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Sarah and that “God’s Story + My Story = One Story” Idea (4th Sunday after Pentecost, 6/21/2026)

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Readings (Track 1)

Sam Kamaleson, a pastor from the Indian subcontinent with whom I worked at World Vision, used to talk about God’s story (one hand) and my story (the other hand) becoming one story (fingers interlaced). Easier said than done; today’s lessons give us an opportunity to think about it.

God’s story. Three weeks ago (Trinity Sunday) our first lesson was the creation story, seven days of God declaring this is good, that is good, the whole thing very good. It’s a very different perspective than the Babylonian (creation itself and humans in particular formed from the corpses of defeated gods of chaos) or the Greek (only a second-rate deity would be fool enough to deal with matter). No: creation is good, the material world is good.

We can pick up the story in Eucharistic Prayer C:

From the primal elements you brought forth the human race, and blessed us with memory, reason, and skill. You made us the rulers of creation. But we turned against you, and betrayed your trust; and we turned against one another.

We should be, I think, surprised that the prayer doesn’t continue with “And so You pulled the plug on the whole thing” or “And so You decided to hang out with the dolphins for the next few thousand years.” Surprisingly, God calls Abraham and Sarah to be the beginning of a pilot project aimed at what the Jews call tikkun olam, repairing the world. God comes to Abraham and Sarah: what might we do together? God’s story + their story becoming one story. That’s the story contained in the Old Testament, the story rebooted when God takes on human flesh in Jesus, the story we enter with our baptism.

It’s probably fair to say that from Sarah’s perspective the project didn’t start out well. She had not borne Abraham an heir, to the point that, bowing to custom, she presented Abraham with her Egyptian slave Hagar so that she might produce an heir by proxy. Hagar conceived, and, understandably, passed up no chance to remind everyone that she was the birth mother of Abraham’s heir. So Sarah had an enemy, and there wasn’t a lot she could do about it. Until, finally, God promised her a son, and delivered on that promise Now Sarah can do something about her enemy. Foreshadowing the treatment her people will receive from the Egyptians some generations later, she demands that Abraham expel Hagar and Ishmael. And Abraham does so—only after receiving God’s promise to look after Hagar and Ishmael.

And in the story we’ve just heard God keeps that promise to Hagar, preserving Ishmael’s imperiled life as God will preserve Isaac’s imperiled life in the next story. “Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him fast with your hand; for I will make him a great nation.”

The Jews, descended from Isaac, and the Arabs, descended from Ishmael, already in the OT are often at odds. And here Sarah’s God is providing a well for Ishmael. The Jews have a legend about that: “the angels appeared against Ishmael before God. They said, ‘Wilt Thou cause a well of water to spring up for him whose descendants will let Thy children of Israel perish with thirst?’ And God: “well, yes.”

God’s story + my story = one story. For Sarah in this episode, not so much, because she’s hit one of the really difficult bits: that someone is my enemy doesn’t mean they’re God’s enemy, that God listens to me when I pray Ps 86 (today’s psalm) and listens to my enemy when they pray Ps 86.

This is a difficult enough bit that the OT keeps coming back to it. Here are a couple more stories.

Some generations later Moses has led Israel out of Egypt, and Joshua has just brought the people across the Jordan to take possession of the promised land. Reading from the fifth chapter of Joshua:

Once when Joshua was by Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you one of us, or one of our adversaries?” He replied, “Neither; but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” (Jos 5:13-14)

“Are you one of us, or one of our adversaries?” “Neither.”

Some centuries later the Northern Kingdom of Israel and Aram (modern Syria) are at war. In a legend from that period, the king of Aram learns that his recent raids have been unsuccessful because the prophet Elisha has been warning the Israelite king about them. He sends out a large force to surround Elisha’s city and capture Elisha. Elisha sees the force, and asks God to blind the soldiers. God does so, and Elisha leads them to the Israelite capital. At this point the Israelite king enters. Reading from the sixth chapter of 2 Kings:

When the king of Israel saw them he said to Elisha, “Father, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?” He answered, “No! Did you capture with your sword and your bow those whom you want to kill? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink; and let them go to their master.” So he prepared for them a great feast; after they ate and drank, he sent them on their way, and they went to their master. And the Arameans no longer came raiding into the land of Israel. (2Ki 6:21-23)

So when Jesus talks about loving one’s enemies as an integral part of what God’s kingdom is about, this isn’t new. Jesus is simply reporting how he’s observed the Father acting “for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous”—not to mention Hagar, the reply to Joshua, Elisha’s treatment of the Aramean raiders.

So when Jesus sends his disciples out to announce this kingdom, he understandably anticipates opposition, because everyone knows that right-thinking people try to help their friends and hurt their enemies. Right-thinking people will take Barabbas over Jesus any day.

“But this love of enemies business can’t be that important to God. If it were, God would impose it.” But that takes us back to the creation story. God thinks that human freedom is good. God thinks that the church’s freedom is good. So God does what God can do, like the woman in one of Jesus’ parables, putting leaven in the dough in the hope of the whole thing rising. God continues to stretch out the now nail-pierced hand to us: how can we make My story and your story one story?

God’s story; my story; one story. There are many ways that invitation will come to us in the coming week. Some of them may have to do with how we choose to respond to our enemies. May our choices bring God joy.

Faith as Defiance (19th after Pentecost, 10/19/2025)

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Readings (Track 2)

Just before today’s Gospel reading Jesus tells his disciples “The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it” (Lk. 17:22). Discipleship, praying “your kingdom come,” it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Losing heart is a real danger, and Jesus has a parable about that.

If the unjust judge gives the widow justice, how much more will God grant justice to those “who cry to him day and night”! And Jesus continues: “I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.”

“Quickly”? Rather than resolve the tension present throughout the history of God’s people, Jesus leans into it. God and humans do time differently; God’s “quickly” rarely feels like quickly to us. That can be a deal-breaker (“lose heart”); Jesus doesn’t want it to be a deal-breaker. God will grant justice. The real question: “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

In today’s collect we prayed that we “may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name.” The widow in Jesus’ parable shows us what that looks like: continuing to cry out for justice as long as necessary.

OK, we could say “Amen” at this point and go on to the Creed. But that could leave us assuming that we had a reliable idea of the justice we needed, and had only to keep praying until God gave us that justice. Our other two readings might want us to wonder about that.

Paul to Timothy: “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” Paul is speaking diplomatically. Put less diplomatically: “All of us are works in progress. All of us need teaching, reproof, correction, training. “Proficient, equipped for every good work”? That’s the goal, not the present reality. God uses many tools for our salvation; Scripture is one of these tools, an essential tool.

Paul’s words guided the reformation of the Church of England in the 16th Century. The first task: get the Bible into English in the parishes. Then: when and how would it be heard? The monasteries had frequent daily offices for hearing Scripture and praying, but not the parishes. So Archbishop Cranmer reduced the multiple offices to two (Morning and Evening Prayer) and created a lectionary so that every parish could hear most of Scripture over the course of the year.

So our Book of Common Prayer opens with various orders for Morning and Evening Prayer, and at the very end there’s the schedule of Scripture readings. The challenge, of course, is how this works in the 21st century. So Good Shepherd, like many parishes, orders copies of Day by Day, and various smartphone apps put the offices at our fingertips. This is part of our Episcopal identity that could use more attention, so that Coffee Hour is predictably the time when the clergy are besieged by questions (“Why’s Jesus talking about bringing a sword, rather than peace?”).

Why bother? My favorite example comes from the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel. We’re introduced to Joseph, Mary’s fiancé, whom Matthew describes as “righteous.” That sounds promising, but on learning of Mary’s pregnancy, Joseph’s best idea is to dismiss her quietly. So God sends a dream “for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” and Joseph’s righteousness gets an upgrade. That’s not a bad picture of the people of God. We’re righteous, but our notion of righteousness means that we’re about to dismiss Mary—if we haven’t done so already. We need the teaching, reproof, correction, and training that regular encounters with Scripture can provide.

Then there’s that strange story in our first reading. Jacob—from whom you should never buy a used car—had cheated his brother Esau, and now Esau was coming to meet him—with 400 of his armed retainers. So Jacob prays for deliverance and (in answer to the prayer?) a “man” wrestles with him all night. Jacob remembers it as having “seen God face to face.” In any event, that’s the crisis; the subsequent encounter with Esau goes smoothly.

I wonder about that story. Esau is a problem, but perhaps God’s the bigger problem. Perhaps Jacob got it right and it was God with whom he wrestled all night. Maybe prayer is like that. I pray for justice; perhaps I shouldn’t expect to emerge from prayer unchanged.

In today’s Gospel we heard Jesus encouraging his disciples to “pray always and not to lose heart.” Yet it’s his questions that I often find most haunting. Last week: “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” (Lk. 17:17-18) Today: “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” What answer will we give in the coming week?

“They have no wine.” (2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, 1/19/2024)

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Readings

Children’s Sermon

Today’s Gospel reading: what was your favorite part? That short dialogue between Jesus’ mother and Jesus: What is Jesus’ mother saying/doing? What might Jesus’ reply mean? Jesus’ mother then talks to the servants: what’s that about? Does Jesus’ mother get what she asked for? What might have happened if Jesus’ mother had let Jesus’ first  response end the conversation? (So we keep at it, even if we don’t quite understand what’s going on.)

Adults’ Sermon

There are any number of things we might notice in today’s Gospel; I’d like to focus on two. The first is what the children and I were looking at: how to respond when Jesus’ response sounds conversation-ending. Today’s Gospel isn’t the only place this question comes up. The most notorious case: Jesus’ response to the Syrophoenician woman’s request to exorcise the demon from her daughter: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (Mk. 7:27). The woman could easily have let that end the conversation. She chose not to, and in the end Jesus does what she asks. Why Jesus gives these odd responses: that question is probably unanswerable. What we should do when we think we’ve gotten one of these odd responses: texts like today’s give us a clear answer: don’t throw in the towel.

Had we read just a couple more verses in our first reading we would have heard:

Upon your walls, O Jerusalem,
I have posted sentinels;
all day and all night
they shall never be silent.
You who remind the LORD,
take no rest,
and give him no rest
until he establishes Jerusalem
and makes it renowned throughout the earth. (Isa. 62:6-7)

Jesus’ mother would have liked that text. And it’s like that strange parable Jesus tells about our needing “to pray always and not to lose heart” (Lk. 18:1): be like the wronged widow who wears out the unjust judge with her persistence. So, when we think we’ve gotten an odd response from Jesus, we don’t throw in the towel. That’s not the point of today’s Gospel reading, but something we might learn from it.

The second thing we might notice in today’s Gospel reading: how unexpected it is after all the solemn pronouncements in the previous (opening) chapter. Recall some of what we hear in chapter 1:

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” (Jn. 1:14)

“No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” (Jn. 1:18)

“The next day [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’” (Jn. 1:29)

“And [Jesus] said to [Nathanael], ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’” (Jn. 1:51)

All this sounds very solemn, very serious. Then the first thing Jesus does out the gate is gift the wedding party with about 150 gallons of high-quality wine. Maybe we run back to John the Baptist: this Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world makes really good wine! Looks like John the Evangelist (the author) has chosen to give us a friendly warning: don’t assume that you know how chapter 1’s solemn and serious language is going to play out. Be prepared for some surprises. Be prepared for some surprises.

We could easily stop there; but let’s look at one way we might take it a bit further. In our Isaiah reading we heard

“For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.”

Yes, in the Gospel Jesus is a guest, not the bridegroom. But John the Evangelist plays with the image and in the next chapter has John the Baptist say “He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn. 3:29-30). So John the Evangelist’s decision to put this wedding story at the start of chapter 2 may be a heads-up that all that language in chapter 1 may be pointing to the joy of a wedding.

The image of Jesus at the door has captured our imagination: “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me” (Rev. 3:20). After today’s Gospel perhaps we should pair it with this text from the Song of Songs: “Listen! my beloved is knocking. ‘Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one…’” (Cant. 5:2).

Re Daily Office Readings 4/6/2020

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The Readings: Lamentations 1:1-2, 6-12; 2 Corinthians 1:1-7; Mark 11:12-25

vehicles beside buildings
Photo by Anas Hinde on Pexels.com

Then there are the mornings when engaging with the readings is like trying to drink from a fire fighter’s hose…

“How lonely sits the city that once was full of people!” This coronavirus disaster, in the USA both natural and human in origin (google comparative national infection and unemployment rates)… Some mornings we may not get past the first reading.

When, and only when, we’re ready to do something other than lament, the other readings offer two paths. Paul: solidarity, in the form of consolation (or encouragement). How might I console, encourage, show solidarity? Which groups particularly need our solidarity?

Mark sandwiches one sign-act (the cursing of the fig tree) around another (the cleansing of the temple). Both seem to point to the temple’s destruction (cue Lamentations?). G-d also is in the game; G-d bats last. And Jesus points to our second path: prayer. Prayer, unlimited in power (vv.23-24), but with a demanding requirement: “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.” I wonder: the demand to forgive does not immobilize Jesus (see the two sign-acts); how does the demand affect how he carries these out?

Between lamentation, solidarity, prayer and forgiveness my hands need not be idle.