Sunday, February 17, 2008
OK - hard to write about these passages as the Genesis 12 selection is one of my top three favorite passages from the entire Bible. If you ask me what Bible story represents or embodies my life and calling it's - Genesis 12:1-5.
We are challenged to live lives of faith as Abram and Sarah - visionary, daring, hopeful, active, stepping out. They were most likely rich and content in their lives in ancient Mesoptamia. But God called them to step out, to dare to dream of more, to live differently, to not settle for the 'traditional' way of knowing God and being known by God. So they left the world of ziggurats and sacrifices behind to discover and follow a God that encountered them in the darkness of the desert night, at the table as unexpected visitors and as a voice in the thicket providing a ram. For me it's what faith is all about - leaving our 'homelands' behind to become sojourners, traveling, longing and lookng for a better home, a wider country, a more real experience of life.
Nicodemus in John 3 is looking for that - I think - but he's too timid, reserved, calculating, careful to be able to recognize it when it comes knocking and to embrace it without proof. He comes to check out Jesus in the dark, at night, when no one can see him, catch him in the act, or prove that he's cohorting with the potential ennemy. Yet he's also too excited, to interested, to empassioned to not check out this Jesus guy that everyone is talking about so much.
How much in our lives do we settle for the calculated and careful instead of risking the daring and dangerous invitation to set out, to find a new country, to live as sojourners in a foreign land - calling the living God our home as opposed to our familiar traditions, stereotypes and suspicions. This is the crux or the foundational question of human existence. Who are we? Who is God? Who then shall we live in response to our answers to those 2 questions? Do we settle or do we strike out? It's not just that black and white, and yet it is.
The whole thing makes me think of the current fighting about illegal immigration as well as the remarkable movie "A Day Without a Mexican" The film basically confronts the questions about immigration/xenophobia/fear/global economy by positing what a day would look like in our country, specifically California if there were no latino immigrants. Basically everything falls apart. I think a lot of times our reaction to issues - at least what the political parties are really saying - plays up and to our fears of losing our place, of uncertainty, of anxiety about what will happen. (Online views of John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama) We run away from the future, hiding our heads in the sands of a preconceived subjectively remembered past, as opposed to embracing a new, emerging future, shaping it and allowing God's leading in it to shape us.
Makes me think of well as Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow who is running - I mean standing - for moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). He's getting a lot of flak, from folks saying that a 2.0 moderator should basically be more like Nicodemus than dare to live as Abram and Sarah. Granted Nicodemus came around in the end (check out John ) but we live in such a time that we are called to step out in faith - bringing our past- tradition - whatever you want to call it - with us but leaving for a new place, unchartered territory - a promised land. Learn more about Bruce over on his blog www.mod.reyes-chow.com
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