AProp7

Genesis 21:8-21;Psalm 86:1-10,16-17; Romans 6:1b-11; Matthew 10:24-29

June 22, 2008

It’s great to back from the Urban Adventure youth trip! 

Many thanks to Lane Gresham for the article in the Northeast Georgian on Friday.

I stayed behind in Jacksonville after the rest of our group headed home –

to visit with family and friends.

On Monday I just chilled - did laundry and watched some TV.

In looking through some DVD’s I noticed a series I had not seen: Weeds.

So, I looked at some episodes from the first season.

Weeds is much like other TV shows – its setting being the perfect suburban life. Desparate Housewives, Dallas, Dynasty, and soaps like All My Children

all present this perfect set with beautiful people.

Yet, underneath that perfect veneer is tucked the real life drama of the characters.

That’s the part that keeps us coming back to watch more!

The epic drama of Abraham and Sarah, beginning Genesis 11,

might be an excellent script for a series such as these.

Abraham and Sarah are heading for a better life –

a better land, a better neighborhood, a prosperous life.

And yet all the way through their story there are lies

and sticky circumstances they have to get out of.

I’m glad scripture did just give us the attractive veneer.

We also get the real life details tucked up under.

The particular thing about their story is that in this script

God is the faithful one who keeps his promises.

God promises Abraham and Sarah a new land, a better life, and a child.

A dynasty all their own.

They get to their new neighborhood, build a stylish house, get some nice landscaping done, put a pool in the backyard – and wait for the child they’ve been promised.

When they get impatient with God’s timing,

which needs to fit within their financial timeline,

they decide to take things into their own hands.

They decide that their maid, Hagar, an illegal immigrant from Mexico,

can serve as a surrogate mother –

and at the same time save Sarah all the hassles of pregnancy!

After the baby, Ishmael, is born, things aren’t quite like Sarah had imagined.  

She hadn’t considered that Hagar would still be around –

Nursing the baby and taking care of the house.

Sarah doesn’t like feeling like she’s on the sidelines,

so she sends Hagar away.

God tells Hagar to return to take care of her son

And promises her a dynasty that she, too, through him will have a dynasty.

Sarah must have gotten weary of having to take care of everything by herself,

because she let Hagar return.

A few years later, when God is ready to deliver the promised child,

Abraham is very lukewarm about having a second son.

He already has his son, his future dynasty.

He doesn’t see any sense in having the expenses of two sons,

two cars, two college tuitions.

So, Abraham says ‘no thanks’ to God.

He is not at all tuned in to God’s faithfulness and God’s purposes.

But, God IS faithful – so Sarah has a child, Isaac.

As today’s scene opens, the two brothers are playing together.

The older Ishmael is taking care of his younger brother Isaac, being family together.

And then Sarah begins to consider that with Ishmael around,

her son Isaac will not get the inheritance that would traditionally go to the older son.

So, she tells Abraham that she wants Hagar and Ishmael banished.

Abraham loves his first son and doesn’t want him to leave.

But he gives Hagar some provisions and sends her away.

She has no green card, no drivers license, no car, is afraid of authorities.

He gets very ill and dehydrated as they are heading toward the border,

And she feels completely helpless.

She calls out to God, “Hear my son!”

And God shows her a well and they make their way back to Mexico.

Hagar eventually finds a wife for Ishmael and God keeps his promise.

Ishmael became the father of the nation of Islam.

While Isaac continued God’s plan for the nation of Israel.

Two brothers forever at enmity with each other.

When we hear the words of Jesus in Matthew,

that parent will be against child, family members will become foes,

we might look at Abraham, Hagar, Sarah, Ishmael, and Isaac,

and regrettably shake our heads.

We see the eternal saga of persons doggedly going about

preserving and protecting themselves at the expense of others.

It’s as though the word ‘human’ and the word ‘humane’ are opposites!

When to be humane should be intrinsic to being human.

As Charlie Brown once said,

“I love humanity, it’s people I can’t stand.”

But Jesus did not mean that he came to break up families.

He came to show another way.

The giving of self for the sake of others, for the life of others.

Jesus was saying that this would be what would distinguish

the way of the cross from the way of death.

In the way of the cross, we die to the world of death

to the world of preserving the self at the expense of others and their lives.

In the way of the cross, we live and give abundantly toward the life that is meant for all.

The sword Jesus talked about was what cut between his betrayal, arrest and death

- a picture of those who preserved themselves at his expense -

and his resurrection and ascension and gift of the Spirit among us today

– a picture of a life lived in alignment with God’s faithfulness for the life of all.

Our scripts, settings, characters – are they in alignment with God’s faithfulness?

Do we tuck a different reality underneath a pretty veneer?

Or can we follow Jesus’ way of trusting God’s faithfulness

and giving ourselves into that faithfulness

so that all may have their place in God’s dynasty?

I say let the sword come down!