Called - 1 Samuel 16:1-13

Our story begins this morning, with a stranger coming to town; after all, as Mark Twain tells us, there are only two stories: a man goes on a journey and a stranger comes to town.  This story begins with a disheveled old man walking up a dusty road toward a town.  There is a man in his field on the outskirts of town; he can see the dust rising before the stranger comes up over the rise.  He stops leans on his plow, and watches for a minute to see who it is.  He strains his eyes, and as the man makes his way up the road, he comes into view piece by piece.  It takes a second for him to recognize the stranger, the realization shows on his face.  He calls one of his boys over to him. You can see him say something to the lad and the young man takes off up the road.  Before the stranger can reach the man and his field, a group of men have gathered, they are conferring.  You can hear them identify this stranger as “the prophet,” “the judge.”  There is a mumble about how his sons are no good, but he is God’s man, but what is he doing here?  The king has fallen out of favor with him.  He is displeased, says God is displeased. He hasn’t spoken to the king in quite a long time.  What is he doing here?  What does Samuel have to do with us? They talk and come to a decision.  As Samuel approaches them one of them calls out, “Do you come in peace?”   Seriously a screen play writer could not have written this better.  “Yes I come in peace, I have come to make sacrifices to God, sanctify yourselves and come with me.” And as things progress you see him making a point to assure that all the boys from one particular family are sanctified.

After the sacrificing is done, he calls Jesse, the father of this family, over and one by one inspects his boys.  The eldest one is tall and strong and handsome, an obvious leader surely. Samuel examines him closely, looks up into the man’s strong face. The voice of God speaks quietly to Samuel telling him to not look at outward appearance because God looks at the heart. Samuel looks away from the man disappointed, shaking his head, “no, no he is not the one.”  He looks at the next son, shakes his head again, “no, not the one.”  He goes through the next, and the next, and the next, until seven of Jesse’s sons have passed before Samuel, each one is not the one.  None of these are the one, do you have any other sons, (are you holding out on me?).  Jesse is slightly taken aback and a little shame faced. Yeah, he has another son, the youngest, “he is out tending the sheep and playing his harp. He really is of no account, but if you want me to call him in from the fields I can.”  He sends one of the others and shortly our hero, a handsome young man, with a beautiful smile and captivating eyes comes up over the hill running, wondering what his father wants with him.  The boy is still out of breath as Samuel looks him up and down,  looks him in the eye and says, “You, you are the one.”  Samuel anoints this one to be king.

We all remember grade school gym class, I know I do, I remember when the teams were being chosen, whether it be kickball, dodge ball, or esp. basketball, as you can imagine, I was not the first to be chosen, or the second one. I was almost always the next to last, you know right before the girl who broke her foot last week.  This is what is going on here except all the kids who are used to being to being picked first, aren’t being picked at all, and you can’t help but wonder why.  What’s wrong with them?  Are they, like Saul, out of favor with God?  What hidden flaw do they have?  What malady of the Spirit does God see that Samuel and the onlookers are missing?

It is easy to get caught up on why God does not choose Jesse’s other seven sons, and why God chooses David instead.  Since God looks at the heart and not outward appearance, the assumption is that there must be something defective with these young men that only God can see. And David must have some phenomenal inner trait that only God can see.  But the text does not say that.  Nothing bad is said about any of these young men, just that they are not chosen.  David is said to be handsome and have beautiful eyes, we do not know what God sees when God sees into David’s heart, but God chooses David, and the story of that David’s slow progression toward Kinghood begins.

And Jesse’s other sons are left standing in the field un-chosen and not good enough, or at least from this point on we forget about them.  But it is not so much that they were unchosen, just that they were not chosen to be king.  I am sure if they followed God and were faithful to God they were chosen for something else in their lifetimes, to live quiet lives as strong men of God, leaders in their town, in their clan, in their tribe, to be good farmers or shepherds, husbands, fathers.  They have stories, they have callings, they were chosen but not chosen to be king.

That is the thing to remember when we look at this anointing story, this story of the choosing of David.  David was not simply chosen, as if being chosen is an end in itself. No one is ever chosen just to be chosen. David is chosen to be king. 

David is chosen to be king, because somewhere in that harp playing sheep tending heart God sees that this one, this one can make a good king.  David is not simply chosen he is chosen to do something specific.  You can imagine as David kneels before Samuel, out of breath from running in from the field, the scent of sheep still on him, and the notes from the last song he was playing on his harp still in his mind, that he is thinking to himself, ”is this guy for real?  God has chosen me?  To be king?” 

It is not so much that when God looks into David’s heart, God sees a phenomenally spiritual man who is so amazing that God just has to choose this one to be king, but more along the lines that when God looks into this young man’s heart, God see in him the potential to be a great man of God, an excellent leader, the king of God’s people.  David is not chosen to be king because he is already amazing, but because God knows that this harp playing shepherd has the potential, if he trusts and relies on God he can be the king these people actually need. 

When God looked into the hearts of his brothers, God saw something else for them, something else a little less flashy, a little less remembered for all time, but important, pertinent and valuable each in their own way, just not chosen to be king.

The fact of the matter is not everyone is chosen to be king.  There is only one king, that is one of the things about being king, when all are going well, there can be only one. When there is more than one there is a problem and things don’t go down so peaceably.  God chose David to be king. But God also choose Jesse to be the father of a king and God choose David’s brothers to do other vital things in their community and in the lives of their loved ones.

God chooses and God chooses based on criteria we may never understand.  We may not understand why God choose those around us to do the things that God is choosing for them to do.   I may never really know why God choose an ultimately, shy, awkward, who had few friends, to be a pastor, but God saw something at 13 that those around me did not yet see and something that I most definitely did not see in myself.  But God chose me, not simply for the sake of choosing, God chose me to do that which God enabled me to do.  Not that which I could do on my own, not that any of this was within my own power to accomplish, but God called me to do that which could only be accomplished if I walked with God and trusted God.

God calls us all.  This is not like gym classes where some of us are standing last in line but God chooses us all first to do what it is that God calls us to do.  When God comes before us God does not pass us by, but chooses us to do that which God knows, once enabled and empowered by God, we can accomplish and will accomplish.  It is an old worn out saying but it is true.  God does not call the enabled, God enables the called.  But God does call.  God calls us all.  In Ephesians Paul says some are called to be teachers, and some to be evangelists and some to be preachers.  The fact of the matter is that we are all called by Go to do something, we are all empowered by God to do something.  We are all chosen, but we are not simply chosen to be chosen, to be special, we are all chosen; chosen because God knows our hearts; chosen to do that which God will enable us to do; chosen to do the work and the will of God in this world, to glorify God and to further God’s kingdom.  But we are all chosen we just need to trust and rely on God in all things to enable us to be the person and do the things God has chosen for us to do.  

Two Men of God; Old and Young: 1 Samuel 3:1-21

So the people of Israel traveled across the desert and eventually, after many years and many things occurred, they finally found their way into the land to which God had promised to Abraham all those years before. They settle in that land and it became their home.

And in that land was a woman named Hannah, a second wife, who was cherished by her husband even though she continued to bare no children. Although her husband did not hold her barrenness against her, but instead showed her favor in all things, this greatly distressed her. So she went to the temple and prayed for a child. In fact she prayed for so long and so fervently that the priest thought she was drunk and tried to oust her from the temple until she explained her situation to him. So, instead of tossing her out for being drunk, he blessed her for her faithfulness and her zeal for the Lord and sent her on her way. And in due time (that's how the scriptures say it, “In due time.”), she bore a son and named him Samuel and when he was old enough she took Samuel to the temple and gave him over to the Lord to serve God for the entirety of his life. So from the time he was a young boy, Samuel lived in the temple and served the Lord there under the priest Eli.

As Eli is left to raise Hannah's son, Samuel, as a servant of the Lord in the temple, he has his own troubles at home. He has two sons, who are grown. And, although he raised them to follow in the family “business” they were not cut out to be priests. They cheated the people out of their portions of the meat they brought to offer, not only did they take from the portions that were reserved for the people,  that they would take from the ones that were supposed to be given completely over to God and be consumed by fire. And as if that was not enough they were took advantage of the women who came to the temple, in ways that were not appropriate to go into due to the PG rating of this of this worship service. I am sure, it would not surprise you, to hear, God was not at all please these sons of Eli and declared, if they continue in their perverse ways, they were not long for the priesthood, or this world. And that pretty much brings up to date to where were in this passage.

Samuel is a bit older now, but still quite young. He is serving Eli and serving the Lord in the temple, but he “does not yet know the Lord.” Which is not to say that Eli has completely failed in raising Samuel in the ways of God, but is a way for the scripture to let us, the readers, who perhaps have heard of this prophet named Samuel and the things he did later on in his life; letting us know that this was before Samuel was Samuel, this is the very beginning. This is where it all started, before he the mighty prophet to the people, before he was a king maker or a king breaker. He was just a boy, who did not yet know the Lord, in the manner in which we are accustomed to. This was before all that, when he did not yet have a reputation, when he did not yet recognize the voice of the Lord, when it called his name.

And that is exactly what happened on this night, when Samuel was young and still slept in anonymity. In a time when the word of the Lord was rare and visions were scarce, in the middle of night, the word of the Lord came to a child. He did not recognize the voice of the Lord at first, but with some help from Eli who realized what was going on, was able, after hearing God call several times, to understand that it was the Lord who was speaking to him and respond accordingly.

God's call to Samuel and the message God gives to him is not a great one. God explains that Eli's sons are not long for the priesthood or this world. Being a priest and a prophet in Israel is not a “family” business, especially when the ones coming up in the family a disgrace to the temple, are disgracing God and generally making a nuance of themselves. God will not allow the sons of Eli to continue to be priests after Eli. Implied is that Samuel will serve as priest and prophet for God in their stead.

No matter how much Eli might have wished for his sons to be the men of God, we can only assume, he raised them to be, they were not. Being the child of a person of faith does not make you a person of faith. In fact being trained or raised by a person of faith does not make you a person of faith. Dare I go so far to say that being trained to be a pastor does not make you a person of faith? Being a person of faith makes you a person of faith.

Here we have examples three people who are raised and trained by a wonderful man of God. But only one of them actually is willing to hear and listen to the word of God. We do not know what the faith experience of Eli’s two sons was, but we can be pretty safe in saying they did not actually possess Eli’s faith in God. They knew how to be priests. They knew how to offer sacrifices, they knew how to guide and direct others in how to worship the Lord. But there is little indication that they actually lived out what it meant to be people who loved and worshiped God.

None of us can assume that we are Christians because we have been raised in the faith. The faith of our parents is not passed on to us like a hooked nose or a crooked smile. Although it is always important to guide and direct the children in our congregation in the ways of the Lord, I am pretty sure we all know that they will not believe simply because we bring them to Church each week and work to raise them in the faith. It is the same with our own faith. We cannot rely on the faith of anyone else to carry our own. We cannot assume that just because our mother or father had deep faith that simply because we come to church and were raised by them that we too will be people of God. Nor can we rely on the faith of our teachers and our pastors. Just because we have been trained in the ways of the Lord, does not make us people of God.

Our live and our actions will bear out the truth of our faith. We may have be led by amazing people of God, like Eli, but being led and taught by an amazing person of God will not necessarily make us the people of God we should be. We can learn and grow by being taught and guided by other great Christians, but unless we seek to be the people of God they are teaching us to be. Unless we study scripture, and seek to be the people God is calling us to be, in the end the actions of our lives will reflect something other than the character of God.

On one hand we have the sons of Eli, they tricked and cheated people, and they were dishonest and took advantage of their position. They were in short, men of very little if any faith. Their lives reflected the truth that the faith in which they were raised had very little bearing on the way they were actually living their lives. Then we have Samuel, who has received the same training they have, who has been raised by the same person who raised them. What we see in his life is a person who in all things desires to be a person whose life reflects the faith in which he has been raise.

When the lamp light is low and the night is long, Samuel is sleeping in the temple. God comes to him calls his name. He might not know it to be the voice of God. He might not know what to do when he hears the voice of God but he knows who to go to. When he is in the temple and he hears someone one calling, he goes to Eli to see what needs to be done. He is willing to listen, and follow instructions, even in the middle of the night. He may not know who is calling but he knows that he needs to be ready to listen and to do what he is called to do. Even when he has yet to really know what it means to be a person of God, Samuel was willing and ready to do what needed to be done. He was willing to seek guidance and to listen.

The message God tells Samuel that Eli’s sons will not be priests after him. That it will be the messages that God gives to Samuel that will make the ears of those who hear tingle. From this point on it will be Samuel who God will use and through Samuel God will work.

And Samuel goes back to his bed with this knowledge. He was ready, he was willing, he was eager to hear the word the Lord had to say to him, but it must have been really hard to know that God was calling you to shake up the status quo. That God was going to change the way things were done, that God was going to use you to undercut the way things had “always” been done. He sat awake that night knowing that God was choosing to work through him instead of working through Eli’s sons.

It is neat to think that God called Samuel by name. That he was minding his own business, doing the work his mother had commissioned him to do and God comes to him and calls him by name. God chose him, the little boy Samuel, the nobody who was more of a servant to a dottering old priest than anything else and called him by name. It would be easy to focus on how amazing it is that God calls us, you and me to do the work and the will of the Lord in this world. That God uses people like you and me who are just going about our mundane lives, doing our mundane things to carry out the very work of God.

The thing is that God did not wake Samuel up in the middle of the night to ask him to continue doing what he was doing, to affirm the work he was doing in the temple, helping Eli and serving Eli. He did not call Samuel by name to ask him to call him to a position of prestige and comfort. He did not even call Samuel to go tell that they were doing great! God did not call Samuel to do anything fun or easy. He called Samuel and in doing so called Samuel to change the way things were done, (sons of priests became priests), to uproot the status quo and to break the system.

Then with the first morning light, Eli calls Samuel into his room and asks him, “What did God have to say?” And Samuel has to tell him that God is going to get rid of his sons and that God is choosing Samuel to be prophet and priest in their stead. I am sure that Samuel expected Eli to get mad, to rail against him, to declare him to be a false prophet. I am sure there are any number of responses Samuel imagined as he lay in his bed, definitely not sleeping, until morning, but Eli did none of those things. Eli accepts the will of the Lord. He knows his sons, he has seen them, and although his father’s heart had a hard time seeing it, he knows that they really cannot go on serving as priests. They are simply not fit for the duty. He accepts the will of the Lord.

As people of God, the things God has to say to us are not always easy to hear. But when we, are like Eli and truly seeking after God; when we are like Eli and truly want to hear what it is God is saying, we will accept it and go with it, even if it is hard to hear, even if it means that we or those we love will lose our positions of authority and power. There is much we can learn from Eli’s, “Let the Lord do what seems good.” Wow. The faith it must take; the obedience, the maturity, to hear a hard word of God and accept it!

Here we have Samuel, at the beginning of his life, before anyone knows who Samuel is, when he is just a nobody, a servant of a priest, doing what he is told, God comes to him. Samuel does not even know the voice of the Lord when he hears it, but he is willing to listen, to hear, to do what needs to be done. He is willing to seek out leadership and guidance from another who does know. And he is willing to do whatever it is God is calling him to do; even if the call is scary, even if the call is to bring about change that others might not be willing to accept; even it if means shaking up the status quo and dismantling broken systems. He is ready to hear, willing to listen, and eager to carry out the work and the will of God. We all should be a little more like Samuel.

And we have Eli, at the end of his life. Old and set in his ways; faithfully seeking God even at the end of his life. He has made some mistakes, but he is still listening for God. He is still serving God. He is still teaching and guiding those younger than he, to walk in the faith, instructing them to how to hear God’s voice, instructing them on how to listen and how to obey. And even willing to accept the word of God, even when it means that he will lose his power, his position and his authority, he is willing to accept the will of God, even when it does not seem like good news to him, he is willing so see that the work and will of God is good even when he does not like what it means for him. We should all be more like Eli.

Enough for Today - Exodus 16:1-18

The Israelit­es are making their way across the wilderness. They have passed through the Sea with Egyptians and their chariots floating its waters behind them. They have ventured forth with the God of their ancestors, who has promised to lead them back to the land, which God had personally given to their ancestor Abraham and his descendants (who just so happened to be them). Even though God was in many ways leading them to the home, they never knew they had, in many ways, they are walking in the spiritual footsteps of Abraham, to whom God said, “follow me and I will lead you to land which I will show to you.” Stepping out into that wilderness and following a God they barely knew they had, who had done, great and sometime frightening things! But great things none-the-less.

God had sent the plagues, which did not end so well for anyone who was not a God-fearer. Then when the Egyptians had chased them across the wilderness, after saying they could go, God divided the water for the Israelites to pass through safely, but the result was not the same when the Egyptians attempted to follow them into the “dry sea.” But the end result was that the Israelites were finally free.

And there was much rejoicing (yeaahhh). But it soon stopped, they were running out of water and were getting mighty thirsty, and just in time they came upon some water, but it was unsuitable to drink, it was bitter so God made it good to drink, sweet.

Then, as they traveled, they realized their rations were not going to be enough to get them where they needed to go. After all it is hard to pack enough for a journey if you do not know exactly how long its gonna be. They are in a barren wasteland where food is scarce. They have not brought enough with them to feed them throughout their journey, and there seem to be very little prospects of finding food along the way.

God already provided them with water that was clean and sweet, but that is not enough when they are now hungry. So here they are somewhere between Egypt and the “land to which God was taking them.” And they about to run out of food. And this does not make them happy.
As they set up camp that evening Moses can hear the rumblings among them. As they settle down that evening with the last of their lamb for their dinners and eating the last of the berries they had brought with them, the fear and anxiety is palpable. The people begin to mumble and the mumbling turns to grumbling, and grumbling turns to rumbling. Why did Moses bring out into the desert? Did he do it, so we could eat the last of our animals and watch our children die? What the people are beginning to really wonder is “Is God really among us?”

Moses begins to fear that they are so angry that they may make and attempt on his life, so he goes to God with the problem. “God, these people might just up and kill me, if they don’t get some food , here real soon.” God tells Moses that they will all have enough to eat, enough meat and enough bread. God tells them that when they wake up in the morning, there will be bread laying on the ground for them to eat. When they poke their heads out of their tents after a good nights sleep, bread will be laying on the ground, with the morning dew. It will cover the ground all around them. And they are to each gather just enough for one person to eat each day, no more, no less. Each one will have just enough to eat for one day.

But that is not all, in the evening, just as the sky is going red and the sun begins to dip beneath the horizon, the encampment will be filled with quail. Everyone is to gather and cook the quail and fill their bellies before they go to bed each night. Enough bread and enough quail for each day, every day.

Everyone has just enough. No one needed more than enough. There was bread for one day, and quail for one day. God provided enough for each of them, each and every day. They were on the move there was no reason for them to carry around food they had not eaten, food that they did not immediately need. But they would always have exactly enough, exactly what they needed. Enough for each one, enough for everyone. And each night they went to bed full and satisfied.

At the hour of their greatest need the people are satisfied; satisfied in more than one way. Satisfied, in that their hunger is relieved and satisfied, in that their fear of dying is abated, in that are provided food, for everyone, everyday, but also satisfied in that God provided an answer their desperate question, “Is God really among us?” God shows them that they are not alone. They were not brought out into the wilderness to die, not by Moses, not by God. God is a God who will provide, exactly what is needed, when it is needed; enough for today.

Thousands of years of hind sight cause us to look back on the Israelites and call them, “silly.” Of course God would provide for them. Of course God did not bring them out there to die. That is not what God is all about. We know that is not WHO God is. We know that God would never do that to the Israelites.

“Those silly Israelites, didn’t they know that God would not take them into the wilderness and leave them there to be killed by wild animals, starvation or even thirst?”

“Don’t they know that is not how God acts?”

No they don’t. They don’t know God, not really. This is the beginning of God’s relationship with these people. They really did not know the one true God of all creation from false, capricious and sometimes vindictive gods, that were worshiped by the Egyptians. When Moses came to them to bring them up out of slavery, that was really their first introduction to YWH God, Moses has just introduced this “I Am” God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Thus far they have seen that God is a powerful God, who could out magic the host magicians of the Egyptian court. This is a God who could call down death on their enemies and control the forces of nature, making a dry path through the sea. This God could take bitter water and make it sweet. They are in a land with out bush for berries or animals for hunting. Can they trust this God to provide what does not exist? Was this new God, still among them, way out here in the desert? So far God had proved to be faithful and true but they were still learning. They were still coming to an understanding of exactly who this God, the God of the universe, this “I am that I am” truly is.

It is the same with us. Sometimes we wonder, “WHO is this God we have chosen to follow?” When we are truly honest with ourselves each of us can find that there are times in our lives when we are just as unsure about God as the Israelites in this passage:

“Can I trust God?”

“Can I trust God with my money?”

“Can I trust God to meet my daily needs?”

“Can I trust God with my hopes? My dreams?”

“Can I trust God with my parents, my children, my livelihood?”

“Is God really with me today? Will God be with me tomorrow?”

“Is God among us?”

I can remember laying on a make shift bed, snuggled underneath a top sheet laying on top of a fitted sheet wrapped around a comforter in a tiny little one room apartment, with very little food in the cupboard. My computer was sitting on a box. My clothes were stacked in neat piles in the corner and my newly completed Greek homework was resting on top of my brand new seminary books, which were stacked on a bookshelf, which was one of few pieces of furniture there. Lying on that “bed” in the dark crying to God, asking God, “Why?” I had moved halfway across the country to attend seminary. And my life had almost immediately fallen apart around me. Here I was alone, hungry, laying in the ashes of what were my hopes and dreams, still slugging through my homework, beginning Seminary, because I did not know what else to do. I felt so lost.

In that moment I knew what it felt like to be the Israelites, as they made their way through the wilderness toward Mt Sinai. It felt like God had brought me out to this wilderness call the “Midwest,” a land that was flat and far from home and a city which simply was not a city, not anyway that I would consider a city, a real city. And I wondered if God had brought me out here and left me, not so much to die, but to fail, to shrivel up and live a shell of the life, I had once envisioned I would live. I wondered if God was still there.

It was not that God had not worked amazing miracles in my life before. It was not that God had not proven that God was trustworthy to provide exactly what I needed all along my journey thus far, but this time felt different. This time might really be the end of me. This might really be the ruins of my life, this might really be the time that things were too big for God; this time I really felt like there was no place I could go, there was no way that things would ever be right or good again. It had all come crashing down around me and there was nothing anybody could do to fix it, perhaps not even God.

There are times in our lives when we look around us and we wonder; “Where is God now? I am so lost. There is not enough money to make it the next month. I am thirty. I am hungry. Can God really be here among all this?”

These are not the questions of some silly Israelites who lived a long time ago and have nothing to do with us. These are our questions. This is the tenuous relationship we are building with God. Even when we have seen God work miracles in our midst in the past, when we come to this new thing, this new trial, this new fear, this new part of our journey through life, we have to learn once again, that God can be trusted. We have to learn once again that God does not, will not, forsake us or leave us. And it is ok, to feel this way. Each time we find ourselves in these kinds of places we will come a little closer to, become a little more confident in, trusting God. It will be just a little easier than it was last time. Each time we find that we are hungry, thirsty, lost, in need and cry out to God, we will find it easier and easier to trust and know that God is there, that no matter what is going on, no matter what we have done, no matter what life throws at us, no matter what kind evil befalls us, God is still among us and God will always provide exactly what we need, and in all things, when we turn to God we will be filled and be satisfied.

When the God of all Being Calls YOU: Exodus 3:1-15, 4:10-17

One of my favorite statues of all times stands to your right when you enter the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It is a statue of Jacobed, Moses' mother. She is a seated figure carved of smooth white stone, holding her infant son Moses. Her face if full love and full of grief, her story and the story of her infant son written all over it. If you have never seen here there, she alone is worth the trip.

Moses, is the primary figure in our passage today. Quite a lot has happened to bring Moses to this point. Pharaoh, was nervous because it seemed there was a lot of Hebrew people living in his land, so he enslaved them. But although they suffered in their slavery their population continued to grow and Pharaoh was afraid that there was the possibility that they would over run the place, so he decided to fix “Hebrew over population problem” by having all their boy babies murdered at birth. It is Jacobed, Moses' mother who saves her baby boy by putting him in a basket and floating him down river, were he is found by Pharaoh's daughter who took pity on the infant and decided to raise him as her own.

So, Moses, is raised in the household of the very Pharaoh who was seeking to have him and his kindred killed. As he grew, he became aware of the hardships of his people and when he came to the defense of a fellow Israelite who was being abused by a slave master, he killed the Egyptian in his zeal. He fled the land of Egypt and ran all the way to Moab (which is just on the other side of the Jordan from the land God had promised to his forefathers). There he marries, Zipporah, the daughter of a priest (whom we can only assume is what would at this time be called a “god-fearer,” one who followed the God of Abraham). And he settles down, starts a family, and watches after the flocks of his father-in-law.

He is doing just that, watching the sheep, when our passage catches up to him today. He is alone watching sheep and sees a bush catch fire. “Now that’s odd,” he thinks and goes back to counting sheep, “231, 232, 233, (yawn) 234, 235, (head nod), Wait, is that bush burning? It’s on fire, but it’s not burning.” “Count sheep? Check this out? Count Sheep? Check this out.”

So he goes over to look at this bush that refuses to burn, while still burning. And then the bush does something entirely unexpected, (as if burning, not burning was not unexpected enough) it speaks to him. Well, more precisely, God speaks to him from out of the center of the bush.

Now, I want you to hear me, God calls to him from out of the bush. I am not sure what to do with this. The God of the universe, the God who put the stars into place, who created all that lives and breathes and swims in the sea, is in this bush. The burning, not burning bush, is somehow containing the inexhaustible, uncontainable God of the universe. If I ever doubted that God could and does choose to use anyone (or anything) to accomplish whatever it is God needs done, there is my ‘proof’ right there. God uses a bush. But I digress.

God speaks to Moses out of this bush. In fact, God and Moses have a little conversation about the people of Israel. God has come down because God cannot stand by and allow God’s people to suffer as they do. God will rescue them, God will not allow them to be oppressed. God is going to do something. God is going to send Moses to them.

Moses is not immediately keen on this idea and does not believe the people will trust him. And they have a really good reason not to, because you know after all he was raised as an Egyptian, as the grandson of the Pharaoh, it would be kind of hard for them to immediately see where his loyalties lie. Not to mention he killed a guy. Sure it was an Egyptian, and he was doing it in defense of an abused Hebrew, but he still, just up and killed a guy. Between his family ties and his past actions, his character is a little less than trust worthy. He is not so sure this is a good idea. So, as a way to “distract” God from this silly idea of choosing him to rescue the people, and perhaps get God off track he asks God for a name.

Now names are interesting. As parents we get to actually take on the task of “naming” our children. It is one of the many things parents do as they prepare for a new baby. Well, let’s face it, many of us thought about what we would name our children long before our children were even a possibility. Mike and I, who were not planning on having any children when we were dating, discussed what names we liked, if we did indeed have children. In fact we picked out Cidra’s name during one such conversation.

What makes a good name? The sound of it? Does it need to have meaning you like? Does it have sentimental value? Does it have a connection to family? Is a character in a novel you like? What makes a good name?

We all kind of take names for granted, we all have one, after all. But God did not have one. Not at this point, not that we know of. If Abraham or Isaac, Jacob or Joseph knew it, none of them ever passed it on. Moses did not know God’s name, the scriptures do not tell us, or at least prior to this point it is not revealed.

What is really interesting about Moses asking God for a name, is that’s not the way is usually worked. Usually the people named their own gods. The gods’ of Egypt were named and formed by the people who worshiped them. Just as you or I might name a newborn child.

The Egyptian God, Rah's name was not given to his people, but the people gave it to Rah. The great god Rah was the Sun and the god of the Sun was named Rah, by the Egyptian people. The people understood the power of the Sun. The power the Sun had for good, to bring light and life and the power it had to do evil, to scorch and burn, to turn a fertile land into a desert. They knew the power of Rah in that they knew the power of the Sun.

Who is this God who has gone unnamed? How is Moses to understand this God? What power does this God have? How can God make promises to save the Hebrew people, if they do not know or understand who this God is? What does God do? What is God’s name? It is in God’s name that they could begin to know and understand what kind of power God might have? Is rescuing them from their Egyptian oppressors even within God’s power? If Moses was being honest these were the questions that were truly at the heart of all this is, “Can I trust you?” “Can you actually do what you say you will do?”

So what is God’s name? We translate it here, “I am who I am.” Or “I will be who I will be.” Or, “I am who I am being.” Or even, “I am being who I am.”

Translation is such a funny thing. It gives the impression of a thing, a close proximity. Translation in itself is almost like rewriting a metaphor so that people in a different place and culture can understand it, but things are so very often lost in translation, especially when something is hard to translate or has no clear equivalent. And the four Hebrew letters that make up God’s name: “Yhod-heh, vav, heh,” are not very easy to bring over to English.

So let me be very clear the word here is not just a word. It is not like God’s name is something easy like “Sun,” or “the Creator.” The word here for God’s name is not really a “thing,” nor is it a descriptive phrase. God's name is a cognate, a form, of the verb “To be.” But there is not good or precise way to translate what it means in its entirety.

The word is a verb, but it has no tense, it is a non-declined verb. It is verb-like, but it does not have all the pieces parts that give a clear and distinct meaning. When cleaned up and polished it can be brought into English, “I am who I am.” Or less clean, “I be, who I be,” but at the same time it has a future cast, since it is not in a tense per-se, it is in the present tense and the future tense at the same time and also is in the past. “I will be, who I will be” “I have been who I have been.” But it is more about God “being”; “I am being, who I am being.” “I am who I am being.” “I will become who I am.” “I am who I become.” “I am being who I am.” It gives the idea that God is the “becoming God.” That God is “being.” All being, what it means ‘to be”, what it means to “become,” is found in God. God is the God through whom all things find being, in whom all being is found. God is the ONE in whom all, everything IS. God is the IS in all things. We “are” because all that makes us able “to be”, “to become,” “to do” is found in God.

God does not simply have a name like Bob, because Bob-ness would be limited to name who God actually is, because God IS. The name God gives to Moses is not a name it is not a noun it is kind of verb (because God is the action that God does), but not a verb that can be nailed down to yesterday, today or tomorrow. It has no tense because who God is, is not found within the confines of time.

This is fantastic. Moses wants to know God’s name because he needs assurance that God can be trusted. He needs to be able to tell the people that God is capable of doing what God says God will do. Is God powerful enough to fight Pharaoh, all the god’s of Egypt, and the great god Rah for God’s people? Is God mighty? Is God powerful? Can God truly rescue them? So he asks, Who are you? What is your name?

And God says, “I am who I am.” I am the God who is, who was and will be. I am the God who IS BEING itself. Anything that IS finds its BEING in me. I AM! Um yeah, I think the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, can take on Egypt and her host of puny limited gods who find their power in the things to which this God gives being.

At this point it should be fair enough to say to Moses, “Yes, Moses this God to whom you speak, the God of your fore-fathers, of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, the God whose name is Being itself, can handle rescuing a population of people from their oppressors. They can trust God and you can trust God.

But Moses is not fully convinced that HE is the one God really wants. Moses was uncertain about this God who seemed to have forgotten about them for a little while, this God he had perhaps forgotten about for a while. But this God is not merely the God of the sun or the Moon, this God is the God of all being and that is pretty amazing, but then this God of all being tells him, Moses, the baby in the basket, the adopted grandson of Pharaoh, the killer, the runner, the sheepherder that he, Moses, has been chosen to lead his people to freedom.

Perhaps he has no reason to not follow this God of his ancestors from here on out, but what he can not do is go talk to grandfather (who is pretty upset with him and probably wants him dead), and all the the Hebrew people living in the land of Egypt. Nope, he can not do that. No way no how. They won't believe him, they won't follow him, and besides he can't talk very well. God has heard that through the course of this conversation. “You have heard me as I have spoken to you!” Moses says to God.

So what does God do? God gives Moses, God's own name, so the people will believe him. God gives Moses signs to show the people, so they will follow him (and to give him some authority with ole Pharaoh) and finally God tells him that he did not need to worry about his inability to speak, if he is worried that he can't do this, God will allow Moses to use Aaron, his brothe, to help him speak to the people and to Pharaoh.

Moses is full of excuses as to why he can not follow God, as to why he can not do what it is God has called him to do and God is full of answers. No matter what Moses throws at God, God has an answer. God has called Moses and there is not amount of excuses real or imagine which God will not over come to allow Moses to do what it is God is calling Moses to do.

So there we have it,God give's Moses God's own name. We have God’s name, “I am.” God is not merely the God of all things, God is the God in whom all things find being, God is being, the ONE whose very essence it being itself.” “The Being God, the ISing God, the Becoming God”

“Yhod, heh, vav, heh;” We often bring it into English as Yahweh. But we don’t hear it very often. In fact other than right here, our English Bibles seem to not ever mention it again. But in Hebrew it is all over the place. It is used throughout most of the Old Testament books. But it is not there in English. That is because from very early on the Hebrew people decided the name of God was sacred and they avoided saying it. They would write it, it is there in the scriptures, but whenever they read the name of God they would instead say the word “Adonai”, which means “Lord”. And out of this long standing tradition of not actually “saying” the name of God, we translate it, “Lord”. And to distinguish it from when the original word is actually “Lord,” often times it is there in all capital lets, “L-O-R-D”

But when the early Hebrews read their scripture the name of God was there, they knew it was there, a constant reminder of exactly who God is, of exactly who they were worshiping. They could see it there, they knew it was there, always before them. They had no excuse to ever forget. We on the other hand, because of the way our bibles bring the word into English, do not have this constant reminder. Sometime it is harder for us to remember. Sometimes we forget.

We like Moses during the course of our lives find ourselves in situations, going through periods, where we might begin to wonder. “Can I trust God in this? Can I trust God with this?” We may even be brave enough when we are honest with ourselves, to ask, “Can God really handle this?” And we need to remember, we need to remember exactly who we worship. We do not worship a God who can create all things. We do not worship a God who can command all things. We worship the God who IS the is in all things, the being-ness behind the actual being of all things. We worship the God in whom we all find our being. No matter how frightening, no matter how disconcerting, no matter how all consuming, the situations in our lives are, God it bigger. Our God can be trusted to be able to handle our situations and the concerns in our lives.

But even when we have come to trust God, we still have excuses, both real and imagined. We are uncertian we can do the things God is calling us to do. We are uncertain we can be the people God is calling us to be. We are unsure we can live up to what it means to be a Christian living wholly given over to God. We feel as if we could never be the kind of people who can talk to our friends or neighbors about this Jesus we love so much. WE feel like no one we know really wants to hear about our God and how absolutely amazing God is. We are unsure if, we can be the kind of person who can live the love of God in all the places we go. We are uncertain if we can respond with loving kindness in the face of disparities that we face in our day to day lives. We are uncertain we are the ones who really should be standing up for the oppressed in our world or if we are the right people to speak truth to power in this world where those in power are daily perpetrating and allowing injustice to run rampant all around us. We feel we are too small, to insignificant to make any real changes in this world. But when God calls us to do these things. We are able, God will give us any of the tools we need and will even bring people to come alongside of us, as Aaron did for Moses to bring strength to the places we are weak. We may have excuses as to why we can not be the people God is calling us to be, but our God, the God of all being is bigger than our excuses. God will enable us and empower us to do anything God is calling us to do.

Encountering God on the Run: Genesis 27:1-4, 15-23, 28:10-21

Genesis 27:1-4, 15-23, 28:10-21

There is just a little bit of history that gets us to where were are today. After the occurrence on Mount Moriah, Isaac grew and eventually got married and started a family of his own. While Rebekah, his blushing bride, was still with child she became alarmed with what was going on in here womb and prayed to God for answers. Her answer was that there were two boys in her womb and they were fighting. Each one would become a nation in their own right. Not only would the boys fight even as they were in the womb, but the nations they would become would also fight. God told her that one would be stronger than the other and the older will serve the younger.

When she gave birth she had two sons. She named the elder Esau which means hairy because he was covered in hair and the younger was named Jacob, which means heel grabber, because he was born grasping Esau by the heel. Coincidentally, Jacob also means trickster or liar. Esau became a strong and mighty hunter. Jacob on the other hand stayed near the tents, and probably was a shepherd. And as with all “good” parents each one had a favorite. Isaac preferred the elder, Esau, the hunter, while Rebekah found joy in her younger son, Jacob. (No wonder the two boys were always fighting)

To say the boys did not get along would be an understatement. The boys never seemed to get along. At one point Esau came in from the fields, hungry from hunting. He found that Jacob had just finished making a stew. He told Jacob that he was famished and would die if he did not get some of the stew, right now. Jacob, knowing an opportunity when he saw one, told Esau that he would trade the stew for Esau's birthright.

A little background here. Esau was the eldest son, which means that he was second only to his father. When the father passed, leadership of the family passed to the eldest son. The eldest son also received a double share of the inheritance. This was called the birthright. Esau having been born just before Jacob was the eldest son and the holder of the birthright in the family.

So, although Esau was a little taken aback by the high price of Jacob's stew, he was apparently hungry enough to sell his birthright to his brother for a bowl of it. So Jacob the heel grabbing trickster begins to live up to his name.

Which brings us to the story we have today. Isaac is ill, and although he continues to live for quite some time following this event, he is apparently is ill enough that he is going to pass his authority, leadership of the family on to Esau and give his final blessing to his sons, now, before he eventually dies. This is will make Esau head of the family, and serve as Isaac's last will and testament, naming Esau as primary heir and Jacob as secondary heir to all he had, upon his actual death.

My guess, at this point is, that Isaac has a similar way to thinking as Mike and I when it comes to agreements between siblings. Generally, Mike and I agree that any agreements made between sisters must be ratified by an adult for them to be binding. Usually, in our household, these tend to be agreements about helping each other with chores, or the passing of possessions between the girls. If they make an agreement between themselves, that agreement can be rendered null by an adult, if either of us believes that one sister is taking advantage of the other.

Isaac, seemed to be under the impression that whatever agreement, Jacob made with Esau that day when Esau was so hungry he was willing to sell his birthright for soup, could be circumvented by his own authority. He had no intention of honoring the agreement made between the two young men. He was going to bless Esau, anyway.

Apparently he did not discuss this with Rebekah, because when she overhears Isaac's plans to give the birthright blessing to Esau anyway, she hatches a plan, of her own, to assure Jacob of his ill-gotten right to the birthright. Together with Jacob they implement an elaborate deception, which, in the end, results in Isaac blessing Jacob instead of Esau.

Esau, is justifiably infuriated, not only does he have a petty little brother who thinks that a birthright can be bought for the bargain price of a bowl of stew, but he has a lying, conniving brother, who is willing to dress up in an animal skin costume, and lie to his near blind, dying father, to get what he wants. And because of this, he has lost his position in the family and the greater part of his inheritance.  So Esau does what anybody would do in this situation, he plots to kill his brother as soon as his father dies.  In the intervening time, you know, between the blessing of Jacob and Isaac's actual death, he “silently stews;” by loudly proclaiming his intentions to anyone who will listen. I don't know if it did not occur to him that this would eventually get back to both his mother and his father or if he even cared. I mean, he was doing such a good job at keeping his plot to himself that it seemed everyone knew. So Isaac and Rebekah decided that it is time for Jacob to get himself a wife, you know a wife from among Rebekah's people, who lived, far, far, away from here. And therefore far, far, away from Esau.

So we have before us this morning, a tale of two “virtuous” brothers. One who is fool hearty and perhaps just a bit hot headed and the other who would probably make a very good professional con-man. I am sure, if we had to choose, we would not choose either of these two brothers to be our hero. But the Biblical account follows Jacob at this point.

Jacob is on the run, he is gonna lay low at his uncle's house for a while, so his brother can cool down and come to accept the events as they have unfolded. But he has to get there first, as I mentioned before Rebekah and Isaac thought, a good place for Jacob to go at this point was far, far, away. So, in a world without jet planes, high speed rail or even a broken down Chevies, he has to hike it.

One night, when he had come to a certain place, in other words, some random place along the way, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, he takes a stone and lays down for a good nights' sleep. Instead of a good nights' sleep, and he encounters God. He has a dream of angels, messengers of God going up and down a stairway between heaven and earth. Messengers, doing the will of God passing between the place where God dwells, into the world, doing the work and the will of God, bringing the messages of God to God's people where ever they are. But even as Jacob is watching the angels carrying the messages of God to the people of God, God meets him there in that place, face to face. No messenger, no angel, no go between, God appears to him and speaks with him there, halfway between where he is running from and where he is running to, that “certain place” that was really nowhere at all.

God speaks to Jacob and tells Jacob, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham. . . and the God of Isaac.” God then proceeds to promise Jacob that the land on which he lies will belong to his offspring and those same offspring will be like the dust of the earth and that through them all the families of the earth will be blessed. In short, God reiterates the promise God had made with Abraham and with Isaac before him and is now offering that same promise and covenant to Jacob. God expands upon the bones of the promise by also promising to be with Jacob. God will go with him wherever he goes and will return to this land with him and will remain with him until all God had promised to him was fulfilled, so basically ‘til the end of his life (after all the promise will not be fully fulfilled until long after Jacob's death).

God comes to Jacob. But why? Because he had been chosen before he was born? That would be an easy explanation. God had decided which brother would be chosen before either was born. God picks and chooses humans in the womb, calling one but not another for God's own reasons. If that were true, we would have to believe that decides who be a child of God and who would not be, that we are Christians, here today because God chose for us to be, before we were even born and those who are not here, are not Christians, were not chosen by God.

As Nazarenes, we do not believe this. We believe that each person can accept God's call on their lives, or reject it. We believe that God choses everyone; that God does not want anyone to not believe, not be a Christian, to not be a part of God’s great work in this world. We are children of God because we have accepted God's call on our lives.

This story is not about how God chose Jacob before birth, this story is about Jacob accepting God as his God. This, my friends, is Jacob’s conversion story. Jacob is a liar, a cheat, a fraud, a trickster. He is basically on the run, trying to get as far away from the consequences of his delinquent lifestyle and God comes to him. There in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the mess of his life and says, “I made a promise to your father and your grandfather, and I would like to extend that promise to you. If you agree, not only will I do all the things I said I would do for them, but I will be with you, from this moment on, for the rest of your life.”

At this point Jacob could say anything. He could have continued to try to be a greedy trickster and try to get God to give him the promise, but then not follow through on his part of the deal, which was to make God his God. I mean, if anyone could have believed that he could trick God, to get something, it would have been Jacob. He could have taken one look at the mess of his life and said, “You have not been here for me through all this, otherwise I would not be here. So I can't trust you to be here for me for the rest of my life.” He might have said, “You made a promise to my dad, and you want to carry that promise on through me!!?? Dad never liked me. He always preferred Esau. Why don't you go back to our tent in Beer-sheba and see if Esau wants this promise you made to our father! Maybe he needs a God to walk with all his, days, because I am fine on my own thank you.”

Jacob did not say any of these things or any of the number of other things he could have possibly said to reject God. Jacob accepts the call of God on his life. He accepts the promise, he accepts God's presence in his life. He accepts the whole kit-and-kaboodle.  He says this, “Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it! How awesome is this place!” And then he ends by saying, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way . . .then the Lord, shall be my God.”

Jacob declares God as his God. This is Jacob's conversion moment. This is when God becomes Jacob's God. This is when the promise passes from Isaac to him, and from this moment when it all happens. God is Jacob's God and Jacob follows God for all of his days, from this point on. God did not chose Jacob per say, Jacob chose God.

This is the first time that Jacob calls God his God. Earlier in the story, when speaking to Isaac, he calls God “your God.” Even in God's introduction, God says, “I am the Lord, God of Abraham and the God of Isaac,” not, “I am your God.” God knew the truth as it stood at that point. But, here, at the end of this encounter Jacob declares God to be his God. “The Lord shall be my God.” He accepts God as his own, his faith is his faith from this point on, it is no longer the faith of his father or his grandfather, or anyone else, his faith in God is his own. And that is conversion, to accept God as your own God, to declare, the Lord, God is my God and shall be from this point on. This moment right there, in the middle of nowhere, Jacob accepts God, he becomes a child of God, for the first time.

Jacob did not do anything to deserve God coming to him. Nothing in his life warranted an encounter with the one and only God of the universe. His life was a mess, he had continually chosen the worst way, in almost every situation. It had resulted in him having to run away from home, in fear of his life; in fear that his very own twin brother might actually follow through on a threat to kill him. But, none of that mattered, the one and only God of the universe, decided to meet Jacob in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a gigantic mess of his own making, and call to him, invite him to allow God to be his God. God came to him, invited him into relationship and Jacob accepted. 

This is exciting, this is amazing, this is good news. God came to Jacob, that dirty, no good, rotten, scoundrel, that he was, and invited Jacob to be the recipient of the promise. God could have scrapped the two brothers and all their nastiness. God could have skipped that generation and waited for a more worthy heir of Abraham to come along. God could have done a million things, but God went to Jacob, in all his unworthiness, and invited Jacob into relationship; invited Jacob to be a child of God. This is exciting! Because if God can come to Jacob, and invite Jacob into relationship, if Jacob can be a child of God, anyone can be.

In fact, the good news is that God reaches out to all of us. All of the families of the earth are blessed through Abraham, through Isaac, and through Jacob. I am a part of a family of earth, you are a part of a family of earth; we all are a part of a family of earth. We are all blessed through Jacob. There are many ways this is true, and there are many ways that this plays out throughout salvation history, but one way, is that God coming to Jacob, is lets us know that God comes to each of us. God gives us all the opportunity (and for most of us many opportunities) to allow God to be our God; to accept the promise of salvation for ourselves; to go wherever God takes us, knowing that wherever we go, God will always be with us, ‘til the end of our lives. God came to Jacob in all his unworthiness and invited him to be in relationship, and God and comes to us, each of us, all of us.

In fact, I am so positive of this, I am going to tell you something that I believe to be true, but is not recorded here for us in scripture. Remember how I said, Jacob could have turned God down. That Jacob could have walked away, chosen a different life for himself, to have nothing to do with God, for one of a hundred possible reasons a person might chose to do this. I believe, God very well might have encountered Esau, perhaps this same night, or some other night before or after this night and made the same promise to Esau. There is nothing in the promise that says it can only pass to one son, or had to only pass to the first born son, or the son who inherited the birthright. After all, ALL of Jacob's 12 sons inherit the promise. They become the twelve tribes that eventually make their way back to the land God promised to Abraham and to Isaac. Esau could have been a child of the promise as well. If I am right, and I believe I am, Esau did not accept God's call on his life, at this point or at any other point in his life. Whenever God came to him, however many times God might have done so, in whatever ways God did so, each time, Esau walked away. No matter how many times God chose Esau, Esau did not ever choose God.

Neither one of these brothers deserved to be chosen, neither one of them lived lives that exemplified faith, or righteousness, before God came to them. But, after Jacob encounters God, here in the middle of nowhere, between Beer-sheba and Haran, everything changed for him. He goes to his uncle’s house, and by all accounts, becomes a man of God; a person who listens and follows God, as he weaves his way through the rest of his life. Because this could be true to Jacob, that means, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done, no matter what your track record is, God can come to you too, to anyone for that matter.

In this way, we could say that we all are chosen. God chooses each and every one of us. God comes to us, where were are, in the middle of our mess, in the middle of whatever we have done with our lives, whoever we are, whoever we have become, no matter, God Chooses us, each of us every one of us. God comes to us, in the certain places, where we are, in all the places we live, in the places we work, wherever it is we are, and calls to us, invites us to be children of the promise, to allow God to bless us and all the families of the earth through us. God  invites us to be in relationship with God and to be a part of God’s promise, a part of God’s ever growing work in this world. There is nothing we have to do to be good enough for God, there is nothing we have to do with our lives to earn God's call, to be worthy of the promise God wants to fulfill in us. God just comes to each of us, to all of us. And we like Jacob (like Esau) have the choice to accept that call, or deny that call. We can respond by saying, “The Lord God is my God.” Or we can walk away from the call, from the presence of God. Our lives can be marked by change and transformation, as Jacobs is, or we can be like Esau whose life never shows that that change, that transformation.

That transformation is there because Jacob chooses God and God follows through on the promise God made to Jacob that day. God was with Jacob throughout the rest of Jacob's life. God said, “No matter where you go, no matter what happens, I will go with you; when you travel to a far off land, when you return here, I will be with you, until the end of your life, I will be there.” When God reaches out to each of us, when God chooses us and we choose God in return, God promises to be with us for the rest of our lives, no matter what happens, no matter where we go God will be with us.

The road of our lives might be long, it might hard, it might be filled with sorrow, pain, struggles, God will be there with us. God does not promise Jacob that his life will not be hard, God does not promise Jacob that his uncle and soon-to-be Father-in-law will not trick him and steal fourteen years of his labor. He does not promise Jacob that Esau will not continue to be mad at him for a very long time and will not come after him repeatedly to take his life. God simply promises, that when all that happens (and it does) God will be with Jacob through it all.

When we choose God, God is with us through it all. When we are fighting with our family, and can't be reconciled to those we love the most, God is there. When those we trust the most hurt us, use us, abuse us, God is there. When we lose our job and are struggling to make ends meet, to put food on the table, or keep the lights on, God is there. When we are drowning in our own loss and pain, God is there. God is always there, no matter where life takes us, God is with us. God does not ever leave us or forsake us. God does not ever leave us alone to attempt to handle it in our own strength, through our own power, or leave us to our own means. God is there, giving us strength and power, always there with us all along the way.

So we have before us this morning the tale of two brothers. You can choose to be one or the other. Who are you going to be this morning? Who are you? Are you Jacob or are you Esau? Either way you are chosen by God, but the question is, will you choose God in return?

And if you are choosing God; if you do choose God, then God promises to be with you, ‘til the end of your life. When we choose to follow God, to allow God to be our God, then God is with, in all things, through all things. No matter where we go, no matter what happens, God is with us, we can do THIS, whatever THIS might be. We can try to do it all alone, or we can have the God of the universe go through it with us, walking along beside us, guiding us and strengthening us through it all.

Making peace with the Abraham and Isaac story

Genesis 21:1-3, 22: 1-14

Last week we began at the beginning. And as we make our way through the Old Testament, I have made some cuts, so we do not literally spend a year of Sunday doing this. So I have moved to the the most climatic, as well as problematic part of Abraham's story. But First before we dive into this little gem of a passage let me catch us all up to speed.

The Abraham story begins when God approaches Abraham and makes him a series of promises. God promises that he will give Abraham descendants, and that they will become a great nation. If Abraham will follow to a place that God will show Abraham, that it will be his land, and his decedent’s land, and that this people of God will be more numerous than the stars in the sky.

From that point on, Abraham had followed God and abided with God and that covenant. Though the story is not one-sided. There were times where Abraham fell short of what God had asked him to do. He had not always been trusting, he had not always been truthful, and to put it mildly, he did not always exemplify the ideals to which we like to hold our biblical heroes. At one point, Abraham distrust God's ability to protect Abraham and his household and somehow thought that lying to a local king and telling him that Sarah was not his wife by his sister. Yeah, as you can imagine that ended “well.” At another time, in an attempt to make God's promise happen, Sarah and Abraham agreed that it would be best if he produced a child with her servant Hagar. Hagar gave birth to a Son. The fall out from that little event was no end of trouble between Abraham and Sarah. And in the end both of them did wrong by them both. The story comes to its zenith here with one of the most re-told stories of the Old Testament.

Despite how much this story is told and retold, it’s also one of the most problematic passages of the entirety scripture, and often raises as many questions as it provides answers. Although, the first three versed of chapter 21 are included for context, let's just dive right into chapter 22.

Q: What problems do you see with this passage? Q: What seems odd, or strange here? Q: Why is it odd or problematic?

Throughout the ages, biblical scholars have wrestled with some of these questions. And though there isn’t a way to just hand wave these questions away, we can try to navigate along with them to see how the story is meant to function in its original context. So, let’s start with v. 1-2 of this narrative

1 After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." 2 He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you."

Q: What is the “These things”spoken of here in this passage?

Q: Why would it be important for us to remember that this happened “after” they had sent Hagar and Ishmael away

Q: What do we know in this passage that Abraham doesn’t?

Q: What does it mean, “God 'tested' Abraham? What is the purpose of a test? What does the test tell us about the test taker? What does it tell us about the test giver?

Q: What to you think the purpose of God's test of Abraham is?

Q: In what ways has Abraham shown his faith in God in the past? In what ways has he failed to show faith in God?

Q: Why is there so much reiteration at the beginning of the second verse 2?

Q: What is a sacrifice?

Q: There are actually two things Abraham is asked to sacrifice. One is clear in the text, the other is not. What are those two things? – Isaac, and the promise of descendants.

Q: How must Abraham feel at this point?

One of the things that is so very unusual about this passage is that we’re not told what anyone thinks. As much as we imagine the emotional reactions of all characters, we’re not told about how they feel, how they react, or anything of the sort. While we want to supply those things they are not really of much consequence in the scope of this narrative. Rather than focus on the personal trials, the story pushes on to something else.

And so the story presses on in verses 3-6

3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. 5 Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you." 6 Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.

Q: Who goes with Abraham?

Q: What do they do in the story?

Q: What does Abraham say to his servants?

Q: Why does he say this? Why do you think he says this?

Verses 6-8:

6 Abraham put the wood for the burnt offering on his son Isaac. He himself carried the fire and the knife. The two of them walked on together. 7 Then Isaac spoke up. He said to his father Abraham, "Father?" "Yes, my son?" Abraham replied. "The fire and wood are here," Isaac said. "But where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" 8 Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." The two of them walked on together.

Q: Who carries the wood?

Q: So, how old do you think Isaac must be here?

Q: What question does Isaac ask? Where is the lamb?

Q: What answer does Abraham give? God will provide the lamb.

Q: Why does Abraham give this reply?

Q: What does this reply tell us about what Abraham is thinking?

Abraham’s reply of “God will provide” is going to become a theme here. This is actually a good time to take a step back and ask a question of how this story would historically be read. If we imagine ourselves as living in ancient Israel, either under the time of the kings of Israel and Judah, or maybe even during the Roman occupation of the land, we would see ourselves as God’s people living in the land that God had given us. We would have the questions, why are we living here, how has God’s promise come to us? Why is it that we covenant to live as God’s people and why has he covenanted to be our God? And in part, this story advances as the ancestor of our faith follows God. He is willing to give back to God all that God has given him. He is willing to give back the son he loves and he is willing to give back the promises that God has made. And why? In part, because he believes that God will provide. How have the people of God come to live in this land, and how have they been sustained as the People of God’s Covenant? It is because God provides. But we’ll come back to that in a bit. Let’s look at 9-14

9 They reached the place God had told Abraham about. There Abraham built an altar. He arranged the wood on it. He tied up his son Isaac. He placed him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand. He took the knife to kill his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven. He said, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," Abraham replied. 12 "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you have respect for God. You have not held back from me your son, your only son." 13 Abraham looked up. There in a bush he saw a ram. It was caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram. He sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham named that place The LORD Will Provide. To this day people say, "It will be provided on the mountain of the Lord."

Now, before we go too much farther, I want to take a moment to call for the children’s attention. As much as this story is kind of strange where we have an adult and a younger person and some things which might be a little scary, I want to make sure that we say that this story IS strange. We adults do not take children away from others in order to frighten or harm them. And if there are adults that take you aside to frighten or hurt, then this chapter is not saying that it is okay. And if there are adults that frighten or harm us, then we tell another adult, right? Okay. With that said, we can move on to some questions.

Q: What is happening here?

Q: How do Abraham and God address each other? How does that compare to Verse 1?

Q: Why does God stop Abraham?

Q: Once God knows that Abraham will do as God has asked, what happens afterward?

Although we have been talking about this as if it is a story about Abraham, this is just as much, if not more, a story about God. These early narratives in Genesis tell us a lot about who God is and what God is like. Many of them were included in the Biblical narrative because it let the early Hebrew know that their God was not like the gods of the cultures that surround them. Just like the Genesis 1 narrative told them they and all the world were loving created by a God who declared all of creation, including humanity good. Which was emphatically not the case with religious stories of the cultures that surrounded, their gods were not loving, or kind, or caring, their gods did not think the world was necessarily a good thing and most of the time humans were a nuisance to be tolerated and put up with. This narrative also shared a truth about God that set God apart from the gods of the cultures around them.

Most of the cultures around them, the way the god-human relationship, if you wanted something from a god you had to give the god something to coax the god to give it to you and then once it was provided you would need to give something else to the god to show your appreciation, so the god would continue to do things for you and hopefully not smite you or kill all your livestock and make all your fields barren, or withhold rain so that you all suffered. The gods of the cultures around them were keen on making humans suffer and there was a continual movement on behalf of the humans to try to assure that the gods were happy so that they would not make the humans suffer. So say, you wanted for the land to be fertile and to produce food, you had to give the god something to coax the god to make the land fertile. Once the god gave you a harvest you then needed to give part of that back to the god to keep the god happy so that next year the god would remember that you were thankful and not be angry with you and destroy all your crops with drought or bugs, or whatever.

It worked the same way with children. A man wanted many sons, to help him with the work, and to carry on his line. So when a man was given a son by the gods, he gave his first son back to the gods in the form of a human sacrifice, to assure that he would have more sons.

Q: Knowing this about the cultures all around, what do you think this narrative told the early Hebrews about their God, as compared to the gods around them?

Here is the good news for the Hebrews of the ancient world. God does not require the death of their first born sons! (In fact God abhors human sacrifice! This was good news, to them. This was amazing news. This God, the God they worshiped was not blood thirsty. It was another way of affirming to them that God was kind, God was caring, God was compassionate. God loved them and their children!

Q: In what ways do we sacrifice our children today? To what gods of the culture around us do we make these sacrifices?

Q: What is the good news for us today? What good news can we find in this story?

Q: What does God ultimately do in this passage?

Q: Does God providing this ram remind you of anything else in the scriptures?

The Old and New Testament commentators love taking this idea of God providing, and applying it to other narratives in the scriptures. Most Jewish commentators go almost immediately to the Passover celebration where God provides a substitution for the life of the firstborn son. New Testament writers and commentaries put a high value in the comparison in God providing a way of salvation through the death of Jesus. Though whichever way you take these parallels, this story is about God providing.

Q: What does Abraham call this place?

This story is about a very frightening walk of faith. There are circumstances that are almost certainly the most terrifying tribulation that Abraham experiences. Though having the ability to look backwards on this passage, we know that this is a story of provision, and not sacrifice. When we ask the question of what our journey is for, how we got to where we are, and where we might be headed, it is a journey that gives us far more questions than we have answers. The passage almost begs us to ask questions about the character’s intentions. It almost begs us to ask what God is thinking just as much as we may ask what Abraham and Isaac are thinking. Though despite these very good, and sometimes very troubling questions, we have a journey of faith and a story of providing.

I almost always ask the children what God is doing in any given story. And three times we are given the answer. God provides. So, how does God provide for us? This is not always so easily answered. The promise here is not that of material riches, or of physical comfort. So, what does God provide?

In short, God has provided for us to be where we are now. God provides what is needed for the next step. God provides a relationship with God. We read this story because we are as much the People of God as those who read this story 100, or 1000, or 3000 years ago. God calls to us, and we reply, “Here I am Lord.” God asks us to follow to the place God will show us. It is no accident that the story ends with the same statement of the Covenant that has appeared time and time again in Genesis. God calls us into a relationship that we may know God, and that God may be our God, and that together we may be God’s people. God provides for us to continue to take the next step of faith.