April 14, 2013, "Pharaoh Teaches Abram"

Genesis 12.10-20; Mark 8.14-21

Who was the first President of the United States?

Ya’ got that right … George Washington … a great he was ... the right one at the right time for the moment of decision … who knows what might have happened had the mantle of leadership fallen on shoulders other than Washington’s … but this we know - the mantle fell on his shoulders, and he wore the mantle well … winning the gratitude of his nation and deserving of our admiration.

George Washington died in 1799, and one year later, a book was published, entitled, The Life of Washington, written by Mason Locke Weems, an Anglican priest, who took pride in having lived in Dumfries, Virginia, nearby to a church where George Washington had worshipped in pre-Revolutionary days … Mr. Weems capitalized on this slight connection and claimed knowledge that was more fiction than fact … oh well ...

In this little book about Washington, Weems creates a story that now everyone now knows to be fanciful … about the young George Washington … anyone wanna guess what that story might be?

Right! … the Cherry Tree Incident … as Mr. Weems wrote it, young George experimented with a hatchet, and chopped down his daddy’s favorite cherry tree.

When confronted by his father, young George confessed, I cannot tell a lie, father; I did it.

It would be good, I suppose, if life played out this way … 

But life doesn’t play out like this … life’s vitalities are strange and oftentimes dark … befuddling and frightening … a mystery to us … why we behave as we do, sometimes … children sometimes chop down a tree, and when confronted, may flat out a lie about it - It wasn’t me; it was my sister.

Paul the Apostle said it well, when he wrote to the Romans … I know what I should do, but I don’t always do it. In fact, I often do just the opposite. What’s wrong with me?

The Bible never stops with just the good stuff … it tells the whole story, the good, the bad and the ugly.

From Genesis 3 on, we know that it’s going to be a bumpy ride:

Adam and Eve pluck the fruit ...

Cain kills Able … Lamech boasts of his blood-vengeance … Noah gets drunk … his son Ham laughs at him, and Noah curses him … 

As the Genesis 12 story unfolds, after God’s call to Sarai and Abram, to be the mother and father of a new nation, with blessings for the world, we’re told in stark terms: There was a famine in the land.

Abram and Sarai set out to find food; they’re refugees now, hunger gnawing away at them … and so they end up in Egypt, of all places … Egypt!

When the story tellers of Judah crafted the Genesis material, they would have laughed at this point, an ironic laugh, to be sure … Egypt, of all places - what a strange sense of humor has God.

Genesis was written 1500 years after Abram and Sarai made their journey to Egypt … a land that would finally become  the land of slavery and the house of bondage … four hundred years of slavery for the sons and daughters of Sarai and Abram.

And when Jesus is born, and Herod gets his back up, Mary and Joseph hit the road, refugees fleeing a bad political situation, and where do they go? The land of Egypt.

To fulfill, says Matthew, what the LORD had spoken: I have called my son out of Egypt.

Egypt, of all places!

Strangers in a strange land … and they’re scared.

Refugees are always scared, aren’t they?

Abram says to Sarai: You’re a fine looking woman …

Abram was already an old man - 75 years old he was … and Sarah was quite likely a bit younger … 

Tell Pharaoh you’re my sister, if he wants you … that way he’ll spare my life.

Pharaoh falls for Sarai and takes her … things go well for awhile … Abram prospers … then things go south … plagues strike the house of Pharaoh … maybe Sarai dropped a few hints … Pharaoh adds it all up … calls Abram and says to him, Why did you lie to me?

Here’s Sarai … take her … and get the heck outta here … take what I’ve given to you; you don’t need to give me anything back, but leave us, please … be gone with you!

In this little story, so many truths … 

The dreadful onset of famine ...

The power of fear …

The readiness to lie …

The woman as a pawn … 

And strangely enough … Pharaoh the teacher!

What? What’s that you say?

Pharaoh the teacher!

More laughter, for sure … that the father of the nation receives moral instruction from, of all people, Pharaoh.

Humiliating … and honest!

Abram is a good man, but not all the time … he loves God, but sometimes self-love is all that he knows … 

We don’t know what would have happened if Abram and Sarai had told the truth …

The story is not intended to promote speculation … the Bible doesn’t deal in what ifs, and what could have happened … as my son always says, “wouldas, couldas and shouldas never get us anywhere.”

So why would Judah tell such a strange story about the Mother and Father of the Nation?

Why not a story like the George Washington Cherry Tree Incident?

The Bible deals with reality … reality is where we live, and reality is where God does God’s work.

God at work in all things … 

God in love with human beings … just as we are!

The message is clear ...

If God can love and call Abram and Sarai, then God can call anyone of us, all of us, just as we are … and though we don’t always get it right, God uses us for great things … great love, great moments … to change the world … and if not the world, at least change our corner of it … or maybe just change our mind, and change our heart.

I saw the movie, “42” yesterday, the story of Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in the major leagues, 1947, hired by Branch Ricky, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, “Dem Bums” … with hell to pay - heckling in the games, threats of violence, terrible letters written … Branch Ricky violated the code of baseball - A game only for white men … 

When Jackie asks Branch Ricky, “Why did you do this?” Mr. Ricky replies, “I could no longer ignore it.”

Earlier in the story, Mr. Ricky says of Robinson, “He’s a Methodist,” and then adds, “I’m a Methodist, and God’s a Methodist - we’ll get it worked out.”

Mr. Ricky changed his own world, and then he changed the Dodgers, and then he changed baseball … when Branch Ricky had a chance, he did good.

God calls us to greatness … and Abram and Sarai were great people … doing great things for God … but they were not morally superior.

The call of God doesn’t make us morally superior to anyone else!

To know Christ doesn’t make us any better than someone who worships Allah, someone who’s a Buddhist or a Hindu … and certainly it doesn’t make us any better than an atheist … in the world we all live in, sometimes believers are terrible people, and sometimes atheists do wonderful things.

That’s a hard lesson for believers to understand sometimes … but it’s a vital lesson, which is why the Bible makes it so clear - it’s not about perfection, moral superiority, being better than others … it’s being available, available to God … Here I am, O LORD, here I am …  and humble about it all, willing and ready to see the hand of God all over the place, and in all kinds of occasions, in every moment, and in all kinds of people.

God sees to it that goodness and morality and truth are found everywhere … 

A constant reminder to us all … even Pharaoh can teach us some lessons now and then … 

Maybe there are no enemies in this world after all, if we really think about it … who knows? … we can learn from everything and everyone, can’t we? … maybe that’s why Jesus says Love your enemy … that doesn’t mean have mushy gushy feelings - it means to give respect, pay attention, to - give to the enemy that which we would hope for from anyone else - treat others as we would hope to be treated … and, who knows, even from Pharaoh, we might have a thing or two to learn.

Teachers and learning-moments come in surprising ways … 

Amen and Amen!

August 19, 2012, "Highest Hopes"

1 Kings 8.54-61

We are the People of God!

We follow Jesus,  Son of David, born of Mary in Bethlehem, baptized in the Jordan by John.

How we got here is quite a mystery; it is not our own doing.

A mystery born of grace.

The Apostle Peter says it well:

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people who are God’s own possession. You have become this people so that you may speak of the wonderful acts of the one who called you out of darkness into his amazing light. Once you weren’t a people, but now you are God’s people. Once you had’t received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

This is one of the first pieces of the Bible that impacted my life in seminary … I remember the classroom … not sure who the professor was, but Peter’s words penetrated deeply into my mind and heart.

This is who we are - powerful adjectives: chosen, royal, holy - this is our story.

The big story ...

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth.

The covenant with Abraham and Sarah … slavery in Egypt; Moses in the bullrushes, and then the Exodus … wanderings in the Wilderness; water from a rock; manna in the morning … and then the Promised Land.

Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho.

Samson slays Philistines with the jawbone of an ass.

Saul is anointed king, and consorts with witches.

David builds Jerusalem, and has an affair with Bathsheba.

Solomon begins with the highest of hopes … he builds a glorious temple in David’s City … at long last, a fitting place for the glory of God.

What begins in hope, is quickly tainted.

Solomon uses slave labor, tips his hat to foreign gods and marries too many women for political gain, including Pharaoh’s daughter.

In the 11^th chapter of 1 Kings, it is said of Solomon: the LORD had commanded Solomon about this very things, that he should follow other gods. But Solomon didn’t do what the LORD commanded … and God said: Because you have done all of this … I will most certainly tear the kingdom from you.

The Bible writers tell us the truth … stories we cannot forget.

Which reminds me:

I heard about three sisters -- ages 92, 94, and 96 -- who lived together. One night, the 96-year-old drew a bath. She put one foot in, then paused. "Was I getting in the tub or out?" she yelled.

The 94-year-old hollered back, "I don't know, I'll come and see." She started up the stairs, but stopped on the first one. She shouted, "Was I going up or coming down?"

The 92-year-old was sitting in the kitchen having tea, listening to her sisters with a smirk on her face. She shook her head and said, "I sure hope I never get that forgetful," and knocked on wood for good measure. Then she yelled, "I'll come up and help both of you as soon as I see who's at the door."

Knock on wood … the wood of the cross, if you will … to remember, and never forget the stories.

Good and bad, sweet and sour, glorious and grim.

One might ask: Is there any hope here at all in these stories? Isn’t there a king who can truly lead us? Is there anyone who gets it right? At least enough of the time to push back the darkness? Is humankind forever stuck in a cycle of high hopes and dashed dreams?

On our own, we’re stuck, like a mouse running on a wheel - going no where fast.

We’re stuck in cycles of high hopes and dashed dreams … we crush the head of the serpent, but the serpent nips us in the heel nonetheless. 

Cycles of hope and dashed dreams.

Is there hope?

In us?

No, never ... but in God.

In all of the stories, an overarching theme: a golden thread woven into the stained and tattered history of humanity: God, and God’s commitment: I shall be your God, and you shall be my people … a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.

Not because you’re smart or powerful or big. Only because I love you.

That’s why, in these stories, there is no fear of losing God’s mercy … Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me. We can sin mightily, but we cannot out sin the grace of God.

In these stories, of course, disgust, shame and sorrow … but no fear that God would ever desert us - I will never leave you for forsake you … we can hurt ourselves, we can hurt others, but we cannot tear apart the love of God for us.

No illusions … the Bible writers see clearly … we are what we are … Luther said it well: we are at the same time, righteous and sinner … as Paul said: the good I want to do, I don’t do; the evil I don’t want to do, I do.

That’s the way it is.

No illusions in these stories.

No pretending.

Just honesty.

And always the love of God!

So in these stories, there is always courage, too … courage to keep on keepin’ on … to try it again … to start all over - to give to others the same grace, the same mercy, the same compassion and kindness with which God has redeemed us from the pit of death.

These stories are anchored in the love of God … it’s the love of God that proves the saving strength … 

Paul cries out: Who will save me, wretched man that I am? And then declares, Thanks be to God.

We don’t give up, because God never gives us!

In the center of the story, Jesus the Christ.

A small baby … a giant shift.

A cross, an empty tomb and Pentecost Fire.

Things changed.

No longer land and boundaries, as it was for Israel and Judah … it’s now the whole wide world.

No more a king with palaces and soldiers, but the Prince of Peace who instructs his disciples to put away their swords, and turn the other cheek.

No longer a temple in Jerusalem, because Christ is the Temple … Christ is the High Priest … Christ is the Sacrificial Lamb.

No longer dietary laws; all food is good.

No longer marked with physical circumcision, but a circumcision of the heart.

What Israel couldn’t do, Jesus did.

What we can’t do, Jesus does.

So that we can do what we must - love one another as he has loved us … God loves you; God loves me, but only we can love one another.

And only with love, are we the church of Jesus Christ … only with compassion are we instruments of his peace on earth … only with humility are we servants of the gospel … only with hearts open and generous can we feed the hungry, cloth the naked, visit the prisoner.

Through Christ - we’re chosen:  to know the Father, receive the Holy Spirit … to love what he loves; and do what he does.

We have much to do, but we never lose sight of the big story … God’s love … at work in all things, for good … for the good of all humanity … for the good of creation … God will get us there, sometimes because of us, and often in spite of us … but God will get us there.

It’s been said: If we read the Bible consistently, sooner or later we’ll come out a Calvinist, and I believe that.

Because the God of the Bible holds the world together … we may have great powers, powers for good, and powers for evil, but there is yet a greater power guiding the world, the universe, bending history, moving us toward the omega point - the Great God Almighty, LORD of Hosts, Creator of heaven and earth, the God and Father of our LORD Jesus Christ.

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,

There is no shadow of turning with Thee;

Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not

As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

It is God who chooses us before we can ever choose God … 

It is God who fills our empty souls with the royal love of Christ.

It is God who lays it all out, from beginning to end, with a love that will not, cannot, let us go.

And when the end comes, we’ll not clasp the hand of Christ.

We’re not strong enough for that.

In the end, Christ will clasp our hand, and he’s strong enough to do that.

This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long.

High hopes, indeed! Amen and Amen!

Nasty

2 Samuel 11:1-15

One of my all-time favorite films, “Rain” – from Somerset Maugham’s story of the same title, starring Joan Crawford as a women of questionable reputation – and her fellow passengers stuck on a dumpy island in the Pacific because of cholera.
With all the usual suspects.
In the bar, one evening, some unpleasant conversation about the woman … but the bartender says, “We’ve all crossed thresholds we’re not proud of.”

Who hasn’t?
Who doesn’t have a closet full of junk; a shoebox full of shame?

Maybe that’s why Jesus said to the mob with stones in their hands, Let the one without sin cast the first stone.
How we love the feel of the stone in our hand; eager to throw it, hard and fast, at someone caught, relieved that it’s them, not us!
But the Bible cautions us … and tells us stories about the great and the not so great, and the travails of life … no one has it easy … we can all stand against one another (that’s the easy choice), or we can stand with one another in the fellowship of grace.

Teaching an adult Bible one Sunday morning, I told the story of David and Bathsheba.
Before I finished, a class member slapped her hand hard onto the table and shouted, “Where did you get that filthy story about David?”

This is the kind of stuff we don’t learn in 5th grade Sunday School.
And that’s okay for 5th graders …
There’s plenty of stuff for children to learn … but what we learn in Sunday School is only a small part of the biggest story every told … stretching all the way from creation to the new heaven and the new earth … a story of greatness and sadness … the best and the brightest; the worst and the ugliest … all the thresholds we’ve crossed … and then some.

We all love little Davy defeating Goliath; but we need to pay attention to the whole story – even the nasty stuff.

The text begins simply enough, though with a clear wink of humor – it’s spring time – hehe …
When kings flex their muscles and set their eyes on fields of battle.
David is no different.
After a long drizzly winter, as the sun stretches broader on the horizon, the smell of wild flowers in the air, David says, Let’s go to war.

Does this make sense?
Of course not.
It’s not supposed to make any sense.

So off to war they go.
Not David, of course.
He’s too much of a king now.
He only gives the orders.
His generals go to war.
And the young men who do the fighting.
Does it ever change?

And late one afternoon – I love the image … when the sun is setting … everything golden … the magic hour if you have a camera in hand – every color brighter, richer … the end of the day … a stroll on the roof of the palace – a mighty man surveying his mighty city …

I wonder how often David strolled the ramparts.

I wonder, how often Bathsheba noticed the king … this powerful man … and what did Kissenger say, “power is an aphrodisiac”?

So David surveys his kingdom.
Maybe a little bored.
After all, his men are out looting and pillaging, ravaging the land … having all the fun, and David is stuck at home.

Lethargic, board … daydreaming …
Dozing all afternoon.
What’s a great and powerful king to do with so much time on his hands?
But lay around.
Take a nap.
A man of leisure.
Finally he rises …

I have this image … stretching, yawning, rubbing his eyes … What’s next? Solitaire? Maybe some dancers? Eat a little goat stew?

I know what I’ll do.
I’ll go to the roof …
Always something to see … who knows what I’ll see today.

In that fateful moment, in that rooftop stroll, he sees a woman bathing … leisurely, languorously, here an arm, there a leg … ah, look at the marvelous hair …
Anything more needed?
And maybe it could have ended there.
This man, after God’s own heart, might have just turned away.
But he’s a powerful man.
He sees what he wants, and he wants what he sees.
Who is she? He wonders.
Might she be available?

David sends someone to find out.
Powerful people do that.
Hey, servant-boy, run over to that neighboring house will ya? Find out who owns those arms and legs.

So the report comes back.
It’s Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam,
Wife of Uriah the Hittite.

It might have ended then and there.
But it didn’t.
Things like this rarely end when they should.

David doesn’t waste any time.
He sends for her.

And what’s a loyal subject to do, but accept the king’s invitation?
And it might have ended then and there.
But it didn’t.

The text gives the impression of royal prerogative.
No pleasantries.
Not courting.
No jokes.
Not even a drink.

The text is otherwise full of rich detail in the rest of the story, but not here.
No conversation, no caring, not a shred of tenderness.
No love … just desire.
Right into bed.
And when it’s done, it’s done.
She leaves.

Well, that’s that.
Or so we would hope.

But things like this are never neat and clean.
The word comes to David, I’m pregnant.

Those fateful words have changed human history a few times, haven’t they?

Now what?
Even a powerful king like David wants to cover things up.

So David sends orders to his commander, Send Uriah to me.

Uriah comes home from the front.
He and David engage in a little manly-man talk – about soldiering and looting and who was winning.

Uriah, you’re a good man.
Loyal soldier that you are.
Why don’t ya’ head on home for a little R & R with your wife, why don’t you wash your feet … wink, wink.
A couple of guys … some barroom banter …
“Wash your feet” – I think all of you can figure that one out – a euphemism for something a bit more … and maybe no one will raise the question of paternity.

But Uriah the Hittite, the foreigner, the mercenary, refuses.
How can I go home to enjoy the pleasures of life,
When my buddies are out in the field, taking risks,
Terrible risks …
For a war they didn’t make,
For a king they dearly love.
I can’t do that.

So Uriah camps out by David’s front door.

The next day, David invites Uriah in for a drink.
Just a couple of guys.
Just a few beers.
A little more banter, some bawdy jokes.
A few more beers.
Losen things up.
A few more beers.
Let’s get drunk.

But Uriah refuses to go home.
This guy can’t be bought for love or money!

The next morning, David writes a letter to his commander in the field – no words minced:
Put Uriah on point.
When the fighting gets rough,
Pull back; beat a hasty retreat.
Leave Uriah there; alone.
And he’ll be struck down and die.

This is a mean and nasty story about a powerful man who uses his power to get what he wants, destroying those who could blow his cover.
The kind of story we might well see on the evening news.

The kind of story we know all too well.

So what’s it doing in the Bible?
What’s the point?

Should we just shake our heads, cluck our tongues at such outrageous behavior.
Look down our nose and congratulate ourselves for “never having done anything like that”?
Or maybe we’re just glad we were never caught, or if we were, we breath a sigh of relief that we scraped through it like David did.

What’s the point? Why this wretched story about King David?

It’s life … life pure, plain and simple … when life isn’t pure, and never plain and hardly simple.
Who can choose life in bits and pieces?
Who can choose only the sunny side of the street?
Sometimes we walk on the dark side of things.
Ply our trade in the dark materials.
Sometimes we’re leading the way.
Sometimes we’re caught up in someone else’s maelstrom, like Uriah was …

The Bible tells us that life is life.
There are thresholds we’ve crossed we’re not proud of.
Stories we’d just as soon forget.
There’s no picking and choosing the chapters.

It’s just life.
In all of its glory and all of its grittiness.
Thick and thin.
Sick and sin.

The Bible reminds us:
No need to pretend.
And pretending has long been a part of the Christian story … from the tales of the saints to all of those glorious conversion stories told by TV evangelists.

But we all know it’s not true.
It’s just hard to wade through the hype.
The church in America is particularly susceptible to pretending.
Pews are full of people who could never tell their story, for fear of being thrown out on their ear, and they’re right. They’d be thrown out.
Conversionist Christianity has been particularly cruel at this point – “now that I have Jesus, it’s all sunshine and roses. I used to do and I used to be” … fill in the blanks with all the dirt and grime of life, the sin of the month, “but Jesus came into my life, and now my bad complexion cleared up, I got a million-dollar job, and I live in a fine home. All because of Jesus.”
Sure, I’m exaggerating.
But the point is this: American Christianity loves success and victory and power and overcoming and all things made new.
There is something to all of that, God be praised.
The Holy Spirit is real.
The love of Christ makes a difference.
A life soaked in the love of Christ, a life devoted to things of God, a life filled with faith, hope and love is a life categorically different than a life live in anger and greed, fear and lust, the relentless self-interest that only the Spirit of God can challenge and defeat in our lives.
But sin never goes away.
Life has its roses, but the bloom can quickly fad.
Life has its sunshine, but the night is just a stroke of the clock away.
Like the sea in Holland – the dikes and canals keep the water at bay, but the threat is always there.

Scripture reminds us:
God has saved us.
Again and again.
God builds all kinds of dikes and canals to keep the deluge away …
But everyone in Holland knows that a 100-year storm might do it … that a failure in all the complicated controls might do it … that the angry waters of the cold Atlantic might one day breech the defenses.

They know that.
So they’re prepared.
They’re vigilant.
They’re ready.
They’re on guard.

Maybe that’s the point.
Be mindful of your own soul.
Be careful and prayerful.

Jesus said it well:
Pay attention to the log in your own eye before you mess around with the speck in your neighbor’s eye.

Be kind to one another.
Because some of us are not running too swiftly.
Some of us are just limping along right now.

Maybe we’re the man beset by robbers and left for dead beside the road.
Maybe we’re the priest or Levite – good and decent folk, but unsure of getting involved …
And maybe we’re the good Samaritan today – our heart is full of kindness, and we do the right thing.

Maybe we’re David.
Maybe we’re Bathsheba.
Maybe we’re Uriah.
Maybe we’re the messenger.
Maybe we’re the commander.
Maybe all of them, and then some.

Good and bad, bad and good.
Moment by moment.

And through it all, grace.
God’s grace, twisting and turning the story for a better ending … like clay in a potter’s hand.
A remarkable God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
God never gives up on the human project.

And if God doesn’t give up,
Why should we?

Don’t give up hope.
Don’t stop trying.

Forgive big time – seven times seventy.
And for heaven’s sake, forgive yourself.

Don’t get caught up in pretending.
Life is tough enough.

Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another.
And you’ll be healed, says James.
Maybe he’s talking about honesty.
Plain old honesty.
Because honesty heals.

The Bible says:
Tell the truth.
And if the truth hurts, tell it carefully.
Maybe no one needs to know, but you … and God.
But tell the truth to yourself, for sure.
And let others tell the truth, too.
Life is tough enough for everyone.

Love welcomes the truth, even when the truth is sad!
That’s the heart of the story.
Love bears all things … Love never fails.

Amen and Amen.