Journeying to hope

Sometimes the Bible is hard to understand.  Strike that, most of the time the Bible is hard to understand.  It’s hard because we don’t really know what kind of book it is.  A history book?  A novel? A fairy tale?  A newspaper report? A bunch of lies and exaggerations?  We scratch our heads and try to force the bible to fit into a category that we are comfortable with.  And many people assume it is an inflexible collection of facts and absolutes, while others throw it out of their libraries and lives.  It’s not to be read like a conventional book from cover to cover.

I often assume that United Church folks try reading with the intention of starting at Genesis and plowing all the way through to Revelation, then give up the first time they hit the begats.  The only time we read our bible is in church but that’s another extreme for sure.

Case in point, today’s reading from Isaiah.  Many would be excited to see the reference to gold and frankincense, and say that this is all about Jesus because Isaiah was predicting Jesus and the wise men on the first Epiphany.  Except, of course, it’s missing the myrrh.  But the bible is inerrant, right?  It can’t have mistakes as glaring as forgetting the third wise man’s gift to Jesus?

This shows up the huge gulf between what we read in the bible and what we think is in the bible.  We often think, for example, that Isaiah and the other prophets were like the stereotypical gypsy fortune teller, using tea leaves, tarot cards or stars in the sky to tell us mere ignorant mortals what would happen in the future.  Isaiah stares into his God-given Crystal Ball and predicts the birth of Jesus.

It’s a shame when we do this.  The Bible is not meant to be a Crystal Ball, and while it is often used as such, I don’t think God wants us to use it that way.  Our pattern of taking chunks of scripture every Sunday can add to that misunderstanding.  The United Church’s “Song of Faith” says that Scripture is our living word passed on from generation to generation to guide and inspire, that we might wrestle a holy revelation for our time and place from the human experiences and cultural assumptions of another era.

It also says the Bible is a library of songs, poetry, stories, memories, sermons and letters where generations of people record their best understandings and experiences with God. Sometimes the understandings clash – is God with us in our suffering or punishing us by sending our suffering?  Is God in history or is God in my life?  Does God care about foreigners or only care about the descendants of Abraham, Jacob and Moses?  And because the bible is a conversation, we see people claiming both views.  Isaiah’s passage today is such a view of Israel’s place in God’s vision, an inspiring beacon of hope for the whole world to gather around. A grand family reunion that also has all the neighbors wanting to join in the party.  So many camels coming that there is a dust storm covering the roads to Jerusalem.  Hope is a magnet for all humanity to gather around!

And Matthew remembered that scripture.  He sprinkled his gospel with many quotes from Isaiah and other prophets.  He referred to them 40 times, connecting what he knew of Jesus with what he knew of his sacred story.  Scholars see these quotes and the style he uses as signs that Matthew was a scribe, trained in scriptures, Jewish traditions and a deep understanding of the heritage of Jesus.  He was also on the cusp of separating from the synagogue institution, like an ancient Luther, John Knox or Charles Wesley, still connected to the faith of his childhood yet absorbing new understandings of scripture inspired by the teachings of Jesus.  He is the only one to talk about wise magi and stars in the sky, which again help him connect his ancient scriptures to the modern understanding he was sharing, the understanding Jesus had taught him.  On one hand, he was making those connections to the Moses story, the Isaiah story, but on the other hand, he was making connections to people who were not part of his ethnic group.  And when he has these images of royalty come from the east, the first thing he has them do is throw themselves down in the humble home in Bethlehem where they found him – no inn here, no manger, just a home – and give their deepest respects.  Only after that moment of worship did they hand over their presents.  That moment of worship which must have confused everyone who saw it, also changed them.  They saw through Herod’s evil plot, and they changed their direction home. 

Their only guide, other than, wait for it, consulting the scripture scholars in Herod’s palace, scribes like Matthew in fact, was the star in the sky. It too has a million explanations and rationalizations.  Even scientists join in the conversation of whether it was a conjunction, a comet, a horoscope event or a plot device by Matthew. In one theory, in 6 BC, Jupiter and Venus shone together like a single star, and Jupiter as the king star or planet shining with Venus, the love star, would have looked like one very bright new star.  The King of Love indeed! For six nights it shone in the early morning twilight, leading the magi forward into mystery. 

I think the Bible can be a star that lights our way, but like the magi, it is best seen through teamwork.  Isaiah and Matthew and all the other writers worked separately on their understandings of God, then church and synagogue leaders put it together like a conjunction of stars and planets. When we gather together to hear these words week after week, we are being like the wise magi, thinking and pondering and asking for directions. This can help us find bible wisdom for our time, hope for our journey, faith and inspiration for our lives. May it be a guiding light for our Epiphany season.

Out of the Ground - sermon on Genesis 2-19 for pet blessing

 Have you noticed the sunflowers in our front flowerbox?  They were all planted at the same time, they all came from the same seeds and yet, they are still all different.  Some have been eaten by the deer and have stalks but no flowers.  They stopped growing once they were chomped and never grew any taller.  Some grew tall and didn’t make a flower bud at all.  Some bloomed two weeks ago, much to the delight of the bees, and now have heads so big and heavy with seeds that they tip over.  Some are small and still slowly opening.  It is a race between them and the frost.  So much difference between each plant even though they are all the same.

Our scriptures today talks about what we can learn from nature. Jesus said, look at the flowers and birds and learn from them. They do not worry about things they cannot control.  Today we also have with us some pets from different houses.  Did they worry as they came to church?  Did they wonder if they were going to the vet?  Did they expect they would be given shots or medicine for worms?  Did they think they were going for a haircut if they are shaggy critters?  If someone brought a snake today, would the car trip cause them anxiety?  Probably not!  Just like our sunflowers, they don’t worry, and they grow to the best of their ability given where they are and who they belong to.  Belonging, for our pets and for us, is very important.  I loved reading Dodie Smith’s “101 Dalmatians” as a child because she talked about the humans being the pets of the dogs! Pongo and Missus, the heroes of the adventure, were the ones who made sure their human pets got out for walks regularly, and even made sure that their human pets Mr. and Mrs. Dearly met each other and fell in love.  Clearly, the dogs were in charge of their pets and found it amusing to let the humans think it was the other way around!

I like to think our Genesis 2 passage is very similar to the flip side of 101 Dalmatians.  It too shows the diversity of scripture.  When I meet someone who is genuinely curious about my relationship with scripture, who tells me that they ‘know’ that scripture is infallible, I often ask them which came first, humans or animals?  In Genesis 1, God is referred to in Hebrew as ‘Elohim’, which we often translate as God plain and simple.  In Genesis 2 there is a switch from Elohim to Yhwh, often translated as The Lord.  Elohim makes the world in seven days, beginning with the chaos of creation and sorting out the light from the dark, first making day, then night, followed by seas and land, sun and moon and so on.  Humans end up being made last, like the cherry on top of the sundae, the finishing touch. 

Now, if you ask someone who ‘knows’ scripture is infallible, which came first, animals or humans, they will invariably say animals of course.  That’s when I spring the trap.  “Then how come in Genesis 2, it says that God made humans first, then plants, then animals?”  One person I asked this of said that I was obviously reading the wrong bible, because that wasn’t what was in her bible.  But it’s there all right.  And Yahweh God gets down on their hands and knees and plays in the earth, Adamah in Hebrew, to make human, Adam.  But a single mud creature is rather boring and rather bored, so Yahweh starts playing some more, making plants to pretty up the dirt.  That’s better, but still something is missing for the dirt creature.  Yhwh gets their hands even more muddy, pulling up animals the way I imagine a potter pulls up pots on a wheel.  This is no “Let there be Light” grand pronouncement by Elohim who sounds like a cross between a wizard and a magician and probably very clean and neat to boot.  Diversity is created.  But mud creature still is not quite able to relate.  Despite the diversity to choose from, mud creature needed something more.  So Yhwh pulled a piece out of earth creature and created Ish and Isha, or male and female.  Isha doesn’t get a name until Chapter 3, after the apple is eaten, and she is called Chavvah (pronounced hava), which means breathe or life, or even community or town.  So we have dirt and air from which all humanity comes.

I think there is a beauty in this story, the celebration of diversity, and the idea that possibly just possibly, earth creature was without gender at first.  Gender was created almost as an afterthought here, and even in Genesis 1, God created male and female in God’s own image so there’s a strong sense that God too is beyond gender.  Both stories celebrate the creation of diversity and variety.  Both stories see that diversity as a good thing.  Elohim saw creation as good, and Yhwh wanted good for the mud creature and so created companions. 

We humans struggle with diversity.  We often assume that all humans will have the same body parts, will have the same capabilities and the same potential.  But just like our sunflowers, some grow strong and big and beautiful and sturdy, and some do not. Some have tragedy that stunts their growth. Some grow to be independent adults, and some need community help to live their lives.  Blue Heron in Athabasca educates us in the broad diversity of human shapes and capacities.  As a church, how do we welcome those who look like us but do not have brains wired like ours?  With curiosity, gentleness, love, and empathy.  Meeting everyone, even the littlest ones as created in God’s own image, an image of amazing creativity and diversity.  And they are, we are all created as Good in God’s Eyes.  Thanks be to God!