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Proper 14A (RCL)
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
Psalm: 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 14:22-33

Last night, Fr. Nathaniel drew some wonderful parallels between the story of Joseph and the story of Jesus, besides the obvious of going down to Egypt. Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver; Jesus for 30. Joseph later saves his brothers and family from starvation; Jesus saves his household. It is clear that the writers of the story of Jesus had before them the story of Joseph. We noticed a couple of other parallels as well. Judah sells Joseph; Judas (the Greek spelling of Judah) sells Jesus. The caravan of Ishmaelites was carrying gum, balm and resin — frankincense and myrrh.

Reading through this great saga, we are coming to the portion of the story in Egypt, which will culminate in the crossing of the Red Sea. The Gospel story of Jesus walking on the sea bears many parallels with the story of Moses leading the children of Israel across the sea. Moses is on the mountain alone, watching the progress of the people; Jesus is on the mountain alone watching the progress of the boat. All this happens in the night watch (Exodus 14:24); and in the fourth watch of the night (Mt 14:25). There is a strong wind (Exodus 14:21; Mt 14:30). And so it goes. Clearly the writers of the story of Jesus walking on the sea had before them the story of Israel crossing the Red Sea, most likely in the Septuagint.

But, then an interesting thing happens. Peter asks Jesus to command him to walk on the waters (not the sea; Jesus does not walk on the waters, but on the sea; Peter walks on the waters). Mark’s account does not have Peter walk on the waters. Matthew is telling us something new. This episode is also a resurrection appearance. The disciples think they are seeing a ghost, an appearance of one dead. When he enters the boat, they worship. Peter doubts (literally, is of two minds). When the disciples see Jesus on the mountain in Galilee “they worship, but doubt (are of two minds — the only two occurences of this word in Matthew). Jesus then instructs them to make disciples of “all the nations” baptizing them in the name of the Trinity.

In Galatians 2, Paul recounts the encounter between himself and Peter in Antioch. Before certain men from James came down from Jerusalem came down to Antioch, Peter used to eat with Gentiles (in the mixed community in Antioch). But when those men arrived, Peter drew back and separated himself, “because he was afraid of the circumcised.” In what follows the story of Jesus walking on the sea, the Syro-Phoencian woman will approach him and ask him to heal her daughter (remember Jairus?). He will refuse, because she is a Gentile: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs.” She will retort, “True, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.” So, this episode is about table fellowship; do Jews and Gentiles eat together? Jesus is shamed by her response, and heals her daughter. Peter’s sinking in the water is Matthew’s way of telling us the story of the Antioch incident. Peter’s small faithfulness prevents him from stepping out over the waters of baptism into the mixed Jewish and Gentile community.

It has always been terrifying for the church to go to the new places Jesus asks us to go. Jesus, after Peter’s confession of him as the Christ, gives Peter the keys of the kingdom, and a new name, “Rocky.” But for his fear, Rocky sinks like a stone.

Proper 12A
Genesis29:15-28
Psalm 105:1-11, 45b
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

The story of Jacob and Rachel and Leah is another story of a meeting at a well that ends in marriage. In this story, Jacob gets his comupance. He had extorted Esau’s birthright from him, and then tricked Isaac out of the blessing meant for Esau. He has to flee his brother to avoid his anger. He goes back to Abraham’s homeland, and meets Rachel, his cousin. He continues his tricky ways. The cover on the well is meant to be heavy enough that only all the shepherds together can lift it off, thereby guaranteeing a fair sharing of water rights. Jacob, who is evidently very strong, lifts it off by himself so that Rachel can water her father’s sheep. Not a good idea to mess with local custom. Rachel takes him home to meet Laban, her father and Jacob’s uncle. Jacob agrees to work seven years to marry Rachel, and on the wedding night (was Jacob drunk?), Laban gives him Leah instead. He gets tricked in his own turn. He marries Rachel a week later, and agrees to work another seven years for her dowry. Notice that neither of these women have any say in the matter.

After twenty years, Jacob decides that Laban has not treated him fairly, and so takes his family and flocks and leaves. Laban pursues him and accuses him of stealing flocks. The reach an uneasy peace, and essentially agree never to see one another again. The women claim abuse by their father (he married them off without permission) and agree to go with Jacob. Jacob’s is the last trip to Abraham’s homeland. It’s also another sort of “twin” story. Rachel, the youngest, is Jacob’s favorite, and though she and her sister get into a contest over who can bear Jacob the most sons (from which the twelve tribes of Israel take their names), Rachel bears his two favorite, Joseph and Benjamin.

As so often in the epic of Israel, God chooses unlikely people to carry forward the divine plan: the deceiver and the deceived; the lovely and the unloved. It’s never the hero as we would see it. Israel recounts its own history through these very flawed human characters. What might God be doing through us?

In the Gospel passage, we have a number of images for the Kingdom, all of them surprising. Mustard is a noxious weed. With no encouragement at all, and in fact without a great deal of vigilance, it will take over whole fields. No one in his right mind sows a mustard seed in his field. Noxious as it is, it never becomes a tree. A scrubby shrub maybe, but not a tree. The parable, about birds making their nest in it, is comparing mustard to the cedars of Lebanon. This scrappy, scrubby weed will replace the great tree of the davidic kingdom. Yeast is unclean — during the high holy days, no yeast can be in the house at all. Here, the kingdom is compared to a woman (!) placing just a little bit of yeast in a great mass of dough, and the whole thing being leavened. The Kingdom is treasure worth everything one has, and a net which catches good and not-so-good fish.

The communities that recorded these stories though of themselves as scrappy, yeasty, on the fringes of things, and yet once given foothold, capable of replacing the cedar of Lebanon, capable of gathering in all sorts of fish. This would not be their doing, but God’s. God prefers to use (or is forced to use?) people like deceitful and deceived Jacob, and Rachel and Leah, pawns in a men’s game, and communities like mustard seeds and yeast for the divine purposes. Whenever we come to think of ourselves as divine agents, all righteous and right, we would do well to remember Jacob, and the mustard weed and the yeast. Making peace in Sudan, bringing all the outcast to the table, will be accomplished more by scappy little weeds and very human people like Jacob and Rachel and Leah than by all the grand rhetoric we so often use. The kingdom ain’t pretty, but once that seed has been sown, it’s inevitable, once that yeast has been added, it’s sure to arrive.

Proper 9A (RCL)
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Psalm 45:11-18
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

The reading from Genesis comes for a longer reading of Rebekah’s marriage to Isaac. Abraham’s servant goes to Abraham’s homeland to find a wife for Abraham. Abraham has absolutely forbidden Isaac to go back (would this undo God’s promise to Abraham when he left home in the first place?), and does not want Isaac to marry a Caananite girl. Abraham’s servant takes ten camels loaded with gifts on the journey. He plans to ask the first girl he sees for a drink, and if she offers to water the camels as well, then, she’s the one.

Imagine what a stir ten camels made in the village — this was someone impressive passing through. Rebekah offers him a drink, and then offers to water the camels. That must have taken some time: ten camels can probably drink a lot of water. When she is done watering the camels, the servant puts a ring in her nose, and bracelets on her arm. I wonder what her reaction was (try reading that bit liturgically without smiling).

The long and short of the story is she agrees to go back with Abraham’s servant to be Isaac’s wife. We are told that Isaac loves her — it’s more than just an arranged marriage. I find it remarkable that Rebekah is given a choice; “will you go with him?” And she is the one who ends up repeating Abraham’s journey: she becomes the model for faithfulness to God’s promises after Abraham. Her family blesses her with the same blessing God gave to Abraham; may your offspring be thousands of myriads.

I also find it fascinating that this scene gets repeated a number of times. Jacob meets Rachel at the well. Moses meets Zipporah at the well. Did men go down to the well to watch the women work, to see who would make a good spouse? Women around the world draw the water for their families.

Marriage would serve as a metaphor for the relationship of God to God’s people. The well is a place where a basic human need is met. God’s people meet God at the well. Fast forward to the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. He meets her at the well, and asks for a drink! This is a marriage proposal — perhaps between God and the Samaritan woman’s people. After a long theological dispute, Jesus asks the woman to go and bring her husband. I have no husband, she replies. Samaria has been conquered five times, and made to worship the gods of her conquerors, and the god they are worshiping now is not theirs (since they aren’t the true Israel). The woman invites Jesus to her village, and they entertain him, just as happens in all the marriage proposal stories at the well.

Abraham wanted to make sure Isaac didn’t marry one of “those sorts” of girls — Caananites. Jesus brings a marriage proposal from God exactly to one of “those sorts” of girls — the Samaritan woman who has had five husbands. No wonder people didn’t know what to make of Jesus. John came fasting and not drinking, and people thought he had a demon. Jesus came partying, and people said, “Look, a drunkard and glutton; a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” The smart and well bred didn’t get it, so God revealed God’s marriage proposal to the simple, those heavey laden and weary.

Proper 8A (RCL)
Genesis 22:1-14
Psalm 13
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42

Ugh. I don’t know a single preacher who likes preaching on this story from Genesis, except maybe Soren Kierkegard. SK wrote Fear and Trembling as an extended meditation on the story of Abraham and Isaac, as a way of writing about his decision not to marry his fiancee Regina. His faith in God required him to give up the one thing he loved, just as did Abraham’s faith. SK also hoped to receive her back again after giving her up, but it was not to be. Not sure that’s the kind of faith in God I want to have.

We are not told what Abraham thought about the whole business, nor what Isaac thought. I wonder if Abraham and Isaac ever spoke again after the event. There are a couple of observations that help make a little bit of sense of the story.

i.) It appears to me to be a “just so” story at some very primitve level. The OT in a number of places speaks of the first born male of any mammal (humans inlcuded) being dedicated to God. A donkey or other work animal can be redeemed with a lamb. Human males can also be redeemed with a lamb. Does this story speak of a time when humans thought that God required the sacrifice of the first born male child, but then discovered that God did not desire the death of the child but provided a way of redeeming the child? The Passover story seems to suggest a similar redemption: while the Egyptians still sacrifice their first born sons, the Hebrews substitute a lamb, painting the blood on the doorpost. That would also make some sense of the prophets’ outrage at the continuing practice in Israel and Judah: we are not supposed to be like our neighbors, especially in this regard. The story of Abraham and Isaac would be a way of remembering when the possibility of redemption entered the culture.

ii.) Isaac is about 13 when this takes place. If there were a cultural memory of a time when male child sacrifice took place, this would provide the story for an initiation rite. Older men would take young boys off some distance from their mothers, tell the story, sacrifice the lamb and return. The boys would always carry the memory that they had been restored to their fathers by God.

iii.) The event takes place on Mount Moriah, presumably the same as Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Imagine the resonance with this story that would be in the minds of everyone who presented a sacrifice at the altar of the Temple. By God’s gracious substitution, we have our male children.

iv.) The story, as we have it written, was set down during the Exile. Abraham had been called away from his homeland — he was cut off from his past. Now God tests him by asking his son of him — he will be cut off from his future. Certainly, the Judeans in Exile would have understood Abraham’s despair. And yet, God’s promise is fulfilled. The Exiles can hope that God’s promise to them will be fulfilled.

I think this setting of the story gives us most hope of interpreting it. There were two theologies (at least) in competition during the Exile. The deuteronomistic theology said that the Exile was God’s punishment for Israel’s unfaithfulness. God would be demanding Isaac (standing in for Israel’s future) for Abraham’s sin. Isaiah also begins at the same time to write the majestic servant songs, which Christians would later apply to Jesus. The suffering of the servant is somehow redemptive, and not only of the Judeans in exile, but for the whole world. Israel must surrender its exclusive claim on God’s promise so that the whole world may enter into God’s household. Put the story of Abraham and Isaac alongside the story of the exile of Hagar and Ishmael. God’s promise for both is fulfilled, whether in the one case the people of promise had cast out those who they though fell outside the pale, or whether on the other hand, they punished themselves for their putative unfaithfulness. God will bring about God’s purpose of the inclusion of the whole world in God’s promises despite our screw-ups.

If this is a fair way of interpreting the story, then Paul is asking the same thing of us, only more directly. He is asking us to die to sin, to the ways of defining people as “in” or “out” by human standards. We are no more to let those things have dominion over us, but present ourselves to God.

I wonder if there isn’t a huge mistake we make when thinking about offering things to God. Kierkegaard made the mistake of thinking that offer something to God was see it destroyed as far as we are concerned; to lose the enjoyment of it (of course, in Repetition he sees that we can have it back after we have surrendered its enjoyment on strictly human terms). Instead, when we offer something to God, we offer its fruit to God’s purposes, which include our enjoyment of it. When we offer bread and wine, we get it back, transformed for God’s purposes, so that we might feed the world, ourselves included, with that precious food. It’s not about losing the thing offered so much as it’s about participating with God’s purposes, which are always larger than we can understand.

Proper 7A (RCL)
Genesis 21:8-21
Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17
Romans 6:1b-11
Matthew 10:24-39

The story from Genesis is one of those stories I wish wasn’t in the Bible. God seems to acquiesce in some very tawdry human decisions, and this one of them. Sarah demands that Abraham send Hagar and her son Ishmael packing. It is interesting to note, however, that in chapter 17 of Genesis (v. 25) that Ishmael was 13 years old and Abraham 99 years old when they participated in the covenant of circumcision. We’re also told that Abraham is 100 years old when Isaac is born. That would make Ishmael at least 14 years old in this story. But the story, the way it’s told, would lead me to believe that Ishmael is an infant who can be loaded onto his mother’s back, not a strapping lad of 14 or 15 years old.

So, what’s going on? I suspect that this is one of those oral stories that got told around the fire, and probably existed in many forms. Certainly the Quran tells it from Ishmael’s perspective. Perhaps here, it is being set down during the Solomonic monarchy to explain why Solomon, a younger son of David, should have the kingship rather than any of his older brothers. In that case, keeping the chronology of the story intact is less important than making the point.

Which of our stories exist in a number of tellings only to get set down by the winning side? Manifest Destiny might be one — how would that look from a Native American point of view? On Wednesday evening, Fr. Nathaniel talked about seeing a session of Canadian Parliament in which the Parliament apologized to Native Americans for the centuries of harm. The presidents and chiefs of the tribes in attendance accepted the apology gracefully. It takes us hearing the stories from all perspectives to bring about peace.

But Jesus, of course, says he does not come to bring peace but a sword. He is setting up a community (or the writers of this bit of the gospel tradition are) that doesn’t depend on father or mother or marriage or children for its identity and continuity. The community comes in for some rough treatment, and so Jesus assures them that God loves them more than all the rest. They have to be ready to dare leaving family, city and all for this new identity.

Paul is making essentially the same point. In baptism, we have died to sin, to those modes of identity that make separations — jew/greek, male/female, slave/free, or whatever the current equivalents are. Having died a death with Jesus, we now walk in newness of life. It’s risky, scary stuff. There is a line in the Romans passage that could be translated, “That which one has died, one has died to sin; that which one lives, on lives to God.” That’s not just about Jesus; it’s about us.

Even the Genesis story redeems itself a little, by having God say that Ishmael will continue to live to God; not very satisfying since Ishmael will come to stand in for those peoples the David monarchy wants to displace. How costly would it be for us to live in newness of life, not divided by christian/muslim, american/foreign, black/white, or fill in you own dichotomy? Perhaps the sword that Jesus brings is meant to sever us from those ways of self-definition and to make possible new ones.

Proper 6A
Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
Romans 5:1-8
Matthew 9:35 – 10:23

Jesus gives his disciples rather startling instructions, particularly if we understand ourselves to be those disciples: “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleans the lepers, cast out demons.” Personally, I can’t say that I’ve done any of those things.

These instructions are set within a larger framework. Matthew places this whole passage between the first sea crossing and the first feeding miracle. Jesus has compassion on the crowds, “because they were harrassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” He is quoting Numbers 27:17, in which Moses prays that the Lord will set over the people a person like Moses, so that they will not be like sheep without a shepherd. Matthew portrays Jesus as a Moses-figure. That fits with the sea crossing/feeding miracles.

Also, between those miracles, Jesus casts out the legion of demons into a herd of pigs which rushes over the cliff and drowns in the sea (like Pharaoh’s army!), calls Matthew the tax collector and eats at his house, and then, while still reclining at Matthew’s house, responds to the request of the leader of the synagogue (what would he be doing at Matthew’s house, I wonder?) to heal his daughter. Jesus is only instructing us to do what he did.

Also, we are to proclaim the kingdom of God. If Jesus’ miracles are any indication, that could be dangerous stuff. Everyone knew there was only one Kindgom that mattered: Rome. The cynic philosphers lived outside (or tried to live outside) the social structures of the Empire. They begged for their food, refused to enter temples, flouted convention. Jesus sends his disciples out with even less than the cynics — no philosopher’s tunic, no extra sandals, no gold, silver or copper, no wallet for the next day’s food. But they went out two by two, where cynics would have been singletons. The cynics claimed that they were living in the true Kingdom, in opposition to Rome. No wonder the Emperors occasionally felt the need to banish the philosophers from Rome.

No wonder, too, that Jesus tells us to that we are sheep in the midst of wolves, so we must be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. We are claiming to live in the true Kingdom, in the face of the Kingdom that surrounds us.

Demon possession, illness, leprosy, even death, had (and have) their social component. An occupying empire pushes all kinds of people to the edges. The two men possessed of a legion live among the tombs. Matthew has had to make some awful compromises to survive; he collaborates with the very regime that probably pushed him off his land through tax debt.

Who are the damaged these days? The people whom our system of acquisitiveness and consumption push to the edges? What compromises do we make? Jesus instructs his disciples to enter whatever house will have them (and presumably to eat there) without asking questions about the “fitness” of the people who live there in religious or political terms. In bringing such people as Matthew, the dead girl and the woman with the flow of blood to the table, without asking questions of their fitness, Jesus heals them, overcomes the social aspect of their condition.

Interesting that the deficit of Abraham and Sarah is met at a meal. Abraham (and Sarah) serve the three men, who ask no questions about their fitness or the fitness of the food, and in the meal, give the promise of a child.

The psalmist asks, how can I thank God for all the good God has done for me? I will raise the cup of salvation. At our meals, both at church and at home, we can raise a cup and thank God that we are made whole by eating together. And then, invite to the tables, both in our homes and at church, those who are dispossessed of whatever it is God intends for us humans.

Does Matthew continue to collect taxes? We’re not told. It’s the meal that heals him, makes him whole. He may still have to do that horrible work to make ends meet, but he has been restored. That’s the work of the Kingdom.

Proper 4A
Genesis 6:9-22; 7:24: 8:14-19
Psalm 46
Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-31
Matthew 7:21-29

It’s interesting, switching from the BCP lectionary to the RCL. The RCL doesn’t read the OT typologically (the OT lesson isn’t chosen to complement the Gospel reading). But that means it is often difficult to weave both ideas into a sermon. This Sunday, however, we have the flood (or at least one version of it), and the house built on rock or on sand.

The image of a storm (at sea) is a common one for chaos in biblical literature (and other literature as well). The Testament of Naphtali has the boat tossed about at sea stand in for the people of God. Qumran literature uses the contrast between the storm at sea with the tower on rock, or the city surrounded with walls for living outside the community and living inside the community.

The contrast between the two builders in Matthew is a pretty standard use of the “two ways” device so common in catechism. Proverbs has Wisdom’s house, with its seven pillars and the wanton woman’s house. Even Augustine’s City of God in structured around the two ways. This story, in Matthew, comes at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, so the words we are to hear and do are those words.

What strikes me is that the house is built upon a rock, just like Jesus’ says he will build his church on the rock of Peter’s confession in Matthew 16:18. Interestingly, the word “church” is only used twice in Matthew’s Gospel (not at all in the other Gospels): here, and at 18:17. In both places, Jesus tells his disciples (first Peter, and then all of them) that whatever they bind on earth is bound, and whatever they loose on earth is loosed (in John’s Gospel, specifically with reference to sin). In Matthew 18, the saying follows the community rule about being reconciled to a brother or sister (go first privately, then with one or two others, and then before the church). The rock on which the church is founded is the rock of reconciliation.

All of the instruction of the Sermon on the Mount has to do with living by the spirit of the law rather than the letter (you have heard it said, but I say to you). The purpose of the commandments is to make community life possible, not to give limits to acceptable and unacceptable deeds. A house built on such an idea will stand.

Even God seems to change God’s mind about destroying all flesh. Removing all flesh because of the corruption in human hearts didn’t work, so God will never do it again. God instead makes a covenant of reconciliation with Noah and his sons and all their wives and all flesh.

And, of course, Paul’s project in the letter to the Romans is to justify this new, mixed community. God’s righteousness and faithfulness to God’s covenants justifies this new way of being. It is God’s faithfulness demonstrated in Jesus’ blood (not our faith in his blood, whatever that might mean), which shows cause for this new group to exist, God being one, justifying the circumcision from faithfulness to the covenant, and the uncircumcision through God’s own faithfulness.

Second Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 3 (RCL)
Isaiah 49:8-16a
Psalm 131
1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Matthew 6:24-34

The Old Testament reading for this Sunday comes at the end of Isaiah’s second Servant Song, in the middle of the Book of the Restoration. While the Exiles may think that God has forgotten them, and may have forgotten Jerusalem, the prophet assures them in this passage that God has tatooed the name of Jerusalem on the palm of God’s hand. The passage goes on to describe the rebuilding and repopulation of Jerusalem. What is startling about his section of Isaiah (chapters 40-55) is the dawning universalism of the prophet. God will indeed restore Jerusalem, but this restoration will be cause of rejoicing for all people. Zion will be a light to the nations, a sign of God’s goodness to all.

The passage from Matthew comes from Q material. The Q people were engaged in a radical social experiment, defining themselves by their table fellowship with any and all. Their experiment is as surprising as the prophet’s recognition that God’s goodness extends beyond just the restoration of Zion, but to all the world.

In the passage in Matthew, Q’s Jesus asks us to compare ourselves to birds of the air and lilies of the field. Food and clothing are complex social signifiers. What food we eat, with whom we eat it, where and how we eat locate us in a complex social field. A meal on fine china with three forks and three spoons and two glasses communicates one thing, while a burger on a paper plate under a picnic shelter communicates something entirely different. Food is more than feed. A Saville row suit says something different about the wearer than jeans and a shirt.

Q’s Jesus tells us not to worry about what we eat or what we wear, but instead to compare ourselves to the birds of the air, and the lilies of the field. When Jesus gives his instructions to the 12, whom he sends out two by two, he tells them to enter any house that will have them and eat what is set before them. This would have been problematic for a Jew who observed halakah. Nothing prepared in a Gentile household would have been acceptable. Jesus goes on to instruct them to heal the sick and proclaim that the kingdom has arrived. I would argue that the healing of the sick happened at the meal. Those who had been excluded from table fellowship because of their disease were welcomed back, and in the process healed of the social aspect of the illness.

By asking us to compare ourselves to grass and birds, Jesus is asking us not to define ourselves by the social systems around us, not to locate ourselves in social patterns. We don’t very often have to live by faith. It never takes much faith for me to know that I will eat today, or that I will have clothes to wear. Many people in the world do live by faith. It takes great faith for them to have a next meal. Deb described the women in Sudan planting their seed grain when the rains began to fall. Saving that basket of seed grain and putting those grains in the ground took great faith, when they were hungry and could have eaten that grain. Perhaps Q’s Jesus is telling us that if we are willing to eat what is set before us (as do the birds of the air, for whom food is not a social signifier), we can trust that there will be food. If we are willing to wear what is available (like the flowers of the field, who outshine Solomon), there will always be something to wear.

More importantly, if we are willing to gather into a community regardless of who else is there, there will always be a community for us. Like birds and flowers, we are creatures of God, whose names God has written on the palm of God’s hand, and all the rest of it is social construct. Hard to remember that.