Today's three readings:

Psalm 105:1-11, 37-45
Genesis 21:1-7
Hebrews 1:8-12

The Psalm begins with the Abraham story and tracks through to the end of the Exodus story, albeit mighty quickly.  The lectionary writers omit the middle chunk, so we get a very upbeat take on the story.  It felt to me a bit like the experience of so many Christians who celebrate Palm Sunday then go away and come back for Easter Sunday having missed the drama and pain of Holy Week.  So, I'm not focusing on that reading today.

The Hebrews passage is short and centred on the exaltation of the Son of Man.  Again, it's very upbeat.  It's a lovely passage but to ponder it would be to loose the thread of our journey with Abraham and Sarah.

Today we have this:

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."

Genesis 21: 1- 7 NRSV

I could, I suppose, major on the theme of laughter that runs through this story... Abram's guffaws when God tells him he will have a son, Sarah's giggles when the visitors are overheard saying the same.  Sarah's embarrassment at having been heard chuckling, and then the irony of giving birth to 'laughing boy', who will bring hearty laughter for Sarah and all her neighbours.  I could, but it's an avenue I've wandered before, many times, and I want to epxlore a little path I only spotted today...

"The LORD dealt with Sarah as he had said, the LORD did for Sarah as he had promised."

Oo-er.

The LORD dealt with Sarah.  What does that mean?  To be honest, I'm not sure.  There is nothing in the previous chapters to suggest she has done anything that needs to be dealt with.  Maybe it is necessary to see what other translations have to say:

GNB          The Lord blessed Sarah...

CEV          The Lord was good to Sarah...

KJV           The Lord visited Sarah...

NIV           The Lord was gracious to Sarah

Message    God visited Sarah

Clearly a good deal of interpetive licence here!  From what amounts to gynaecological intervention via kindness to speical favour.  Hmm.

The LORD did for Sarah as he had promised.  This feels a little softer, kinder.  Rather being 'done to' Sarah has something 'done for' her.  Her childlessness is taken away, her sense of failure, of being incomplete is removed.

But there does seem to be a link... the 'doing to' achieves the 'doing for'.  I think maybe this has something to say to us.  It is no good asking God to do things for us if we are not willing to let God do things with or even to us.  God is not a benevolent genie, we know that, but it seems too that for God to act, we have to be up for God's transformative work within us.  We probably think we are, but I suspect we aren't!  Yesterday's "taking up of crosses" and the concept of kenosis seem to connect here.

Allowing God to 'deal with me', to 'do unto me', to 'visit' me... to take control from me... that's something I constantly need to revisit.  And then to recall that with the 'dealing' comes the 'promise'

LORD, you dealt with Sarah

At least, according to the NRSV,

You intervened somehow

You changed something

You made a difference

But, LORD, you made Sarah -

You knew she was barren

You knew she had longed for a child for decades

You knew the stigma she endured

So, LORD, what changed your mind?

What made you visit her,

Be good and gracious to her,

What made you bless her?

LORD, you made me

You know exactly who and what I am

Dare I ask you to deal with me

To fulfil your promises in me, through me?

Do I laugh at the preposterous nature of what you suggest?

Do I try to deny the sense of ridiculous I feel?

Visit me afresh with a sense of wonder

A clear conviction of your call

Renewed confidence in the outworking

Of your work in me

Do with me, do to me, what is needful to fulfil your promise for me...

Slowly, slowly, I feel my confidence, and possibly competence, returning.  This Sunday, for the second time (last week being the first) I felt secure enough to depart from my script when I was preaching.  Except for some parts of all age worship, I always have a full script for everything.  Actually, that's not true, I usually extemporise the offertory prayer and the final blessing.  But the point is, last Sunday and this Sunday I went 'off script' in my sermon without either losing my place, talking any more twaddle than usual or completely drying up.  After the better part of a year in which I have read every word, it is pure joy to feel sufficiently confident to speak more freely.

Perhaps it is because I'm talking doctrine, and aspects of doctrine for which I did a LOT and I mean a LOT of undergraduate stuff.  Somewhere deep in my memory are thirty hours on the doctrine of God and another thirty on that of Jesus Christ (albeit masked as Biblical studies).

The last two Sundays have been fun, some interesting conversations, and insights.  Another three to go and then it's Palm Sunday and Holy Week... tempus fugits apace.

So, having spent my morning thinking about the dual-nature of Jesus Christ, which was fun, I am back to the lectionary for today!

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:23-31
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38 or Mark 9:2-9

There are two things guaranteed to grab my attention when I look at the lectionary, the first is why a who set of verses has been omitted from within a specific reading, the second is why two alternative readings are offered.

So, the Genesis continues the story of Abram and Sarai, and we are given the verses where they are re-named as Abraham and Sarah (kind of amusing to me since this morning I was talking about the significance of the composite name Jesus Christ).  What it skips over is the description of circumcision... what for centuries has been there in black and white is maybe not suitable for the delicate little ears of nice 21st century Christians since it describes a ritualised medical procedure.  How twee we have become!  Well, at least on Sundays.  The passage also, very conveniently stops short of the Abram guffaws at God's promise of a natural heir via Sarah... heaven forbid we should notice that it wasn't only Sarah who chuckled on hearing of this preposterous promise.  So, less reflection on what this says, and more a reminder about how we read scripture.

So, I opted for the Mark... all of it, plus the linking verse:

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.  But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.  For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?  Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."  And he said to them, "Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power."

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.  And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."  He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.  Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!"Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Mark 8: 31 - 9:9 NRSV

So, we pick up the story just after Peter's declaration that Jesus is the Christ and the command to 'tell non-one, Mark's 'Messianic Secret' and get the sharp contrast of Jesus predicting his death and resurrection, something that causes Peter to take him aside, in order to rebuke him, only to receive the most stinging rebuke possible.  Whether or not this happened as soon after the previous verses as a superficial reading suggests, clearly the writer wants to link the two, and then connect them with two more experiences.  Firstly the very public invitation to deny self and take up one's cross, followed by a promise of the Kingdom of God being experienced within that same generation.  And then the very private experience of Peter, James, John and Jesus at the top of a high mountain.

I think what strikes me most, aside from the Markan zap-pow approach to telling the story, is the constant roller-coaster ride of emotion and experience, understanding and not understanding, plain speech and theological riddles that goes on here.  Taken as read, Peter has a moment of outstanding insight swiftly followed by total failure to understand followed, within a week, by a spiritual experience that leaves him speaking gibberish.  People in the crowd are told that to follow Jesus they must deny self (kenosis of a kind maybe (ding ding if any Gatherers are reading) and accept the estate of a criminal... but they may yet live to see the Kingdom, the Messianic Age of which they have dreamed.

As I think about my own life, this pattern of peaks and troughs, highs and lows, understanding and not understanding (or being understood), spiritual insight and earthly clay-footedness has strong resonance.  Without sliding into a careless dualism, it does sometimes seem that opposites occur remarkably closely in time.

Jesus of history,

Man of mystery

Sharing the highs and lows of life

Disicples' insight

Disicples' stupidity

Seeing, then failing to see

Jesus of history

Christ of eternity

Divinity poured into our form

Forgive our stupidity

Grant us new insight

Seeing, then walking with you.

This morning some mail arrived for Holly Cat (from the vet!) Here she is reading it.

Today begins with a video clip, a song that I found coming to mind when I read today's passages:

If nothing else, the song takes me back to my early twenties (!) when it was on a tape of Hebrew inspired songs I was rather fond of playing.

Today's readings:

Psalm 22:23-31
Genesis 16:7-15
Mark 8:27-30

The Mark is the parallel to the Matthew on which I will be preaching (with two other passages) tomorrow on the doctrine of Jesus Christ.  The key in the Markan reading, over against Matthew or Luke is the 'Messianic Secret'... the 'don't tell anyone' of Jesus.

The Psalm I have already commented on, and so it is to 'Part 2' of Hagar's story that I return.  Yesterday we had Abram mating with her for the purposes of obtaining a son, and Sarai, whose idea it was, becoming bitter.  Abram seems indifferent to Hagar, now pregnant with his child, and Sarai abuses her so badly she flees.  The story continues...

The angel of the LORD found [Hagar] by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur.  And he said, "Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?" She said, "I am running away from my mistress Sarai."
The angel of the LORD said to her, "Return to your mistress, and submit to her."
The angel of the LORD also said to her, "I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude."
And the angel of the LORD said to her, "Now you have conceived and shall bear a son; you shall call him Ishmael, for the LORD has given heed to your affliction.
He shall be a wild ass of a man, with his hand against everyone, and everyone's hand against him; and he shall live at odds with all his kin."
So she named the LORD who spoke to her, "You are El-roi"; for she said, "Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?"
Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered.
Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.

Genesis 16: 7-15 NRSV

This is truly an astonishing story... here we have a pregnant, runaway slave-girl in an encounter with God.  She is, in her society, worthless, and yet God makes her a promise every bit as amazing as that made to Abram... her offsrping will be so many they cannot be counted.  Considering that women were, as I noted yesterday, understood as mere vessels in which babies grew, this is doubly astounding.  This is no easy promise to hear - her son will be estranged from his blood-relatives, tensions in the complex line from Abraham begin here.

And then she gives God a name!  Not God saying to her 'I will be called such-and-such' but her saying to God, you will be called 'El-Roi' the God who sees.

All of which makes me stop and think... who is it that we, in our nice upright, spiritual churches drive away with our attitudes or actions?  Where are the desert places to which they flee?  And given that El-Roi sees all and knows all, what messages does the Messenger from God (the Angel) speak to them?  Hagar went back only to experience further rejection when Ishmael was a child (Genesis 21), hers was not an easy or happy life.

The song I linked, has a line "to the outcast on her knees you are the God who really sees" and that was what promoted me to recall it as I read today's passages. 

I wonder, with whom in the story we identify most today?  Indifferent Abram?  Angry Sarai?  Rejected Hagar?  Unborn Ishamel?  Whoever it might be, God sees, and is not indifferent, is angry only at injustice and sin, and will never reject us.  Perhaps that's the message we need to hold on to today?

El Roi

All-seeing God

From whom nothing can be hidden

You see me today

Where I am

(literally and metaphorically)

How I am

And you are never indifferent

Why am I here?

Why this place, these emotions, this situation?

Yet still you promise me hope and a future

Not an easy road

Not perpetual sunshine or roses round a cottage door

Rather, your continued watchfulness

Observing my going out and my coming in

My waking and sleeping

Working and playing

Praying and thinking

Now

and

Forever

More

El Roi

Watch over me

Amen