Echoes: A sermon

McFarland UCC, September 11, 2011

Text: Genesis 3 and 4

It was a beautiful morning with a blue sky, a clear morning at the start of the harvest season. It was a good beginning, until it all went horribly awry. A stain upon the land, a stain on the fabric of our souls, images seared into our imaginations. Part of a story that we just can’t shake, that has shaped us.

***

It goes back to the beginning.

Not a very auspicious beginning for the human family. Almost right from the start, we have these terrible stories. Lies, mistrust, jealousy, murder, and yet more lies.

A tree, an apple, a snake, a choice. A choice to take, a choice to participate in the taking. A choice to hide. A choice to separate ourselves. A choice to let things die.

The seeds were sown. And in the next generation, they came back to haunt us.

It is not easy, coming back to God. It is a struggle. We hold parts of ourselves back.

Right from the beginning, folks, we turned against one another. Seeking to worship God, we let it divide us. The whole family, Casa Adam-n-Eve, brought gifts, offerings to God. Genesis tells us that Cain brought “some” of the harvest, but Abel brought “the best parts” of his firstborn lamb, a prize gift from his flock. The struggle – do I offer the best parts of myself to God, or what I can spare? Do I turn over to God the beautiful bits, or just the nasty bits?

***

When Cain murdered his brother Abel it was a catastrophe of monumental proportions. One quarter of the population of the known world, dead. Four, reduced to three. Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel. Abel, lost. Then Cain was sent into further exile by God, sent to wander, without a home.

“And God saw that it was good.” Until it wasn’t. Until we let the better angels of our human nature be overshadowed by a grasping after things we were never intended to have. Until we began striving for “better, best, first, most, mine.” Until we started the arguments over who was more holy and who God loved more, and just what was holy ground. “Am I my brother’s keeper?,” asked Cain, while Abel’s blood was still flowing into the ground.

***

It was a beautiful morning with a blue sky, a clear morning at the start of the harvest season. It was a good beginning, until it all went horribly awry. A stain upon the land, a stain on the fabric of our souls. Part of a story that we just can’t shake, that has shaped us.

This is also the story of September 11^th, 2001. That morning where the world skipped a beat, where the world stopped and watched in horror. That morning where a soul-shattering cry echoed beyond the range of human hearing, but touched us all.

“Your brother’s blood cries out from the ground,” said God.

We still ache. Ten years of war have not softened the blow; nor have they made our pain, anger, or fear disappear. Ten years of Homeland Security procedures have not offered security. The killing of Osama Bin Laden earlier this year had young Americans dancing in the streets of our cities, in a celebration of vengeance, a moment that attempted to purge the scar on our national soul. But still, ten years of memories bump around inside us.

We constantly scratch off the scab of a wound that does not heal.

The blood of thousands cries out from the ground. In New York City. In Washington, DC. In Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And in other places, too. In Arlington National Cemetery. In the Walter Reed Army Hospital. In VA Medical Centers across the country, where traumatized veterans learn to deal with haunting images. In the hills of Afghanistan and the streets of Iraq, where parentless children weep, walking upon a land they no longer recognize. In mosques where Muslims worship under the fear of death threats, churches where Christians do the same, synagogues where Jews worry about suicide bombers attacking on their way home. Holy places that we have been wrestling over for centuries, waging war in God’s name.

In all these sacred spaces, where human beings walk the land, we are reliving the story day by day. The events of that terrible day ten years ago have destroyed too many lives. With Cain, we cry out, “This punishment is too hard!”, wandering, searching for security that seems to be absent.

***

We are mere steps away from the beginning. Three chapters away, as the Bible tells it. Less than a generation away from the garden and the promises and the One who provides everything we need.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” asked Cain, in the wake of bloodshed.

Stop fooling yourself, Cain. Of course you are. You are and always will be.

We are a family – many more than we once were, but still, a family – walking on the land. Some nearby and some far away, some settled and some wanderers. Seeking the security that was lost when we decided to make our decisions on “better, best, most, first, mine.”

***

The story is not over.

We bear the imprint of the day the world came crashing down around our ears. It is in our heads and our hearts, our national memory and our own memories.

A terrible day. One we wish we could forget. And yet, hope is not lost.

The psalmist writes, “I run to you, God, for protection…Send your light and your truth to guide me. Let them lead me to your house on your sacred mountain.” (Psalm 43, CEV) “Why are you cast down, my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?...Hope in God.” (Psalm 43, NRSV)

That is where we find security. We may wander, we may be in exile from the Garden, we may be separated from our sisters and brothers, we may consistently make choices that move us away from God, but even so, we are not alone.

In his final meal with the disciples, Jesus offers a benediction: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27) Christ’s peace. God’s reconciliation. The Holy Spirit driving us toward a hard-won wisdom, whispering truth in our ear.

We live in a story of death and separation, our human family having descended from this time of murder and grief. But we also live in a story of God’s protection – even jealous, murdering Cain was marked, protected from vengeance. A story of God’s forgiveness and new beginnings – because the family line does not end with Abel’s murder. Adam and Eve have another child, Seth, and life goes on. Even Cain, who becomes a city-dweller, somehow manages to raise a family. And people begin worshipping the Lord. We are part of the great human story of hiding ourselves from God, of falling away and forgetting, and the great God story of reconciliation, and restoration, and new life.

***

There is a beautiful morning with a clear blue sky, at the beginning of the harvest season. This is the day that the Lord has made. A new day. A new beginning. Let the former things pass away.

Amen.

Family Problems

A sermon on Genesis 37.

The big family fight continues. You would think that Jacob’s descendants might have learned from the experiences of their father and their uncle Esau. There was an awful lot going on for the family of Isaac and Rebekah. The trauma of infertility, sibling rivalry, stolen birthright, homicidal threats, wage theft in the family business, and stolen family heirlooms would be plenty of excitement for several generations. It would be nice if Jacob’s transformation at the riverside actually translated into a peaceful future for his wives and his children and his children’s children.

Not so much. Family problems seem to show up, generation after generation. There is no peace between Joseph and his brothers. Daddy’s playing favorites just like his parents did. Joseph’s got some ego issues; he knows how to play his spot as favored son. And his brothers…well, let’s just say the homicidal thoughts didn’t end with Uncle Esau. A wise woman once said that right relationship – peace, and wholeness – exists when we balance self respect with regard for others. There is no peace in this family. Joseph thinks a little bit too much of himself; his brothers think too little of him. Jacob sends Joseph off to make peace, shalom, with his brothers. And despite all of Jacob’s urgings, things don’t improve. They get worse.

We know this story. It shows up over and over again in the Bible, over and over again in the news. To paraphrase the prophet Jeremiah, we cry, “peace, peace,” but there is no peace. We say we want wholeness, right relationships – and yet we continue behaving just like the sons of Jacob. We squabble, and resent one another, and try to tear one another down.

The story of Joseph and his brothers is our story.

Like Joseph, we use our individual power to oppress one another – using favored position or inside knowledge to get a leg up in the world, often at someone else’s expense. Like the other brothers, we use the power of the group to exile perspectives we’d rather not consider. We consign our siblings to the pit; we sell them into slavery; we silence them because we’d rather not hear what they have to say.

This is the human story, our broken relationships with one another, and with God. The story of Joseph’s generation is not merely a campfire story; a just a cute story to tell the kids, or to turn into a light-hearted musical that has us humming as we leave the theatre. This is a story that is being lived out in our time. On a daily basis, in our homes and workplaces, in towns and cities, and even in our governments, we bring this family story back to life once again:

Bragging, swaggering Joseph…when one political party says, “elections have consequences,” and uses the power and privilege of their position to disenfranchise their sisters and brothers…

Siblings blinded by jealousy…when in our public life, we hear, “it’s not fair that those other workers get a higher wage than I do, better benefits and more secure employment… we need to do something about that!” The something, of course, involves a taking away. And in a frenzy, we strip off Joseph’s coat, leaving it in tatters, and throw him down a deep hole.

Or, when our official recordkeepers, government statisticians, find ways to stop counting the long-term unemployed, as if they no longer existed…each one of them a Joseph, who has been stripped of his or her dignity, thrown into a pit from which there seems to be no escape.

The oldest brother, Reuben, who takes a few steps to preserve Joseph’s life, suggesting that we throw him into a pit, rather than kill him – prolonging the agony with a slow death.…when we choose not to see the exhaustion of those who work two or three low-wage, part-time jobs and get little sleep and even less respect. When we rationalize, “at least they have a job,” as if there were any wholeness, any shalom, to the way they must spend their days and their nights.

When siblings take up arms against siblings, as in Norway, as in Tucson earlier this year, as in the interminable wars we wage around the globe, we are reliving the tragic moment when a great rift opened up between Jacob’s sons. When we choose to make the opposing party seem less than human, so we can do what we will to them, without moral consequence - whether the weapons are bombs, or guns, or knives, or words, they are equally sharp, equally destructive, equally opposed to God’s hopes for God’s children.

My friends, we are part of a family in which there is no shalom, no wholeness.

When the rich are rich enough to buy the news they want, the candidates they want, and buy government policies that are favorable to them….and our judicial systems roll over to their whim. When siblings lie and cheat one another, take up arms, sell one another into slavery on a daily basis – literally, as well as metaphorically…

There is no peace.

We cannot fix this ourselves. We have made the breach too big to repair simply with our own efforts. So we can spend our time pointing at Joseph and saying, “see, he was a tattletale, a braggart, a show-off” – his fault. Or at the brothers and say “how abusive, how ugly, how immoral what they did.” But in the end, it’s a waste of time. There is still the pit; still the breach of relationship; still the horror of a lost child and a lost brother. The blame game is simply another way of living out our brokenness.

But there is one, whom we worship, who is the repairer of breaches. The reconciler. The healer. The Great Creator of all good things, who has the capacity to make all things new. There is a Holy Spirit at work, always. She breathes in our ear, “Peace”…and it is not a false or a shallow peace, but an invitation to turn back from the edge. It is not an easy peace she promises, but, oh, is it worth it.

Open your heart, this day, to the One who speaks peace, deep peace, into our broken spirits and broken relationships. Whatever is broken, however deep the pit, however great the distance, it is not too much for God to overcome. This is not the end of the story, it is only the beginning. The Good News will make itself known in every place, and every time. God is at work, even here.

Amen.

Blessing Things

We've been doing a lot of blessing lately at our church.

We bless bread and grape juice every communion Sunday. We blessed a baby earlier this spring. During children's time on a recent Sunday, we learned to pray St. Patrick's Breastplate (with hand motions!). This is an ancient prayer, and we prayed it to remember that God is all around us, and blesses us wherever we are, whatever we are doing. We blessed bicycles and riders and volunteers in worship in late July, as we sent a team of dedicated folks off to ACT9, Wisconsin's AIDS Ride. At the end of August, we're blessing backpacks and school supplies, students and teachers. At the beginning of October, close to the Feast Day of St. Francis, we'll be blessing animals.

Blessing something invokes our sense of God's presence in that place, and offers reassurance to the one prayed for that God is there. It's a reminder that holiness erupts, even into the brokenness that is all around us. Rachel Naomi Remen writes, "When we bless others, we offer them refuge from an indifferent world." Blessing is doing the work of Christ, making God's presence real for one another, and declaring to our neighbor that they are loved.

We seek blessings because of the relationship between us, because we have care and compassion for one another. We don't have to have any special qualifications to bless one another. Our Reformation forebears reminded us that we are all priests; we are all holy; we are not only empowered to be in direct relationship with the Holy, but also have the privilege and responsibility of doing so. Take a minute today to bless those around you. People, animals, things... As Barbara Brown Taylor tells us in An Altar in the World, "Celebrate your own priesthood"!

A Prayer for the Riders, offered in worship at McFarland UCC in July 2011:

God preserve you from all trouble; God to keep you safe.
God to watch over your going out and your coming in,
From the first moment of the first day,
Until you join the joyful throng at the end of your journey.

O God, we find your presence wherever we go.

We ask your blessing upon these bicycles,
For those who travel upon them,
For those who minister alongside them.
For those who feed the riders,
And for those who offer a drink of cool water
no less refreshing than water dipped from a well in the desert.
For those who heal, for those who encourage,
For those whose spirits join the ride, even when their bodies cannot,
We seek a blessing.

Surround them with your loving care;
Protect them from every danger,
Wrap them in the arms of a supportive community
committed to creating goodness upon the earth,
and bring them in safety to all their journeys’ end.

And let the people of God say, Amen.

Adapted from the Pastor's Blog at mcfarlanducc.org.