Was It Worth It? A Mary Meditation (Part 2)

When she was young, after the angel had come and after she visited with her cousin Elizabeth, Mary was said to have sung her own song of praise to God:

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.  Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.  His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.  He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.  He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.  He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.

It is not the song of a young women, though.  Rather, it is the song of a woman who has lived long upon this earth . . . the song of a woman who knows things . . . sees things . . . remembers things. . . knows things.  It is Wisdom’s song.  Or is it?

This song of Mary is extraordinary as the song of a woman young or old, experienced and wise in the ways of the world or untried and unknowing in her vision of the future . . . for how could a young woman speak such keen prophetic words about the powerful and the lowly . . . the rich and the hungry?  And how could an old woman bereft of her child sing of her blessedness?  Proclaim through the generations to all who would ask that it was worth it?

Through the pain and the heartache . . . in anticipation of the joys and tears yet to come . . . in fulfillment of a divine invitation . . . in retrospection about how that promise played out in real time . . . and all evidence to the contrary, does Mary proclaim through the ages, Oh yes.  Yes.  It was worth it.  From the very beginning . . . from the moment Father Abraham set out on his journey along God’s path . . . to now, when my son is no more and like Rachel before me do I mourn all mother’s sons, none more than my own . . . to future generations who will see the promises play out in their own lives, their own time . . . and all evidence to the contrary, I give my own magnifying yes, my own witness . . . all evidence to the contrary, it was always worth it. . . He was always worth it.

Standing in the Gap of Justice

Yesterday my friend Rhonda preached while I sat in the pew - a nice change-up.  She took as her text a reading from Ezekiel, with her sermon title taken from the NIV, “Standing in the Gap”.

Yet it was not Ezekiel, but Abraham who drew my attention as Rhonda referenced Abraham’s bargaining with YHWH over the fate of Sodom.

Lawyer me was reminded of Blackstone's formulation, Better 10 guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer, a concept which actually harkens back to the Genesis account of Abraham’s wrangling with the divine.

Astonishing as it is that one should stand in such intimate relation to God that he could and would dare to recall God to God’s highest and best self, today I am struck and saddened by how far we have strayed from Abraham’s heart for his fellow human beings.

In the New Testament (John 11.50), there is a vastly different correlative where Caiaphas proclaims that it is better that one man die (for the nation) than that the whole nation should perish.

The contrast is startling: Caiaphas feared Rome more than he feared God; Abraham feared neither.

Caiaphas, it would seem, stood on the ground of reason, while Abraham, who used reason, stood on the ground of God’s own self.

Caiaphas sought safety; Abraham sought justice.

And therein lies all the difference in the world.

For Abraham would preserve the many guilty in order to save the innocent few.

We, like Caiaphas, would surrender the many innocent in order to slay the guilty few.

Think not?

Consider then our many perceived ‘enemies’ around the world.

The one at the top of the headlines in this election cycle in the United States is Iran.  ‘Nuclear ambitions’ are nothing to be taken lightly.  Yet the philosophy of first strike/pre-emptive war, grounded in the fear of what might happen, demands and even exalts the Caiaphas worldview – better them than us . . . better thousands of their innocents die* to try to get at the one or few guilty among ‘them’.

The voice of Abraham, the voice that cries out to God to spare the guilty in order to protect the innocent, has all but disappeared from our national consciousness.

When did the innocent become so expendable?

If the world is to be governed by Machiavellian ideals, then so be it.

But airwave commentators, preachers on Sunday and the common citizen in these United States must stop at once any invocation of God and God’s blessings upon us when we hold so lightly what God holds so dear.

We must stop decrying our claim to value life above all else and admit that, in fact, our first principle is ‘me first’.

We must admit that our fears are larger than our faith.

We must surrender any notion that we as a nation are or ever were governed by anything even approaching the vision of Christ proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount.

Either that or we must surrender our drones and get down to the very hard work of making, being, and giving peace to our enemies and bargaining not for our lives, but for theirs.




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Abdul Hakeem before his surgery

*Who do we think dies when we bomb distant peoples and lands from afar?  Children, women, the elderly, the powerless, those who do not have access to bomb shelters.  We were willing to and did kill Qadafi’s family in order to try [unsuccessfully] to kill him in the 1980's.  We were willing to and did kill and maim the children of Fallujah in order to try [again unsuccessfully] to kill or quell the Sunni insurgents of Iraq in the early 2000's.  I met Abdul Hakeem, one of the many children injured or killed in our strikes on Fallujah while we were both in Amman, Jordan.  We were willing to and are killing the innocent to try to get at the guilty with our drone strikes.  Just five days ago, 13 civilians were killed in Yemen when a drone strike missed its intended target. RT

A Good Father (from Beth's sermon archives)

A Commentary on the Text

          Almost all of this is inspired by or taken directly from Bruce Feiler’s book, Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths.

          There are a few important things to note about Genesis 18:
          (1) God appeared to Abraham, that is Abraham was in God’s very presence somehow in the midst of the three strangers, who are not people, but divine beings of some kind.  Some say angels, some, particularly later Christian writers, say that the three were in fact God.  In fact, Orthodox Christians portray the three at the table as a representation of the Trinity.  From the following chapters, it would appear that God was one of the three (see 19.1).  But what is important for us is that it is God, not angels or messengers, who speaks to Abraham.
          (2) Laughter is a big part of this story – in fact, the child of Abraham and Sarah, is named “He laughs”.  That’s what ‘Isaac’ means in Hebrew.  Sarah laughed out loud when she as an old woman was promised a child.  Earlier, in 17.17, Abraham, hearing the same promise, actually falls on his face laughing.
          (3) Sarah observes from the tent . . . in that time, as it is even today in many Middle Eastern homes, women are not allowed in the company of men not a part of their family, so Sarah is culturally sidelined to the background in this story.
          (4) Abram’s name was changed by God to ‘Abraham’.  The name Abram means ‘the father is exalted’ or ‘mighty father’ in Hebrew and Abraham means ‘father of many nations’. [Feiler, p. 69].

A Good Father

          To understand the importance of Abraham and this story about Abraham for us, perhaps we should begin with the first verse of the first chapter of the book of Matthew, the first Gospel of the New Testament: An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
          Abraham is the father of Ishmael, and thus the father of Islam; Abraham is the father of Isaac, and thus the father of Judaism; Abraham is the father, the ancestor, of Jesus, and thus the father of Christianity.
          On this Father’s Day, as Abraham’s children continue to fight with and kill each other around the world, perhaps if we consider Abraham to understand better what a good father is, we might better learn what it is to be a good child of that father.
          A good father does not take himself too seriously . . . when God told Abraham that he and Sarah would have a child, they were both so old that the reaction for both of them was to laugh . . . indeed, Abraham literally fell on the ground laughing.  A good father takes God seriously, but never himself . . . for to be a father is to be willing to be ridiculous in the eyes of the world.
          A good father loves expansively . . . in Genesis 12, God promises Abraham that he will be the father of the nations, that Abraham will be blessed in order to be a blessing to the world.  This was not a genetic, but rather a spiritual promise . . . the blood of Abraham does not flow in my veins, yet Abraham is my father too, for Abraham’s love is an expansive love, with arms outstretched to embrace the whole world.  Consider in our text today that the very next thing to happen after the promise of a child from God is that Abraham and the visiting God travel to Sodom and Gomorrah, which God proposes to destroy, so bad are the reports of their behavior.  And they were bad . . . very very bad.  Alive with the promise of new life for himself and Sarah, Abraham does not hold back in fear . . . rather Abraham wheedles, cajoles, negotiates with, and even threatens God with the loss of God’s own honor should God do this thing . . . Far be that from you (to kill the righteous with the wicked)!  Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?  
          Abraham’s love is not limited to his own family or tribe; it is not even limited to those who deserve that love, for Abraham bargains for the lives of everyone in the two cities . . . and God agrees!  The love of a good father for his family changes how he sees the whole world. . . for a good father sees the whole world through the eyes of love.
          A good father is thankful and prays for his children.  In the Qu’ran, the Muslim holy book, Ibrahim (Abraham) prays to God, “Praise be to Allah, Who has given me in my old age, Ishmael and Isaac.  My Lord, make me, and my descendants, steadfast in prayer.”
          A good father is not perfect; a good father makes mistakes . . . Abraham tricks powerful men who give him hospitality into thinking that Sarah is his sister rather than his wife . . . twice!  Abraham sends Ishmael away into the desert to please Sarah . . . Abraham takes a knife in hand to sacrifice Isaac . . . the same Abraham who argued and pled with God on behalf of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah says not a word in protest about sending away his older son or taking a knife to his younger one.  Feiler notes that Jewish thought suggests that Abraham was testing God rather than the other way around.  The only problem with this is that Abraham tested God with lives other than his own, with the lives and well being of his sons.  Even good fathers make mistakes.
          In trying to make sense of all of this, especially about the story of the sacrifice of his son, Jewish believers have understood the story to stand for the place of suffering a believer must endure for their faith; Christian believers emphasize the aspect of faith; and Muslim believers, the importance of Abraham’s obedience.
          Suffering, faith, obedience.  Which is it?  Is it all three?  None?  Or something else entirely?  The fact is that even, and perhaps especially, good fathers will be misunderstood by their children.
          A good father was once a son . . .in Christianity and Judaism, Isaac is the one on the altar to be sacrificed; in Islam, it is Ishmael.  But interestingly, all three religions “share a legend surrounding the offering.  Immediately after the [son] is saved, he lies on the altar, clutching the knife, the emotion of the ordeal flooding from his body.  God tells him he will grant him any prayer.  ‘O God, I pray that you grant me this,’ the [son] says.  ‘When any person in any era meets you at the gates of heaven – whether they believe in your or not –I ask that you allow them to enter Paradise.” (Feiler, p. 109).
          Finally, a good father seeks the reconciliation of all his children . . . in Abraham’s case, that was not to be until his death, and then, maybe only for an instant.  In Genesis 25.9, we read that Abraham’s sons “Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah . . . east of Mamre . . . with his wife Sarah.”
          Feiler says that Abraham “dies at peace.  Even better, his death promotes peace.  At Abraham’s burial, his two most prominent sons, rivals since before they were born, estranged since childhood, scions of rival nations, come together . . . Abraham achieves in death what he could never achieve in life:  a moment of reconciliation between his two sons . . .”  (p. 208).
          Could it really be that many of the struggles of the three faiths today can be reduced to a family squabble, albeit a squabble of epic proportions?  Could it be that we are all really just trying to say, “Daddy loves me best?”  Maybe.
          And maybe it’s time, from the world’s stage to the privacy of our own homes, to embrace the notion of Muslim Sheikh Abu Sneina, “So was Abraham a Muslim? . . . For me, Abraham submitted himself to Allah.  He did everything for God.  I don’t know if he’s like me, but I would like to be like him.”  (p. 163).
          Maybe we should worry more about whether we’re like Abraham and less about whether Abraham is like us.
          It’s what a good father would want from and for his children.