Rector's Sermon - Sunday, June 23, 2002

First Reading	Psalm	Epistle	Gospel
Genesis 21;8-21	86:1-10, 16-17	Romans 6: 1b-11	Matthew 10:24-39

      A story from Jewish folklore claims that the act of creation did not end with the making of Adam and Eve. Rather, creation began with them. God gave the first woman and man and all their descendants the great gift of always being able to begin again. The privilege to initiate a new world is God's alone, but the ability to begin again in the world into which they are born is given to humanity. We do so every time we choose to side with the living, denying the forces of death that urge us to back away from change and when we choose to hope in the future over the despairing siren of resignation.

      The struggle between Ishmael, born of Abraham and Sarah's slave Hagar in order to provide an heir, and Isaac, conceived unexpectedly as a miraculous child of promise to Sarah and Abraham, is full of anguish. To its credit, the Bible does not gloss over or offer a facile but false solution to the vexing dilemma. The way of the world is often not the will of God, but that does not inhibit the Bible from being brutally realistic about the ways of the world, especially when it comes to how the emotions of jealousy and envy play out in people's lives.

      Many such struggles between siblings, families, and nations have no neat solution. The Bible is going to continue to tell the story of Isaac and his side of the family, but that does not mean that Ishmael and Hagar have no place in the world. While the biblical story is about to cut loose from Hagar and her son, assuredly God is not. It is quite clear that Abraham still cares for Ishmael and his mother, and it is also clear that God still treasurers them, too, and invests them with a future. They, too, are recognized as having a legitimate story to tell. Despite the cruel reversal of circumstances the world has thrown them, they, like Abraham and Sarah, become an example of choosing life.

      The passage from the Gospel of Matthew is a collection of cautions and warnings. Probably Jesus delivered them or something similar to them over a variety of contexts. In their present form they reflect the situation of a fledgling church seeking to establish itself in an increasingly,overwhelming hostile culture. Family, friends, and neighbors were horrified that some members would leave the synagogue and become Christians. It was seen as tantamount as rejecting one's heritage. Deciding to be baptized in the church as Matthew knew it was likely to involve as challenging a situation as that facing Hagar and her child. Baptism meant setting out into new territory without much support; not something to be done to keep mother or grandmother from nagging you.

      At first both these passages seem to be strange ones to preach about before Megan and Cassady are baptized, but then we realize that for Megan and Cassady, this baptism is out of their control. They have had no say in it, even though later they may choose to accept or reject it. Come to think of it, none of us had any say as to the family we are born into either. That is why parenthetically, I suspect that there is still work to be done by people of faith. The Bible's stories about siblings and usually filled with a tense and ambiguous closure. Paul's later use of the story of Isaac and Ishmael in the letter to the Galatians as an allegory between Isaac the child of promise as opposed to Ishmael the child born under the natural law of the world has some disturbing overtones. It may be that part of the task of the future is to come to discover how eerily similar the stories of Isaac and Ishmael and their descendants really are.

      For now, however, even at the happy occasion of baptism, there is no warrant to gloss over the world's pain. Baptism, in some sense, confirms the great gift of God given at creation. Baptism is the sign that out of death can come life, not only at the hour of our actual death, but over many circumstances and reversals. We can begin again, even in a world where many things are beyond our control. We can choose God's blessings of life and hope over the world's curses of death and despair.

      And I offer this to you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen