union avenue christian church |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Negotiating with God I Samuel 1:4 – 20; Mark 13:1 – 8 Holiday greeting cards, civic gatherings and public school convocations romanticize this week’s American celebration. Not only has it become the ‘safe’ school holiday, but also we have shoved it to a nice remembrance of our historical roots. Unfortunately, we forget that many of those who were here on this land from Europe came because of religious conflicts in their homelands — vicious and tyrannical oppression of their ways of life. We also forget that the treatment of the Native Americans doesn’t strike resemblance to our thanksgiving dinner pictures where folks are sharing recipes and ways to grow corn or cook turkeys. Try – for a moment – to reconsider the people who inhabited this American soil a few hundred years ago and how they were able to move to a place of true thankfulness — thanks-giving for the life through which God was leading them. Don’t you know they were negotiating with God, struggling with God, wondering why God was taking them into desperate corners of the world, leading them into paths that were questionably better than where they had been before?! But perhaps they had made promises to God: if only we could be rid of the oppression we are now suffering; if only we would be allowed space to serve and believe as we know we ought; if only; if only. Although the lack of government here, in early America, allowed the settlers relief from the oppressiveness they had experienced, here they were thrown into a land that was alien to them, into experiences of disease, bad weather, inconvenience to the highest degree, and little way to communicate with the indigenous people. There is not much romance to all of this — especially when we consider the truth of the time. What we want to remember, however, is that these people were strong, faithful, collaborative and thankful. So we conveniently pass over the incredible mess into which they had moved and how inappropriately they responded to some of the situations in which they found themselves. The reading of our history — our American history — pronounces importance on our early settlers carving out a good life in difficult times and being grateful for the intervention of God’s help throughout that history. Today’s Hebrew scripture passage can be read in a similar fashion to early Thanksgiving folklore. The end of this tale is that Samuel — who is pivotal to Judaic history — was born Hannah and her husband Elkanah were an unusual couple. They lived ‘outside’ the norm. Ingrained in early Jewish culture is the teaching that women’s worth was based on the ability to generate children — male children — for their husbands. Elkanah’s other wife achieved this. Hannah could not. BUT, Elkanah loved Hannah more — this just was not akin to ‘appropriate.’ Although the text does not indicate it, Elkanah undoubtedly received much criticism for his apparent judgment errors or errors of the heart. The text does indicate that Hannah received plenty of criticism — her rival (the other woman who had born children, including boys) provoked her mercilessly. And so the struggle is set and the negotiating with God began. Praying and promising was the only way out of an incredibly hideous situation. It would be easy for us to romanticize this story as well. Isn’t it marvelous that a young woman wanted to serve God so much that she would allow herself to be used; that she would give up her first child for him to be raised by the priests of the temple so that he could be a servant in Jewish heritage? Thankfully we have enough of the ‘rest of the story’ to know Hannah was miserable; she was hurting; she was struggling for her own meaning; she was frustrated by the ill will of others around her. But yes, she also was dependent on God for help through the issues of life that were presented to her, but it was no easy, glamorous trek! The danger of scriptures such as this is to draw a conclusion that we CAN pray and negotiate with God to get what we want; that God rewards our demands if we are diligent, serious, or persistent. A more faithful reading of scripture AND history is that God is ever present in the struggles we have; that the negotiation is God leading us through them (even though we at times don’t see that leading and take other ways); that opportunities are always being opened when we are able to see through the eyes of God. Our American forebears and Hannah taught us that. Reflecting on our histories in this way is significantly helpful in setting our future pathways. Romanticizing our pasts does little in setting present or future roads and visions. Our three congregations came to this neighborhood about the same time — turn of the 20th century when St. Louis was building this area to reflect the excitement of the World’s Fair. We all built impressive structures; we all had impressive congregations; we all overflowed our pews and Sunday School rooms; and we were all major voices in our denominations and to the social/political life of this city. It would be easy to believe that we started without difficulty. It would be easy to forget the floundering that happened in pre-existing congregations from which we were all formed. It would be easy to gloss over the arguments and frustrations of those who didn’t want to build in this area, which was out of the city proper at the time. Just as it may be easy for our children and grandchildren to forget the struggles we have had to keep our ministry vital in the 80’s and 90’s and now into the 21st century. Perhaps it would be glorious if — in 50 years — our congregations have forgotten the pain of the years when we were segregated, or when women were not able to serve as leaders, or when gays and lesbians were ostracized from our worship experiences. But that would be an inappropriate reading of history, and it would not aid in the faith building for the future. Faith communities are where we struggle. Faith communities are where we have committed ourselves to journey together, to negotiate with God, to deal with the issues that hurt us, and to remember those times and places as pivotal to our faith-building. These are the locations for us to muddle, to question, to test understandings, to share varieties of interpretations of life, to grapple with each other as we wrestle with God about the meaning in life. Hannah went to the temple to pray, but she hopefully also went to the temple because it was the location of the faith community that held her in the time of struggle. Negotiating with God is an important part of faith and cannot be removed from our historical perspectives. As we move into the future, three intertwining congregations — each committed to serving this neighborhood, each committed to ministries of justice, each having struggled for life and breath, undoubtedly each having lost immeasurable numbers of folk who did not want to continue the struggle, who were unwilling to stay in the tough arenas that our ministries pose — may we not forget that God is in the midst of us. May we not forget that God is holding us in our seeking; in our questioning; in our complaining. May we not forget that God does not reward us for our begging, but does listen with compassion. For all of this we give thanks, and hopefully will be remembered as a people who are thankful. Thankful — not because our witness has been easy, glamorous, or without struggle — but, thankful because we know that we have come this far because of the care and love and guidance of God whom we serve, and the honesty of the struggles we claim. We have heirs to gift with the unity we witness and proclaim. May God help us be known to them as those — like Hannah — who passionately negotiate, lovingly desire, and profoundly yearn for a significant place in the history of God’s creation. SW |
OUR LIFE OUR WORSHIP OUR STUDY OUR HISTORY OUR CHURCH LINKS
|
|||||||
 |
|
|||||||
