Biblically Epic Fails

Scripture: Genesis 21:8-21, Psalm 86:1-10

Preached 06/22/2014

You know that awesome feeling when you complete a project you saw on Pinterest and it’s absolutely perfect, just like the picture that inspired you to do it in the first place?  Yeah, me neither.  However, we can take solace in the fact that if we have every failed in our Pinteresting or general craft or food making adventures, we are not alone.  Let’s look at some vivid examples of our companionship. 

 In this first one, the Pinterester was attempting to make these glitter bottles.  I have no idea what the bottles are for, but they’re pretty and colorful. 

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The person who attempted the craft said that they wanted to make the same thing, but with black and gold glitter instead of the pink and purple show.  Here’s how that turned out for them.

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Okay, so the next example.  It may be a little hard to figure out, but this is Pinterest gold for those of you who aren’t familiar with Pinterest.  It’s the project and the instructions in one simple picture, which totally has to mean that it’s easy, right?  So the goal of this craft is to make that cool egg shaped holder for candy, and it’s basically done with glue, yarn, and a balloon.  Can’t fail, right?

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Want to see what happened to the person who attempted this?

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Last one, and I have to include this because I could not stop giggling when I first came across it.  Here’s what they Pinterest-er was trying to make.  Cute little cupcakes that basically just involve sticking part of a cookie and some candy on a frosted cupcake.  Again, so simple it’s set up for success, right?  

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Let’s see what actually happened.

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This kind of thing happens to all of us, right?  Even if you’re not a Pinterest user, I bet we’ve all tried, and failed.  We’ve attempted a home improvement project and gotten in over our heads.  We’ve taken on a baking or crafting endeavor, and had it end with ourselves glued to something or the smoke alarm going off.  We’ve failed a driving test. We’ve tried to look graceful and tripped all over ourselves.  Messing up, even messing up in a spectacular day, epic fails, if you want a more contemporary tern, are an inescapable part of human existence.  And in our scripture reading, we find that epic fails in human endeavors go way, way back.

Back even to Abraham and Sarah, some of our earliest ancestors in faith. My guess is that you’ve often looked back at these two as examples of faithfulness.  But this scripture passage shows us both Abraham and Sarah in all the glory of epic failure. 

Let’s start with Sarah, since her epic failure comes earlier in the scripture passage.  Before our reading picked up, Sarah had given Hagar, her slave, to Abraham so that Abraham could have children through Hagar.  As disturbing as this is to us today, the practice of secondary marriage to and children through slaves was a commonly accepted practice in the ancient time this story portrays.  Sarah and Abraham needed children, and Sarah herself would gain inheritance and security though any male children Hagar had.  So Hagar does have a child, a son and names him Ishmael.  And then, miraculously, Sarah herself is able to conceive and have a child, whom she and Abraham name Isaac. 

When she has a son, all inheritance rights that Ishmael, Hagar’s son, would have had, are terminated.  But as we can see, Sarah still feels insecure.  She sees Isaac and Ishmael playing, and all of a sudden we have her epic fail.  She goes into a jealous rage about the two boys playing together, and insists for no real reason that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away. 

And then we have Abraham’s epic fail.  I don’t care how much the biblical writer tries to soften the blow here.  Abraham sends his wife and son out into the wilderness with a little bit of bread and water.  They have no money or resources, and no way to get them.  The Hebrew word for what they do out in the wilderness suggests aimless, hopeless wandering- Hagar and Ishmael had nowhere to go and nothing to fall back on in this wilderness scene.  Sending out a wife and child into that is definitely an epic fail in basic human decency on Abraham’s part.

Hagar and Ishmael are wandering in the wilderness.  And the bit of bread and water given to them run out, and Hagar faces the horrible reality that she has no way to provide for her son, and he is about to die.  She can’t face this, and moves away from his plaintive cries and cries out to God herself.

And then, if you remember, we get to the good news in this story.  God hears Hagar, and God hears Ishmael.  There’s no epic fail on God’s part here.  God does what God has promised to do- takes care of those who were outcast by those in a position of power over them.  God gives a well to Hagar, who gives water to Ishmael, who grows strong and gets married, and becomes the father of a great nation himself- he’s the son of Abraham through whom Muslims trace their ancestry. 

Abraham and Sarah fail epically in this story, but God does not.  And it’s not just in this story that God is faithful to promises- promises like making Ishmael a great nation, and hearing him, promises like hearing all in need, like caring, and loving way beyond human beings.  All these things are essential to God’s very nature.  Our psalmist reminds us of this- that God is good, giving, and forgiving.  Always, even when we fail epically at carrying out God’s love in the world.

Because let’s face it.  We have a lot in common with Abraham and Sarah.  Like them, sometimes we can be examples of faithful living, we can be resourceful, joyful, and receptive to God’s word.  And other times, we fail.  We cast others out into the wilderness because we’re not comfortable around them, we worry that they may change things for us, or we just don’t care enough to say no to others who want them out.  And we may throw a little bread and water their way- some words of encouragement, useless platitudes, or even invitations to come back to a hostile place where they have to hide who they really are.  We aren’t perfect at this loving your neighbor thin.  Not by a long shot.

But God is.  If loving your neighbor were a Pinterest craft, God’s would look exactly like the inspiration picture, since God made that inspiring love in the first place.  God hears the cries of all who have been cast out- the poor, racial minorities,  LGBTQ people, drug addicts, homeless, felons- you name them, God hears them.  And God loves them.  And God wants them to be able to grow and thrive.  And even us, those faithful people, e who epically fail- God loves us, God hears us, and God wants us to grow and thrive.  And let me make that a little more personal.  God loves you.  God hears you when your cry out.  And God wants you to grow and thrive.

God’s arms are open wide.  So let us do two things.  First, let us accept that love that God gives to us so freely, regardless of who we are, what we have done, where our life’s journey has taken us, or how we have failed on that journey. 

Second, let us look at this Pinterest worthy picture of God’s expansive love.  And let us do our Pinterest best to make our love look the same way.  Ours might end up looking a little wonky at first, but the good news is that God tells us to keep trying.  To go back to the original, and to try to follow more closely each time.  And one day, may we all know the wonderful, Holy feeling, of imitating that love beautifully enough that others want to imitate it too.  Amen.

Where are you from?

Scripture: Genesis 1:1-2:3

Preached 06/14/2014

So, apparently, I do some pretty strange things.  For instance, I use the word pop instead of soda.  I cannot pronounce the letter “o” the way I hear many of you do it.  I have no answer to the “where did you go to high school” question, and I don’t know the magic coded information you’re getting when others do answer it.  And without google maps, I have no idea where any of the little outlying suburbs are, let alone how to get to them, and I give a lot of blank stares when people ask me what direction something is.  So, because of my strange behavior, I get this question a lot: Where are you from?  

I’ve been asked that question enough that by now I have a pretty standard answer.  I tell the person who asked that I grew up in Iowa, and then moved here a few years ago for school.  I fell in love with the town, and was blessed with a call to this church that allowed my family and me to stay in St. Louis.  And so far, my quick little story of where I’m from has satisfied people curious about the origins of my strange behavior.  Blame Iowa, I suppose.

We all have our own answers to the question.  Where we grew up, the moves we may have taken, and how we ended up in the place we are today.  And it’s not just St. Louisans  who are curious about where people are from.  It’s a universal question, and it goes far beyond St. Louis, and far beyond curious individuals.  Every culture has asked this question- “Where do we come from?” and every culture comes up with its own answer.  What we heard spoke this morning was one of two answers the ancient people of Israel came up with, and preserved in their sacred scripture. 

The ancient people of Israel had a definite need to come up with an answer to the question of origin.  They were surrounded by different cultures that offered them different origin stories from which to choose.  For example, one Babylonian origin story has several gods create humans, then immediately regret their decision.  Human beings are too loud, the story goes, and disturbing to the gods.  So from then on the gods sought to destroy the humans they had created.  As you’ve perhaps noticed, origin stories serve a purpose- they explain something that is otherwise inexplicable, like for example why I say pop and am always lost.  And this Babylonian story explains for its believers why bad things like war, famine, and disease happen.

The gods are angry.  They want to destroy us.  And in response to this origin story and its angry gods, believers responded by attempting to appease those angry destructive gods through worship and sacrifice.  It worked for them.  But not for the ancient people of Israel.  They needed a different story of their origins to tell and share.  Why?  To explain their own strange behavior. 

For example, as you probably know, the ancient people of Israel were monotheistic- they worshiped one God.  This was very strange in their culture, which was unapologetically and thoroughly polytheistic.  As you probably noticed, the Babylonian story is unapologetically polytheistic also.  I skipped the names of the gods mostly because I couldn’t pronounce most of them, but there are a lot of gods working, fighting, and plotting in the story.  The Babylonian story explained the sacrifices and worship style of the ancient Babylonians.  The ancient Israelite story did the same thing- showed why they worshiped one God, and why they worshiped not necessarily out of fear for their lives, but out of awe and reverence.

The ancient Israelites also needed to explain their strange worldview.   While the Babylonian story explains a focus on death and destruction, annoyance and regret, that was not the focus of the ancient people of Israel.  Did you notice the refrain you repeated? “And God saw that it was good.”  God created, and didn’t regret.  God created, and instead of finding darkness a hindrance, mosquitoes annoying, or human beings too loud, God calls them good.  God is happy with God’s creation.  God even goes so far as to bless human beings and animals.  This ancient Israelite story tells us not why there is bad, but why there is good.

Those ancient people of Israel looked around them, and saw amazing things.  They marveled at the sky, the sun, the moon, the earth, water, animals, plants, and people.  They needed a story of their origin that explained marvels and their marveling at them, not problems.  I could go on and on about the aspects of ancient Israel’s culture and religion that are explained and contained in this story, but I won’t because I think you get the point.  These stories we tell about where we come from serve a purpose.  And what I’m interested in is what purpose this story of our origins continues to serve today.

We are not the people of ancient Israel.  Our culture is completely different from theirs.  Our religion is very different from theirs, both in content and how we express it.  And yet, we use the same creation story because for us, too, it continues to answer questions.  In a world that is more than ready to assign us identities based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or economic status, this story continues to be a place where we find the ultimate explanation of our true identity.  We are God’s.  We were created by God and we were called good.  And this place in which we find ourselves, this earth, air, and water filled with all kinds of plants and animals- they too were created by God and called good.

And yes, this creation story gives us a reason for some behavior that may seem strange to others.  Because God created the world and called it good, this story of our origins helps explain why we take care of the earth- for example, why we have that recycling bin in the parking lot, and why our gardeners take such tender care of the plants they grow and plant on our property.  Because God created everything, we have a reason to give back to God- and this helps explain why we give away 10% or more of our income to the church, or why we volunteered our time at the Feed my People food drive.  Because God created all people and called them all equally good, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or social status we also have explanations for why we do work with certain people others may reject, or why we have certain stances on social issues.

And this explanatory function where we came from is all well and good.  In fact, it’s important to see the ways this story still speaks to us and of us today, and continues to tie us to God at our origins.  But we can go even farther than that.  Because an origin story can go further.  And instead of stopping at the why, it can move us into the what.   It can give us a mission, and a sense of purpose.  I am not going to attempt to draw a single mission and sense of purpose out of this scripture reading.  But we can look at one together, knowing there are many more possibilities contained in this story of origin.

Today is Trinity Sunday.  And I’ve been avoiding mentioning that because Trinity Sunday is hard.  It’s the only Sunday in the liturgical calendar dedicated to a doctrine, and the traditional route of dealing with Trinity Sunday is to attempt to explain the Trinity in a 15 minute sermon, which is completely impossible.  As I believe there really is no way to fully capture the Trinity and all our best tries only wind us up in heretical territory, here’s what I will say.  This story of our origin was our lectionary text.  And it doesn’t really mention the Trinity at all, does it?  Yes God is there and we have an inkling of the Holy Spirit and some plurality to God in the “let us create human kind in our image” verse, but if you didn’t already know about Jesus you would never guess he was on the scene here.  Our scripture doesn’t attempt to describe the whole of the Trinity.  And it certainly doesn’t seek to explain it.  What it does do is describe what God is led to do, how God is led to act, because of God’s mysterious nature.

So in looking at how we are called to act, keeping in mind the Trinitarian God we believe is in this scripture passage, here’s an idea I have: because of the Spirit’s movement, we are called to go out into the creation that God called so good and be bearers of the good news of God’s love, especially as it has been revealed to us in Jesus, for the sake of the whole beloved world.  We aren’t called to ponder the Trinity, and definitely not to figure it out.  We aren’t called to sit around thinking, we’re called to imitate this mysterious and Triune God who went out, and did good.

If you notice, in our origin story God didn’t just do one thing and stop.  So we, as a group of different people, are probably called to a lot of different things, and this imitation of God will look differently for each of us.  But here’s the most vital part- just get out, and do good.  You are innately good, and you bear the imprint of the Divine within you.  The Divine who made all that is good, who got out there and did something, even though no one was making God do anything.  And yes, some of God’s work looked strange- we’ve all seen platypus, right?  But it was good.

So here’s my charge for all of us.  Get out there.    Imitate our mysterious God whom we don’t fully understand, but who we know created us with the imprint of the Divine doing good.  And do good.  No matter how strange it may look to those around you.  May we be so filled with God’s Spirit and do such wonderfully and holy strange work that we all get asked that old question “Where are you from?” Amen.

(un)Invited?

Scripture: John 10:2-10

Preached 06/01/2014

Weddings have certainly changed over the years.  They used to be small, private ceremonies often conducted in the living room of the local pastor.  And somehow, over the years, they have grown into events.  And not just small events, huge ones that can cost on average $30,000 with guest lists soaring into the hundreds.  Even the way we alert people to weddings has changed dramatically over the years.  First we had formal wedding invitations.  Then pre-invitation “save the dates” became trendy.  Now, even emailed e-vites are becoming mainstream.

So, what’s the newest wedding alert fad? The “You’re Not Invited” alert.  Yes, really.  With the growing influence of social media, there is so much information about weddings available beforehand.  Brides and Grooms to be, as well as their family and friends, post about wedding times, dates, locations, and so much other information that some acquaintances and friends are simply assuming they’re invited, and showing up on the big day.  The unexpected guests are making for some pretty awkward moments when there are no chairs, no name cards, and no meals for them.  And, those extra people are translating into unexpected and unbudgeted costs and fees for the hosts.

So, to stem the tide of uninvited guests, couples are now sending out “not invited” alerts before the big day.  Some are going as far as sending formal un-invitations via regular mail, and others are sending out email blasts and Facebook group messages.

Most are carefully crafted with gentle and even unapologetic wording, but as gentle as they may be, if you get one, you’ll probably still feel the sting of rejection.  Better prepare yourself now- because one day soon YOU too may find yourself being un-invited.

It’s easy to read this scripture passage and feel like here, too, we are in danger of being un-invited.  I for one find myself getting nervous.  We hear the language of thieves and bandits sneaking in, and it’s easy to worry that we might be among the thieves and bandits that are supposed to stay out.  Jesus uses three different metaphors in these few short verses.  He is the shepherd, the gate, and the gate-keeper.  All these metaphors can conjure up images of Jesus the ultimate un-inviter, whose job is to keep the uninvited and unwanted guests out.  A shepherd can be seen as some guy with a club keeping the rif-raf away from his sheep.  A gate can seem like an obstacle, something that gets closed to keep unwanted visitors away.  And a gate-keeper can really seem like a heavenly bouncer telling us to go away. 

But here’s the good news.  This passage is not our “You’re not invited” alert.  In fact, it’s just the opposite.  It is our invitation, and a re-iteration of the many invitations that have been given to us throughout our lives.  This passage isn’t about a closed gate with a heavenly bouncer.  Instead, it describes an extravagant welcome.  This passage is Jesus, standing at the gate that is open for us all,  and calling to us sheep and bidding and guiding us to come in through him to something even more lavish than the most extravagant wedding we’ve ever seen. 

Just remember with me the most incredible event to which you’ve ever seen.  And then, prepare yourself for something much better.  Because Jesus isn’t inviting us into a fabulous wedding.  Jesus is inviting us into much more.  As we read, Jesus says he “came that we may have life, and have it abundantly.”  Abundant life.  That’s what this passage is all about.  Not about the shepherd, the gate, or the gate-keeper, but the abundant eternal life to which all those metaphors guide and welcome us, the sheep.

As you might know, wedding invitations usually give certain clues about the wedding.  They let you know when and where it will be held, sometimes they let you know or pick what kind of food will be served, and they can even tell you how to dress for the event.  And the invitation we find to abundant life in this scripture passage gives us clues about the abundant life to which we’re invited. 

Let’s start with the shepherd metaphor as our first clue.  That image does more than comfort us with something familiar and beloved.  It may not tell us what kind of food to expect in abundant life, but it does tell us that there will be food and water- what the shepherd provides for the sheep.  And not just food for us, but enough food and enough drink for everyone.   In abundant life, all have their needs met.

What else do we learn about abundant life from this invitation?  Well, both from the shepherd and the gate metaphor, we learn guests in abundant life are also given protection from those thieves and bandits mentioned in this passage.  Thieves and bandits that seek to keep the sheep out of abundant life, or lure them elsewhere.  These thieves and bandits can be sin and death, or materialism, idolization, poverty, oppression, or anything else that robs us or anyone else of the abundance and fullness of life Jesus offers us.

This passage also clues us into the fact that we don’t have to earn our invitation to it.  There is no mention here of good sheep and bad sheep, no mention of separating out those who can come in and those who have to stay out.  This invitation is freely offered, without a un-invitation following the news.  In other words, you may be surprised at your fellow invitees and who ends up sitting next to you at dinner, and they may be equally surprised by your presence.

There is so much more we could say about this abundant life to which Jesus invites us.  It includes physical and spiritual wholeness, and intimate encounter with God, knowing God deeply and being in deep relationship with God.  It includes joy, and love, and gentleness.  And, very importantly, it has already started.  Abundant life isn’t just about what happens when we die.  Jesus is inviting us right now, and the party is already going on.  You’re invited.  So what are you waiting for?  Get in there and have the time of your life.

*Opening illustration courtesy of Sermon Illustration Exchange*