A Proper 7 12 Ord BFC 2017
Genesis 21:8-21
June 25, 2017
Am I my
brother’s or sister’s or sibling’s or cousin’s keeper? Love your neighbor as yourself. Those seem so rudimentary, so fundamental to
our tradition that I’m not sure how our tradition came to be about striving to
be the most powerful, the biggest bully on the block. Our tradition, which is fundamentally about
hospitality, justice, compassion, and love, service and a solidarity with the
least, last, and the lost, has been hijacked by rugged individualism and a
quest for power and entitlement that bristles when questioned or plays victim when
held accountable. How did we get to this
place? Why are we, in a glorious church
like ours, in a faith community that seeks to follow the deepest values of our
tradition, pretending like someone else owns our tradition and gets to speak
for it and we’re the odd ones out?
Last week
many churches celebrated World Refugee Sunday.
Refugees and immigrants are near and dear to the heart of God. The 10 Commandments are introduced by the
words, “I am the Living God, your God, who brought you out of the land of
Egypt.” In other words, the sanctity of
God is forever linked to sanctuary for immigrants and refugees.[1]
The
Scriptural story we have before us this morning begins with Abraham and Sarah,
the people who are supposed to be paradigms of hospitality. As a result of their hospitality, Abraham
and Sarah receive divine blessing. Their
son, Lot, provides hospitality to strangers in Sodom and thus spares their
family. Abraham sends his servant back
to the old country to find a wife for his son.
The servant decides that whosoever shall model hospitality toward him
will be in keeping with his master’s values.
Within the tent of Abraham and Sarah, hospitality is always to be
found.
Except,
except when two women are pitted against each other by a patriarchal culture
which threatens to rob them of life and livelihood. Sarah fears that the slave girl, Hagar, and
Abraham’s first-born son, Ishmael, will displace her in the family system and
leave her and her son outside the tent with nothing. Sarah decides she must be pro-active on
behalf of herself and her son, Isaac. She
asks Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away.
Hagar’s status is once again confirmed as less than as a slave. Though Abraham is dismayed, he sends Hagar
into the wilderness with provisions. Those
provisions quickly run out. And Hagar
puts her son out of sight so that she doesn’t have to see him die.
We are made
aware that this God is not at home even inside
the tent of Abraham and Sarah. Even
these paradigms of hospitality and models of faith, Sarah and Abraham, do not
fully represent a God who is free to be broader and bigger than their parochial
aspirations. This God is found in the
wilderness where it is stark, barren, and all of the white noise is drowned out
in favor of something more primal and rich. For when Ishmael begins to cry, God
hears. A common Scriptural theme is the
angel who ministers to the faithful in the wilderness. And so it is that God sends an angel to Hagar
in the wilderness, telling her that, like Isaac, her son Ishmael shall become a
great nation.
The Muslim
faith traces its spiritual ancestry through Abraham’s first son, Ishmael, also
receiving God’s blessing. Such a story
therefore makes space for the Muslim people as a people of God’s blessing. And the Ishmael story poetically mirrors the
plight of many Muslim people in our world today. If we think that our faith tradition is
defined only by the width and breadth of Abraham and Sarah’s tent, we would be
sadly mistaken. Why then do we abdicate
the telling of our tradition to those who tell us that God is found in the
width and breadth of their tents and the four walls of their churches? Christianity is not a tradition which circles
the wagons, or draws a circle around its tradition to say, “We are faithful, in
here, but you, you out there are beyond the pale, not worthy of God’s mercy and
grace, God’s love and compassion.” We
are letting violent and dominating Christendom tell our story.
The facts
in our world right now are startling.
One person flees as a refugee every three seconds. Twenty people are forced to flee their homes
every minute. There are 22.5 million refugees
in the world—the highest level ever recorded.
Over half of those refugees are coming from the countries of Syria,
Afghanistan, and South Sudan—all strongly associated with Islam. Turkey, a country 98% Muslim, is the country
that hosts the most refugees.
Eighty-four percent of the refugee population is hosted by low and
middle-income countries. Sixty-five
point six million people are displaced worldwide. Half the world’s refugees are children. Former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon
said, “We are facing the biggest refugee and displacement crisis of our
time. Above all, this is just not a
crisis of numbers, this is a crisis of solidarity.”[2]
I think
what Ban Ki-Moon is suggesting is that we have somehow made it clear that we do
not think that these people fit under our tent.
We do not consider them part of our wider family.
As Mother Teresa would say, “We
belong to each other.” God’s definition
of family is far greater than our own.
As people of progressive Christian faith, we cannot let violent and
dominating Christendom pretend that their often big churches are anything more
than small tents. God’s definition of
family must be bigger.
To draw
boundaries around our tent, we have been told that we have no vetting
process. Nothing could be further from
the truth. I have placed the extensive
vetting process the United States puts refugees through at the back of the
sanctuary so that if you hear there is no vetting process, you might whip it
out, and yell, “Liar, liar pants on fire.” For God’s definition of family should
make us a people of hospitality and welcome.
One of my youngest
son’s heroes, Muslim leader, Eboo Patel, founder of Interfaith Youth Core,
wrote in the July issue of Sojourners
that our country’s narrative, its civil religion, uses the language, signs, and
symbols of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
As a nation, Patel believes, as we become more and more religiously
diverse, we will need to incorporate sacred texts and religious vocabularies
into an evolving civil religion.[3] The humility and mutuality of our Christian
faith should find a way to expand our national tent, our family, to listen and
learn from the sons and daughters of Ishmael, to incorporate their sacred texts
and the signs and symbols of their faith in a way that gives life to us
all.
In the
same way, I remember my mentor, Bishop Samuel Ruiz share when he would come to
the United States that one of Christianity’s long-held symbols was a boat
sailing on stormy seas. He referenced
that indigenous peoples throughout the world had long been seen as outside the
boat within the sea. He then asked, “But
is it not the same God who made the sea?”
Though we may not be in the same tent or same boat, God’s definition of
family is bigger. It was Chief Arvol
Looking Horse, keeper of the sacred white buffalo calf-pipe, who wrote last
year that, we “[e]ither unite spiritually as a global nation, or be faced
with chaos, disasters, diseases, and tears from our relatives’ eyes.”[4]
It really
is time. It is past time for a group of
humble and mutual Christians who remember our central nourishing and nurturing
message that we are our brother’s, sister’s, sibling’s, and cousin’s keeper,
that we are called to love our neighbor, that we belong to one another, that
these Christians step forward to help us all remember that God’s family is far
bigger than ours.
Yesterday was the last day of
Ramadan. The month of fasting is over
and the feasting begins for Muslim people.
The feasting celebration demands contact with relatives, kindness to
parents, empathy for the poor and distraught and compassion for neighbors. Surely the descendants of Ishmael share so
many of our same values. We must not let
others tell us that God is confined to one tent. For God’s family is bigger. And our tradition teaches that that God is
found over and over again in the stark and barren wilderness. We would do well to seek God there and, in so
doing, may find God bending to provide nurture and nourishment not only for the
refugee but maybe, just maybe, the white noise from the world has been drowning
out the voice of God in our lives. And in going to the wilderness, maybe our
faith is also sharpened, clarified, and renewed. Wouldn’t that be grand? To find out we are a part of God’s
hospitable, just, loving, and compassionate family? Wouldn’t that be grand? Amen.
[1]
Ken Sehested, “Signs
of the Times,” prayer & politiks,
June 21, 2017, http://www.prayerandpolitiks.org/.
[2]
These statistics come
from the United Nation High Commissioner on Refugees are found on two
videos. “5 facts you need to know about
the refugee crisis,” AJ World, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1e0n8Ueun8, June 20, 2017. “5 facts about people forced to flee,” UNHCR,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85VRX0vkpRY, June 20, 2017.
[3]
Eboo Patel, “Can
Civil Religion Save Us?” Sojourners,
July 2017, p. 21.
[4] Chief Arvol Looking Horse,
“An Important Message from the Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf-Pipe,” Indigenous Environmental Network, August
26, 2016.
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