Rev. Craig Jan-McMahon: Windsor UCC
A Pentecost +4; Sunday after Father’s Day; 6/25/2023
Genesis 21:8-21; Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17; Romans 6:1b-11; Matthew 10:24-39

Gen..: for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.n.
Ps.:	  be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all day long.
Rom:  Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?
Matt:  Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

When Family Fails

On the Sunday after Father’s Day, with public School and Sunday school on recess, with many of our families away on vacation…

We read the story of Abraham casting Hagar and his son Ishmael, into the desert with a bit of water and a crust of bread…

Family.

The families of our first ancestors, those whom God chooses, with whom God makes covenants feature murder, as with Cane and Able, betrayal as with Isaac and Esau, treachery as with Joseph and the brothers who sell him into slavery.

And then of course there is king David, whose adultery with Bathsheba leads him to murder her husband, and then whose son Absalom rebels against him and dies when his lovely hair gets caught in a tree as he is fleeing on mule.

What is that you say, “but that is the Old Testament? 

Hah..as if..

Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

This he says to the same disciples he has called away from their families.

Follow me and I will make you fishers of men, and the they follow him, abandoning wives and children, shirking obligations to take care of aging parents. 

Not returning home to bury their dead loved ones… walking away from family businesses and their responsibility to provide for their own families….  

Jesus himself is no family man but seems rather to uphold something like an alternative family with Mary, Martha and Lazarus.

Later, the Apostle Paul comes on the scene with no family connections whatsoever, and proceeds to declare social structures, gender roles, family hierarchies to be antithetical to grace.  

Given the fraught family relationships in our scriptures, what Jesus says about families it is a wonder that we Christians have so identified ourselves with family, focus on the family, with so-called traditional family values.  

But then, in quiet moments,  when we talk privately with people we trust about our families, the stories we tell of our family struggles are biblical in their complexities…

Yes, surely and truly, we have much to celebrate and honor in our families, but there is a lot of heartache too, and betrayals, and anger and grudges…. 

The struggle to love and support one another in our families is at the very core of faith, to fully engage in that struggle and work out the details of forgiveness and healing, of truth-telling and patience is what we all pray for, we all aim for, long for

To raise up a family in faith means aiming for the ideal of family we pray for and accepting the reality of family we live with, =living in the gap between our prayerful longings and the real living of our lives is the very essence of faithful living…

On earth as it is in heaven…this is our prayer…

If we were to be honest, and if we were to trust enough to tell our own stories…..

Some of us know what it is like to be Ishmael, to be seen as a threat and and a danger thus cast out for no reason at all save for the fear and narrow vision of people we want to love us, who should love us, who should see us as a gift and a joy rather than a threat…

Some of us know what it like to be Hagar, with no power and with no say, our well-being dependent on the whim of others, our suffering easily dismissed with fine sentiments–God will take care of you.

And then, too, some of us know what it is like to be Sarah, to see trouble coming long before anyone else does and raising the alarm, demanding action, seeking to limit damage we see coming, to secure the future of the family no matter the cost to others.  

Those who have been hurt or injured, like Ishmael and Hagar, surely understand what Jesus says about family, because there are times in family life when family fails us, fails  to take care of us, to love and accept us; there are times when it necessary to tell the truth and call family members to account, and these are those times Jesus speaks of… times when division is faithful,  as Jesus says, times when peace is not about pretending everything’s okay or about keeping quiet.

We all have capacity to grow and change and adjust, to share our stories with honesty and humility…

To be willing to lose life in order to gain life…

To distrust and question our Sarah-like fear and certainty of the future as if we can see as God sees…

To ask for forgiveness and to give it, and harder still, to accept forgiveness ourselves…

To foster family relationships that extend beyond those we have known or imagined to be.  

It happens all the time, and these are stories we need to tell, love we have experienced, love we see growing all around us….

Ask a grandparent about loving an adopted grandchild, some neighbor child whose grandparents live across the country or who are no longer living, about birthday cards sent and cookies baked and watching them grow with delight and wonder.

Or look at the many children who have been so well loved by two families when their one family suffers divorce, about the ways they work together apart for the good of their new families, about how the work out ways to honor their vows in ways that transcend what can be imagined, save by faith.

Talk to a someone who has lost a spouse and found love again, a miracle, a life lost, a life gained; see families thriving after they have helped one of their family members recover from addictions.

Listen to the stories of reconciliation, late in life, between family members who have lived their lives angry at one another, about time and time and time lost, but the joy of life gained…

Look at the strength and power of families to extend belonging and dignity to those whose own families failed them, who have taken them in and made them part of their own families, their own lives.  

Talk to those who live alone but have families of friends to celebrate their lives with, the pride and joy the find together, a family of friendship, of shared companionship.

The challenging and difficult stories we find in our scriptures are a gift to us, because they allow us to see our own humanness in them and again to find God’s faithfulness to us even when our own families fail us, even and especially when we fail them.

God is big enough to rescue Hagar and Ishmael and to bless Abraham, Isaac and Sarah, too.  

The brothers Jacob and Esau reconcile, and so we learn about forgiveness.

Joseph rises to power and repays his brothers’ treachery with kindness, and so we learn about generosity.  

King David’s sense of guilt and depth of grief inspires him to write psalms, and so we learn how to pray. 

The Apostles Paul expands the boundaries of family and tribe that divide us one from another and thus we are called to expand our notion of what family means in the light of God’s love. 

And Jesus teaches us to pray, Our Father, for we are brothers and sisters in Christ, the family of God, which nothing can divide, we are bound together by faith, in peace, in the name Christ, and God will never fail us.  

Jesus sees our struggles and heartaches and love and understand the our deep, primal, human need of family to accept us and nurture us and care for us, to see the best in us even when we don’t meet their expectations of us, even when we don’t measure up to their hopes for us, and especially when they reject us and abandon us.

Jesus speaks for us, for the truth of who we are just as we are. 

He wants us to see and to believe what is true and what we see when God rescues Hagar and Ishmael in the desert,

While our family may at times fail us, God never will. Amen.

Matthew 10:24-39
[Jesus said] ‘A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. 

If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

‘So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. 

What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

‘Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 

Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Note: Links to UCC and HRC resources are included at the end of this document.

History

A brief history of the beginnings of the Open and Affirming movement in the UCC began as a way churches certified and declared themselves ready to call pastors no matter their sexual orientation:

In 1972, Rev. William R. Johnson was the first openly gay minister ordained in the United Church of Christ. UCC members founded the UCC Gay Caucus, which later became the Open and Affirming Coalition.

In 1982, the Rev. Anne Holmes was the first openly lesbian minister ordained in the UCC.

In 1985, the ONA became a movement, with funding to manage and grow the movement toward congregations to be certified as Open and Affirming.   

In 1987, the first 15 congregations certified as Open and Affirming.

Over time, as more congregations became ONA, it became clear that LGBTQ people had come to feel rejected and shamed by congregations. The ONA certification process has come to represent much more than a congregation’s openness to call pastor’s no matter their sexual orientation.  ONA is understood as an essential commitment LGBTQ people, their families, and their friends. 

Not Alone

Other Christian denominations share this history. The ways they have responded are particular to their systems of governance, and the many variations in these denominations are too complex to enumerate.  The Human Rights Campaign provides an index of stances on ordination and inclusion of LGBTQ people.  This HRC index includes other faith traditions (eg, Muslim). 

Two Tracks for ONA Certification

There are two tracks for ONA certification.  One is for a congregation to undergo a process of discernment resulting in a congregational vote to approve an ONA covenant, the other is for a congregation to certify that it is already ONA in practice, so a process of discernment is not needed.

Process of Discernment for ONA Certification

The UCC ONA Coalition offers Building an Inclusive Church (BIC) Toolkit and an Open and Affirming Planning Guide.  The recommended steps in the ONA process detailed in these resources are summarized as a 16 step process.  

This 16 step process has been developed based on the experiences and needs of congregations embarking on this journey.  

Among the many steps outlined, there are three key outcomes: 

• One, the congregation writes an ONA covenant (example covenants).
• Two, the congregation develops a program to study and discuss ONA.
• Three, the congregation takes a vote to certify the ONA Covenant.  

Upon vote for approval, the congregation reports the vote to the Wisconsin Conference, which then allows congregations to be designated as ONA for future Search and Call processes.  ONA congregations are also listed and searchable to people looking to find ONA churches. 

List of Open and Affirming Links

ONA Coalition Home Page:
https://openandaffirming.org/

Why Should My Church Become ONA?
https://openandaffirming.org/ona/why/

History of ONA
https://openandaffirming.org/about/history/

ONA Resources Page
https://openandaffirming.org/resources/issues/

Building and Inclusive Church (BIC) Toolkit 
https://openandaffirming.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/BIC_Toolkit_2021Edits.pdf

Open and Affirming Planning Guide with 16 Steps
https://openandaffirming.org/ona/how/guide/

Example ONA Covenants
https://openandaffirming.org/ona/how/covenants/

Searchable ONA Congregations Database
https://openandaffirming.org/ona/find/

Human Rights Campaign Links

Index: Human Rights Foundation Faith Resources
https://www.hrc.org/resources/faith-resources

United Church of Christ
https://www.hrc.org/resources/stances-of-faiths-on-lgbt-issues-united-church-of-christ

Presbyterian Church (USA)
https://www.hrc.org/resources/stances-of-faiths-on-lgbt-issues-presbyterian-church-usa

Lutheran Church (ELCA)
https://www.hrc.org/resources/stances-of-faiths-on-lgbt-issues-evangelical-lutheran-church-in-america

United Methodists
https://www.hrc.org/resources/stances-of-faiths-on-lgbt-issues-united-methodist-church

Episcopal Church
https://www.hrc.org/resources/stances-of-faiths-on-lgbt-issues-episcopal-church

African Methodists Episcopal Church
https://www.hrc.org/resources/stances-of-faiths-on-lgbt-issues-african-methodist-episcopal-church

Gen..: Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?"

Ps.: O LORD, I am your servant; I am your servant, the child of your serving girl. You have loosed my bonds.

Rom: hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Matt: When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Rev. Craig McMahon
Windsor UCC
A Pentecost +2; Outdoor Worship, Father’s Day; Genesis Study; 6/18/2023
Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7); Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19; Romans 5:1-8; Matthew 9:35-10:8, (9-23)

It seems especially fitting, in that unplanned things-just-work-out kind of way, that we read the story of Abraham the father of our faith. 

But perhaps also especially fitting is Sarah’s part in all of this….

This is not the first time God has made this same promise…nor does this singular moment tell the whole story…

Which any father worthy of the title will tell you….

What goes into fatherhood, into husbandhood, into parenthood, is a complex, winding story, to be sure, and at the heart of it are the Sarahs who work-work-work with our Abrahams to shape our lives and our future…..

That is the thing…The beginning of the story…the story of our first ancestors—Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rachel, Jacob and Rebekah, and then Joseph and his brothers…

In our beginning stories, our ancestors are anxious about their future, whether they will have one, before they have their own place, while they are living in tents, vulnerable aliens in a foreign land.

Anxiety over the future is the story of Abraham and Sarah’s childlessness…

How can they claim faith in their God if the story stops with them, their accumulation of wealth without any legacy, none at all?

Faith without fulfillment of promise.  

Not surprisingly, Sarah bears the burden of this…SHE is barren…the future depends upon her…a heavy burden to bear, especially given how much of a dreamer Abraham is, looking at the stars and believing that he will have more offspring than the stars in the sky…

Which, last time I checked, he cannot do alone…No… fathering is not something we do alone, no, not alone….

When the three travelers arrive, Abraham scurries about, going to his long-suffering wife to give her orders to cook up a big meal, which she does, and then he sits by his guests in the shade of the Oak trees, while Sarah, as if she were an obedient Southern Baptist woman, hides nearby in a tent listening to the men talking….

And then something happens again…yet again…A child is promised….again…

And she laughs…

Erupts into laughter?  Bursts into laughter?  Guffaws?  Howls?  

It is not a snicker, not a titer, but a laugh loud enough for the men to hear

The response of the three men is what we remember—they say…Is there anything too wonderful for the Lord?  

Which she takes as an accusation….

Responds as if she is guilty, denying she laughed, which is absurd—they all heard it…

Maybe it is something like getting the last laugh, you know, maybe she is laughing at them, at Abraham, at all this nonsense about HER having  a child….

Hah…as if…

Maybe her laughter tells the truth of how she feels about all of this, about what she has sacrifice and lost believing she has a future, will have a child, that Abraham is capable of fathering a child with her…

Can we blame her?

The first time this promise was made long before this, 

When she and Abram were already too old for children, to have a future, 

The promise made to Abraham—look at the stars and count them, if you can count them, so will your dependents be…as if he can do it alone…but she believed and she tried, they tried and failed, for years they tried and failed, until at last she is filled with despair and self-loathing, 

So, God bless her…She blames God.

She says that God has prevented her from having a child…

And so she takes matters into her own hands, makes her own plan, since God has failed her…desperate to create a legacy and a future, she “gives” an Egyptian slave, a girl named Hagar, to Abraham to have a child with, something like surrogacy I suppose, and Abraham…complies?

We have no way of understanding how these kinds of arrangements worked in the ancient world (people who talk about traditional marriage certainly don’t cite Abraham and Sarah and Hagar as examples) It looks to me like Abraham missed an opportunity here, 

…should have said to Sarah: “No my love, no: we can trust the promises of God us, you are part of that promise; we will have a child together, as God has promised us together, you and me together, as God said, as many as the stars in the heavens, remember?”  

Alas, when Hagar becomes pregnant, Sarah is angry.  Hagar’s pregnancy proving Sarah not Abraham is the “problem,”

In her distress, she takes out her own sense of shame on poor Hagar, who has no choice in the matter, none at all….And still long before the laugh, years before the laugh, after Hagar has given birth to Ishmael, when she and Abram are yet older, God comes to make a promise yet again, this time giving a sign of the covenant with Abraham and Sarah, giving them their new names….

Through all of this time passes, and she and Abraham get older, and in all the promises there is nothing but promises, empty promises, barren promises.

And all of this shame and contempt and frustration and emptiness is contained in Sarah’s laugh….somehow…

Hah!  

Because it is absurd to believe it?To protect herself from believing it? Because she has suffered so much already, her trust has been broken. It is not just that it is too late but that she can’t keep pretending anymore, is not going to play along with this nonsense anymore? 

Hah!

God bless all our Sarahs and all they has given, have suffered, for the ways they have carried the burden of the promise…

The ways in good faith they have tried and tried and continued to believe and maintained faith in the promise of God through all the hardships they have endured, 

Yes, of course, we know how the story will end.

We are here on this lovely Sunday, we ourselves are offspring of Abraham and Sarah, our first ancestors, we are the countless stars of God’s first promise to Abraham, and we are Sarah’s laughter…..

Is there anything too wonderful for God?  No, of course, no, there is nothing to wonderful 

But there is much that  is too wonderful for us, because like Sarah we have endured much, suffered much, believed and given and blamed ourselves when things don’t go as planned, as we pray they will go, 

When God’s timing is too long and violates our own sense of timing, when we feel too old and too used up look for  for some young Hagar to force into labor…You do the work if you think you can do it better…I am done and my future is behind me…I have given all I have to give and and used up and played out—nothing new will happen.  I am barren of hope and have lost all faith that anything new and good will be borne of me.  

The anxieties we suffer as modern believers about our own future, the future of our families, the future of our church, the future of our nation and our national politics, of what it means for us to believe in the promises of God in Christ new life will emerge, children of God, disciples of Christ…these anxieties are not new, not new all all, 

This is how the story begins, our Genesis story, and for us as for our first ancestors.

Is anything too wonderful for God…

Still later, long after Sarah’s laugh, Isaac is born…

His name a play on words, translate to HE WILL LAUGH.

A testament to what she suffered through to give birth to the future, 

Her bitter laughter transferred into joyful laughter, a future, a legacy..

Is there anything too wonderful for our God?

A Reading from the Book of Genesis

The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. 

He said, ‘My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.’ 

So they said, ‘Do as you have said.’ And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, ‘Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.’ 

Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

They said to him, ‘Where is your wife Sarah?’ And he said, ‘There, in the tent.’ Then one said, ‘I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.’ 

And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. 

So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?’ 

The Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh, and say, “Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?” Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.’ 

But Sarah denied, saying, ‘I did not laugh’; for she was afraid. 

He said, ‘Oh yes, you did laugh.’

The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. 

Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. 

And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 

Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Now Sarah said, ‘God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.’

 And she said, ‘Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.’

Sunday, June 18: Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7

In Sunday’s reading (June 18, 2023), the Lord visits Abraham in the form of three men.  

Abraham prevails upon them to stay awhile, rest, and have a meal, and then runs to Sarah to give instructions for a grand meal. He slaughters and prepares his best animals for his guests.  .

The three sit in the shade under the Oaks of Mamre and wait, until at last Abraham brings them the food and stands by them as they eat.  

After the meal, they ask about Sarah, who listens from a tent nearby. They promise to return and that Sarah will bear a son, which is just too fantastical: she laughs right out loud—they are too old for that kind of relationship.  

To which they respond, “Is there anything too wonderful for the Lord?”

The lectionary for Sunday skips over three challenging chapters of Genesis to the birth of Isaac, the fulfillment of the promise.