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The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost A couple of weeks ago Steve began his sermon with a song, and if I were as brave, I would do the same thing today, because there is a song that has been running through my mind all week as I’ve pondered these readings. But I’m not that brave, and so I’ll just mention the song; it’s an oldie for me but if you aren’t’ familiar with it you can find in on You Tube. The song I have in mind is “We are Family” by Sister Sledge—anyone remember it? That song has been running through my head all week because it seems to me that the common thread that connects today’s OT reading with the gospel is the notion of family. Over time and across cultures families have been construed in different ways, but it seems that they’ve always been important—for physical survival but also as the source of nurturance, emotional support, and even as the basis of our identity. Most of us can’t imagine life without our families, however we define them, yet our families can also be places of pain, full of dysfunction. This is true in our immediate family, and it’s also true in all the layers of family that ripple out from that—community, church, nation, and world. All of this is reflected in today’s readings. Our OT reading from Genesis deals with Abraham’s family. Remember that God called Abram and Sarai out of Haran to a new land and promised Abram, later renamed Abraham, that he would be the father of a great nation, with offspring numbering like the stars in the heavens. There was one problem though—he and Sarah were getting up in years, and Sarah had yet to bear a child. Sarah’s desire for a child was so great that she did something that sounds radical to us, but that probably wasn’t that unusual in her day. She brought her servant girl Hagar to Abraham and told him to father a child with her to insure his lineage. From the beginning we see that Sarah was uneasy with this even though it seemed to be her idea, and that she sometimes treated Hagar badly. But Hagar’s son, Ishmael was loved and treasured, especially by Abraham. Some dozen years after Ishmael’s birth, God’s promise to Sarah—the promise we heard last week when Sarah laughed—was fulfilled and she gave birth to a son, Isaac. And life suddenly became much worse for Hagar and Ishmael. Although Abraham by all accounts loved and treasured both his sons, Sarah in all her humanness became jealous. Fearing that Ishmael would somehow cheat Isaac out of his rightful inheritance, she asked—she demanded— that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away and Abraham reluctantly did as she asked, and sent them out into the desert. Sarah had her way—indeed, God backed her up, telling Abraham to do as Sarah had asked, confirming that it was indeed through Isaac that his line would be established. But that wasn’t the end of the story, because God, as God always does, worked through and around Sarah’s humanness and spoke to Hagar as well, comforting her, providing water for sustenance, and promising that Ishmael, too, would become the father of a great nation. I wonder if Sarah might find it ironic that today when we speak of the three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam we see Isaac as the root of the first two, and Ishmael as the root of Islam—all parts of the same family, all sharing common ancestors—cousins in faith as it were, all inheritors of God’s grace, all part of the family of God. And then we come to the gospel where we find Jesus uttering these startling and discomfiting worlds: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword…and one's foes will be members of one's own household. These are hard words to hear, coming from the lips of Jesus. Is this the same Jesus who calls us to a new way, who tells us to turn the other cheek, who places love of neighbor second only to love of God? What’s going on here? In the context of the narrative, Jesus is warning his disciples once again about the cost of discipleship. Jesus’ words evoked a strong reaction everywhere he went, and increasingly as his ministry progressed and his fame spread, the reaction was negative. No doubt Matthew’s telling of this story was colored too by his knowledge of the dissent in his own community in the years following the destruction of the Temple, years during which various groups vied to define what Judaism would be like, post Temple, years during which the followers of Jesus sought to define their own place in the religious community. During this time there often was dissent and division within families over their beliefs. Jesus is warning his disciples that this time of dissent is coming, and he is pointedly saying something he’s only alluded to before: no matter how important earthly families are, being part of the family of God is more so, for God is our real father, and God’s great and abiding love exists for all of us. So what are we to take from these two troubling readings? One thing seems clear to me: Together these readings are a powerful reminder that fractured and divided as we may be, we are ALL part of God’s family. We may not look like it, divided as we are into churches and denominations and faiths; in our humanness we bring dysfunction even into God’s family and our history is the story of interfamily battles—within and between faiths—but we are nonetheless all part of that one family of God. No matter how much we bicker and quarrel and fight and yes, even do violence to one another, we are included in God’s family, loved and cherished by God. No matter the differences we have within our denomination, or between our denominations, or between our various faith traditions, we are all God’s children, cousins in the faith. Jesus tells us that one’s foes will be members of one’s household. On first reading it’s easy to say that we shouldn’t be surprised to be in disagreement over matters of faith with members of our own family, a notion that made a great deal of sense in the context of the early church. But I wonder if we might hear that sentence differently today, to change the emphasis. I wonder if we might hear it as a call to remember that our foes, however we define them, ARE members of our household, of our family, God’s family and as such deserve our love and respect no matter how much we might disagree with them. I wonder if after hearing these stories we might try to shape our lives to be less like Sarah, casting out those who threaten us and more like God, in whose image we are created and who reached out and provided for even those who were cast out. I wonder if we might see that sword that Jesus brings not as a weapon used to hurt and to separate, but rather as a tool to cut away the things that bind us and keep us apart, separate us as people of faith so that we might concentrate more on what we share than on our differences. I wonder if after hearing these stories, stories of how in our very humanness we have fractured the family God has brought us into, we might find ourselves called to the task of reconciliation—reconciliation within our families, reconciliation within the church, reconciliation in the world. I wonder these things because there is one thing I am sure of—God’s love is big enough for all of us, for people in all their great variety and diversity, for churches of all sort, for Christian and Jew and Muslim, for all of creation and for all of God’s children. We are family—God’s family and God loves us so much that God comes to us again and again and again, so that we might all hear God’s word, experience God’s grace, do God’s will. But it’s up to us to be open to God’s word, God’s presence; it’s up to us to do that hard work of reconciliation that God calls us to. Let us pray, God, we come before you, children in your family, broken and contrite but with the assurance of your saving love. We ask for your guidance as we undertake the hard work of reconciliation. We know that reconciliation begins when we look into the eyes of those who were our enemies and recognize ourselves, when our differences are not challenged but celebrated; Reconciliation becomes a living reality when we work together for justice and liberation for all people; when our compassion extends to the outer boundaries of all that we know and understand, all that we dream of and imagine. But in the end, we will be truly reconciled when we forgive others as you forgive us, when we see others as sisters and brothers in the family of God, and love each other as you love us. Help us to do these things, O God. Amen
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