Gospel:
Luke 13:31-35
1st Reading: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
The Apostle Paul says this morning in his letter to
the Philippians, "Our citizenship is in heaven." I
remember as a little girl, learning what it meant to be an American
Citizen—the privileges and responsibilities. I remember saying the
Pledge of Allegiance each day in school, standing by my desk with my
hand over my heart. I remember my parents telling me about the
history of this country, how our family came here, and about the
freedoms we enjoy. I remember going down to my elementary school
with my mom after the last of the daycare children she watched
during the day had been picked up and standing there in the voting
booth with her as she cast her ballot behind that curtain. I
remember feeling proud to stand for the National Anthem at sporting
events, looking around at all the people's serious faces, the men
taking off their caps out of respect, and feeling part of something
big.
Going to Germany this summer brought up many
questions for me of what citizenship means. I am an American
citizen, but I was traveling to the place of my birth, the place
where my family comes from, the place where my denomination
started, and the place that defines my professional life in a big
way. When I was growing up, I remember my dad saying that any
of my siblings could become President of the United States, except
me. I was born in Germany. Now we know from some of the
Presidential candidates that might not be true, since my dad was in
the military and I am an American Citizen born abroad. The
point is, I always knew there was something different about me.
We couldn't drive past the hospital where I was born, like we did
Lebanon General Hospital where my siblings were all born. I
felt disconnected from my beginnings. So it was a strange
feeling going to Germany. When we arrived in Hanover, they of
course could see by my passport that I was born in Germany. I
was treated well there. The rental car company even gave us a
fancy car upgrade to a Mercedes. Maybe it is because of my
passport. Maybe it is because I spoke German with them, or
tried very hard. Or maybe they had a car left over they were
trying to get rid of. I wondered how I would feel about
Germany. Would it feel familiar in any way? I only
lived there a year and a half. But that is where I learned to
walk, where I spoke my first words, the first trees and birds and
houses and lights I ever saw were there, and first people I ever
met were there, peeking into my baby carriage. Certainly Nick
and I did feel at home in Hanover. Germany has a very similar
climate to Oregon, with fields and forests and mountains.
We're about on the same longitude. We loved much of what we
saw in Hanover--the neighborhoods bunched together, the solar
panels and wind turbines, the fields and forests, the cultural
activities, the public transportation system, and food. We
felt at home. Yet in Oberenzenn, the place where my parents
and I lived when I was born, I felt anything but welcome and at
home. I felt the same thing my parents felt, unwelcome, and
that was probably due to the American Army base just outside of
town. I walked into the same bakery, the same little store my
mother had wheeled me into as a baby and I received the same
unwelcome response she had 40 years before. On our last night
in Germany, we ate and drank in Munich at Hofbrauhaus, a famous
landmark there where both Hitler and JFK had separately visited,
among many others. We sat with a German couple. The
first thing they said to us was, "Germany isn't all bad,"
because their perception was that all Americans know about Germany
is about the holocaust. Then the man went on to explain that
he and his wife wanted to move to the United States. They
were ready to give up Germany and move to Florida, if their names
were chosen in a lottery. He was unhappy with some of the
laws and tax system in Germany. This couple, too, were
thinking of what citizenship means and where they might feel at
home, where they might belong.
What does it mean to be a citizen of a place? What
allegiance and thanks do we owe for all the benefits we receive?
What is our responsibility to try to make it a better place by
challenging it when it doesn't live up to its promise for us and for
others around us?
Abram was a citizen of nowhere. He was rich, with
flocks and possessions and slaves. But he had no home. He lived here
and there. He had no place to belong. He would settle someplace for
a while and then move on. His father brought him part way to the
land of Canaan. Then God called him the rest of the way there, but
there was a famine, so he ended up going to Egypt for a while.
Finally, Abram and Sarai ended up coming back to Canaan. Then he
went off to war for a while to retrieve his nephew Lot who had been
captured. He returns again, and then God speaks to him and says all
that we read this morning and more.
God reminds him that he does belong, that God is his
shield and protected him during all these close calls and in battle.
His citizenship is with God. That's his family. That's his nation.
That's where he belongs. He's been told this several times over by
now. But Abram's anxious. “As long as we're having this
conversation, God, what about that promise you made to me that my
offspring would number as the stars.” God reassures him that God
will keep those promises. God is trying to teach Abram what it means
to have citizenship in heaven, that God is trustworthy. They are
building their relationship with one another.
Once God promises Abram again that his descendants
will number as the stars, the reading tells us that Abram believed
God and God reckoned it to him as righteousness. I don't know if it
is a little tongue in cheek, to say that Abram believed. Abram had a
hard time trusting. He was looking at the promises of God and he was
looking at his current reality and he was seeing a disconnect. So he
asked God again. He continues to act like he doesn't believe. He
takes matters into his own hands and has a baby, Ishmael, with the
slave woman, Hagar. Later, when God promises Abram a son through
Sarai, Abram, he laughs at the prospect that two elderly people will
be able to bear a child. Even after Abram and Sarai receive new
names and Isaac is born, Abraham has trouble believing in the
promises and goes up to sacrifice his son. Of course, God provides a
ram instead. And we see this morning that moments after believing
that he will have offspring, Abram disbelieves that God will give
him the land to possess. God goes through this strange elaborate
ritual to prove it, a ritual whose meaning is lost on us, but might
remind us of the pillar of fire, the way God appears to the
Israelites, leading them in the wilderness by night.
In Paul's letter to the Philippians, he is teaching
them what it means to have citizenship in heaven. It is like being a
resident alien in this land. To be Christian is to speak another
language, have a different set of priorities, to have a different
lifestyle, not to fit into this world very well. While we do, as
Christians have our feet firmly planted here on earth, we stand firm
in our values, in God's values. We may not feel like we belong, and
that is for good reason. We belong to the Kingdom of God. As Kingdom
Citizens, we don't abandon this world, but we bring God's values to
transform this world to reflect the glory of God. As Christians we
see the promises of God and we look at this world we live in and see
this chasm. Something doesn't match very well here. Every tear
will be wiped away? Every mouth will be fed? Widows and
orphans will be cared for? Maybe we wonder, like Abram, will
the Kingdom of God come to this place? This answer is yes, God keeps
God's promises.
The Kingdom of God is very near, and already here, at
the same time. I just received a flier last week about Laundry Love
Milwaukie, a place for low-income people to come and do laundry for
free. Of course I emailed them right away and I got an email back
that they have use for my homemade laundry detergent that I make
for pennies a load. The Kingdom of God is here. It is with kids in
clean clothes, feeling more like they can fit in at school, able to
concentrate on their schoolwork, feeling good about themselves,
knowing they are valued. The Kingdom of God is here in a basket of
clean laundry. The Kingdom of God is here on earth in a pit
bull named Jonny, one of Michael Vick's fighting dogs,
rehabilitated and now is part of a reading program at a library in
San Francisco. He is a dog for kids to practice reading to—a
nonjudgmental listener, who gives them his full attention.You know
many other examples, I'm sure.
Now to one who really felt out of place, Jesus. He
knew he didn't belong here, and yet all of us belong to him in his
family. He keenly felt the disconnect between the promises and
glory of God and this messed-up world. He was really feeling it in
the Gospel reading. He's doing God's work, healing and casting out
demons. Now the Pharisees tell him Herod wants to kill him. He's in
Jerusalem, the place where the temple is, supposedly closest to
God, and Jerusalem isn't a place of peace and blessing (PS salem in
the word Jerusalem means peace). Instead Jerusalem is a place that
kills prophets and scatters people. Jesus so longs for family and
gathering and life, and all he sees around him is destruction and
an unwillingness to work together, and the fox-like characteristics
of its leaders. Foxes are especially known for preying on the young
of other animals and Herod here is called a fox. Jesus identifies
himself as a hen. Hens are especially known for gathering and
protecting their young. Wouldn't we rather have a fox for our
leader? No, because we are citizens of heaven where violence
doesn't have any place. Jesus tells us in the verses just preceding
these in the Gospel this morning that “Some who are first will be
last and some that are last shall be first.” Maybe that's why
Herod and the Pharisees get so riled up--they heard Jesus put them
down and say they will be last. We have a chicken/fox reversal
here. The chicken is going to win out and be first in the only time
a chicken got the better of a fox outside of a fairy tale. The
chicken in this case will die, but it won't stop God's Kingdom from
coming and it won't keep God from gathering the brood under those
motherly wings.
Now back to our citizenship. We are citizens of
heaven, of the Kingdom of God. Is our heart with God.
Do we value love and sharing and compassion, or have we become to
assimilated into this world and its values? Have we given up
trying to bring those values with us and maintaining our kingdom
citizenship and become too much tied up in the values of this
world? On the other hand, sometimes we are so wrapped up in
our Kingdom Citizenship that we say to heck with this world and
trying to change it to reflect kingdom values! Why should I
care about the people of this world? I'll just wait to die
and go to heaven and then I'll have it all. Heaven or hell is
right here. Hell is when people go hungry, are disregarded,
are hurting, afraid, and scattered. Heaven is when we are
gathered under the wings of our mother hen, when we find
connection, when we know safety and security, when we provide
safety and security for others. And heaven and hell both have
open borders, anyone can become a citizen. When we look
around, do we see hell--the terrible circumstances people are in,
their suffering and pain? When we look around, do we see the
Kingdom of God, wonderful beauty and love and hope and generosity?
I think the answer to both questions is yes. How do we
reconcile these two worlds we live in? Do we wait for God to
make it better, when things are bad, or do we let God work through
us to bring in the Kingdom? I think sometimes we do wait for
someone else to make it better, especially if we are comfortable
ourselves, or if we don't feel empowered to do anything about it.
But we must remember that those are our brothers and sisters under
the protection of Jesus the mother hen, with us. If they
don't know peace, our family is in turmoil--our family is
incomplete. Even if we feel as helpless as a chicken, and all
the foxes in the world are after us, all the powers of this world
out to destroy us, Jesus stands firm and we stand because of him
between those powers and those brothers and sisters who need us
most. We wonder, will God keep those promises, like he did
for Abraham. It might not look very promising. However,
new life is the promise, not just for after we die, but right
now--life out of death, the last being first and the first and
strongest at the back of the line.
It was rather unreal, standing at the Berlin wall, broken, with re-bar sticking out every which way. I watched films about getting past that wall when it was so strong--the people killed trying to cross, the families split up. I watched that wall come down in German class in high school. Tell that fox, tell all that seems strong and divisive, that Jesus the hen is here, gathering, healing, casting out what is destructive and damaging. You make think you're having chicken and dumplings for dinner tonight. This hen will lay down her life but her values will go on and new life will go on, walls will come down, children will be gathered and it will be through the most unlikely, nonviolent citizens that the greatest love will grow until this world, this hell for so many people, will become the Kingdom of Heaven. We could never do it by our own power, but it is love, it is God and the strength of God's promises that make it an absolute certainty.
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