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A Sermon for Judson Memorial Church
March 5, 2006
Cheryl Dudley
Everyone is Looking For You
I'd like to begin with a prayer of St. Francis that I found in Love Poems From God by Daniel Ladinsky. Let's pray:
Dear God,
Please reveal to us your sublime beauty
That is everywhere, everywhere, everywhere,
So that we will never again feel frightened.
My divine love, my love
Please let us touch your face.
Amen.
The ways in which people of different faiths practice their faith have been in the public consciousness these days. It's in the news: various kinds of media and people are talking about religion and wondering about faith traditions "out there" that are different from their own. We have seen public outrage expressed ostensibly over cartoons printed in Danish and other nation's papers characterizing or caricaturizing Mohammed. Muslim kindred across the globe (Middle East, Africa, Europe, and America) have taken to the streets in strong protest as these line drawings that are humorous to some and blasphemous to others have deepened the already existent condition of misunderstanding and intolerance. It has been akin to pouring salt on an already festering wound. Kind of like telling off-colored jokes in mixed company; who does the joke teller think is listening? Is he simply trying to get a cheap laugh with persons assumed to be the same, or making a backhanded insult to the targeted person or group couched in humor? Admittedly, many of us have become desensitized to or tolerant of offensive materials of various stripes and may have difficulty understanding what the terrible fuss is all about. Some are genuinely surprised when - or wonder about - the deeper issues of respect or disrespect, tolerance or intolerance, recognition or lack of recognition of humanity becomes unleashed through the ruse of a cartoon or joke. The loud, clear message has been: it's not funny to us! So the question that has arisen in many non-Muslims minds is: "How can people of faith (even a faith different than my own) act like that, and why?"
Of course, Christian religious practices are also in collective consciousnesses these days (if not every day) as well. Some of us were interested in seeing Pat Robertson censored, seemingly reprimanded by persons or organizations similar to his when he was not re-elected to the religious broadcasters board because of disparaging remarks he made in recent months on a number of issues. And this past week, Christians (from high and low church traditions) began the perennial journey with Jesus to the cross with the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday. It is during this period when the faithful in the Christian tradition face their own weaknesses and vulnerabilities through the practice of releasing or taking on something (or some things) in particular (which may be out of the norm of the regular spiritual discipline) during these 40 days. (You know what you are or are not doing. I know what I am or am not doing during this season.) Yes, various religious practices, beliefs, norms, and understandings are getting a lot of attention these days. And, there are a lot of mixed messages. Like that host in the old game show, To Tell the Truth, we want to ask: "Will the real God to stand up?"
In thinking about these things and a message for us today, I was drawn to the ancient tradition texts that you have already heard read this morning.
In many ways, the Genesis 16 is a disturbing tale full of human foibles, foolish strategies, and characteristically predicable human responses to situations that are created when people step in (as we too often do) and try to do God's work. What seems like a good idea at the time ends up not being such a good idea after all. So then, we have Abram (later known as Abraham), Sarai (later known as Sarah), Hagar (always known as Hagar), some offspring, and God all mixed together in what seems like quite a mess.
It started with a promise. A promise made by God to Abram that he would one day be the father of nations… If we are familiar with the story, we know that Abram was surprised by this announcement and Sarai, too, was surprised, amused, and disbelieving.
Time went by and the promise had not come to pass. Sarai, if not Abram as well, began to get anxious about the promise coming into being.
So, Sarai had an idea that since it was unlikely that she would give birth (regardless of what she understood earlier), she would give her handmaiden to Abram, and then Hagar would become pregnant, and that would set the ball motion. You see, children born of a union between a handmaiden and her mistress's husband were recognized as the children of the wife (by adoption by the wife) and not considered the child of the handmaiden. So, Abram went along with this idea. There is nothing recorded about Abram protesting the idea, so hormones must have kicked in and he followed through. But, when Hagar did become pregnant, Sarai became resentful and Hagar became contemptuous. There was an inevitable tension that arose in this polygamous household. This is an unsurprising consequence in a patriarchal set-up. Although Abram was at the center of the scenario, he seemed to play a pretty passive - almost fatalistic -role in the course of events that came to pass. The women were at each other's throats. They became competitive and resentful of each other and fought each other with the weapons each had in their arsenal. Yes, Sarai was the first wife, and Hagar was the second wife, but Hagar was expecting a child (and an archetypical biblical rivalry came into being). Sarai couldn't live with the reality and didn't want to live with this arrangement, so her actions drove Hagar out.
For a handmaiden, Hagar was a strong woman with a clear sense of who she was in the core of her being. Hagar was a woman who would not be restrained. The story tells us that she fled the strong arm and strong treatment of her mistress. She was headed home toward Egypt. Scholars debate whether she was really from Egypt and concede that it is clear that she is from the desert. So, this woman of the desert makes her way through the desert and doesn't stop until she comes to a spring on the way to Shur. (Interestingly, this is a spring that is later associated with Isaac - the child that Sarai would have when they all let God do God's thing is fulfilling God's promise.) It is here at the spring that a messenger comes to her in her desolation. The messenger, who is God, calls her by name and asks Hagar: "Where have you come from and where are you going?" Presumably, Hagar tells God all about it: the terrible situation she was put in, the dynamics in the house, the baby growing inside her, how she felt no other choice but to leave, how she had run away and didn't plan to look back… After hearing all that, God doesn't really transform her situation into something more desirable. She is directed to go back. I might of said, "Humph."
But she is sent back with some assurances. She is assured that her child will be born and his offspring will be multitudinous. God tells her what her son's name will be: Ishmael - which means, "The Lord has given heed to the mother's affliction." God gives her some information about her son's character and temperament, telling her that Ishmael will be free spirited: a , but a wild ass who will be celebrated by God, who will not be submissive to other people. He will frequently be at odds with others, even with his own, as such tensions often occur between sedentary (stationary or planted) people and transitory or nomadic people. (I wonder how Hagar felt about this description of son. Did she recognize her own temperament, or was she grateful that he would have a fighting spirit in light of the anticipated hard circumstances of his emerging life?)
Hagar follows through with the messenger's directive. She goes back "home" to Sarai and Abram. She gives birth to Ishmael and a future is opened up for her. We may wish a freer future for Hagar, but that is not what happens. Fairy tale endings are for fairy tales. Her future contains a new form of freedom as she forges her own faith that came to her independent of her mistress and her husband.
I am reminded of a story described in Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman, which was published in 1949. The story is about Thurman's grandmother who was unable to read. She recounted to him her days as a slave when she was forbidden to read. Like all those who were enslaved, her contact with the outside world had been restricted to what the slave master wanted her to know - what he hoped would keep her dependent and obedient. Instead, she memorized the scriptures that sustained her and sorted out and rejected the ones her master wanted her to learn.
Her story, like that of many North American women and African Americans, reveals the Bible as an effective weapon used by those in power to manipulate the behavior of the dis-empowered. Despite negative presentations of the Scriptures, she (and others) still listened, strangely finding a truth in them for her.
Decades later, as her grandson Howard read to her (as he did two or three times each week) he felt he had to know the answer to the question that frequently troubled him. "Why is it that you do not let me read you any of Paul's letters?"
Answering without apology. "During the days of slavery, the master's minister would occasionally hold services for the slaves. Old Man McGhee was so mean that he would not let a Negro minister preach to his slaves." This practice was common among slaveholders because they feared rebellion. "Always the white minister used as his text something from Paul. At least three or four times a year he would use the text: 'Slaves, be obedient to them that are your master, as unto Christ.' Then he would go on to show how it was God's will that we were slaves and how, if we were good and happy slaves, God would bless us. I promised my Maker that if I ever learned to read, and if freedom ever came, I would not read that part of the Bible."
The gospel, or the God, Thurman's grandmother had come to know was revealed regardless of her master's minister's interpretation. God came to her, saw her in her condition, and distilled a grace to help her live and hope through desolate circumstances.
Through rankled human relationship is the assurance that God's mercy does not fail. The words with which Hagar responds to this Everlasting Mercy known as God was the profound retort: "God, You see me?!?!" (God, You SEE me! God, You see ME!) It is the glad acknowledgement that God's grace beholds us despite our less than perfect circumstances and in the midst of our human needs. The songwriter once wrote, "God looked beyond my fault and saw my need." Like many a lonely soul for whom the world seems desolate, like Hagar, we can take comfort in the truth that the One who saw Hagar and her sorrow also sees us, and comes to us with compassion, truth, and hope.
There is another example in the movie Transamerica. The main character, Bree Osbourne, is going through her own journey (without giving too much of the movie away) and complains to a cohort that her parents never saw her for who she was. There is a memorable line in the movie where she reflects: "My body may be a work in progress but there is nothing wrong with my soul." Bree, like Hagar, declares that she needs the Divine to see her for who she is and that reality is enough in which for the Divine to engage with her.
The Hagar story is interesting for another reason; the status of Abram's son is made plain. Ishmael (Hagar's expectant son in this story) is of Abram's stock, but is a separate person from the son that Sarai would later conceive and bear. The story points to the relationship of Israel (Jews) to the Ishmaelites (Muslims) as a kinship of blood. So, the bond between the Ishmaelites and Israelites is accounted for. They have a common ancestry (same father); nevertheless, there is an admission that the perception and temperament of the two would be different. Yet Ishmael, like Isaac, is a child of the promise. Different promises... He will be a wild ass of a man - against every man; every man's hands against him. However, we need to be careful when thinking about those who trace their ancestry religiously to Ishmael, for this story is not a Rudyard Kipling "Just-so" story (why things are the way they are…). It is a testament to us in this age as we reflect on what is acutely happening in religious spheres these days. It could read like: what do we do with each other as people of faith? What do we do with it as Christians? What do we do with it as persons that live out our faith in a pluralistic reality where we seek to be faithful to the God we know, and expect and hope God will do God's job in sorting it out, when it seems that the greatest priority (for some) is the afterlife rather than who we are in the present life.
Our Gospel reading (Mark 1:35-39) depicts Jesus' need to steal away from time to time, even in the midst of a preponderance of needs and circumstances among people. People were coming at Jesus en masse and folks weren't being excluded for being unclean or infirm or outside of the sanctioned caste. Mark's gospel tells that even in Jesus' early ministry, in familiar places, persons with many needs continuously swarmed around him.
The crowds periodically created a problem for Jesus in his ministry. As he did his ministry, he didn't do it with the intention of settling down in a particular town to be the local healer or holy man. It was his intention to preach far and wide throughout the region. The verses in Mark tell us that Jesus goes in the middle of the night, leaves everyone behind (including his trusted disciples) to go away and pray. He leaves the hustle and bustle and goes to a deserted place. We don't know what he was praying about here. Perhaps he just needed a moment alone with God to rejuvenate. So, Jesus was taking a moment, having to initiate a moment when no one could stop him from being alone with God. Eventually, Simon and the other disciples found him, told him he had work to do, and sought to take him back to where he had escaped, which was Capernaum. However, Jesus insisted he had no intention on becoming the resident Capernaum preacher, teacher, and healer. He didn't intend on setting up shop there and be the community chaplain. Yes, he had work to do, but the work he had to continue to do was in the rest (all) of Galilee.
Jesus needed to be renewed (like all of us) and sought his renewal through prayer. Perhaps this season is not the time when we need to shed something, as is often the case, but the season when and where we take on and seek the lonely places - secret closets, inward recesses - where we may experience sanctuary and communion with God. It is by so doing that we will receive strength for the journey during this challenging time in the world. It is in this lonely place where the re-creation or re-newal of our power comes. The whole city, region, everyone was clamoring for Jesus; prayer is how he was strengthened and it is how our rejuvenation happens.
Being in that lonely place can feel frightening. The lonely place is where onlookers and even we don't fully understand ourselves. We may be afraid that in that lonely place we will just be or feel lonely and deserted. We may be afraid that God may not meet us there. However, there is no fulfillment or in-filling without going to that lonely place. There is no knowing what our next steps need to be without going to the lonely place. The town (and the clamoring crowd) was saying, "Stay!" to Jesus, but God and the road and the need were saying, "Go! Go to the next town to Jesus!" Jesus' spirit could not be and cannot be localized or trapped in one form or location. And so Jesus left Capernaum to go to the next town; he couldn't be held back. He had a lot of territory to cover: the whole region of Galilee with its many villages and vistas, its diversity of people and religious views.
Just as Jesus went to a deserted place or a lonely place, we too need to go to a deserted or lonely place. Perhaps it is there where we will meet the living God who will take a moment with us.
Everyone is looking for that place where spiritual connection happens. Everyone is hoping that that connection will happen in a way that is unique to that person and the circumstances of their life. Many are surprised that what they didn't know they were looking for comes to them and sees them for who they are.
Everyone is out there: Hagar, Ishmael; insiders and outsiders, even the doubtful and cynical, angry and disappointed, are saying to themselves "Maybe there is a God who sees me for who I am." I have many universal proclivities and respect and expect that God works outside or beyond my own experience of God, but Jesus is important to me. Jesus is how I have experienced God in tangible, life changing ways. Jesus is the grace I know and have cherished. So that is in that grace that I know how to share the living work. I know no other. IT is an amazing grace.
Thro' many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
Peter probably didn't realize how profound his statement "everyone is looking for you" really was. The "everyone" in his mind probably meant something else - something smaller. It didn't really mean "EVERYONE!" But, Jesus knew what "everyone" meant and rather than go back to Capernaum, where only some of "the everyone" Peter mentioned were, Jesus went on to the other towns and villages in Galilee where some others - those who had not experienced the upfront, accessible, visible God - would see the God who sees them, for themselves. For, everyone was looking for him.
Let us pray:
Dear God,
Please reveal to us your sublime beauty that is
Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere,
So that we will never again feel frightened.
My divine love, my love
Please let us touch your face. Amen.
Ancient Testimony: Genesis 16:1-15; Mark 1: 35-39
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