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.
 |
| pinterestfails.com |
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.
 |
| pinterestfails.com |
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?
 |
| pinterestfails.com |
Want to see what happened to the person who attempted this?
 |
| pinterestfails.com |
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?
 |
| pinterestfails.com |
Let’s see
what actually happened.
 |
| pinterestfails.com |
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment