There is a short quotation on memory that embodies the task of remembering and the two edged sword that it represents …
Everybody loves to be remembered, but if we want to be remembered, we have a duty to remember.
Memory can be a powerful thing, wrongly used it can bring death rather than life, rightly used it is a form of immortality. It keeps the past alive …
Memory is a gift – remembering and holding on to the past, while looking forward … rightly used it informs and strengthens us for the path ahead … used wrongly, it will hold us to the past and hinders our ability to move forward.
Our readings this morning are readings that embody and celebrate the collective memory of the people … the old testament reading recalls the covenant between the God Yahweh and the patriarch Abraham – the foundational promises that defined not only the religious faith, but every aspect of being a Jew in the ancient world … The words we revisted last week - “a wandering Aramean is my ancestor” were but the beginning … the promises offered to God as Abram was called to a journey from obscurity to greatness are the heart of what it means to be part of the family begun by Abram …
Yesterday I had a realization as I considered our reading – the story of the people – the Jewish people, and the Christian faith that followed – is a story of brothers in constant tension and conflict … the story begins with Abram being promised a huge family as numerous as the stars … in time he exiled his first son Ishmael, then in time he was willing to sacrifice his second son Isaac … we'll leave the obvious issues that arise from Abraham's parenting skills or lack thereof aside for the moment, and focus on the tension that arose from the relationship between the two sons … Isaac and Ishmael are looked to as the fathers who gave rise to the Arab and Israeli nations – a tension and conflict that remains present and real in our world today …
Then from Isaac, we continue forward with the stories of Jacob and Esau and the brotherly rivalry the twin sons of Isaac had … a rivalry that lead to deceptions, lies and deceit between them … then comes the twelve sons of Jacob, who becomes Israel following his reconciliation with his brother … we mainly remember one brother – Joseph and his dazzling coat of many colours.
Yet if we pause to consider the family dynamic that give rise to the story of Joseph and his amazing technicolour dream coat, we have a less then stellar example of a good family.
To recap – the story of Abram begins with hthe exile of his first sone Ishmael, the willingness to sacrifice his second son Isaac, the cheating of Esau out of his rightful birthright by his brother Jacob, the vow to kill Jacob by Esau when that deception is found out … Jacob's path eventually leads him back home, but he is the father of twelve sons who have a fierce rivalry that parallels the battles between their father and uncle … the brothers grow jealous of the obvious favourtism their father shows to young Joseph and in time hatch the plot to kill him, but then just before they can do the nasty deed, they lift him from the well, and sell him in to slavery – telling their father he was killed by a wild animal … Joseph survives and later ecks out his revenge by tricking his brothers before revealing his identity ..
Such is the legacy of faith that comes with proclaiming our heritage and history as sons of Abraham …
The next reading has Jesus standing before the city of Jerusalem and lamenting over the city and his own future … As we read this text and hear Jesus' words we stand in a place where we know what lies ahead – his words are not spoken as a prediction of what might be, but a foreshadowing of what has been … Jesus is setting his face for Jerusalem, and preparing himself, his disciples, and ultimately us, for what lies ahead … there will be the darkness of suffering, the blackness of death, and in time the resurrection – the place of restoration and transformation where things are set straight and healing and wholeness flow forth in abundance …
Our Old Testament readings that remind us of Abraham and the generation that followed him may seem to clash with this theme of the resurrection to come – but in many respects these two stories fit together as a vivid reminder of the power that the resurrection embodies and promises … Abraham and his children are not a stellar example of familial relationships … yet in time things are set straight and the covenant promises made to Abraham come to pass DESPITE the mis-steps, errors, mistakes and screw ups of his children, and subsequent generations.
That is the power of the resurrection … that is the power of God present in our world … God's ways are not our ways … God's thoughts are not our thoughts … and in time things work out …
This proclamation of trust is not about some airy fairy ideal – the writer of Luke knows as he puts to parchment the words of Jesus standing before Jerusalem that the majestic and beautiful city is a shadow of her former self … he is writing after the Romans managed to do the unthinkable – they destroyed the city.
The destruction of Israel in 70 AD was so complete and so thorough that if you look in modern Jerusalem you can still see the scorch marks from the malestrom the Roman Legions unleashed as they burned the city to the ground … not only did Jerusalem treat its prophets with dishonour, in time it shared their fate.
So in this moment the prophecy is not only about the fate of the figure of Jesus – it is about the fate of the city and the people and the promises to Abraham … it's hard to see a Covenant when the city in which your social, religious, politicial, and cultural life centres is nothing more then a smoldering ruin … yet, that is precisely the point here … the covenant still stands … despite the best efforts of Abraham and his family to mess it up by their foolishness … despite the best efforts of outside forces to oppress and destroy the people – the promise stands …
In a time and place where nothing seems to be making sense any more … when the world has obviously slipped off its axis and horrendous events are overtaking everyone … in that moment when there is no solid place on which to rest one's feet … in that moment the promises of God break through and remind us that all this other stuff is simply what it is …
The challenge is to face this moment and know – trust – and believe that life will go on, and move us from where we are to where we're meant to be. There is no room here for rose coloured nostalgia that paints everything in a glowing rosy hue, but rather it is about standing firmly in our faith and trusting God.
When we read the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and the rest and we begin to reflect on the lessons they offer us, we are struck with the power of their lives … the stories of these characters are preserved in our memories not because they are exemplary examples of faithful living, but because they are expemplary examples of just living … Jewish writer Jonathan Hirsch has carved a niche for himself by penning a variety of books that look at the stories in the Bible that we tend to over look.
He realized as a young father sitting down and reading his son stories from the Old Testament that he tended to skip over many chunks of text because the happenings were not appropriate for the tender ears of his child … he started thinking about how a book so many regarded as Holy could have stories of lying, deception, murder, sexual misconduct and numerous others mis-deeds that we could never condone in good society – yet, here they were in the very pages of our Holy Scriptures …
He began to explore the tales of these men, and a few women who made mistakes, who got messy, who wandered from the straight and narrow, and yet for some reason were still held up as extraordinary figures of faithful living … at the end of the day the realization came, that it is not the saints who teach us our strongest lessons – it is the sinners who are like us and who live lives remarkably like our own … ordinary people who make mistakes, who lose their way, and who God continues to love because of the promises offered millenia ago …
Robert Frost acknowledged that home is where, when you come back - they have to take you in … Abraham and the patriarchs, Jesus lamenting over Jerusalem, and the journey of faith celebrated by Paul and countless others since, teach us about home … home – the place that welcomes us back no matter what we might have done along the way … home – the place where we find love, acceptance and grace unconditionally … home – the place where we are able to be fully ourselves.
Remembering and living the Covenant with Abraham is remembering that this promise envelopes all of humanity and offers EVERYONE the promise of always having a place to call home in the very presence of God … Remembering Abraham and the journey that has lead from his life reminds us that no matter what we do – God's love is there to reclaim us and welcome us home …
May it be so – thanks be to God … let us pray …
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