Judaism, Islam, Christianity – They all Started with Abraham

Genesis 12: 1-4a

             16:1-6

             17:15-22

             21:8-18

            As many of you know I am going off lectionary for the rest of the summer.  I thought it would be fun to see what questions might be stirring within the hearts and minds of many of you.  A number of you gave me topics that were relevant, thought provoking and theologically challenging.  I will begin this sermon series with a question that many of us are contemplating especially in this day and age which asks what are the parallels the three dominant world religions of our time: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. 

            In order to understand these faith traditions we have to start with a history lesson.  Now anyone who has ever taken a class from me knows that I am a religious history geek.  I love delving into the past and figuring out how each historical event connects to one another through time.  So you can imagine that I had a lot of fun doing research for this sermon.  Yes the three traditions are connected, one coming from another.  This morning we heard some of the stories of Abraham.  The Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths all claim Abraham as a Patriarch.  We remember that over 2000 years before the birth of Jesus, Abraham was called by God to leave his country of Haran (modern day Turkey) to the promised land of Canaan (modern day Palestine).  There God would make him and his descendants a great nation.  “I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing… and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (12:2a-3)  Thus began the covenantal relationship between God and Abraham.  The covenant was a series of promises, God promises blessings to him if Abraham will promise obedience and worship only to the one God Yahweh.

            At the time of Abraham there were many competing gods.  It was common practice to worship idols, little to large clay statutes that depicted the likeness of a particular god.  Worship for the purpose of appeasing and giving sacrifice to the gods who were indifferent to human morality or conduct.  So for example if a woman was barren, she would worship and leave an offering to the goddess of fertility in hopes of being able to have children.  Traditional Jewish stories called the Midrash state that when Abraham was a little boy, he thought that idol worship was foolishness.  However Abraham’s father made and sold idols for a living, so you can imagine that Abram’s opinion caused a bit of tension in his house.  One day Abram was asked to mind his father’s store and as soon as his father left, Abram took a hammer and smashed all the idols.  When his father returned and saw the destruction he yelled at Abraham “What happened.” Abraham replied “The idols fought and destroyed each other.”  Of course his father didn’t believe him and he told Abraham that the idols were just objects of clay and stone with no powers of their own.  Abraham asked his father, “If idols have no power of their own why do you worship them?”  Scholars debate whether belief in the only one God Yahweh was started by Abraham or if Abraham was a returning to a pre-historic tradition.  Regardless, I’m sure he still went to bed with out his supper the night he destroyed the idols.

             One of the blessings that God promises Abraham is that he will have numerous descendants “as numerous as the stars in the sky” (22:17) However Abraham’s wife was barren and both Abraham and Sara were of advanced age.  Given the grim situation, Sara took things into her own hands and told Abraham to try to conceive a child with her slave Hagar, for any child of her slave would become her own.  Hagar gives birth to Abraham’s first born son and calls him Ishmael.  As the story goes, years later God gives Sara a son Isaac.  Sara does not want Ishmael, Abraham’s oldest son to take her son Isaac’s inheritance so she demands that Abraham cast out Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness.  Abraham is greatly disturbed for Ishmael was his flesh and blood, but God assures him that Hagar and Ishmael will prosper, “As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” (21:13) Muslims believe that they are the descendants of Ishmael’s legacy.  According to the Muslim tradition it was Ishmael, not Isaac whom God commands Abraham sacrifice.

            Rooted in Judaism, Christianity traces its legacy to Abraham through Isaac.  The early Christians were part of the Jewish community but in conflict with them because of their belief that Jesus was the messiah sent by God to be the embodiment of God’s grace and love.  They were expelled from their church home, the synagogue and so they had to carve a new church home for themselves.  Even so, they did not do away with the foundational stories of their faith the stories of the Abraham, Moses, Noah and others.  They kept the Jewish scripture and through out the New Testament we hear the stories of Abraham. Jesus refers to Abraham in his preaching and teaching.  The apostle Paul lifts Abraham as an example of faith.  In Paul’s letter to the Hebrews he states, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going ” (Heb 11:8)

            Now Islam started over 600 years after Jesus’ birth through the revelation of the Quran (Muslim Scriptures) to the prophet Muhammad.  It is said that the angel Gabriel spoke the words of God directly to Muhammad who was illiterate at the time, and so it is believed that every word of the Quran is the inerrant word of God whom the Muslims call Allah.  Muslim tradition believes that their people were descendants of Ishmael and that Allah made Muhammad his final prophet to correct the mistakes and interpretations of the former prophets of Judaism and Christianity.  So it would seem that replacement theology has had a trickle down effect, with Christianity superseding Judaism as the new covenant in Jesus Christ and Islam superseding both Christianity and Judaism as right theology.

            While it is hard not to be frustrated by one tradition calling ours wrong, we need to remember that God is a great and unknowable entity.  As hard as we might try, we cannot put God in a box.  Just as God has many paths of reaching us, God has provided many paths to reach God.  Be it Judaism, Islam or Christianity, as long as we make an effort to connect with the one who is greater than us, God is satisfied.  Theologian and religious scholar Karen Armstrong states that the commonality of all world religions is that at our best we are compassionate, at are worst we are controlling.  All three religions call for peace and social justice and seek to make a world where all of creation to live in right relationship with each other.  It is when religion is used to control that it goes against what ever scripture it ascribes to.  When the Taliban was in control of Afghanistan, their regime was oppressive especially to women and girls.  The rules set forth requiring women to cover themselves from head to toe and the restrictions on the education of girls did not come from the Quran or Muslim tradition, instead it was an exaggeration of some Muslim beliefs on modesty blown out of proportion to control half their population.  The same could be said about the terrorist attacks or violent acts done in the name of God.  Despite claims to the contrary the religions of Islam, Judiasm and Christianity condemn violence. 

            We must remember that compassion, forgiveness and peace rule the day for all three traditions.  All three faiths believe that God is merciful and forgiving and that we who are children of God are called to do likewise, whether our earthly example is Moses, Jesus or Muhammad.  For we all believe in the same higher power, be it God, Yahweh, or Allah.  May it be so.  Amen

Midweek Garden Blogging

It's going to be a bumper crop!

Roma Tomato

Wild Flower

Zucchini

Cherry Tomato

To God be the Glory! My garden.

Unlike the sower in Jesus' parable of the soils, I have to carefully planted my seeds and seedlings to bear fruit.  This year looks great, I think I'll be in for another fantastic harvest.  Here are the flowering blossoms.

Squash

Tomatoes

Beans

Cucumber

Chard and Kale

Lil' guy and his new friend tiger.

"Don't you dare take away my new comfy bed."

I Love to Till the Story

Romans 4:13-24
Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23

        “Do you remember when…”  This line is said at many gatherings, be it of family or of friends.  In May I had the pleasure of seeing most of my family, aunts, uncles, cousins at a family reunion at my brother’s house and the line “Do you remember when…” could be heard throughout the party, Mom do you remember when…., Aunt Barb do you remember when…, Lucia do you remember when…. The bond that holds families together is the stories that we share with each other.  Some have said that the Bible is a family album of sorts.  It is a collection of old family stories passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years to sustain this family of faith. 

Have you ever heard a story told by two different people, are the stories exactly the same.  No they are not, each tells the story from their vantage point.  So too there are stories in the Bible that appears more than once such as the story about the feeding of the five thousand, or the story of the Jesus’ death and resurrection.  The elements of the stories are the same, yet each writer has their own spin on the story, bringing their unique perspective into the telling of the great story.

Much of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim heritage begins with the call of Abraham, where God exhorts him to “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. ²I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”  All three of the great monotheistic religions (that means religions that believes in One Supreme God) recognizes that Abraham was the gardener called by God to plant the seeds of these great faith traditions. 

In the epistle we read this morning the Apostle Paul is asking “Do you remember when…” as he recollects the Abraham story.  He recalls the great faith that Abraham had when he heeded God’s call to leave his country to “become the Father of all nations.”  He remembers that Abraham and his wife Sarah were old and thus unable to have children, and yet he believed in God’s promise that he and Sarah would have descendants greater than the number of the stars in the sky. 

We continue sharing these stories about Abraham and Sarah, and Jesus and his followers because their stories meet our stories.  These stories are the seeds upon which God’s love grows and blossoms.  The gospel reading this morning is a parable illustrating the growth of God’s word using the image of a peasant farmer casting his seed confidently into the fields.  The path, rocky ground, thorns and good soil are metaphors for the communities who receive the gospel.  God’s word is broadcast out into the world in a haphazard way.  It seems like the sower doesn’t give a rip where the seeds ends up, just tossing it hither and yon with the confidence that somehow he will reap a great harvest despite the waste of seed in the process.  

I find this parable problematic because I am an avid gardener and I wish that I could just go out into my garden, toss some seed and boom, have a bumper crop of vegetables for me and my partner to eat, can and give away.  However, this is not the case. I carefully cultivate my garden plot in order to have a productive garden.  I start by amending the soil with lime to reduce the acidity of the plot.  Then I fill the plot with pounds and pounds of miracle grow gardening soil to make it more plant friendly.  Then I have to carefully plan where I will plant my seeds and seedlings. As the seeds sprout, I fertilize them and weed them.  I stake my tomato and cucumber plants so that they don’t fall to the ground when they start bearing fruit.  I then water my garden on daily basis and give it the occasional dose of fertilizer to maintain growth. 

Yet I can still find grass and weeds coming through the sidewalks, rock gardens and even the retaining wall.  Uuuuggh, you’d think that because they were deprived of soil and sun that grass wouldn’t grow there, but it does.  Everyday, I have to pick the grass, weeds and tree sprouts out of my sidewalk to prevent concrete mishaps.  How to make sense of this parable?  However, in writing this sermon, I started to play around with the metaphor a bit.  When am I the seed, when am I the soil, when do I blossom and when do I whither away.  Where am I planted.  How am I tilled.  Who is tilling me and who am I called to till.  My mind came up with the following idea, maybe I am the seed, and perhaps God is the sower.  Or maybe I am the soil, and God is the cultivator.  Perhaps I am the plant, and God is the gardener.  It is God who throws the seeds of the great story to all people throughout the world.  It is unpredictable how the word will take hold.  It may fall on the path so to speak and be snatched away, however, there is always the chance that the seed will fall into the crack and take root anyways.  It may fall on fertile ground, yet it may get choked by any weed growing around it and die unless the gardener takes time to pull the weeds from the soil so that the plant may flourish.  The point of the parable is that all things are in God’s hands and that God will work with any kind of soil to yield a harvest.  The good news of God’s love for all of God’s creation will take despite any failure or opposition. 
     Consider how the African American slaves were given the gospel before the American Civil War.  The plantation masters wanted to plant the stories of the Bible in their slaves minds to make them more obedient and subservient.  Yet when the stories took root in their hearts, the slaves were able to hear God’s promise of freedom and liberation through the story of Moses leading the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt in the book of Exodus.  God continued to cultivate the story in the hearts of the slave’s children and grand children into freedom from slavery.  This story continued to blossom even in the face of Jim Crow racism and it bore fruit in the hundreds full in the civil rights movement. 
        The joining of the great story and our story is the garden upon which the fruits of God’s work blossoms in our community of faith.  It is when we share with each other “I remember when God was present in my life…” that the seeds of God’s word are scattered that build the kingdom of God one story at time.   
May it be so.  Amen.

For You Were Strangers - A Sermon for 4th of July Weekend

Deuteronomy 10:17-21


Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

A number of years ago I saw an editorial cartoon in the paper that showed the Mayflower docked next to the statute of liberty. Along side it is a ramshackle raft full of people making its way to the shore. On the deck of the Mayflower one person says to another “We are so blessed to live in a country people that people run to rather than be a country that people run from!”
 
Yes, we are very blessed to live in the United States of America. The US is not a perfect country, but what country is perfect. However, we do have freedom; we have the freedom to vote for whom we want to lead us. When we don’t like what is going on, we have the freedom to critique our political process. We have the freedom to live our lives the way we want too, to pursue whatever dreams we have, and we even the freedom to practice whatever religious tradition we want without fear of persecution. It is because these freedoms that people from all over the world are drawn to live in United States.


In the Hebrew scripture this morning God is giving commands to a similarly blessed people, the Israelites whom God freed from slavery in Egypt. As they stand the edge of the promised land God reminds them that they are receiving this blessings so that they may be a blessing to others.

“For the Lord your God…who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deut. 10:17-19)

With the exception of Native Americans, many of our ancestors were strangers in this land and we are inheritors of their blessing. My mother and her family were imprisoned in a German Labor Camp after the Nazi’s invaded Poland. When World War II ended, the path was made smooth for them to come and live in America. My father was a Polish soldier who was a prisoner of war in Germany during World War II. After the war he came to America to pursue opportunities that were no longer available to him in war torn Poland.

We remember that mounted on the inner wall of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty is a poem by Emma Lazarus that celebrates the millions of immigrants just like my parents who came to the United States:

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" (1)

Unfortunately this hospitality has not always been extended to the immigrants in our country. Throughout our history immigration laws have restricted and expanded depending on variables such as the economy, war and political climate. Now I know we have different beliefs around the issue of immigration reform but it seems like lately there is a mean spiritedness and fear of the stranger that is fueling our county’s immigration policy. It is much more complicated to become a citizen of our country now than it was for my parents after World II. Anti-immigration laws such as the one passed in Arizona in 2008 targets undocumented workers, those whom some would call “illegal immigrants” by mandating law enforcement officers to check the documentation of those whom they suspect of being illegal. This same law makes it illegal for a US citizen to transport an undocumented immigrant from point a to point b, so if a nephew is driving his undocumented uncle to church and they get pulled over, nephew could end up in prison and the uncle will be deported.

Now, living in rural New England, it is easy for us to think that immigration reform is not our problem to consider. However there are long standing immigrant communities from Indonesia and Central America in southern New Hampshire. In the last five years the immigrant population the State of New Hampshire has increased with the influx of refugees coming Somalia, Burundi and Iraq. Unfortunately our state legislature is considering passing laws similar to Arizona’s which would be inhospitable and hostile to those who are having difficulty navigating the complications of work visas, green cards and naturalization.

Throughout the gospels Jesus practiced radical hospitality towards all people whom he encountered. For Jesus there was no concern for where one came from or how one lived ones life. He was a friend to all including tax collectors and sinners because he knew that all people were children of God. In the gospel he gives a free invitation to all people when he says:

"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matt. 11:28-30)

As a Christian people let us follow Christ’s example and do likewise.

May it be so. Amen.

[1] Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus.  1883

Whoever Welcomes You

Romans 14:1-13

Matthew 10: 40-42

While traveling through Northern Ireland to research for her book Siobhan Garrigan visited a Presbyterian Church one Sunday morning. When she first walked into the doors she was pleasantly surprised to be immediately greeted by two women right as she walked in. Not only did these women say hello but they also invited her into conversation. First they asked her for her name, and then they asked if there was anyone with her and what their first names were. Siobhan thought it was a bit intrusive at first but then though maybe that’s the way they do church in Ireland. So she was taken to her seat towards the back (where most new people like to sit). As she was waiting for service to begin she could hear the women greet other folks as they came through the doors of the church. It was the same greeting she got, what is your name, are there people with you, what are their names? But eventually Siobhan noticed something disturbing. The people with Protestant names such as Erin, Ronan and Shannon were warmly welcomed and taken to their seats but the people with the Catholic names, the Marias, the Catherines and the Patricks were told that they were in the wrong church and sent away. (1)

 
It is offensive for us to hear about that kind of behavior. How could a church who claims discipleship in Christ act so unchristian? Extending hospitality, especially to the stranger is one of the most important commandments of us in the scripture. Why within this church we have welcomed all kinds of people into our worshiping community and we celebrate those differences. You all come from different walks of life, have had different religious backgrounds and experiences, live in different economic situations and come from all kinds of family configurations. We are part of United Church of Christ, a denomination that calls itself a people of extravagant welcome and radical hospitality. This welcome is not only a matter of opening the doors of our congregations. It is also commitment to make the world a more hospitable place for all God’s children, be it advocating for immigration rights or hosting evacuees from the earth quake in Haiti.


Apprehension towards people who are different from ourselves is a natural thing. We feel most comfortable with people who look like us, talk like us, whose ways and customs are similar to ours and who live in the same ways we do. Practicing radical hospitality is a risky thing because we make ourselves vulnerable anytime we are relate with someone whose ways are different from our ways.

Several years ago I was called by Small City Church to be their associate pastor and the director of their cold weather shelter which houses homeless men and women during the coldest winter months. This call was a bit of a stretch for me because this was a wet shelter. Most shelters will not let people who are intoxicated stay the night which is good because it keeps the residents safe and on their programs. However there were homeless people who suffered from addiction who couldn’t stay in these dry shelters and they were literally dying in the streets. Small City Church saw the gap and filled it by opening it’s Christian Education wing to provide radical hospitality to these men and women that other shelters were unable to house. My previous work experience had been in a shelter that housed families with children. In the shelter in Small City, I was going to be working with people in various states of intoxication and bizarre mental conditions. I was going to be working with street people. Quite overwhelming thing for this middle class Midwestern girl to embark on. When I told her about what I would be doing, my mom begged not to take the call. She was worried that her beloved daughter would be harmed by some crazy homeless person. It’s one thing to work with homeless families with children but another to work with a bunch of skid row bums and crazies according to my mother.

“Why can’t you work in a nice church like other normal pastors do?” She asked. And I told her “because you did not raise your daughter to be normal, so why would I be a ‘normal pastor.’” You see my call was leading me to the caring for the least of these, those whom the world had given up on. Someone needed to extend radical hospitality to these men and women in the midst of their struggles and God was trusting me to do it.

Working in that shelter was a life changing experience for me because of the people I met there. They allowed me to minister to them, but in many ways they ministered to me. I found that many of these folks had a deep and abiding faith that seemed childlike and naive in comparison to my more rationally based faith. These people had nothing and so all they had to rely on God. I had more requests for Bibles from the shelter residents then I did from the people in the pews. These folk were not shy about testifying their faith with me and each other because they were not silenced by the rules of polite society that keep people from openly discussing religion or politics.

I learned a lot about religion from these folks. I’ve also learned about radical hospitality from these folks as well. Like one night a person came to the shelter soaking wet from the rain and did not have a dry set of clothes to change into. The other guests gave what they could to him so that their friend would not have to sleep in wet clothes. One evening one of the guests over heard one of the volunteers telling me that she didn’t have time to eat supper that night. That guest walked over to our table and gave her his last granola bar so she wouldn’t have to work hungry that night.

Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes to one who sent me.” That is so true because every time I welcomed someone into the shelter I would see the face of Christ in their face. I would have missed so many opportunities of spiritual witness if fear got in the way extending radical hospitality.

“And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of the little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

May it be so.

Amen

(1) William Goettler "Matthew 10: 40-42.  Pastoral Perspective" Feasting on the Word, 192

The Far Side and Ministry

A colleague recently told me that being an ordained minister in an anxious system is like this Far Side cartoon.