The Dream of Home
The Dream of Home Genesis 15:1-18
2nd Sunday of Lent Year C, 3.4.07
(I preached this sermon this morning to my congregation at Hope, a little hurried because of communion and many announcements. Many people in this congregation are living a few miles from where they were born. Some have moved there from other places, but not many. Then I preached this sermon to Grace Korean UMC which meets in our building in the afternoon. As I looked out at them I realized I was the only one born in Minnesota, or even the United States. Even my son, Zane, who came with me this afternoon, was born in Colombia and came here as an adopted immigrant. Everyone else was from Korea. Talking about wandering Abraham looking for home for his family and strength for the wilderness became a very different sermon this afternoon.)
When I was nine years old my mother had a scheduled surgery so my sisters and I were sent to Aunt Martha’s for three weeks. She gave each of us a gift; mine was the book “Little House on the Prairie” which, now that I think about it, is a story about a family that was always looking for home.
Aunt Martha didn’t cook like my mother did, and I had trouble eating her food some days. When she said we were having pizza I thought, finally, a dish I will like. I was disappointed to discover she made pizza with zucchini for the crust. But the rice pudding did me in, rice pudding – which I had never heard of before – filled with raisins, which I did not like. She said I had to eat it or I couldn’t watch my favorite TV show that night – “Lost in Space.” I loved Lost in Space, and I worried every week about what Mr. Smith was going to do this time to keep the family from going home to earth. I sat with my pudding at the table, all alone, for an hour before I got it down.
Funny how the stories I had to comfort me when I was away from home were about people trying to get home, trying to find a home.
That is, actually, one of the major story lines in the Bible. From the moment Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden until Jesus said, “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have their nests but the Son of Man has no place to rest his head” the theme of home, exile, dreaming of home, runs through our scripture.
That theme really takes root with Abraham. Abraham had a home, in Ur, but God came to him and called him to a new place. Abraham – then called Abram – set out with his family and his great wealth to find this new place. But the story isn’t very straightforward. Like Abraham, the story wanders around. Abraham sees the land, sets up an altar, and leaves. As usually happens in the Bible, there is a trip to Egypt thrown in for extra drama. Then he comes back and has this conversation we hear today, this pivotal conversation with God about the promise of land and heirs, of home and family.
Several things happen in this encounter.
First, God starts off the conversation saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram.” Then God restates the promise, in a way: I am your shield and your reward will be great.
Abraham expresses doubts; he still has no son. God assures him there will be one, and his descendents will be as the stars above him in the desert sky.
Abraham presses further – how will I know this? God asks for an offering. Then Abraham goes to sleep and dreams, the same kind of dreaming sleep Adam was in when Eve was created. Then God reiterates the promise again, along with a premonition of the trouble that lies ahead when the people will be enslaved in Egypt. The promise is stated in the language and form of a covenant, but it is not the kind of promise that means Abraham does something and gets the land in return; it is stated as a gift. Abraham is given the gift of the land, has been given the land. The land is not so much for him as for his descendents. God and Abraham have also entered a covenantal relationship. And we, all of humanity, are blessed by that relationship.
So how does this story speak to us today? Our world is so different, but wars are still being fought over ownership of that one piece of land. What does Abraham’s dream have to tell us about our life today?
Well, in this story the blessing is tied to one piece of land. I don’t think we can look at it that way anymore. We don’t have the room for a bunch of us to look around and say – I own as much as I can see. We are more connected than that, our resources are more connected than that, our climate, we are learning, is more connected than that.
The land is still a gift, but I think the whole of it, all of creation, is the gift; it is a gift to us all, not just to Abraham, and not just to the biggest and wealthiest nations. Abraham’s relationship with God blessed the whole world, and the whole world depends on this connection with God to our home. Can think of the whole earth as God's gift to us -- yet not to us so much as to our heirs? The story has something to tell us here.
I think the foretelling of the wilderness time is important for us too. As a young child I knew, as most of us do at some point or another, what it is like to not be home, to be in the wilderness, to feel unsure and perhaps a little unsafe. We are very at home – most of us have been home for 4 days solid in the snowstorm now – and we even understand this sense of missing home, as home changes. None of our ancestors have been here in this land very long. Around the world – people know what this means. There are about 24 million people in the world who are counted as Internally Displaced Persons – people who are in their home country but forced out of their homes because of violence and war. There are over 3 million refugees who have fled their country due to violence and war. There are an estimated 750,000 homeless persons in the US any given night. Our world knows a lot about what it mean to not be home.
And I think the topic we heard about the other night – global climate change -- presents a new wilderness experience for us, as a entire world. We have some changing, difficult times ahead of us, perhaps, as we try to protect our home our and our ability to live here on this planet.
But the promises to Abraham and the others in scripture also hold, I think: do not be afraid. God will be with us. God will walk this journey with us, God will not abandon us. And in some deeper sense may we learn, as the wandering folks of our biblical stories knew, that God, ultimately, is our home, and all our wandering is really an attempt to get back to the One who created us in the beginning.
2nd Sunday of Lent Year C, 3.4.07
(I preached this sermon this morning to my congregation at Hope, a little hurried because of communion and many announcements. Many people in this congregation are living a few miles from where they were born. Some have moved there from other places, but not many. Then I preached this sermon to Grace Korean UMC which meets in our building in the afternoon. As I looked out at them I realized I was the only one born in Minnesota, or even the United States. Even my son, Zane, who came with me this afternoon, was born in Colombia and came here as an adopted immigrant. Everyone else was from Korea. Talking about wandering Abraham looking for home for his family and strength for the wilderness became a very different sermon this afternoon.)
When I was nine years old my mother had a scheduled surgery so my sisters and I were sent to Aunt Martha’s for three weeks. She gave each of us a gift; mine was the book “Little House on the Prairie” which, now that I think about it, is a story about a family that was always looking for home.
Aunt Martha didn’t cook like my mother did, and I had trouble eating her food some days. When she said we were having pizza I thought, finally, a dish I will like. I was disappointed to discover she made pizza with zucchini for the crust. But the rice pudding did me in, rice pudding – which I had never heard of before – filled with raisins, which I did not like. She said I had to eat it or I couldn’t watch my favorite TV show that night – “Lost in Space.” I loved Lost in Space, and I worried every week about what Mr. Smith was going to do this time to keep the family from going home to earth. I sat with my pudding at the table, all alone, for an hour before I got it down.
Funny how the stories I had to comfort me when I was away from home were about people trying to get home, trying to find a home.
That is, actually, one of the major story lines in the Bible. From the moment Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden until Jesus said, “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have their nests but the Son of Man has no place to rest his head” the theme of home, exile, dreaming of home, runs through our scripture.
That theme really takes root with Abraham. Abraham had a home, in Ur, but God came to him and called him to a new place. Abraham – then called Abram – set out with his family and his great wealth to find this new place. But the story isn’t very straightforward. Like Abraham, the story wanders around. Abraham sees the land, sets up an altar, and leaves. As usually happens in the Bible, there is a trip to Egypt thrown in for extra drama. Then he comes back and has this conversation we hear today, this pivotal conversation with God about the promise of land and heirs, of home and family.
Several things happen in this encounter.
First, God starts off the conversation saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram.” Then God restates the promise, in a way: I am your shield and your reward will be great.
Abraham expresses doubts; he still has no son. God assures him there will be one, and his descendents will be as the stars above him in the desert sky.
Abraham presses further – how will I know this? God asks for an offering. Then Abraham goes to sleep and dreams, the same kind of dreaming sleep Adam was in when Eve was created. Then God reiterates the promise again, along with a premonition of the trouble that lies ahead when the people will be enslaved in Egypt. The promise is stated in the language and form of a covenant, but it is not the kind of promise that means Abraham does something and gets the land in return; it is stated as a gift. Abraham is given the gift of the land, has been given the land. The land is not so much for him as for his descendents. God and Abraham have also entered a covenantal relationship. And we, all of humanity, are blessed by that relationship.
So how does this story speak to us today? Our world is so different, but wars are still being fought over ownership of that one piece of land. What does Abraham’s dream have to tell us about our life today?
Well, in this story the blessing is tied to one piece of land. I don’t think we can look at it that way anymore. We don’t have the room for a bunch of us to look around and say – I own as much as I can see. We are more connected than that, our resources are more connected than that, our climate, we are learning, is more connected than that.
The land is still a gift, but I think the whole of it, all of creation, is the gift; it is a gift to us all, not just to Abraham, and not just to the biggest and wealthiest nations. Abraham’s relationship with God blessed the whole world, and the whole world depends on this connection with God to our home. Can think of the whole earth as God's gift to us -- yet not to us so much as to our heirs? The story has something to tell us here.
I think the foretelling of the wilderness time is important for us too. As a young child I knew, as most of us do at some point or another, what it is like to not be home, to be in the wilderness, to feel unsure and perhaps a little unsafe. We are very at home – most of us have been home for 4 days solid in the snowstorm now – and we even understand this sense of missing home, as home changes. None of our ancestors have been here in this land very long. Around the world – people know what this means. There are about 24 million people in the world who are counted as Internally Displaced Persons – people who are in their home country but forced out of their homes because of violence and war. There are over 3 million refugees who have fled their country due to violence and war. There are an estimated 750,000 homeless persons in the US any given night. Our world knows a lot about what it mean to not be home.
And I think the topic we heard about the other night – global climate change -- presents a new wilderness experience for us, as a entire world. We have some changing, difficult times ahead of us, perhaps, as we try to protect our home our and our ability to live here on this planet.
But the promises to Abraham and the others in scripture also hold, I think: do not be afraid. God will be with us. God will walk this journey with us, God will not abandon us. And in some deeper sense may we learn, as the wandering folks of our biblical stories knew, that God, ultimately, is our home, and all our wandering is really an attempt to get back to the One who created us in the beginning.
posted by Michelle at 7:21 PM
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