Many of you know I began my career as an artist. Artistic vision is so much a part of how I see the world, God, and life. Growing up, I loved making animated flipbooks. Remember those? Each page in the book had the same picture with a slight change that created movement as you flipped the pages.
When I hear our Collect for today, I imagine our request for perpetual love as a flip book of our lives – each page showing how we lived love into being and action, each page slightly different than the page before, creating a visual of the movement of love through the course of our life. What holds our pages together is the lovingkindness of God.
I believe that God is the source and structure of our love for one another, for ourselves, for the world, and even for God, and our readings today give us a few ways to understand that structure, as well as the character of God, so let’s take a look…
Our Genesis story of Abraham and Sarah shows us how God moves to restore love when it has been lost to human foibles. Abraham and Sarah, desperate for an heir, move outside of God’s plan for them. As a result, Sarah’s slave, Hagar, is sexually assaulted - taken against her will and impregnated by Abraham. The tradition that justified this was nothing less than acceptance of patriarchal oppression.
I can’t imagine anyone watching this series or reading the books being satisfied with the fairness or faithfulness of such a system. Neither can I imagine it being any different in Old Testament times. No matter how culturally or religiously justified, we know when systems are evil, oppressive, and wrong.
As often happens, one wrong leads to more wrongs. Power does that. After bearing Abraham’s son and only heir, Ishmael, Hagar recognizes her power and lords it over, Sarah, who is shamed and disgraced by her childlessness, until she bears a son, Isaac, and takes back her power. In her privilege, Sarah banishes Hagar and Ishmael to die in the wilderness.
Throughout this story, Abraham, the only character with any real power stands by impotently. Everyone in this story fails in the faithfulness category – except God – which is the point. God goes to Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness, delivers them from the certain death of their bodies and souls, providing water and a promise to make of Ishmael a great nation. Like Sarah, Hagar also will be the matriarch of a great nation.
In our gospel reading, Jesus is getting real with his followers. It always makes us uncomfortable when our soft, fluffy, loving Jesus reveals his sharper edges, but he does that here.
You may remember that last week, Jesus gave the disciples authority to proclaim that in the reign of God, which is overarching, all-embracing, and includes everything that is, heaven and earth have been joined into one divine, cosmic reality. The disciples were being sent out into this new reality to restore the helpless and harassed to wholeness of life, wholeness of spirit, and wholeness of purpose, in Jesus’ name. They were being sent as co-creators of God’s redemption for the world.
Today’s gospel story picks up with Jesus finishing this teaching. Every truth that humans have covered up and every evil we have justified will be uncovered, exposed, and ultimately redeemed by God’s love.
Then Jesus offers the most beautiful assurance. You are so valuable to God, who knows you so intimately, that even the hairs on your heads are counted! Think about that: every single aspect of who we are, even those aspects we don’t know about ourselves, are known to God, who values us and cares for us, which is why we can stand firm on the foundation of God’s loving-kindness.
One would think that sharing the good news of God’s redeeming love would bring honor and praise, but if human systems are to be transformed, they must first be dismantled, and that rarely happens without a fight – even in the church. Those with power, wealth, and influence, those benefitting from the status quo don’t let go of it easily – even when it’s the right thing to do.
Human history shows us that it often takes violent conflict to bring about change. Think about the start of our own nation 250 years ago, the Civil Rights movement 60 years ago, or the LGBTQIA+ movement happening now. In the end, everyone benefits when human dignity and freedom are won. Everyone, even those who clung to the status quo with clenched fists.
Jesus concludes this teaching with a straightforward statement, once we get the translation clear. The word we translate as “worthy” is better translated as “congruent.” It’s a long-standing habit of the church to motivate us by undermining our sense of worthiness, and for that, I apologize on behalf of the church. Didn’t Jesus just finish clarifying our worthiness in his story about the sparrows?
Whoever seeks earthly sources of protection and community rather than finding those in Jesus, is not congruent with him. Whoever does not bear the burdens of the world with loving kindness and forgiveness, as he did from the cross, is not congruent with him. Anyone who seeks to direct their own lives apart from Jesus will find themselves in a mess of their own making. Anyone who loves in Jesus’ name despite the very real pushback the world will inflict upon them, will discover that Jesus is pleased to dwell in them and redeem them, and through them, the world.
Now that’s good news!
I’ve talked to many folks around here who are asking what’s taking God so long? Where is God in Ukraine? Where is God in the attacks against women and our LGBTQIA+ siblings? Being resourceful, we’re tempted to resolve these problems on our own, like Abraham and Sarah did. So, I’m here to tell you, whenever this temptation rises up, hear the wise words of my former spiritual director, Sr. Elizabeth: Don’t feed it. Don’t fight it. Don’t fix it.
God has promised redemption of the whole world in Jesus Christ. Trust that promise. When the inevitable conflict happens, we must continue to trust while God redeems even those fighting against us, for all are children of the one God who reconciles the whole world back into love.
Let’s pray: Thank you, most gracious God, for the foundation of your loving kindness. We pray that we may be as reverent of one another and of you as you are of us. Give us grace to reflect your love and make it as real on earth as it is in heaven. We pray this in the name of the Trinity, who is Unity. Amen.
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