Second Sunday in Lent 2009...On the One Hand...

Genesis 22: 1-2; 9-13; 15-18

“After these things God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I."
He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Mori'ah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you…”

And you know the rest of the story.

This is not an easy read! In most bible versions and in the commentaries on it, this story of Abraham and Isaac is entitled The Test. The theory is that God needs to measure – again – Abraham’s fidelity. Some test…more like a gruesome trick perpetrated by a bully.
The story appears in chapter 22 of Geneisis and manages to contradict everything we’ve been told so far about God (to say nothing of the retrospective of thousands of years of God’s love and fidelity to the covenant.) How are we supposed to make sense of it when even the biblical commentators don’t agree?
Let’s come at this a little differently, let’s come at it from our own experience of god. This version, entitled Abraham’s dilemma” says that Abraham heard God speak…but did he really? …maybe not…there are all kinds of ways this happens. We can justify lots of our ideas as “God’s will for me", or "what God is asking of me here” or "where God is calling me”. On our more creative days we can cite scripture and tradition in support. The only thing is, if we listen a little more closely, gods voice sounds suspiciously like our own

And so with Abraham. His ancient traditions tell him that sacrificing his firstborn is the ultimate act of appeasement to the gods. There can be no finer gift. This is his tradition, this is what he knows and believes, and for Abraham, as painful as this is, (and the story tells us just how painful it was), this is as good as a command.
And then the dilemma…God has also told Abraham and told Abraham he will be the father of many nations…..

And so in a scene that would pay itself out again in Tevya in Fiddler on the Roof Abraham holds his hands out and weighs the options; on the one hand..on the other hand …on the one hand...

Abraham knows two things; what reason tells him and what God promises.

And at some point Abraham is able to make that act of trust in the promise and we know how the story turns out.

What might we come away with?
The presence of a tender God who often saves us from ourselves.
A God who values fidelity over “getting it right”

What does this reading tell us about our response to the chaos and mixed messages of our time:
What does our own personal history tell us about God?

Ash Wednesday...In Other Words

Reading: Joel 2: 12-13
“Return to me with all your heart…tear open your heart, not your clothes. Return to Yahweh, your God, who loves you as a mother ~ quick to forgive, abundantly tenderhearted ~ and relents from inflicting disaster.”


Lent – the word dredges up memories of spiritual athletics of an earlier time: who could give up the most for the longest. It was more of a contest than a spiritual practice. Today I know of folks who will not drink alcohol, or eat M&M’s from Ash Wednesday until Easter to prove to themselves (and others) that no, they, don’t have a problem with alcohol or with sweets. The adult version of the spiritual athlete.

Tradition says that the ashes placed on foreheads on Ash Wednesday are a reminder of our mortality. They also are a public statement of our sense of sinfulness and our desire to re-direct our lives, our need for reconciliation, re-connection with broken relationships that may be with other people, or ourselves, or with our God.

The reading from Joel reminds us that re-direction or its synonym, repentance, is about a disposition of the heart rather than about spiritual athletics. Our public statement becomes the way we live in the everydayness of our lives with the people, places, and events that we encounter, in the small and large choices we make.
The real work comes in the effort to see ourselves in relationship to all creation. And relationship is the operative word. The work for us in Lent and all year is around reflection on the nature of those relationships. ~ Do we accept our relational existence? Are our relationships caring or indifferent or hostile? Do we hold up our part of the relationship? Do we know what our part is? What of our relationship with ourselves? With our God?

When you think about a Lenten practice, consider one that connects with that disposition of your heart that most needs attention. Choose one that will affect one of the myriad relationships you are part of. (If you also decide to take on candy or alcohol, do it as a reminder of how stuck we can get and how hard change is sometimes.)

And a last word about ashes….they are composed of star dust…as are we…as is everything.
Repentance, Lent, re-direction, reconciliation, whatever the synonym that works best for us, is about our desire to become aware and live out of our little place in the grand scheme of things, to become “right sized” as the person and in the place we are called to be…