Crossing the Jordan

While all Israel were crossing over on dry ground, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, until the entire nation finished crossing over the Jordan. -Joshua 3:17

Did you know that God also parted the Jordan River for the Israelites?  It was very reminiscent of the crossing of the Red (or Reed) Sea. Only this time they were not being chased. There is much symbolism in this crossing.

• It shows that God was with Joshua in the same way that he was with Moses.
• The ark of the covenant was God's throne on earth. Literally, the Lord went into the dangerous river first, demonstrating his role as Israel''s protector.
• Almost none of the people who were crossing the Jordan witnessed the miracle at the Red Sea. The parting of the Jordan symbolized God's love for this new generation.
• Crossing the Jordan was highly symbolic of a break with Israel's past. God is "pushing them out of the nest" so to speak. No more manna. They must now conquer their enemies and subdue the land God intended for them.

God of our past, present and future,

May we always feel your presence in our daily struggles and joys.

Amen.

Rahab

Then Joshua son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, "Go, view the land, especially Jericho." So they went, and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and spent the night there. -Joshua 2:1

If you don't know the story... 

As the Israelites plan to take over the Promised Land by first conquering Jericho, Joshua sends spies in.  The spies enter the house of Rahab, a prostitute, for lodging, information, and probably sex. When the king of Jericho's men demand that Rahab give up the spies, she lies and defies. She hides the spies under the flax drying on her roof and sends the king's men on a wild goose chase. She later lets the spies out through her window and asks for protection for her and her family during the battle to come. The spies agree, telling her to hang a crimson thread from her window so the Israelites will know where they are.

Did you notice the parallels to the Exodus story? First, Rahab was like the midwives who lied and defied Pharaoh when they were ordered to kill all the boy babies they delivered. And second, that crimson thread is very reminiscent of the blood painted on the thresholds of the Hebrew households during the Passover.

Also, we find another unlikely biblical heroine in the fact that she was another marginalized person. Strike one: a Canaanite; Strike two: a woman; and Strike three: a prostitute. And Jesus is her most famous descendant.

God of the Marginalized,

It doesn't matter who we are, you love us and can use us for your good and perfect will. Amen.

Beginnings and New Beginnings

Then Jacob called his sons, and said: "Gather around, that I may tell you what will happen to you in days to come.-Genesis 49:1

The beginning is over and a NEW beginning has begun for the great grandsons of Abraham. Generations have been coming and going for---well---generations. In our youth, we may understand it, but we haven't really experienced it.  When we become the older generation, we see it all with new eyes. We see the younger generations struggle with many of the same things we did. We see them want to make the world a better place. We see them struggle with their own failings and rejoicing in their successes.

This has been a week of new beginnings.  New ministries are beginning at Holy Cross and old ministries are getting ready to begin anew.  We had a baptism Sunday... a new beginning like no other. Lily had her beginning at birth, but Sunday she began anew with her spiritual birth. Schools have started up with children beginning for the very first time or beginning anew in a higher grade or beginning anew in a different school.

All these beginnings and new beginnings are simply preparing us for more new beginnings.  Even as one generation dies out, there is another beginning.  There really is no end, for when even this old earth finally dies, there will be a new beginning... one we cannot even imagine in our wildest dreams.

God of New Beginnings,

Help us to embrace every new beginning you bring into our lives with excitement and joy. Amen.

God's Purposes

[Joseph said to his brothers] And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. -Genesis 45:5

Hindsight is certainly 20/20. Wouldn't it be great if we all got a peek at the beginning of our suffering of how our suffering would bless us or the world? We might have a whole different attitude about it.

I have never been one to believe that God causes us to suffer, but rather works in our suffering to bring about good. On the other hand, I think that perhaps on occasion, God just might intervene and bring suffering just as on occasion he will bring a miracle. Either way, God walks with us and uses it all, good and bad, for good. If we will allow the good to come.

Joseph could have given his brothers the big F-U. Who would have blamed him? And then his family would have died from the famine and God would have had to start all over with another family.  It makes me wonder if the line of Abraham was his first choice!

Bitterness will never bring about God's purposes. Whatever happens in our lives, we must search for God's good until we find it. God probably didn't cause your suffering, but he can use it for his good and graceful purposes.

God of those who suffer,

Help us to feel your presence even in our deepest grief and know that you have a plan.

Amen.

Manasseh and Ephraim

Before the years of famine came, Joseph had two sons, whom Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, bore to him. -Genesis 41:46

Here are more foreign children brought into the fold. More than that, these foreign children (Manasseh and Ephraim) were adopted by Jacob who claimed them as his own sons and were made tribes in their father's place. Although they were Egyptian by birth and by the genes of their mother, they were welcomed into the "exclusive" chosen race.  This "pure" and "exclusive" people of God seems to become less pure and exclusive with each generation. And yet many Christians still try to exclude people from God's love. If they would only read the bible instead of allowing others to tell them what singled out verses are important. Jumping ahead in the Genesis story, we also find that Jacob switches the blessings of the older and younger son.  Another theme that continues since Abraham.

The Jewish culture has an important ritual of blessing their children. Many of them do it weekly at the Sabbath meal. The boys are always blessed by saying, "May you be like Manasseh and Ephraim." Manasseh and Ephraim were raised in Egypt which was a very secular society with people not necessarily of high moral character. Yet they remained faithful to the morals and ideals of their paternal roots. In blessing their children this way, parents are asking God to help their sons keep their beliefs whenever challenged by their peers, society or their environment. That's a blessing we all could use.

God of Our Environments,

Even when faced with pressure to deny you, help us to stand strong. Amen.

A Little Easternism Never Hurt Anyone

And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined; he remained there in prison. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love; he gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer. -Genesis 39:21-22

I've always found the story of Joseph to be very "Eastern."  His reaction to all the terrible things that befall him are very Buddhist-like.  He lives his life in the moment, good or bad. He does his work to the best of his abilities whether in servitude or in prison. He makes friends of those around him and serves them. He knows God is with him. Joseph acts like Jesus. 

I think most of the religions in the world are way more alike than different.  And I think a lot of western Christianity tries to separate themselves from other religions by changing Jesus to fit their own ideas.  We need only look back a few decades ago when images of Jesus in Western art and movies were always of a blond haired, blue eyed, light skinned person. It wasn't hard from their to replace biblical values with our own.

Jesus often tells us not to worry about tomorrow, forgive and forget yesterday... in other words: Live in the moment.  Walk with God. Serve others. It doesn't matter what's going on in your life, just live it the way God wants you to live. He's right there with you just as he was with Joseph.

God of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists and all others,

Help us to live in the moment, trusting you to walk with us. Amen.

Woo-hoo!!!

Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars! -Psalm 148:3

I want to take a break from Genesis today and jump to this verse from Psalms. I was not prepared for the emotional impact a total eclipse would have on me. As the eclipse began, Richard, Cecelia and I would use our eclipse glasses to watch.  And it was pretty cool to watch. But once the moon completely covered the sun, it immediately got dark and a few degrees cooler. We could take off our glasses and witness the glory of the sun's corona around the edges of the moon.   At that moment my eyes teared up and if my knees had been about 20 years younger, I would have hit them.  

It was a humbling sight. I at once felt my own insignificance as well as part of something so much bigger. This earth and sun and moon thing has been going on for millions of years. Even as people of faith, we have this notion of control. It's an illusion. If the earth stops turning or the moon drops from orbit or the sun ceases to shine, we are gone. If all bees succumb to pesticides, we are gone. If trees all become homes and furniture and paper, we are gone. If the polar ice caps melt to nothing, we are gone. So far, and in spite of mankind, it's all still running. 

In that minute of totality (the other minute and a half was obscured by clouds), all these feelings rushed through me, but the thought top-most in my mind was "Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars!" but for some reason, what came out of my mouth was, "Woo-hoo!!!!"  I think God knew what I meant.

God of Creation,

Woo-hoo!!! Amen.

One of Us

When the time of [Tamar's] delivery came, there were twins in her womb. While she was in labor, one put out a hand; and the midwife took and bound on his hand a crimson thread, saying "This one came out first." But just then he drew back his hand, and out came his brother; and she said, "What a breach you have made for yourself!" Therefore he was named Perez. -Genesis 3827-29

Here is another R-rated, soap-opera-y kind of story. Woman of that time were possessions that had to be tended to. Families were everything. A woman without a family was dead. So when Tamar's husband (first son of Judah) died, the way to tend to this "family possession" was to give her to the next son so she could have an heir for her dead husband. When that didn't work, she was to wait around for the youngest son to grow up... (ewww... think of your 10-year-old nephew!) When Judah skipped out on that promise, Tamar tricked Judah himself into impregnating her.

One thing we need to understand is that in that time and place, being the first born was the be-all and end-all. Murders and trickeries abounded in order to steal a birthright which was very evident with Jacob and Esau. If you weren't the first born, you were just another kid in the family, nearly as insignificant as the women. 

So here we are in Jesus line of ancestory: Abram (Abraham) was the first-born of Tehra; however, Isaac was NOT the first-born of Abraham and Jacob was NOT the first-born of Isaac and Judah was NOT the first-born of IsaacO and though Er was the first-born of Judah, he died without an heir and Judah himself fathered Er's heirs in which Perez was NOT, technically, the first-born. Jesus did not come from a line of "the first and best." This is one of the things I love most about the whole story from Genesis to Revelation. Jesus is wholly divine, but he is also wholly one of us.  

God of ALL People,

We praise you for all the ways you have made sure we can all feel included. Help us to root exclusivity out of our churches and out of our hearts. Amen.

The Curse of Possessions

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. -Genesis 37:3

Joseph's robe was a symbol. It was a symbol of Israel's favoritism. It was a symbol of Joseph's brothers' jealousy. It was even a symbol of all Joseph was to endure in Egypt. In the original Hebrew, an acronym for the coat would stand for the trials and tribulations that were to come for Joseph.

We can place a lot of emotions on our stuff. They can symbolize our successes or lack thereof. Our belongings can trigger envy from others, even to the point of anger. Some of our stuff may not have financial value, but a lot of emotional value. The more value we place on things whether monetary or emotional, the more things we accumulate. And before long we find that we no longer own things; they own us. They take up room. They must be cared for. They must be protected from those who would take them from us. Much of it must be insured and costs us more.

I used to wish I had a large, beautiful home. And maybe it would have been better when I was raising my family. But now that it is just me and Richard, I am so happy to have a small house. The upkeep costs less. I can clean it top to bottom in a couple of hours. It has very little storage space, so I have to purge all unnecessary stuff on a regular basis. It is very freeing. I don't spend so much time maintaining a lot of things.

Joseph's coat kind of came with a curse. I think any inanimate objects that we spend a lot of money and emotion and time on comes with a sort of curse. It uses up what we should be using on others... time, emotion, money. All possessions aren't bad. And some things are important to us for different reasons, and sometimes those things cost us. But we all have stuff that is taking up room in our lives, hearts and bank accounts that simply are not necessary to our joy. Those items are the real curses.

God of Our Things,

Help us to not be owned by what we own. Amen.

Other Gods

God said o Jacob, "Arise, go up to Bethel, and settle there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau." -Genesis 35:1

When I think about the biblical patriarchs, I think of them as people that might mess up a lot but always while acknowledging the One True God who seems to speak and even appear to them fairly often. But that is not so. In this passage, God had to remind Jacob about his experience at Bethel and to put away all his "foreign" gods that had accumulated among his family and workers. It seems that as Jacob wandered physically, he also wandered spiritually.

It's easy to do. We can get caught up in the spiritual dynamics of other groups we are involved in... our workplace, community groups and clubs, even family that may worship differently or not at all. We may still call God, "God," but it may not be the same version of God that first made himself known to us. This is not always a bad thing. Our knowledge of God does indeed change and shift according to our spiritual maturity, but there is a basic-ness to God's identity that needs to always be at the core of our belief. If we stray too far, God will find a way to remind us. And he usually does so by drawing us back to specific times when we knew God was acting on a very personal level in our lives... an unexpected and immediate answer to prayer, a form of comfort in grief that seems almost other-worldly, a healing, a sense of heavenly guidance when we are at an important crossroad. 

He always works to pull us back when we stray too far. We may get too occupied with those "foreign gods" and miss his urging, but he will be trying again and again. That's what he does. He did it with Jacob and he will do it for us. 

Father of Wandering Sheep,

We do have a tendency to wander and to find other gods to occupy our attention. Remind us of our promises to you. Thank you for being so patient and for coming back for us time and time again. Amen.

Dinah

Now Dinah, Leah's daughter whom she bore for Jacob, went out to look at the daughters of the land. When Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he took her and lay with her and raped her.-Genesis 34:1-2

Some of the stories in the bible need to have an R rating and this is certainly one of them. Crime, violence, vengeance, sex, deception,  greed.... it's all there. And most of it is done by God's chosen people. And really, it may have not even been a rape by our definition. Many scholars believe that it was consensual, but according to the moral law of Jacob's family, sex without marriage meant a defiled woman, or "raped."

Neither the son (Shechem) or his father (Hamor) spoke with any remorse or sense that any wrong had been done when they came to ask for permission for Shechem and Dinah to marry, leading the reader to believe that they didn't realize that something wrong had been done. But Dinah's brothers were completely overtaken with anger and deceived the father and son into believing they were going to all be one big happy family and all would share in Jacob's wealth... if only they would all prove their good intentions by circumcising themselves along with the whole city. Then while they were all still in pain, Dinah's two oldest brothers slaughtered every man in the city. Quite a repayment for a bit of premarital fun with the woman you love!  

All this violence because two different groups of people failed to learn the morals, laws and beliefs of the other. Perhaps if they had gotten to know each other they could have looked at their differences and learned to respect them. Maybe. Sometimes even when we know the moral beliefs of another group, we find them too different and we lash out at them for no real reason, except that they are different.

It's not always easy to love and respect people who have had very different life experiences than ours. We think that our view of the world must be everyone's. If you have never been poor it is difficult to understand the experiences of a poor person. If you have never experienced discrimination based on your skin color, you will never understand what it feels like to those who experience it daily. Before we lash out at people say and do things that don't make sense to us, we should consider their perspectives. If we don't, we run the risk of thinking that it's okay to fly nazi flags and kill people who don't think the way we think.

God of Love,

Help us. Help us to not repeat history by sitting idly by while atrocities are being committed. Show us what we can do right here and right now before things get worse. Amen.

Wrestling with God

The the man [whom Jacob wrestled] said, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed. -Genesis 32:28

Who hasn't struggled with God? It's easy to simply worship, adore and commune with God when all is well. And even when life's bumps and upsets come along, we do our best to "praise him in the storm," and often succeed. But then there are the really bad things that we just don't, don't, don't understand. I don't even have to name any of them. You have them in your own life and you've seen them in the lives of others. That's when we struggle to even believe that there can be a god. A god who allows horrible things to happen to people. A god who turns his back to our most fervent prayers. A god who - perhaps - isn't really there at all.

In the story of Jacob's travel to return to his home, we feel his gut-wrenching fear of meeting up with Esau. Jacob makes elaborate plans to save at least a portion of his family and wealth and he is willing to give nearly all of it to Esau if he would just spare their lives. He goes to bed, but there is no sleep. His mind is filled with "what if" and "how can I" and "what will tomorrow bring". And he wonders if God cares that he is this afraid. And Jacob wrestles all night until he finally feels God's real and absolute presence.

Never be afraid to wrestle with God. Ask the deep down hard questions. Yell at him. Cry out your greatest pains and fears. When we get into the real nitty-gritty with God and wrestle right up until we wonder if He is even there, that is when you will know his presence the most deeply.

God Over Our Fears,
Thank you for being a God who doesn't mind our questions and anger and grief-ridden denial of you. Thank you for being steadfastly there when we need you the most even if we do not feel you. Amen.

One True God

"May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor" - the God of their father - "judge between us."... - Genesis 31:53

Whenever I read the story about Rachel stealing her father's household gods, the first thing that usually comes to mind is the book, The Red Tent. That really was a great book, but there are some other things to look at in this story as well.  For instance, once Jacob and Laban finally decide to part as friends and make a covenant between them, they swear their oaths by the God of Abraham AND the god of Nahor.

Nahor and Abraham were brothers, both sons of Terah, who descended from Noah. Nahor's son, Behuel, was the father of Laban. Apparently Abraham and Nahor took different spiritual paths. Abraham worshiping the One True God and Nahor worshiping other gods. But if there is but ONE true God, doesn't it follow that He is ALSO the God of Nahor?

I think we miss this in today's world. Although we may call God by different names and believe different traditions and recognize Him in different ways, there still is but One True God. This is especially true of Christians, Jews and Muslims. Our traditions all originate with Abraham.  But even other religions that search for the goodness of mankind and a merciful, loving god are truly worshiping the same God as well, even if we don't all agree on the details.

If we could grasp this idea, we would be so much more loving and tolerant of one another.  Jacob and Laban tolerated the notion of one another's gods in order to make a covenant between them. Would it be such a big deal then for a Muslim brother or sister of today to pray at a town council meeting?

God of All,

Help us to understand that no matter how we have been taught to perceive you, you are God... period. Amen.

Sisterly Rivalry

[After Jacob's wedding night that he believed was with Rachel] When morning came, it was Leah! And Jacob said to Laban, "What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?" - Genesis 29:25

I have three sisters. Sisterly rivalry is bad enough without throwing a husband into the mix! Leah wanted love and Rachel wanted children. I believe that each would have given up what the other wanted, if they could have.  Even way back then, the grass was always greener...

What do you desperately wish you had that you do not? What would you be willing to give up for it? Love? Children? I always wished that I had a beautiful singing voice. Would I give up my writing ability for it? Wow, I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I would get bored with singing and wish again that I could write. Can't I have both?? But then there would be something else I wished I had...

The key to ridding ourselves of this kind of envy is gratitude. We need to quit wishing for that which we lack and focus on what we have. We can hone our God-given talents and use them for God's glory and rejoice in them and be grateful for them.

Life should not consist of trying to get what everyone else has. We should only focus on making the very best of what we have been given, whether talents, love, children or even material possessions. Be grateful for everything you already have. Name those gifts. Start a list of 3 or more each day and really focus on what they mean to you and you will soon be surprised to find that you are happy for your sisters' (and brothers') gifts as well.

God of All Good Gifts,

Thank you for all you have given me. Help me to use all to your glory. Thank you also that you have blessed my brothers and sisters, often differently. Amen.

A Multi-Faceted Gem

Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place - and I did not know it. -Genesis 28:16

Surely we've all been there. We struggle through a difficult time and wonder where God is the whole time; why is he not helping? Why is he allowing this trial? Then when we finally get through it, we can look back and see, "Oh! He was there the whole time!"

That's one way to look at this verse. In Rob Bell's book, What Is the Bible? (yes, you need to read this), he explains that each passage of scripture is like a multifaceted gem.  Turn the gem and you see it from a whole new angle. There is a whole book about this scripture in particular; God Was in This Place & I, I Did Not Know, by Lawrence Kushner. The author offers a collection of many different interpretations of this verse from many different scholars.

For example, one claims that Jacob found God within himself, while another asserts that at that moment in this passage, Jacob emptied himself of ego to find God outside of himself. We can look at this ability for different people to look at the same verse so completely differently in several ways... another multi-faceted gem!

We could just give up. How can anybody know anything about God from the Bible? Apparently we just make it up as we go along! Or maybe we sometimes dig TOO deeply. Maybe it just means what it says. Or maybe the answer is found in scripture itself: Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. -Hebrews 4:12

This is my fourth time reading through the Bible. Each time has been a completely different journey. And each time, I see specific passages differently. Sometimes just a little differently; a product of maturing intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and just generally. Sometimes I see things in a whole different light and it brings an incredible "ah-ha" moment.

How we see scripture individually depends upon where we are in our lives and what's going on with us. It depends on our emotional maturity and spiritual maturity. It depends on our willingness to see something other than what we have been taught by our parents, pastors and Sunday school teachers. So many people miss out on the vital "aliveness" of the Bible, because they are afraid to disagree with those who taught them. For them it is no more alive than our school history books. What a shame!

When you read scripture, ask questions! Pray for answers, search for answers, find answers given by a wide variety of scholars. I find some of the best stuff for answering my Old Testament questions from Jewish rabbis. They have been struggling with these stories for a very long time and have some beautiful things to say. 

God of the living and active Word,

Open our hearts to understand what you have to say to us as a whole people as well as individually. Give us courage to question what we have been taught. Amen.

An Odd and Uncomfortable Blend

Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath daughter of Abraham's son Ishmael, and sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had. -Genesis 28:9

I am stunned by the amount of new information and new connections I am getting from this new reading of Genesis; a book I have read many times. It seems we are connecting families again.  Esau knew that he had displeased his parents by marrying two Hittite women. Apparently the Hittite women were vain, impious, and idolators and adulteresses. To please his parents he married Ishmael's daughter, Mahalath. 

This marriage was a marriage of repentance on Esau's part.  He perhaps was still looking for "the" blessing that Jacob received.  He hoped to please his parents AND God with this marriage, but he still kept his Hittite wives.

That is so like we humans.  We sin and sin again. We confess and try to do good with our lives, and often succeed, but we don't let go of the sin. We confess, but we don't repent. Somehow we think our good works make up for our lack of repentance.

Yes, God still loves us! The repentance is for us, not Him. Our lives on this earth are hopefully spent in constant renewal... daily baptism. It's so hard to continue to move forward when there is sin that we have recognized in our life but refuse to give up.

What an odd blend of wives that was for Esau and how uncomfortable it must have been at the family dinner table; maybe not for the Hittites, because in their shallowness they probably did not notice, but for Esau's new wife and the rest of the family.  Is it not an equally odd and uncomfortable blend to let our good works and sin live together as if it were natural?

We are never going to be without sin, but that glaringly odd and uncomfortable stuff really needs to be dealt with before we can truly move on and grow and renew.

God of Our Baptism,

Help us to weed out the vain, impious, idolating sin in our lives that we may grow in our walk with you. Amen.

The Energy of Words

[Isaac said to Esau] "Your brother came deceitfully, and has taken away your blessing." -Genesis 27:35

I raised two boys.  The sibling rivalry was no picnic, though they are great friends now. I know there were times that I would blame one for something that was done by the other.  Once discovered, I would apologize to the one I blamed and then take it up with the other.  No problem. And this is how I always looked at this story of Jacob and Esau. When Isaac realized the mistake on his part and the deception of Jacob, why not just say, "Sorry Esau, your brother tricked me.  His blessing is null and void because of his deception.  Now here is your blessing...." No problem.

What we don't realize in this world where words are easily spoken and written and heard and thrown around, and emailed and texted and used in ways both good and bad is that words have power. There is even an energy to them. When I would accuse the wrong son of doing something wrong, that negative energy entered him. The power of the words of a parent's disappointment, no matter how small, even if not spoken harshly, has an impact. Those words, together with every other word spoken to him, helps to form the man he would one day become, each word impacting him to a lesser or greater extent. Blessings, especially in the age of Isaac, Jacob and Esau, were and are loaded with energy. You can't take back energy. If you bless someone, you can't unbless them.

Anything said to another person cannot be unsaid. All words have energy and exist long after they are spoken. Let the words you speak be filled with positive energy.

God of Our Words,

May we realize the power of our words and use them always to build and uplift. Amen

Family Reunion

(Abraham's) sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the ave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, east of Mamre -Genesis 25:9

Here is another gem I have overlooked in previous readings.  Ishmael was at Abraham's funeral. What?! I thought Abraham sent him and his mother away? This is definitely worth looking into.

Verse 1 tells us that Abraham remarried after Sarah's death and he had 6 more children and several grandchildren by her. She was called Keturah. However, Old Testament and Torah scholars say that this was actually Hagar, Ishmael's mother!  It was typical in that day to have more than one name.  It is also speculated that her name was changed once Abraham released her from slavery to marry her.   It is probable that both Abraham and Isaac felt guilty about sending them away and went and brought them back after Sarah's death.

That sounds like our God! He is a God of reconciliation.  He unites instead of dividing. He wants us to repair our own relationships as well.  If there is someone in your family that has been cut off, or even has cut themselves off, keep reaching out. Funerals are generally sad, but they are made sadder each time we hear the well-worn phrase, "It's good to see you, but I wish it were under better circumstances." 

Reconciling God,

Help us to keep in contact with those you have given us to love.  Amen.

On Being Tactful

Ephron answered Abraham, "My lord, listen to me; a piece of land worth four hunddred shekels of silver - what is that between you and me? Bury your dead." - Genesis 23:14

No deep thoughts from me today.  I just thought this was an interesting exchange on the way they bartered in the days of Abraham.  Sarah has died and Abraham is grieving and since he is residing in an alien land, he needs somewhere to bury her. He speaks with the Hittites and Ephron offers to give him some land that he owns. Abraham says, "Oh, no...I will pay full price for it!"  Ephron answers, "Consider it a gift, but by the way, it's worth 400 shekels." So Abraham pays him 400 shekels.  

This was typical back then and was considered the polite way of bartering. How surprised would Ephron have been if Abraham said, "Why thank you, Ephron! I accept your gift!" It's kind of like when a wife asks her husband if he thinks she should buy that new couch or when a husband asks his wife if she minds if he goes out with the guys.  It's polite to ask, but we all know what answer is expected.

I'm not the most tactful person in the world and I've found that southerners are way more tactful than our friends up north. My feeling used to be, if everybody knows what's really being said, why dance around it?  After offending people on multiple occasions over the years, I've grown a bit more diplomatic, but I don't think I'll ever have the finesse of some of my life-long southerner friends.  I still have much to learn.

Loving God,

Help us to communicate in ways that show our love for one another, but also in a way that gets the point across.  Amen.

The Gods of Anxiety

(God spoke to Abraham) He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you." - Genesis 22:2

We cannot look at this story through the lens of 21st century people. This is a story that was meant to be told to an audience who would have understood what child sacrifice was all about.  Rob Bell covers it so well in his book, What Is the Bible? 

Ancient religion began with a need.  A need to know the One who doled out the rain and sun and controlled the floods and famine.  And then they needed to know how to appease that god.  There were offerings to entice the gods to give you good fortune and then there were offerings of thanks when you had good fortune.  As Rob Bell explains, this religion that welled up in the earliest of humankind had anxiety built into it.  You never knew when and if you offered enough.  Bell says, 

"Whether things went well or not, the answer was always: Sacrifice more. Give more. Offer more. Because you never knew where you stood with the gods.  What is the most valuable thing you could offer the gods to show them how serious you were about earning their favor? A child."

So Abraham is not shocked at this request.  And if you read carefully, there are clues that Abraham may have known all along what God was up to. The thing is, this is not a story about Abraham's willingness to kill his son for God.  It is God showing Abraham that he is not a god of anxiety.  He is not a god who demands human sacrifice.  Quite the opposite.  He is the God who provides.  And at this time in human history, this was a mind-blowing concept.  God did not require Abraham to sacrifice his son. God only required faith and belief. 

Giving God,

Thank you that we never have to wonder if we please you enough to earn your love.  We need not earn anything from you.  You simply give.  Amen.