Readings:
Genesis 12:1-4a
The first 11 chapters of the Book of Genesis contain story after story of
God trying to make the world good, and of humanity constantly undoing and
frustrating God’s plans. Finally in
chapter 12, God changes course and both God and humanity are changed forever by
it. Instead of just trying to rule from
on high, God chooses one human family – the childless couple, Abram and Sarai,
and commits to working with them, to help them grow into a family that can and
will help the world to become what it is meant to be.
Deuteronomy 26:1-12
When the people of Israel – descendants of the grandson of Abraham and
Sarah, finally enter the promised land, they do so with gratitude for all
that God has brought them through to get there. There is a danger, of course, that (being human) the feeling of gratitude will fade
and a feeling of entitlement will emerge in its place. To help keep this from happening, a practice
of thanksgiving offering is established to remind the people every year that
the land and its abundance are a gift of God, not just their possession and
reward. The rules set up for the
offering also enshrine the understanding that the abundance of the land is
meant not just for them and their well-being, but for the well-being of all who happen to be there with them.
For a few days
this week we were back at the hospital. Early
Wednesday evening we drove in to the ER with Japhia lying down in the back seat
of the car to ease the nausea that had been increasing for some time. Once there the ER team, knowing her file well
and seeing the shape she was in, quickly ran the blood tests and hooked her up
for hydration and IV anti-nuaseants. A
few hours later she felt no better.
Orders were
written up to admit her to the GI ward for a few days of continued treatment
and observation. She’d probably spend
the night in ER before a bed would open up so the ER staff arranged a private
assessment room for her – a windowless, overgrown closet of a room with an
uncomfortable assessment bed for her and a hard chair for me, but at least also
privacy.
In her eyes I saw
again the hopeless, scared look that had been there a few years ago. In myself I felt the fear of not being able
to do or suggest or figure out anything to make things better. I resisted the urge to go get a cup of coffee
from the Tim’s in the hospital lobby. Being able to buy and hold and consume something
– almost anything, even just a Tim’s coffee, is one of our addictive culture’s ways
of escaping the experience of powerlessness that’s part of real life, and this
time I chose not to run away from it.
I asked Japhia
what she was thinking or feeling. “I
don’t want to have to feel this. I just
want this (I assumed she meant this gastroparesis) to go away.”
I thought about
prayer; we both know people who pray earnestly for miraculous healing. I thought about gratitude; it’s our big theme
here for Lent. I thought that if prayer
and gratitude mean anything at all, they surely must not depend on ignoring
what is, and just wishing for something that maybe can’t be. That maybe both have a lot to do with just becoming
more aware – or aware on a deeper level, of what really is.
And as soon as I
thought that I became aware of the ongoing murmur and clatter of the rest of
the ER department outside the door of our little closet. People coming in on stretchers and by foot
with varieties of injuries, pains and problems.
Brought in by EMS workers or by family or friends. Being received, triaged and treated by paid,
professional medical staff.
And I realized we
were not alone. We felt alone in our
little closet. But really we were part
of a community – some people in need of help, some people trained and ready to
give it, and a place in the city where we can come together to get it and to
give it – to share what we need and what we have for the well-being of all. And isn’t that a marvelous thing? I felt connected and grateful.
The next day,
Thursday, Japhia was transferred to a room upstairs. She felt a bit better, but it was still not
clear how things would go, how long she might be there, and what the next stage
might be. Before I left that night to go
home, we prayed – not asking for anything, rather just giving thanks for what
was – for the hospital and its staff, for our marriage and the way we both, as
best as we are able, are there for one another, and for the presence of God no
matter what.
It was not an
easy night, though. Japhia’s room-mate
was a woman in her nineties who was hard of hearing, suffered silent seizures,
and who – depending on her position in bed, snored. Hooked up as she was, Japhia was unable to
get up and walk around as she likes to do when she can’t sleep. When the snoring started all Japhia could do
was look heavenward and say with honest and deep exasperation, “Really, are you
kidding me?”
Come morning,
though, when she awoke she felt the airiness and openness of the room around
her. She looked out the big window
beside her bed and saw the beauty of the snow falling heavy and already built
up on the trees. She thought of how
excited her seven grandkids would be because of the snow. She remembered our prayer from the night
before. And even though she still didn’t
know when she’s really feel better or what how long it would take to get there
– if ever, she felt grateful. And
content with whatever was, and would be.
I wonder if
gratitude as a disposition in life is dependent mostly on what we see and how
we see it. Not on what we have or can
get. Not on whether we are successful or
admired or where we think – or we’re told, where we should be. Not on where we are on the social ladder or
even in the food chain. But on our
openness to and awareness of the gracious abundance that is pure gift, in any
present moment.
I wonder about
our reading this morning – the story of the call of God to Abram. I wonder how we see and read it.
The story comes
in chapter twelve as God’s ultimate answer to the disappointments and disasters
of the first eleven chapters of Genesis.
In the beginning the world is created good. The chaos of all the life forces are brought
to good order. There’s a place for
everything and everything is in its place.
The world is an abundant garden of full, vibrant life needing only
someone to take care of it and help it stay good.
But then the
creatures to whom God gives that simple task, get other ideas – ideas of
domination, power, self-serving control, acquisition and being able to make the
world the way they think it should be. And
they pretty well ruin everything and place the life of the world itself in
jeopardy. God tries to fix things –
expelling us from the innocence of the garden, giving us rules to follow, making
us earn our living, sending a flood to try to wash away evil from the face of
the earth. But none of it works and by
chapter eleven we are building a great tower to try to reach into heaven for
ourselves and seize ultimate power – the power even of the gods, over life on
earth.
The tower, of
course, collapses. But this cannot be
allowed to continue. God changes course,
and comes down from heaven to work more completely and intimately from within
humanity and human history. God chooses
one childless couple – Abram and Sarai, as the ones through whom the ongoing
life of the world will be shaped, and on whose openness and obedience it will
depend.
“Come away,” God
says. “Come away from this littered
landscape of human ambition and pride, and come to a place I will show
you. Leave your father’s house and your
own people, and let me help you give birth to a new kind of people who will be
a blessing, not a curse to the world.”
And thus begins the journey of Abram and Sarai to the promised land, and
the story of the people of Israel.
And I wonder, how
do we read this story? What do we see in
it?
The way I was taught
to understand this story is that God is calling Abram out of the mess of people
around him all trying to gain control of life, to control the world around them
and make it good for themselves, to dominate other people and make them serve
their interests, with the power of the gods to back them up and serve their
desires … so that God can give Abram a different place in the world, where he
can become just like all the others but in a good way, with the real God on his
side.
“Come, follow me,
Abram, away from this mess. I have a
place I want to show you – an abundant land I will give you to have as your
own, if you only follow me. There are
people already there, but don’t worry.
It will be yours. And your people
– the family I will give you, will be great.
You will be special, and you will have – and be able to get for yourself
what everyone else only dreams of. You
and me, Abram, we will do it.”
And what can
Abram say except, “Praise God. Where do
I sign?”
Except, if it’s
true that the kind of gratitude that saves us is not dependent on what we have
or can get, on whether we are successful or in control or even healthy, but instead
on our openness to the gracious abundance for the well-being of all that is
pure gift in any present moment, might it be that what God is saying to Abram
in this story is more along the lines of something like this:
“Come, follow me,
Abram, away from all these people needing to control and possess what life has
to offer. They are fearful of
powerlessness and need, and their fear and their longing for control, even over
me, is ruining everything.
“Come. I want to show you a place where you can see something
special – see what the world really is – a place of abundance, a land flowing
with milk and honey, enough for all of what’s really needed as long as people
see beyond their fears, accept their powerlessness, and share what’s needed for
the well-being of all – the way I dream of it being.
“There are people
there already, but you can be there too.
And maybe, just maybe, if you can understand that place for what it is …
learn to live with others within its fullness and its limits … tell others yet about it … and they come to
see the world too as a place of gifts for the well-being of all … maybe, just
maybe, this whole thing can still be saved … can be the kind of world where
those who see and those who don’t, those who need help and those who can help,
those who fear powerlessness and those who see more deeply what is given, are
able to come together for the well-being of all. And be grateful together for what is.”
I wonder, is
there still hope for our journey to be a journey into the kind of gratitude
that will save us and the world that God has made? Gratitude not for getting what we think we
need, what we don’t have, and what we want for ourselves, but for what really
and already is for the good of all? The
kind of gratitude Japhia and I had a chance to glimpse and taste a little bit
of in the promised land of the ER and the GI ward of St. Joe’s Hospital?
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