Holy Disruptions

Psalm 121
Genesis 12:1-9

The summer between my junior and senior years of college I decided, so I thought, to forgo the usual tradition of getting an internship in one's major field of study in order to help the job search process a year down the road, and instead I spent my last summer before "real life" began as a camp counselor at a Presbyterian camp. At the end of our 2 weeks training that included lifeguard certification for me and a WONDERFUL 3 day staff canoe trip for all of us, we received our first assignments. My first two week assignment would include being the trip leader and lifeguard on a 4day middle school canoe trip. Uh oh.

This was the kind of camping I may have overstated in the interview process. I was familiar with CAMP, but not necessarily CAMPING, the kind where the van takes you to one point on the river, watches you drop your canoes and gear in the water, and then waves goodbye. The only other plan for the trip is that the van will pick you up at a designated meeting point somewhere farther down the river, 4 days and 3 nights later. There are no state or county parks along the way. (Hear me say in that, there are no bathrooms along the way.) There are no designated campsites. The only consolation I had as a VERY inexperienced river camper is that the second portion of our trip was the same trip we had taken as a staff. Eventually, there would be signs that I had led the group on the right path. Eventually.

I panicked a bit when I got the assignment. What happens if someone gets hurt? You received first aid training, the director told me. What happens if we take a wrong turn? There are no forks in the river, the trip director told me. What happens if we can't find a campsite? There's always SOMEWHERE, an experienced counselor told me. When will I get my cell phone? You won't, they all replied. I was sure I was not ready for this assignment and this responsibility.

If he had known about them, I'm convinced Abram would have asked where his cell phone was, too. This trip God announced was not his trip originally; it was his father's trip. Abram was "Abram of Ur of the Chaldeans;" Ur was in modern day Iraq. God called Abram from "his country," but when he leaves he doesn't leave from Ur; he leaves from Haran. In modern day Turkey, not Iraq. Haran was "his country," and had been for some time since his father had died leading his family on a journey toward Canaan.

The trip to Canaan had been his father's trip, not Abram's. Apparently when they passed into Haran along the way, not really right along the way, they decided to stay for a little while. Unfortunately, while they were there Abram's dad died, and Abram decided to just stay at least long enough for Haran to become, in the Lord's words, "his country."

Abram's life had been disrupted once before when his father felt the need to move the family from Ur to Haran on the way to Canaan. Here it was getting disrupted again when the Lord came calling to an older, settled Abram. Here it was getting disrupted by the Lord telling Abram to finish the trip he started with his father and make his way from Haran on down to Canaan. Late in his life, God called Abram out of retirement to move his family, all the possessions they had gathered, all the people associated with their household and move to a new and different place.

The excuses could have been innumerable. But we're old, God. We've settled here, and we're happy. We have all these new employees who will be uprooted from their lives and their families. Where will we sleep along the way, no matter when we get there? What if someone gets hurt? What if I get hurt? What will happen to my wife? What if I don't know the right way? Can I have a cell phone?

Like Abram, no matter what our age, no matter how settled we are in our lives, God calls us to new and different places. God calls us to make changes in our lives, our thinking, our routines. God disrupts our comfortable, settled lives and asks us to do new things, meet new people, go new places, even if not physically, than in our thinking, our believing, our relationships, our activities and involvements. God breaks in just when we think we are settled and have everything in order, knowing what we like to do and how we life to do, and calls us to try something new, serve in a different way, follow to places we haven't even imagined going. It's a disruption, but it's a holy disruption.

This morning, of course, we are highlighting some possible disruptions, some place God might be calling you or your family. Camp is getting a lot of attention, of course, but there are other holy disruptions out there, other unfamiliar lands to which God may be calling any of us. Synod School isn't as exotic as Canaan, but driving through Buena Vista, Iowa during the great bike ride across Iowa can seem like a epic biblical journey. It's not far, but it's away. It's not what we usually do. It's not a part of our routine for the summer, and we don't know exactly what to expect.

Working with our Bridge friends in the new garden we are building for them doesn't involve a journey hundred or thousands of miles away, but the setting is new. The people and the conditions they live with are different than what many of us are used to. It can seem like an intimidating call. It's unknown, unfamiliar, a little bit scary.

Sending our children to camp or going on the Mishpack mission trip isn't the same as moving forever to a new land, but it means traveling to a different place, a different culture even within the bounds of the same country. They do things in a different way in these places, play different games, eat different favorite meals, order their lives into different routines. It can be frightening to be the new person, the uninitiated, the foreigner in an established country.

Volunteering to provide our local day camp ministries might not be on our calendar or we may think we have "done our time," serving this way before, but God keeps calling. God's time is not our time. God's expectations are not our expectations. There is room and a purpose for all of God's people in the ministry God intends to accomplish. Abram and Sarai, seventy-five years old, are only just getting started when God uproots them from their country, their settled lives and calls them to continue down to Canaan.

The excuses we can make are all familiar. I don't have time. I'm not equipped to help. I'm not the right age - - too old, too young, too busy somewhere in the middle. I don't know enough about it to lead my family that direction. I don't know enough about it to accomplish the task correctly. I'm happily settled in my life and my routine; I don't need to mess it all up with something new. I just don't see the point.

God anticipated all the excuses right up front with Abram. Before he even got a chance to lay them all out before God, the Lord stated the case for the call. Abram, the Lord promised, will be blessed in making the journey. Abram and his family after him will be blessed, changed in ways they never would have imagined or experienced if they stayed put in Haran, if they resisted the new and unknown. He would know the unique blessing of those who look to the hills and mountains and trust that God is their help. He would know and experience the blessing of being united with God in purpose and mission. He would live with the blessing of comfort and peace of mind knowing his family and descendants (another unexpected blessings) could call to mind their memories of his faithfulness long, very long after he would be gone from this earth.

And on top of all that is the promise that he would also be a blessing to others. Through Abram God built a personal relationship with humankind. In Abram God picked a family through which God would work as an example to all creation. The general relationship with all of creation didn't seem to be getting through to people. As humanity was spreading, so was the sinful desire to be in charge, to be gods. Creation got so corrupt that it had to be restarted with a flood. People got so ambitious they built a tower to try to reach the Lord.

In Abram God decided to work through a particular family to bless creation with a specific example of what grace and obedience, faithfulness and forgiveness, second and third and fourth and fifth chances look like. In Abram and through his human and flawed family, God decided to establish a pattern for personal relationships with humankind. God decided to show us all how God works in unexpected ways to bless us and the lives we live. It all started with a call, a disruption, a holy disruption. It all started with an invitation to go with God somewhere new - to a new place, to new people, to new experiences with God as his keeper.

Here in our church this week we're highlighting summer ministries - - camps, conferences, and missions away from Hudson, and mission and worship opportunities here close to home. There are all sorts of opportunities for all ages, stages of faith, and abilities. Many of them, if not MOST of them are new to MOST of us. They may be outside of our comfort zones, but none of them are outside the reach of the Lord our God who keeps our going our and our coming in forever. They might be outside of our usual routine, but they aren't outside the watch of our Lord who neither slumbers nor sleeps. Some might even be a disruption to our plans and our ideas, but none are beyond the imagination of God who keeps and creates heaven and earth. They might just be holy disruptions.

I encourage you to look at the opportunities. Imagine what you might do different with your time, your energy, your faith this summer. Listen to where God might be calling you to step out in faith on a new journey to something completely new and completely different. Ultimately, that's what this is all about. Ultimately that's what the life of faith is all about. It's about listen to where God is calling us to go for God's own purpose. And when we trust and when we follow, we too can be blessed and a blessing to others.

Two Are Better Than One

Mark 10:35-37, 41-45
Genesis 1:26-28, 31
Genesis 2:4-8, 15

We have this children’s story book at home that drives me a little crazy. I know it’s my own problem and very few people would have this issue, but, well, studying a little too much Genesis will do this to you. I find the pictures BEAUTIFUL and the rhyming verses telling the creation story are well-written. The kids have loved it over the years, so I guess I should just be happy about that and move on. But I can’t. Every time someone picks it out I sort of cringe inside.

You see as this book moves through the days of creation according to Genesis 1, when it gets to day 6 it all starts to fall apart.
“Then God got creative, with camels and cats,
Zebras and weasels and beavers and bats,
Puppies and ponies and rabbits and rats.
But God wasn’t finished, you know
Day Six had a long way to go.
Next, Father and Son, with a plan they discussed,
Created, a man out of nothing but dust.
They called the man “Adam” and asked for his trust.
God told him to name every pet.
Still God wasn’t finished just yet.”
That was it! Did you hear it? No? That’s what drives me crazy! I told you no one else would care! Did you even notice?

That second half of Day Six seems so innocent. It’s something we do all the time. The story of Jesus birth gets told the same way. We take a little of Luke, sprinkle in a little Matthew. It’s all OK, in the name of telling the complete story (and making sure every kid gets a part in the Christmas pageant). But here in the story of creation in Genesis it seems different. To me anyway, it seems more wrong, because in the Scriptures we don’t have just one story of creation. We have two, and really, they don’t exactly tell the same story. The actual order of creation is slightly different in Genesis 1 and 2, not just the level of detail, as is the focus of each story.

Some people think these differences are something to hide or try to fix, but to me that doesn’t seem necessary. I don’t look at the Bible as a science book, or even always as a history book in the conventional sense. I look at the Bible as a book of faith. It’s a book full of the stories, poems, prayers, teachings, laws, preachings of the people of God, written down to share their understanding of God and, with the Holy Spirit God’s understanding of us.

The fact that we have two different stories of creation is not something I have felt the need to hide or correct by mixing the two together. I have never felt the urge to squish the creation of Adam and Eve into the numbered, ordered days of creation (AFTER the animals, which Genesis 2 tells us were created AFTER Adam). We have two different accounts of how the world began, and both of them communicate God’s Word to us. Both of them speak to the human participation in the created order and our special call from God relating to it.

Let’s look first at the account in Genesis 1. It is ordered. It is rhythmic. It almost reads on its own like a children’s book -
“And God said,” “Let there be…,” “And it was so.” “And there was evening and there was morning; the first day.” It is ordered. The ordering of creation, the placement of light here and dark there, the sun here and the moon there, water here and water there, dry land here and wet oceans there, the ordering of chaos is told in an ordered way. The message is there to receive in more than one way. Chaos is calmed by God. Creation, the origin of life, is a story of obedience to God.

We Presbyterians, as theological children of John Calvin, love love LOVE our doctrine of the sovereignty of God, and if it is ANYWHERE it is here in Genesis 1. God is sovereign over all the earth. God’s very WORDS called creation into being out nothing. God’s very WORDS told the chaos where to go, and chaos listened. In Genesis 1 God didn’t even need hands to mold the world together, to piece together the birds of the air and the cattle of the ground, but the command of God, the breath of God, the Word of God was all that needed to be spoken, and the world and all that is in it came into being.

This is God of power! This is God of life! This is God who creates all and rules over all, bringing life where there was none before, bringing order where there was chaos.

It is at the end of this creation account that God creates the human species, not as an afterthought, but maybe as a capstone. The scenery has all been set in the divine drama. The mountains constructed, the fields painted, the oceans set in rolling motion. The animals are creeping and slithering, splashing and fluttering, gliding and sliding through the elements of earth, air, and water, so now it is time to put a fine point on it.

God creates humankind, creates them in God’s image. God creates them and gives them a charge unlike any other element of creation received, “Let them have dominion…. Fill the earth and subdue it.” Sure other organisms were told “Be fruitful and multiply.” Others were blessed as they were called good in the eyes of the Creating God.” But no others were given this charge in the created order. “Have dominion and subdue.”

Unfortunately, misunderstandings and, I believe, arrogance, has caused us humans to use this charge in all sorts of harmful ways. We have interpreted it as a right, not a responsibility. Citing these verses as excuses or permission, human beings have taken advantage of creation, plundering resources, abusing land, decimating populations of other created organisms. We have “claimed our rights” to rule over the rest of the created order, to dominate it, to subdue it, control it, to greedily take what we want even beyond what we need from it without regard for the needs of other creatures or the inanimate creation itself. Historically, these verses have even been used sinfully by certain “faithful” populations to arrogantly assert themselves over so-called savage, or less-human indigenous people on this and other continents.

And, we have done all of this without paying attention to the delicate balance of creation, without honoring and supporting the careful order with which God spoke it all into being. Is this really what God meant when we were given dominion? Is this really what God intended when we were called to subdue?

I can’t imagine it is. God has dominion, and this doesn’t happen. God subdued chaos and instead of death, life came into being. As members of this human family we have been blessed with a special place in creation. The call to dominion and the responsibility to subdue is not given lightly. These are powerful words in Scripture. In Psalm 72, where a king has “dominon” his "foes bow down before him and his enemies lick the dust.” And in Joshua, subduing the land means to conquer it. When God gave humankind dominion to rule and the call to subdue, God gave us GREAT power…and in this account of creation, seemingly little direction of how or when to use it.

Which is exactly why I like having two creation accounts. They are different, yet their differences inform each other – not, I don’t think, so that they can be squished together to make one seamless story, but so that they can be held next to each other, read together, and given a chance to speak to each other and together to us.

Genesis 2 has a different feel to it all together. For all the cosmic power and supernatural energy in Genesis 1, Genesis 2 has personal attention. A man is formed by the hands of God out of the dust of the earth. God’s breath is breathed into the man’s nostrils. He is placed in the middle of a luscious garden where every tree was made to grow by God’s will, where rivers flow with water abundant, beautiful and precious metals and stones adorn the land around. Animals are created one by one, each as a gift to the man, formed carefully with God’s hopes and understanding of what the man will need in mind. The woman is lovingly and delicately brought from the man’s flesh and bones, a perfect partner for life in Eden’s garden.

When compared to Genesis 1, in Genesis 2 the human beings receive a very different charge relating to the rest of creation. The man and his partner are placed in the verdant garden in order to till it and keep it, to serve and preserve it. The charge, the responsibility here is one of great care and protection. It is, in the words of United Nations’ definition of sustainability, the responsibility “to improve the living conditions of the present generation [in a way] that does not compromise the ability of future generations.” The man and, by extension, the woman created as his working partner, are given the job of tilling the garden, of tending it, encouraging it, using its resources for their well-being and their pleasure, but they are also given the job of keeping it, preserving it, making sure that it lives on, grows on, exists and flourishes in abundance as God created it for the generations that will continue to come.

The power and might of Genesis 1 are tempered with the tenderness and care of Genesis 2. Humankind, we have seen, as been given the ability to make dramatic changes to the creation around us. God GAVE us that ability. God blessed us and called us to use our lives to lead creation, even to join God in changing creation with power to rule with God within it.

Through dominion and subduing, yes, but tilling and keeping, too. Working the land, cultivating the plants that feed humans and animals, nurturing the gardens planted by the will of God. Helping things grow and bloom and thrive on the land and seas that God molded with hands and love, the love only an artist can feel for her beloved creation. Keeping the land, protecting it, guarding it, preserving and conserving it, that it may be a blessing to us, generations beyond us, and all that shares this earth with us. These are our calls; these are our responsibilities as humanity created in the image of God, for the purposes of God in relationship with the rest of creation.

We heard these paradoxical calls echoed in the gospel lesson this morning. Jesus and his disciples were making their way to Jerusalem, on their way there to where Jesus would be arrest, tried, and executed. Realizing their time with Jesus was likely growing short, James and John, seized the opportunity to make their wishes known. Like children dividing their parents’ estate while mom and dad are still walking around, they ask, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left hand, in glory.”

Understandably, the request began an argument among the disciples, one Jesus subdued with this, “…whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

Humanity has been created for greatness. We, along with all of creation, were called good, no VERY good, when God saw fit to create the world out of chaotic nothing. We have been created with God-blessed and God-given power to rule and subdue. The things we do on earth can change what happens here. But they can change it for good, or they can change it for worse.

Taking our cue from Jesus, may we learn to rule through our service. May we learn to have dominion through our acts of preservation. May we learn to subdue, but submitting ourselves to the discipline of sacrificial care.

It is the way of Jesus, the Word who was spoken at creation. It is the way of Jesus, the one who rules and saves by giving up his life.