A Love that Treasures the Stranger

June 25th, 2023

Year A; 4th Pentecost

Genesis 21: 8-21

Psalm 86: 1-10, 16-17

Matthew 10:24-39

Jesus said to the twelve disciples, “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 apart from 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.”

Homily by Rev. Megan Limburg

In the name of the Holy Three. Amen.

Abraham and Sarah, no less than pillars of our faith, the two from whom Judaism and Christianity came, and from Abraham and Hagar, from whom Islam came, these pillars of our faith, were all just as flawed and petty, and able to be mean and hateful, as me and as you.

If we needed any reminder that God is not looking for saints and holy folk, but is calling incomplete and flawed folks every minute of every day, our next chapter today in the saga of Abraham and Sarah and their complicated family, tells all.

To recap what brings us to today’s chapter, Abraham and Sarah could not have a baby. As Sarah grew old and past the time of childbirth, she gives Abraham her slave woman, Hagar, to have a child with.

Hagar has a baby boy, Ishmael, to the delight of Abraham, who had given up hope to have a child.

Then we come to the story we heard last week, when the 3 strangers arrived at their tent, and predict that Sarah too will have a baby. And Sarah responds with that wonderful snorting laugh.

And yet she does get pregnant and now she and Abraham have a baby boy too, Isaac, who’s name, wonderfully, means laughter.

And there is a celebration of the baby in today’s reading, and in the midst of that joy, Sarah sees Ishmael and Isaac playing together, and her joy is soured by that so familiar to us all human emotion, jealousy, wrapped in fear that her child will have to share with “the son of this slave woman”….distancing herself from the woman she has known for years, that she gave to her husband when all hope was lost for a baby.

We are all so darn human, forgetting what is not convenient to remember when we are angry, feeling righteous rage, and demanding, like Sarah that things change for us: Cast out those that threaten me.

And Sarah gets out our human weapon and sin, us/them, and looks at Hagar, and demands that Abraham banish her and her son.

The Bible is NOT full of stories of folks who had it all together, holy and saintly people, but just humans, living and struggling and angry and hating, and stuck in the middle, as Abraham is today.

He is grieved and pained by Sarah’s demand, and wrestles with God about what to do.

Finally, Abraham sends Hagar off with Ishmael, and with lots of provisions, leaning on God’s promise that Ishmael will too be the offspring of a nation.

And when the provisions run out, and Hagar weeps and waits for her baby to die, she hears those words that echo through scripture: Do not be afraid.

God’s assurance that Hagar in her desolation, and each of us too, are known to God and loved by God.

In our gospel reading Jesus reminds us that God loves and knows the tiny sparrows, those that in the marketplace are the cheapest food, worth only half a penny. And that even those so little valued in this world, God knows and treasures those ½ penny sparrows, and each of us, knowing our every detail as beloved children of God, even down to the number of hairs on our heads.

But we ought not mistake being known and loved by God, as a big umbrella shielding us from the rains and assaults of life.

A lot can and does go wrong in life. But within the storms, God is with us, not only in the joy, but even more in the sorrow.

But I want to go back to the scene that provoked the current family tragedy in Abraham’s life.

Sarah sees the two boys, half-brothers, playing together. The boys are little and do not know that their relationship is complex, they only know they enjoy playing together, laughing together.

Human life on this earth in this world is beautiful and fragile, stormy and tragic. We have much to navigate, but our call as God’s children is to do all we can to share and grow God’s love, and certainly not to diminish it.

The two boys playing do not know to hate one another yet, they must be taught. And Sarah sadly takes the first step in teaching by casting out Hagar and Ishmael.

Imagine the abrupt change for Ishmael who did not know yet the complexity of his family. One minute playing, the next packed up and sent out from all he knew.

Children are not born with prejudice, they are taught, they are not born hating others who are different from them, they are taught.

The terribly jarring and difficult passage in the gospel when Jesus says I have come to bring a sword, and to set man against father, daughter against mother, is wrestled with by theologians.

But it is not a coincidence that this passage comes with the Genesis reading, in which Abraham is caught in his tangled family relationships, in which Sarah is preparing the beginnings of hate and prejudice, between two little boys playing together.

Jesus points out that he is here not to smooth over our prejudices and hates but to break them apart, painful, splitting work.

And within facing our shortcomings and sins, we may find ourselves unable to agree with folks we love.

Jesus tells us that there will be conflicts, some so painful they separate us from family.

During the worst days of the Covid pandemic in 2020, Bishop Susan had a weekly Zoom call with clergy, providing a way for us to connect with the Diocese and with each other, and to pray together.

I remember a fellow priest asking for prayer for her and her daughters. I did not know this colleague, but my heart broke for her as she explained that her two daughters were locked in terrible conflict over politics, and that they were so enraged they had stopped speaking to each other, but they were both still speaking to her. She was battered from being in the middle, and exhausted, and despairing to see such pain between her children.

I don’t know how that story ended, and I don’t have answers for these painful relationships we likely know in all of our families.

But I hold on to Jesus, our brother and savior, who came to teach us love, a radical love unseen on this earth, a love that treasures the outcast, the orphan, the stranger, the widow.

As I clumsily try to walk my life, I can only pray I’ll find my life there, and not lose it in myself.

Amen.