites were some of the earliest opponents of the Israelites. In fact, the term Canaanite in the Hebrew Bible can refer to a specific people group or any of the non-Hebrew people who lived in the land of Canaan (the land promised to Abraham by God). So, perhaps Matthew is calling this woman a Canaanite to highlight her racial, ethnic, and cultural difference from the Jews, in this case, Jesus and his disciples. So, she’s a Canaanite: strike one.

Strike two: she’s a she, or rather, she’s a woman. Now, I’m ashamed to say that even today in our modern culture, women aren’t exactly treated fairly: they aren’t fairly represented in decision-making bodies, they make around 70% of what a man makes doing the same work, they still have to struggle with antiquated stereotypes of another era, and in many religious circles they are treated as second-class citizens, but in the Ancient Near East…women were seldom seen and never heard. For this mother to even make an appearance to ask Jesus for help was atrocious. She was a woman: strike two. The third and final strike came in the way she shouted after Jesus. One didn’t do that sort of thing, especially if one was a woman! It was gaudy, disruptive, and downright uncalled-for.[2]

This woman, this Canaan woman, this loud, social-more-breaking, Canaanite, woman shouts out to Jesus in verse 22 "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." How she heard about Jesus down in Tyre and Sidon is anybody’s guess; Jesus’ reputation often went before him in the gospels, but when this woman hears that Jesus is in the area she seeks him out and calls him “Lord,” and “Son of David.” Now, the word “Lord” could simply mean “sir;”[3] in this case, however, with the woman’s use of the title “Son of David” it likely means much more. She recognizes Jesus as one with the power to exorcise the demon tormenting her daughter. This sounds like a classic setup for Jesus in the gospels: a Gentile woman (a marginalized member of society) comes to him for help, expressing faith and identifying him as lord or messiah. Then, those of us familiar with Jesus’ actions in the gospels, we expect Jesus to buck societal expectations and help this marginalized, outcast member of society. But that isn’t what happens here.

No, at first, Jesus ignores the woman. We’re told in verse 23: “But he did not answer her at all.”  That seems strange; maybe Jesus couldn’t hear her too well. That theory goes out the window though when we’re told that “his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’” She’s shouting after them; the disciples heard her, so we have to conclude that Jesus simply ignored the pleading of this woman. What’s worse, though, is what Jesus says next: “He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’" All of the sudden, Jesus is some sort of ancient Zionist, only keeping his message and ministry for those who belong to the race of the Israelites? Maybe Jesus is just saying this with his tongue in his cheek, or maybe there’s something more to what he’s saying, like he is implying that Israel is bigger and more inclusive than those first century folks may have believed.

Nope, because after she pleads for help a second time, Jesus responds to the Canaanite woman in verse 26 by saying "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." He is calling this woman (and others like her) a dog! While others have pointed out that this is the diminutive form of the word for dog used here by Jesus[4] (perhaps translated as “puppy” or “pet”), he’s still called this woman a dog (and Greek is a language of nouns with gender, and anyone who’s ever looked up cuss word in the dictionary when they were in elementary school knows what we call a female dog!). This doesn’t sound like the airbrushed Jesus of our Sunday School pictures. This doesn’t sound like the Jesus who sits and lets the little children come to him. This doesn’t sound like the Jesus with gentleness in his voice cleansing lepers and healing the sick. This sounds like a first-century Jewish man with all of the instilled prejudices and cultural hang-ups that would have come with being raised a Jewish boy in first-century Judea. It sounds that way, because that’s exactly what it is!

Now, I know for some of you that may be flirting with blasphemy, but one of the oldest theological confessions of Christianity is that Jesus was fully God and fully human.[5] We cannot read the gospels honestly without witnessing the ways in which Christ was (self) limited in his knowledge.[6] Jesus was surrounded by the influences of first-century, Jewish culture, and his response to this Canaanite woman is evidence that perhaps some of it rubbed off. But before you’re ready to throw Jesus’ divinity out with his humanity, before you tune out because of your own discomfort with such an idea as Christ’s humanness, watch what happens in the rest of this encounter with this Canaanite woman.

In verse 27 [s]he said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Jesus has called this woman a dog, and rather than balk at his name-calling or slouch back home believing she had wasted her time with a so-called messiah, she shows even more faith, faith through her hope and her own humanness. In effect she says, “You may call me a dog because of my race and relation to the Israelites, but even dogs get to eat the scraps, and all I need is a crumb—all I’m asking for is a crumb.” Her faith in Jesus’ power to heal her daughter is so strong that all she needs is a crumb from Christ; she’s not asking for the whole spread, the entire song-and-dance; she doesn’t need Jesus to walk on water or make enough to feed five thousand. She just needs a crumb! What faith! What hope! To risk so much, to dare to be so vulnerable and human as to endure even insult for the sake of her daughter and the trust she has in Jesus’ power to make her well.

Such hope, such faith, such humanness…those are the kinds of things that can bring forth love and compassion from even the hardest of hearts. Those are the kinds of things that can strip away the callouses from a heart worn by the influence of ignorance. Those are the kinds of thing that do not defile, but can wash clean from the heart those things that do. For you see, when Jesus saw the woman’s humanness, when he saw her hope, when he saw her for what she truly was as a woman, a child of God, not a race, gender, or something to be called different, when Jesus saw her faith, he said to her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.

Now, it may be unsettling for you to think that Jesus called a woman a dog, and it may be uncomfortable for you to think that Jesus could change his mind, that the Christ could change the way he felt about a person, about a group of people. But what if he did? What if this encounter with this Canaanite woman is meant to show us the truth about Jesus being fully human as well as fully God? What if this is actually a story about our Lord and Savior calling a woman a dog simply because she belonged to a different race of people? What if this is actually an account of Jesus changing and growing, perhaps even growing out of the cultural influences he had grown up experiencing? If it is that kind of account (and I think it is) what does it then say about us?

What does it say about us whenever we claim about our ignorance, about our own sinfulness, “Well, that’s just the way I was raised”? What does it say about us when we look on another person and refuse to see their humanness, when we refuse to see them as equal to us? What does it say about our own arrogance when we refuse to grow, to change, to see others we once saw as “dogs,” as those less than us, even less than human, when the Savior himself was able to let go of those cultural ideas that had previously shaped his understanding? Are we better than Christ?! Would we dare claim that we don’t need to examine ourselves and the possibility of our own ignorance created by our own upbringing? Can we continue to believe that we can point to “the way we were raised” as a justifiable excuse for our sinfulness? Can we really think that we are incapable of growth and change when Christ himself, in his own humility, has shown us that such growth is part of kingdom of God?

What beliefs do you still harbor in your heart, knowing they are unclean and unfit for God’s kingdom? What do you continue to claim as acceptable—though you know it to be wrong—simply because our culture, your upbringing, or your own comfort says it is fine? May you search your heart and cleanse it of the ignorance, the hatred, the selfishness, or all the things that truly defile it. May you see the Lord’s example as one that calls you to follow, and may you choose this day to stop clinging to beliefs and notions that allow you to continue in a life of self-driven comfort so that you may grow and be transformed more and more into the likeness of our Lord and Savior, the fully God/fully human, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

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[1] Marilyn Salmon, Commentary on Matthew 15: [10-20] 21-28 (August 17, 2008) from the website “Working Preacher.”  https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=125

[2] Jae Won Lee, “Proper 15 (Sunday between August 14 and August 20 inclusive): Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word. Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, KY (2010) pp.358-9.

[3] The Greek word here is kurios, which can often be understood as “sir” when used in the form of an address.

[4] M. Eugene Boring, “Volume VIII: New Testament Articles, Matthew, Mark,” The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes. Abingdon Press: Nashville, TN (1995) p.336.

[5] John Anthony McGuckin, “Hypostatic Union,” The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology. Westminster John Knox Press: Lousiville, KY (2004). p.175, (This is but one example of such a confession)

[6] see Mark 13:32, Matthew 24:36, Luke 8:45 as a few examples

Wrasslin' with the Almighty (Eighth Sunday after Pentecost)

Genesis 32:22-31

22 The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24 Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." 27 So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." 28 Then the man said, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed." 29 Then Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved." 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

            Growing up as a boy in South Alabama, there was absolutely nothing I could do about the sort of things I’d inevitably like as a child. For example, I can remember watching The Dukes of Hazzard with my cousins at Grandma’s house on her color, console television, and I can distinctly remember thinking we were going to grow up to be just like Bo and Luke (of course I was going to grow up to be just like Bo). I can remember watching Hee Haw and listening to radio stations in the car like 95.5 WTVY and spending most of my early years under the musical influences of folks like George Jones, Hank Williams, Jr., the Judds, and Sawyer Brown. Of course there was also the food: collard and mustard greens, fried chicken, butter beans, cornbread, butternut cake, fourteen-layer chocolate cake, chocolate pound cake, well…a lot of cakes and things that are generally referred to today as “soul food.” But of all the things that flavored the environment of my lower-Alabama upbringing, there was one thing that highlighted those early years of boyhood: wrasslin’ (that’s what they call professional wrestling in the less-articulate parts of this country).

            My cousins (David and Brad) and I would sit on the floor around Grandma’s TV and watch  the likes of “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, Jake “The Snake” Roberts, “Bullet” Bob Armstrong, The Ultimate Warrior, and (of course) Hulk Hogan. We’d watch as they’d clothesline, leg drop, body slam, and suplex one another all over the squared circle, and we’d watch as they’d give over-the-top interviews with “Mean” Gene Okerlund, shouting and making crazy faces as if the grand soap opera in which they were playing a part was real life. Then we’d try to copy everything we saw them do. Grandma’s living room floor was the ring, and the two couches on either wall were the ropes (specifically the top rope, which was really the only one that mattered). We’d grapple on the floor, stand on the couch and drop elbows on one another, and—if grandma’s hadn’t cut a switch to stop us—we’d jump up and do a leg drop just like Hulk Hogan would.

            Well, one fateful day, during one of our living room wrestle-manias, I was getting up from a close-quarters clothesline or coming out of a headlock, when I was punched right in the mouth…but it wasn’t the closed fist of one of my cousins that hit me. I was punched square in the mouth by the exposed wooden arm of the couch. I don’t remember if I lost a tooth or if I bled at all, but I do know that my front teeth have never been the same since; they’re all crowded and a little twisted. That may have been my retirement match from living room wrasslin’, but it was certainly a time when wrestling left me changed in a very real sense.

            While there’s no Hebrew word for “pile driver” or “power bomb,” we’ve witnessed in this morning’s Scripture an ancient, Hebrew account of a wrestling match. Jacob—son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham—is on his way to meet his brother Esau. Now, Jacob isn’t on his way to some casual reunion with his brother. No, Jacob is on his way to meet with his brother in hopes that the two of them may be reconciled. You see, Jacob had been wrestling with his twin brother since birth. We’re told in Genesis 25:26 that Esau was born first, but Jacob (whose name can mean “he who takes by the heel”[1]) was holding on to Esau’s heel. Just a few verses (and some time) later, we’re told that Jacob tricked Esau into surrendering his birthright over a pot of stew when Esau was hungry.[2] In chapter 27 of Genesis Jacob (along with the help of his mother) tricked his father Isaac into blessing him instead of his brother Esau. This infuriated Esau, who then in the heat of his anger swears to kill his brother Jacob.[3] So, Jacob and Esau didn’t exactly get along.

            In the intervening years, Jacob takes a few wives, has some children, angers one of his fathers-in-law, Laban, through his characteristic trickery, and eventually patches things up with him. Then, we come to chapter 32 of Genesis, and Jacob attempts to make some sort of peace with his brother and sends him all sorts of gifts in the hope that they will somehow make up for his former treachery.  It is in leading up to this reunion with his estranged twin brother that we find Jacob this morning.

            We are told in verses 22 and 23 of our text: “The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had.” While some see this as a cowardice move on the part of Jacob, sending his wives, children, and belongings ahead of himself as some sort of shield,[4] it may very well be an attempt to simply be alone with his thoughts, a chance to wrestle with the weight of what is about to take place when he meets his estranged brother, a chance to struggle with what it means to seek help and forgiveness from one whom he had treated with such impertinence, a chance to grapple with the emotional enormity of seeking reconciliation and a relationship with one whom he had used in plots for his own blessings. Jacob, we are told in the first half of verse 24, “was left alone.”

            Jacob isn’t left alone for long, however, for we’re told right away that “a man wrestled with him until daybreak.” There’s no literary flourish here, no grand introduction or theme music as a way of breaking this mysterious wrestler into the narrative. No, we’re simply told that “a man wrestled with [Jacob] until daybreak.” Who is this man, this figure cloaked in the darkness of night? According to the prophet Hosea, this man is an angel.[5] As one scholar puts it, Jacob is actually wrestling with himself: “The attack of the assailant is the accusation of his own conscience, opposing, denouncing, and condemning the kind of life which Jacob had led up to this point.”[6] Perhaps Jacob’s own words in verse 30 tell us who this wrestler is, for “Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’" Jacob believes he has wrestled with God, and despite the fact that this stranger seems to be unable to simply overcome Jacob with a divine feat of strength and the notion that he cannot continue the struggle into the light of day, I believe that’s exactly who Jacob met that night by the Jabbok.

            Jacob, in his stubbornness, refuses to yield to this man, and it is in the midst of his stubborn struggle Jacob is struck in the hip. The blow did not break Jacob’s determination, but it did leave him changed. It left him blessed and with a new name, Israel—a name with a verbal root so rare we can only guess at its meaning by the man’s words in verse 28: "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed."[7] Jacob’s wrestling with God has left him changed, but is there any other outcome when one encounters the Almighty “face-to-face,” when one wrestles with the Almighty? Or to put it another way, is there really any other way to be truly changed than to wrestle with God?

            You see, before Jacob’s encounter with God at the ford of the Jabbok, Jacob lived by his own rules, looking out for himself, taking advantage of others in order to attain blessings, inheritances, and wives that he desired. Before his struggle with God, Jacob was known as the one who grabbed the heel of whoever was ahead of him, the trickster who used his cunning to fool others into giving him what he wanted. But after this struggle with God, Jacob is renamed, left with a humbling limp to remind him of his striving with God. Israel crosses the Jabbok to meet his brother as a changed man, as one who has met God and lived to tell about it, as one who began to leave behind his former, selfish ways in order to live into the promised blessing of God.

An encounter with God cannot help but leave us changed. One cannot say he or she has struggled with God and not change. Furthermore, one doesn’t change or grow in his or her faith without struggle, without the occasional rumble with God. You see, the life of faith isn’t always sun beams, golden streets, and crystal seas. A life lived in reality, in the reality of this world, is riddled with strife and difficulty for those who seek to see the face of God, for it is not easy to live by faith. There are those times when our selfishness, our ignorance, our desire to simply stay where we are because it’s comfortable gets in the way of what God has for us. So we wrestle with God. We declare that we aren’t going anywhere, that we aren’t going to change the way we think, and that we know enough, we’ve seen enough, and we’re not about to yield to any new challenge or any new calling that God may put in our path.

We wrestle with God, though we may name it other things. We may claim to wrestle with post-modern theology. We may claim to wrestle with change that we don’t like. We may claim to wrestle with those things that seek to change our “old time religion.” We may claim that what we’re really wrestling is anything but God calling us into a deeper relationship, calling us to leave behind the things that once defined us, but so often that is exactly who and what we’re wrestling—and we don’t want to submit, to “tap out.” Like Jacob, we are determined not to be changed, not to be defeated. Like Jacob, we refuse to give in because to do so is to admit that we’re wrong, that we’re weak, and that we’re going to have to acknowledge that there is something out there greater than what we had previously believed. Like Jacob, it sometimes takes something drastic, something painful to change our course, and in the end it leaves us different, marked as one who’s struggled with something or someone.

We may not always walk away with a limp, but we always walk away from a struggle with God changed. Perhaps you’re in the midst of your own struggle with God. Maybe there’s something you’ve been struggling with for some time, but you simply refuse to submit because that would seem too weak. Perhaps you’re ready to throw in the towel today, to surrender yourself and everything that defines you to the One who has the power to change your life forever. If you’re here today, at the ford of your own Jabbok, at the highpoint of your wrestling match with the Almighty, let me encourage you to surrender to God. It may seem like giving up, it may seem like the loser’s way out, but if Jacob’s story teaches us anything it’s this: when we surrender to God and allow God to change us, God will use us to do great things. May you surrender to God today and be changed. May you surrender to God and lay down your life and all that defines you, so that you may begin to be transformed by God into the person God longs for you to be.

There may be some of you here today who would say, “I’ve never had to struggle with God.” To you I say this: when we take our faith seriously, when it permeates every place of our lives, we cannot help but wrestle with God. To grow in faith is to wrestle with God, to come to places in our lives where we cross barriers that once kept us from knowing more of God and hearing God’s voice call us further along in the work of the kingdom. If you’ve never wrassled with the Almighty perhaps it is because you’ve been skirting around the hard questions for far too long, because you’ve been too comfortable with your own level of faith and discipleship, because you’ve been “saved” and that’s good enough to keep you out of hell and secure for yourself a spot in heaven. May you step into the ring with God today. May you cease avoiding the struggles that will change you and call you into a deeper relationship with God. May you know what it’s like to wrestle with the Almighty, to surrender more of yourself, and be changed. May we all submit more of ourselves to God as we wrassle with the Almighty, and may we grow more and more with each round we surrender.

Amen. 

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[1] see NRSV margin for this verse.

[2] Genesis 25:29-34

[3] Genesis 27:41-45

[4] Grace Fi-Sun Kim, “Proper 13,” Preaching God’s Transformative Justice: A Lectionary Commentary, Year A. Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, KY (2013) p.340.

[5] Hosea 12:4

[6] G. Henton Davies, The Broadman Bible Commentary: Volume 1. Broadman Press: Nashville, TN (1969) p. 236.

[7] John H. Walton, NIV Application Commentary: Genesis. Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI (2001) p.607.

Can't Win for Losing (Fourth Sunday after Pentecost)

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

16 "But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, 17 "We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.' 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He has a demon'; 19 the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, "Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds."…25 At that time Jesus said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

            One of the sayings I heard my dad say the most when I was growing up was, “son, we just can’t win for losing.” Now, I have to admit, I didn’t really know what he meant by that phrase; I suppose it was his own way of saying, “you’re danged if you do and danged if you don’t.” Now that I’m older (and if I can be honest with you, now that I’ve served in the ministry for nearly ten years) I think I know exactly what my dad meant when he said that phrase. You see, I’ve witnessed the kinds of things that would cause one to say “I can’t win for losing.” Whether they have been incidents I’ve witnessed in the lives of friends in ministry or incidents I’ve personally experienced, I can tell you there are many times in the life of a minister when it feels like you can’t win for losing.

            Take for example something that happened to one of my friends and mentors in ministry. He was sitting in his office, preparing his sermon for Sunday morning, when a member of his church came through the door, and with the sound of pent up frustration in her voice said, “Preacher, I’ve got something I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time now.” She sat down in the chair in front of his desk and said, “Every Sunday morning I come to church, and every Sunday morning I use my hymnal when we sing in worship, and every Sunday morning the music director says, ‘We’re going to sing the first, second, and last stanzas.’ Well, we paid good money for those hymnals, and good, Christian folks wrote those hymns, so we ought to sing every word of every stanza!” My friend looked at this obviously disgruntled parishioner and said, “I’ll talk to our music director, and we’ll be sure to sing every stanza to every hymn next Sunday morning.”

            Well, the next Sunday came, and every time the congregation stood to sing they sang every word of every stanza of every hymn they sang that morning—regardless of whether that hymn had two stanzas or five. About halfway through his sermon that morning, my friend noticed folks looking at their watches; it was a quarter after twelve (their service started at eleven). So, he wrapped up his sermon, and after singing every stanza of the invitational hymn, he gave a benediction, someone said a closing prayer, and he was at the door to the sanctuary by 12:30. However, this same woman, who just a few days prior had given him an earful about singing every stanza to every hymn, made a beeline for the pastor after the service. She walked right up to him and said, “It’s 12:30! I think you and the music director need to work on planning services so we can get out by noon!” You just can’t win for losing.

            Or how about this experience I’ve had in ministry: one day during the “fellowship/meet-and-greet/passing the peace” portion of worship, a church member grabbed my hand, pulled me in close and said, “I’ve driven by the church every day this week, and I haven’t seen your car in the parking lot one time. Now, we pay your salary and give you an office, the least you can do is be in your office and let folks know you’re here during the day.” Now, he drove by the same time every day, and that time just happened to be lunchtime, not to mention I spend several hours each week visiting hospitals, the nursing home, and members in their homes, but that doesn’t really matter to someone looking for something to complain about. But that next week I shifted my schedule around so that I would spend more time in the office, my car visible in the parking lot so people would know I was in the office and available. And that next Sunday morning, the same person grabbed my hand, pulled me in close and said, ““I’ve driven by the church every day this week, and every day I’ve seen your car in the parking lot one. Now, we pay your salary, the least you can do is get out of the office and visit folks in the community.” You just can’t win for losing.

            I’m afraid my colleagues and I could tell many more stories like that, but it is a reality of ministry. In fact, I believe it is a reality of life in general, that feeling that we can’t win for losing, and it happens most often when we are coerced into thinking that winning is a result of pleasing people. I believe Jesus knew about this sort of sinful coercion, this misunderstanding that the drives so many of us to believing that we can’t win, that feeling that leads so many of us to sleepless nights and days spent always on the defensive. I believe Jesus knew that the work of God’s kingdom isn’t about pleasing people, but about pleasing God, and what’s pleasing to God isn’t always pleasing to all the people.

            That’s why Jesus tells this little parable in chapter eleven of Matthew’s gospel when he asks in verse 16, “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.' Can you see the picture Jesus is painting with this parable? There are children in the marketplace, playing a tune on the flute, a nice little jig for the folks to dance to, maybe tap their feet and bob their heads as they pass, but the people are unmoved by the children’s music. So they children, figuring the folks in the marketplace aren’t happy, begin to wail, to play the blues if you will, hoping that maybe those who pass by will show signs of mourning, but they don’t. The children can’t win for losing: they play happy music and people stroll on by unmoved; they play a dirge, sing the blues, or wail in mourning, and the people still stroll by unmoved. It doesn’t matter what they children play, the people react the same way. It’s as if Jesus is saying, “It’s not up to the children or the music they play to change the attitudes of the people passing by—it’s up to the people to change their attitudes.”

            To really drive the point home with a true-to-life illustration, Jesus compares the reactions given to his cousin, John and Jesus himself in verses 18 and 19: “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon'; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'” There was John: teetotaler, abstainer, old-fashioned revivalist preacher, standing out in the country preaching about repentance and fire, but everyone pointed at him and called him an ole’ tightwad, would so tight and so fired up he must have a demon! But then there was Jesus; he came eating and drinking. In fact, one time, at the wedding party, when the wine ran out, Jesus made several gallons of the best wine anyone had ever tasted out of water in stone jars just to keep the party going! Jesus wasn’t a solitary preacher in the country: no, he hung out with everybody, walking around the city just as well as the country. But still, the people who pointed at John and said he was too uptight and must have had a demon because of his teetotaling ways, well…they pointed at Jesus and called him a drunk, bleeding heart liberal with too much time for socializing! You just can’t win for losing with some folks, “yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds."

            Now that little phrase there is terribly important. You see, here again, Jesus says it isn’t about the surface level outcome of what John did or what Jesus himself was doing. No, because if you just look there, well, it isn’t really all that wonderful—they don’t really please a lot of people. John winds up in prison and eventually gets his head served up on a platter, and Jesus…well, Jesus gets nailed to a cross in a public show of Roman power, and only a few women (and one other disciple) stick around to see it all happen. “Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds,” for we know that that isn’t all that happened to either of these two: some of Jesus’ first disciples, the first apostles, were followers of John. He pointed the way to Jesus, prepared the way before him. As for Jesus, well we know his deeds went on to change the world, to show the world that the God of creation is a God of love, compassion, and grace. And this day there are people from all manner of nations, tribes, and tongues that know the name of Jesus. Because winning isn’t about pleasing people; it’s about pleasing God and seeking to do God’s will.

            But that isn’t always so easy, is it? There’s something within in us that makes us feel as if the only way to win, the only way to be successful is to please people, to hopefully please everyone. But, can I be real with you all for just a moment? You see, you can’t please all the people all the time. Heck, as a pastor I can tell you, it’s hard to please some people any time! I’ve been your pastor now for a year and a half, and some of you have been mad, frustrated, or just down right disgruntled for a year and half! That’s ok. Some of you have been just fine and dandy for a year and a half. That’s fine too, because I know from experience there will come a time when I’ll do or say something you won’t like, when this church will do something you don’t like, or not do something you want it to do. And I hope those of you who’ve been mad, frustrated, and disgruntled will come to realize that you’re in control of how you feel, and that we’re all in this together to do the work of God and not the will of any one person, family, or party. And to those of you who haven’t had your toes stepped on or your personal wants and wishes put aside for the good of the whole, that time may come. I simply ask that when it does, you’ll show grace and remember that no one is ought to get you, and we’re all striving to work together for the good of God’s kingdom.

            You see, I’m convinced that at the heart of this desire to please people is that root sin of selfishness, that sin that creates within us a desire, a want for others to please us, a desire for others to like us. And when we allow such desires to become the focus of our lives, our faith, our church, they becomes burdens, heavy burdens that drain our energy and distract us from the real work of faith, the real work of doing God’s kingdom work.

            Maybe that’s why Jesus says what he does in verses 25 and 26: "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” Infants, little children: they don’t worry about such things as pleasing people. Jesus goes on to say in verse 27: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Maybe God reveals God’s self to those who aren’t really in it for themselves in the first place?

You see, all of our attempts at pleasing others, at having others please us, well, it’s just exhausting. It’s a never-ending struggle that only wears us out and keeps us from drawing closer to Christ, from pleasing God. That’s why Jesus offers us comfort with his words in the final verses of our text today: "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

            Jesus offers us relief from the tireless pursuits of life. Jesus offers us a way to lay down our burdens and take upon ourselves his yoke, a yoke of gentleness and humility. The rabbis, when they spoke of their teachings to their disciples, they referred to their rules, their ways as a yoke (an instrument used to guide and harness the power of beasts of burden). We place all kinds of our own yokes upon ourselves—the desire to please people to be pleased by people, the desire for success by this world’s standards, religious rules and rituals created by men in order to measure rigged righteousness—but Christ calls us to lay all of those aside, to rid ourselves of whatever burdens we carry in order to take his yoke upon us, to carry the kinds of burdens and concerns that truly matter. Jesus offers us a yoke that is easy and light because it frees us from ourselves and the expectations we have of others. It frees us from the sin of thinking we’re in the business of pleasing people and reminds us that we are called to please God, to do as the prophet Micah proclaimed: “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [our] God.”[1]

            Jesus is calling you to lay aside your burdens, especially those burdens you’ve placed upon yourself, to give up your attempts at pleasing people, to cast of your own selfish desires to be pleased, and open yourself up to doing the will of God. For when it comes to pleasing God, we win. We win God’s blessing and joy as the Teacher says in Ecclesiastes 2:26. When we seek first God and God’s kingdom we win the joy of knowing that what we’re doing is making an eternal difference. When we confess our selfishness and lay aside our pride, our anger, our self-made hatred and take the yoke of Christ upon ourselves in order to see God’s will be done and God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven…then we win! But as long we hold on to our selfish desires to have things our way, as long we seek to only please people and have people please us, as long we put ourselves or anything else above, in front, or in place of Almighty God, well…then we can’t win for losing.

Amen.

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[1] Micah 6:8

Cast Out and Lifted Up (Second Sunday after Pentecost)

Genesis 21:8-21

8 The child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. 10 So she said to Abraham, "Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac." 11 The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, "Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. 13 As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring." 14 So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. 15 When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, "Do not let me look on the death of the child." And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, "What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him." 19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink. 20 God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

            Doug Pitt is a relatively successful man, but I’d wager that you’ve likely never heard of him. He owns ServiceWorld Computer Center, a company that specializes in business networks and communication technology. He serves on the board of WorldServe International, one of the largest water drilling companies in East Africa, which has given clean water to almost two million people since Doug joined the board. He also founded the child health organization Care to Learn. The mission of Care to Learn is to fund child health, hunger, and hygiene needs, and it currently serves twelve school districts and funds over 125,000 children in the Ozarks. Because of his extensive work in Africa, particularly the United Republic of Tanzania, Doug was named the Goodwill Ambassador to Tanzania in 2010 by the country’s president. In 2011, Doug was honored by the Starkey Hearing Foundation along with President Bill Clinton with their Humanitarian Leadership Award for all of his work in Africa and domestically with his Care To Learn organization. As if his list of humanitarian awards were not impressive enough, in 2011, Doug also became the first American to descend Mount Kilimanjaro (the highest mountain in Africa and the highest, free-standing mountain in the world) on a mountain bike.[1]

            Doug Pitt just might be the guy on whom the Mexican beer company Dos Equis has based their fictitious spokesperson, “The Most Interesting Man in the World.” So, why haven’t most of us heard of Doug Pitt? Well, I don’t think there’s any sort of conspiracy at work, because, you see, it might be just a bit difficult for Doug Pitt to become a household name with his brother Brad casting a pretty big shadow in the spotlight. See, Doug Pitt is the brother of one of the biggest movie stars (and, to be fair, equally philanthropic) of this generation, Brad Pitt. I imagine it’s hard for Doug to get any sort of traction in terms of fame when his brother is so easily recognizable (though I have a feeling Doug does just fine without all that recognition).

            I imagine it might be a little annoying being the less famous, but equally important sibling of a super star. You don’t get the kind of recognition, your story isn’t as widely told or known, and you likely don’t get stopped by strangers on the street asking for a picture and an autograph. And when it comes to stories of less famous siblings in Scripture, well we’ve certainly come to one this morning—the story of Ishmael.

            Most of us with any sort of relationship with the Bible likely know Ishmael’s younger, more famous, half-brother Isaac. Isaac is one of the patriarchs of the Hebrew Bible, the father of Jacob, the grandfather of the twelve tribes of Israel. Isaac was the first born son of Abraham AND Sarah; he was the fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham. Isaac was also the one whom God called Abraham to sacrifice, a story so familiar to many Christians because we cannot help but see the foreshadowing of God’s sacrifice of his son Jesus. We know Isaac’s story because in many ways the following chapters of Genesis focus on Isaac’s story, because the rest of the Bible is an unwinding ribbon of the story of Isaac and God’s promise to him and his father.

            But Ishmael…well we just sort of forget him once Isaac comes along. After all, he’s not really the promised son of Abraham and Sarah. No, he is quite literally the bastardized version of God’s promise, a forced outcome brought on by the growing impatience of two, aging, childless people. He is the offspring of a likely unwilling slave-woman from Egypt (he’s not even a full-blooded Herbew!); he’s the result of a forced pregnancy, and he’s scorned by his father’s wife, the woman who should have acted like his mother and treated him as her own son. Ishmael is not a patriarch; he is not the kind of person the Hebrew Bible builds much of a narrative around, yet Ishmael and his mother Hagar may teach us more about the ways of God and how they are far higher than our own ways than possibly even the story of his more famous sibling.

            You see, the story we’ve read today in some ways could be called “the sacrifice of Ishmael,” for it parallels the familiar story of Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham is told to cast out his son, Ishmael, along with the child’s mother, an act that will certainly lead to death, yet just before death comes, God intervenes and saves the child’s life. But what led us to this point? What brought us to this scene where a child and his mother are driven out into the wilderness, driven out into certain death? What is it that could lead to such a dire situation that a mother throws her child under a bush to die in the desert? What could possibly cause this called man of God, Abraham, to act so cruelly, heartlessly,  to perform such an act of injustice?

            In order to understand these actions, we need to go back to the beginning, back to when Abraham and Sarah took God’s plan into their own hands. Back in chapter fifteen of Genesis, God tells Abraham that he will give him an heir of his own seed and descendants like the stars in the sky. In the first verse of chapter sixteen, however, we are told that Sarai (Sarah), Abraham’s wife had borne no children for Abraham, so she devised a plan to have Abraham impregnate her Egyptian slave-girl, Hagar. Sarai says in verse 2 of chapter sixteen: “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."  Sarah had come up with her own plan for fulfilling God’s promise, and as you can imagine Abraham was all too willing to oblige his wife’s wishes. They were impatient. God had promised them something, and when it didn’t come to them in the time they wanted, they took matters into their own hands. This first act of impatience was the first step towards cruelty and injustice. In fact, it could be argued that Sarai’s plan was its own act of cruelty and injustice imposed on Hagar as she was forced to have relations with Abraham and bear his child for nine months.

            It was during those nine months of Hagar’s pregnancy that further steps were taken towards cruelty and injustice. We’re told in verses four through sixteen of chapter sixteen that Sarai becomes jealous of Hagar. She begins to regret her decision and treats Hagar harshly, so much so in fact that Hagar runs away into the wilderness where she is met by an angel of the Lord and told to return to her mistress and given a promise similar to that given to Abraham (it is a scene that foreshadows the one in our text from chapter twenty-one). We don’t hear much more from Hagar, but we are told in chapter seventeen and eighteen that God is still going to provide Abraham and Sarah with their own child, a promise seemingly so absurd that it makes Sarah laugh. She doubts that she and her husband will bear any children now that they were about to enter their second century of life. We can read, however, that Sarah and Abraham do indeed have a son in the first verses of chapter twenty-one, and when they do, Sarah once again decides she’s had enough of Hagar and Ishmael and tells Abraham to send them away into the wilderness. She couldn’t care less about their fate, for she had her promised son; she and Abraham now had what they wanted and the slave-girl and her son (notice Sarah doesn’t call them by name or mention Ishmael as Abraham’s son), well, they were unnecessary now.

            What led to this act of dehumanization, this act of cruelty, this injustice, are the same things that lead to such sinful treatment of others today: impatience, jealousy, disbelief, apathy, and selfishness. It was the impatience of Abraham and Sarah that led them to take matters into their own hands and force Hagar to bear a son form Abraham; they were not content with the Lord’s promise, but felt that they had to have what they were promised when they wanted it. Sarah’s jealousy of Hagar and her fertility led to the abuse and cruel treatment of the woman who had no part to play in the decision that led to her pregnancy. Sarah’s disbelief in the promise of God only fed her hurt, her anger at her apparent barrenness, so she looked on Hagar and her son with even greater contempt. Abraham, who might be misunderstood as some passive player in this Ancient Near Eastern soap opera, contributed more than his fair share to this injustice as he simply sat by and let it happen; his apathy towards Hagar and Ishmael was itself an act of cruelty, for Abraham the patriarch of the family in an overwhelmingly patriarchal culture could have simply said “no” to his wife’s desires and that would have been the end of it. Abraham could have rejected his wife’s plan to highjack the Most High’s promise; he could have protected Hagar in her pregnancy; he could have refused to turn them out into the wilderness to face their doom in the desert. But Abraham does none of this; he just lets it all happen. Because of their selfishness—selfishness to have things their way, in their time—Abraham and Sarah became perpetrators of cruelty and injustice to a mother and her child.

            That is the heart of injustice, to allow our selfishness, our desires, our impatience, our jealousy, our apathy, our ignorance to blind us to the humanity of others. Cruelty and injustice are not always things done out of hatred or actions of intentional malice; they can be those things we simply allow to happen because our comfort and our needs and desires might be jeopardized if we take a stand for what is right. But here is the good news: even in the midst of cruelty and injustice, even when those who are called by God decide to do nothing, even when it seems that oppression will have the victory and death is inevitable…God is there. God is there with the victims of cruelty and oppression. God is there with those who breathe the air of injustice. God is there with those who have been turned away, turned down, and turned over to death. Just as Scripture tells us that God was there in the desert with hopeless Hagar, hearing the cries of her hungry child, God is there with those millions of children in this country who go to bed hungry every night because there are those in this country too concerned with their own comfort to give a damn about them. Just as Scripture tells us that God was with that abandoned mother in the wilderness as she cried out, God is with those girls all across this world who have been thrown out of their homes or sold into the sex-slave trade because their families are ashamed by them or can’t afford to care for them. Just as God was with that mother who had no food for her child because she was thrown out for the comfort of others, God is with whose stand in unemployment lines because their company let them go so the CEO could still get a bonus this year.

            God is with all of those who are victims of cruelty and injustice. God is with those who fall through the cracks, those who are victims of a system designed to reward the rich and oppress the poor, those who are cut off and cast out because of their race, class, gender, or orientation. God is with those who don’t have clean water to drink, those who can’t read, those who live in the forgotten slums of this world, those who can’t rise up because someone else is keeping them tied down. God is with those who have been cast out and there is coming a day when God will lift them up! And here’s the thing: God’s calling us to help! God is calling us to break the cycles of cruelty and injustice, to not give in to the sins and temptations that trapped Sarah and Abraham. God is calling us to trust in the calling of God that leads through Christ and Calvary’s selfless cross; God is calling us to rid ourselves of jealousy and to look at our global neighbors with love, to see everyone as the sister or brother they are created in the image of God. God is calling us not to simply sit and do nothing while our neighbors across our community and across our world go hungry, are victims of cruelty, and suffer great injustices. God is calling us, in the words of Christ’s prayer in the gospels, to do God’s will, to bring God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

            May we learn this lesson from the sacrifice of Hagar and Ishmael. May we begin to be the people God calls us to be, people who will not stand for cruelty and injustice. May we be people who do the will of God by loving all of our neighbors, seeking to raise them up even though they may be cast out. May you hear the voice of God calling your name this day and respond in faith.

Amen.

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[1] http://dougpitt.org/bio.html