Wrestling With God

 Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Genesis 32:22-31:

Names are important things and convey things about a person. They can give some connection to heritage or family or culture, or perhaps the name means something specific that is supposed to be conveyed. There is also a certain type of person that we associate with some names. So, if I say Cindy of Jennifer, we have an idea of who that person is, or we make a preconceived notion based on other Cindys and Jennifers we have known. And I’m sure you’ve probably met someone and they told you there name, and you wanted to say “No” because they name didn’t match them. And then there is the idea that not naming someone or not using their name is a way of negating them, as we talked about in the story of Hagar in Abraham and Sarah refusing to use her name. That’s why the black lives matter movement has the emphasis of using say their names in order to give identity and belonging and purpose. Names are important things. When Linda was pregnant with our first child Samantha, we already had a girl’s name picked out, But, we didn’t have a boy’s name. So I suggested that we consider using the name of the first Yankee who hit a homerun at the next Yankee game we attended, and Linda was on board.

It happened to be that we were going to see the Yankees play the Cubs, at Yankee stadium. Early in the game, almost everyone in the stadium thought that Gary Sheffield had hit a homer down the left field line, and we thought “well, Gary’s not a bad name.” But, as I said, it was almost everyone, but the one person who didn’t think that was the only one who mattered, which was the third base umpire who called it fair, and this was before instant replay was allowed. Later in the game, Derek Jeter, the Yankee captain, came up with the bases loaded. Jeter had never hit a grand slam in his career, and we thought, this is it. And what was great is you had two options of using either Derek or Jeter, but Jeter flied out, although he did hit his first grand slam the next day. Then in the seventh inning our hard hitting left fielder Hideki Matsui came up, and, of course, he corked one, and Linda immediately turned to me and said “we are not naming our son Hideki,” although Matsui could have worked as well. But, in the end it didn’t matter because we had all girls, and so never got to use our boy name, which was cooper by the way, for Cooperstown, New York. Names are important things, and they matter, and we see that in scripture as well.

Blinded

 Here is my sermon from Sunday. The scripture was Genesis 27:1-29:

One of the common ways that God is referred to in scripture, especially in the Pentateuch, which is the first five books of the Bible is as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Some have argued, however, that God might be better referred to as the God of Abraham, Rebekah and Jacob, as Rebekah plays a much bigger role in scripture than does Isaac. Although we might also use all the matriarchs names in there as well. Last week we heard the story of Abraham getting Rebekah to be Isaac’s wife, in which Isaac is not involved until the end, and Rebekah is one of the primary actors throughout that entire story. And then we have today’s story, in which while Isaac is involved, but, again, Rebekah is the mover and driver of the story. In fact, especially in comparison to Abraham or Jacob or even Rebekah, we know very little about Isaac or his life, and have few stories about him as a character.

But what we do know is that after they marry, Rebekah remains without a child, just like Sarah, which obviously endangers the promise God has made to Abraham and to Isaac that they will have descendants more numerous than the stars. And so we are told that Isaac prays to God for assistance, and after twenty years of marriage, Rebekah gets pregnant with twins. But, they are wrestling and struggling with each other in the womb, which also presages next week’s passage of Jacob and God, and so Rebekah goes to seek guidance from God, and God tells her that there are two nations struggling within her, and “one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.” It is striking that this oracle is given to Rebekah and not to Jacob, and it also appears that perhaps she does not tell Jacob that she has received this bit of information, because we are told that while Rebekah loves Jacob, who is the second born, that Isaac loves Esau.

Obadiah: Turning Back Those In Need

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Obadiah 1:1-4, 10-17:

There is a Depeche Mode song from the 80’s that says “I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor and when I die I expect to find him laughing.” That’s how I feel sometimes about God when it comes to Sunday’s messages. I began planning this series on the 12 minor prophets last summer, long before we knew the results of the election and certainly long before I knew what that president would or would not be doing when we got to each of the individual prophets, but sometimes the scriptures just seem to match up with world events, especially when it comes to controversial events. Just once I would like the scripture to match up positively with something that’s happened in the world, but that doesn’t seem to happen nearly as much, if ever, as scripture calling us out as individuals and as a nation for some action we have undertaken, which, I think, is where we find ourselves today.

Now just by a show of hands, who here had ever heard of Obadiah either before today, or before you saw that Obadiah would be covered today? That’s about what I thought. The first time I heard about Obadiah, or at least could remember it was while I was in seminary, but it was not in class, instead it was through my wife Linda who came home and told me right at the beginning of the school year that she had a student named Obadiah, a girl by the way, and I was like “okay.” And so, she had to tell me why she thought this was important information for me to know because she was named after one of the prophets, and so then I had to go look it up. Obadiah is one of the few books that is not covered at all in the lectionary, and according to what Biblegateway.com, based on what verses and books people look up and read on their site, Obadiah is the least read book in the bible, and six of the top 10 least read books are all minor prophets. So, if you have never heard of Obadiah you’re in good company.