1 Lent C February 17, 2013
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Deuteronomy 26: 1-11 + Psalm 91: 1-2, 9-16 + Romans 10: 8b-13
Luke 4: 11-13
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
How many of you had a favorite book when you were a child? You know, the book that you read over and over again, but never tired of. When I was a little girl one of my favorite books was called “Old Joe”. I kept this book at my beloved grandmother’s house, who patiently read it to me over and over again every time I was there, which was most days. The book told the story of Old Joe, who was a black crow. Joe fell into a hole, where he languished and pitied the fact that, although he was unharmed by his fall, he was, in fact in a hole. One by one Joe’s friends came by to see him in the hole and offer him encouragement in the midst of his predicament. I loved that book.
The way your story is written and woven and told is important. This is true of each one of us. You know where you are located in the story of your family and where your family is located in your story. You know the characters, the plot, and the sub plot. Time and wisdom generally unveil the twists and turns.
The entire Hebrew Scriptures, or what we often call the Old Testament, is the story of God’s chosen people, Israel. It is the story of God’s faithfulness to them despite their unfaithfulness to God. And within their story there are many, many other stories.
In the reading from Deuteronomy today the people of Israel are being taught what they are to do when they present the first fruits of what they have been given back to God. It is, if you will, a lesson in worship, instructions for liturgy. You see, we are not the only ones who need a little help navigating the seasonal bulletin! They are told that they are to put their first fruits into a basket, take it to the priest, and when the priest sets it down before the altar, they are to tell their story.
They begin with “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…” and they tell their story.
During this season of Lent, the forty days that lead up to Easter (not including Sundays), we will tell the stories of Jesus and in those stories we will be led to the cross. The stories we hear in the Gospel readings will be familiar to us, we find Jesus in the wilderness with the tempter today. We will hear him tell parables, stories of the faith. We will hear the stories of his ministry.
It isn’t an oversimplification to suggest that a great deal of what we do in worship is storytelling. Over and over again we hear the stories of our faith….from Israel’s story, told throughout the Hebrew Scriptures to the story of Jesus, who, as my friend Ann is quick to remind me, was a Jew.
But far from being the stories that rest in the past, the stories of our faith, the stories we hear in worship, are a part of our stories as well.
One of the critically important tasks for a pastor (are you listening Vicar Inge?) is to hear the stories of the congregation. To hear the individual stories as they are told….and that often happens in times of struggle, at bedsides and gravesites. And to hear the story of the congregation. Eventually it becomes clear how those stories intersect and what impact they have on each other.
And sometimes this is great fun….you all have stories to share that make me smile. Like the story of the wedding reception in the Fireside Room that was smoked out because the fireplace flue was closed. THAT was why the fireplace wasn’t used for a long time! And here’s a story for you from our worship service on Ash Wednesday. One of our ushers was five years old. And he was a very able usher, I might add. Prior to our worship service, as he watched me setting up for communion, he piped up “Oh good! The chips!”
And to be sure there are more difficult stories. Stories of relationships that are broken and stories of struggles in this congregation. Stories of members who left over this or that issue. Stories of unresolved disagreements and heartbreaking disappointment.
You see, the story of this community of faith shares this with the story of the people of Israel and the people of the churches to whom Paul and his followers wrote. We have had struggle and we have had fun. We have had days of breathtaking exhilaration and days of unimaginable disappointment. And still we have ventured on, fixing our eyes on Jesus and telling our story.
It’s important that we do tell our story. And it’s important that we go all the way back, back perhaps even to “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…”
Because these stories that we hear, of the Israelites, of the church in Rome, and of Jesus in the wilderness, these historically past stories are a part of our ongoing story. And it is here, in worship, that our stories intersect in ways that allow us to take what we learn from and what we know about and who we become in those stories and move toward the world, not away from it.
During this season of Lent, when we traditionally become more aware of our own faith practices, when we fast or pray or give more, it is helpful…no it is crucial….to remember that we do these things not to move away from the world and into ourselves, but so that we might be fortified for our movement toward the world. Paul reminded the people in the church at Rome of this…that they were to carry the word that was both on their lips and in their hearts to all people without distinction. It didn’t matter if they were Jew or Greek, he said. And in the reading from Deuteronomy today it is noted that the celebration of the bounty given by God includes the Levites and the aliens, who would have all been foreigners and outsiders to the people of Israel. They were not to exclude them but to welcome them to the feast. The radical inclusivity of God permeates the story of God’s people, including our own stories.
It is, as you know, a part of my call to preach the story. That’s what pastors do. But you all proclaim the story too. You do it with words, you do it in the many ways, small and large that you care for one another. You do it in song. You do it in the ways you treat others, the stranger and friend. But today, we have the unique chance to see how language and specifically the use of pronouns in the way the author of Deuteronomy writes, helps shore up this story.
Look with me, if you will, at the reading from Deuteronomy. When they begin to tell the story, in verse 5, the story is in third person singular. A wandering Aramean was my ancestor HE went down into Egypt. HE became a great nation. Then it moves to first person plural. When the Egyptians treated US harshly, WE cried, the LORD hear OUR voice and saw OUR affliction. The Lord brought US out of Egypt and brought US into this place and gave US this land. And then it becomes first person singular….So now I bring the first fruit of the ground.
Likewise, our stories, while they are uniquely ours, are grounded first in the stories of our ancestors, then in the stories of our communities and finally they become our stories. Ultimately, though they are grounded in God. Without that, they are merely stories.
The story from my childhood of Old Joe the crow, down there in that hole is a reminder to us of the ways communities play a role in our individual stories. You see, Joe was a perfectly healthy crow, down there in that hole. And who of us has not found themselves in a hole from time to time? And while Joe’s friends came by and offered encouragement, it wasn’t until his friend the hen came by and reminded him that God had created him as a bird who could fly, that Joe was able to get himself out of that hole and back into life and community again. Joe needed to hear his own story again in order to become who he was created to be. That is a part of what it means to be the people of God in beloved communities of faith…to tell and re-tell our stories to one another, as well as to those who have never heard the story, and to help one another out of the holes and hard places of life.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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