Proper 8-A + baptism June
29, 2014
Genesis 24:1-2,10-27
Psalm
13
Matthew 10:40-42
I remember driving through a part of the city that was
run-down and gritty, on a hot day in the early summer. I saw a boy sitting at
his lemonade stand. His hand-written sign said a cup of lemonade was 25 cents.
I almost stopped. Seth and Laura used to do lemonade stands, and one year –
when they said they were raising money to give their parents an anniversary gift
-- they made almost $100. (Lesson here: people give to people with a cause.)
Normally, though, lemonade stands don’t make a lot of money.
After getting someone to front the initial investment, the young entrepreneur
can be on his or her own, replenishing supplies out of the profits. But the
profits will be modest.
The street corner where the little boy had set up his stand
was not the tree-lined university campus where Seth and Laura made their
killing in the lemonade market. This was a place of cracked pavement, car
exhaust, weeds in the hedges, that sort of thing. It was a hot day. You could
say, then, that that little boy was a prophet: he saw that his block was the
sort of place where people would need a cup of lemonade. He saw his street
corner, not as we would see it, as a dusty, God-forsaken no man’s land that we
speed by, but as a place where people would stop and drink some lemonade, and
he’d get a quarter and maybe a nice conversation out of it. That little boy saw
hope on his street corner. He saw his street corner the way God sees his street
corner.
No one sets out to be a prophet; prophets can only be
recognized from the outside, when people see their prophet-nature in what they
say and what they do. That little boy didn’t set out to be a prophet; he just
set out a lemonade stand. But he is a prophet. He sees his neighborhood as it
is going to be. The little boy is a prophet of the resurrection.
Our story from Genesis is another story of water and hope –
of water and hospitality as investments in the future. As we continue the story
of Abraham and his descendants, we see that the hospitality shown by Rebekah to
the stranger is a sign of her blessedness – and that her hospitality brings a
blessing to Abraham’s whole family. Rebekah will marry Isaac, and the promise
that God made to Abraham – that his descendants would number as the stars in
the heaven – takes one step closer to coming true.
We are delighted that we have these two little girls here
today, so we can continue our own story of water and blessing and hope for the
future. Children are a sign that there is more to come. They are the new life
promised by God to all of us. They shake us up, challenge us, teach us new
things and bring us to the brink of exasperation. We gather today to bless them
as they have blessed us. We douse them with water – that same water Rebekah
drew from the well, that same water from which the little boy on the dusty
street corner made his lemonade – and welcome them into this household that we
dare to call the household of God. We promise to take care of them and support
them and hold them close and let them go when they are grown. We promise to
teach them about God’s promises to us: that God is always renewing life, that
God is always with us, that God is always leading us forth to new pathways and
peoples and adventures, and that God will always, always, welcome us home.
Proper 9-A + Baptism 7/6/2014
Genesis 24:34-38,42-49,58-67
Psalm
45:11-18
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Summer is a time for rest and recreation – for sitting with
family and friends – for re-connecting with the
"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts
are restless until they rest in you."[i]
Augustine reminds us that we are part of the creation in
which God delights, and that no matter how much we do what God would have us
NOT do, God has created us with a homing device, as it were: the true rest we
seek we find at home, and our home, our hearts’ home, is with God. Our hearts
are restless until they rest in God.
Our Old Testament and Gospel lessons would seem, on the face
of it, to have nothing to do with each other. Matthew gives us some sayings of
Jesus; in Genesis we continue the story of how Isaac, son of the patriarch
Abraham, and also a patriarch-to-be, got himself a wife.
These lessons do have something in common: they talk about
rest, Sabbath rest, rest that leads to salvation.
In the desert lands of the Near East, where one finds water
one finds salvation.
A river flows through the garden of Eden, and later splits
into four rivers, which flowed to the corners of the earth. For the inhabitants
of the arid ancient near east, water is a restoration of Eden. … In the Bible,
if you’ve found abundant water, you’ve found your way back to paradise. If you
find water, you’ve entered sabbath.[ii]
Isaac, the one God promised to be the father of many
nations, is looking for a wife, a worthy partner with whom to fulfill this
promise. And where does he (or the servant he sent) find her? At a well. This
is not just a story about an ancient version of matchmaker.com. This is a story
of God fulfilling God’s promises with the abundance of flowing water, an oasis
in the desert, the living water that leads to eternal life.
And what is Jesus saying? Don’t miss that well in the
desert. Don’t miss the signs that point to it. Don’t miss out on your chance
for the abundant life! What will it take for us to recognize Jesus for who he
is? He points to the contrast between John the Baptist, the forerunner – the
ascetic, desert-hardened one who first brought the Good News of this new world.
“You called him demon-possessed!” Jesus says. And then he goes on, “And then
here I am! I eat and drink, I hang out with sinners and unsavory people. I
party with everybody! I bring the same message as John, and yet you pay no
attention to me, either! You think you are so wise? Hah!” Listen to how another
Biblical scholar interpreted what Jesus said:
… sit out the dance in your pseudo-wisdom if you want to,
but the blind are seeing, the deaf are hearing, the lepers are made new, the
dead are raised, and the poor have finally heard some music they can kick up
their heels to – and that is the essence of wisdom...[iii]
We have two beautiful children to thank today for reminding
us of the promises that water symbolizes, and the joy that water brings. I bet
you all have been dipping more than your toes in the sacred waters of
Skaneateles. We thank you for bringing some of that party here to us. In your
baptisms today you are helping all of us re-connect with the springs of the
water of life – with the promises God made to us at creation, that we, created
in the image of God, are good.
In the waters of baptism we find our salvation. We renew
those original promises of creation. We can lay
down our burdens, Jesus says,
at the wellspring in the desert, and there we will find rest. We will find
eternal life. We will find a terrific party – a feast to end all feasts. There
at the well, we can put things in proper perspective. We can leave behind our
tortured lives, doing what we know we should not. We can let our troubles just
dry out there on the hot sand. We can forget our tension and anger, and take on
the gentleness and humility that Jesus offers. We can gather the children in
our arms, and see in them that God’s promises for our lives – for life itself –
are fulfilled. We can cast off all our restlessness, for here, at this well of
refreshment, of easy burdens and light duties, our hearts can finally find
their rest.
[i]
The Confessions of St. Augustine, Bishop of
Hippo: http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/augconfessions/bk1.html
[ii]
Peter J. Leithart, from Blogging Toward
Sunday, July 6 (6/30/2008) in Theolog,
the blog of The Christian Century: http://www.theolog.org/blog/2008/06/blogging-towa-4.html
[iii]
From “Sacred Rest” by Kate Huey, from Weekly
Seeds, the Bible study blog of the United Church of Christ: http://i.ucc.org/StretchYourMind/OpeningtheBible/WeeklySeeds/tabid/81/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/67/Sacred-Rest.aspx.
Kate Huey quotes Thomas Long’s commentary on the Gospel of Matthew from the
Westminster Bible Companion Series
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