December 23, 2007

Advent 4

FAMILY TREES AND BLACK SHEEP

Some of us are ambivalent about family trees. I know I am. Once you get past Grandma and Grandpa, they take a lot of work to develop. But they can also be 'way interesting, especially if you find black sheep. Black sheep, boys and girls - in a family, "black sheep" are people who have a bad reputation because of bad behavior. WE wouldn't want to be black sheep - but it's fun to have black sheep in your family tree. It makes you and your family more interesting, kinda racy and hip, a relative who's a shady character, someone to talk about and feel superior to.

There were black sheep in Jesus' family. Not all of them were women, but five of the black sheep listed in his genealogy are female. I didn't read the entire family tree, all 16 verses, one name after another... but I made sure I named these bad girls of the Bible: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and, quote, "the wife of Uriah," King David's babe, the beauty Bathsheba. That's only four, if you're counting. Add Mary, Number Five; she's going to have a baby but she's not married. Not good.

Actually, do a little more family research and there's one more black sheep, another bad girl, hidden in the genealogy. Strictly speaking she's not directly in the family tree of Jesus - more like a branch that got cut off and then somehow took root and grew anyway... and now lately the outcome of that branch-story is painfully obvious.

It's the story of Hagar and Ishmael, she the concubine of Abraham, and Ishmael her son, the illegitimate son of Abraham, half-brother to Isaac. For years not many Christians knew that story. But since September 11 six years ago and our increasing interaction with the religion of Islam, the story of Ishmael may be more familiar, or maybe not. But back then in 2001, as now, the featured gospel for this Sunday before Christmas is the story of Joseph, and it starts with the family pedigree. Jesus' family tree is not squeaky-clean, and there are, in fact, some lingering scandals.

I looked back and realized that some of the things I said then are still relevant today, so I'm going to get at the Christmas story the way I did then, the way St. Matthew gets into Christmas, via Jesus and his background. It starts with Abraham, and you know him - first person in the family of salvation, patriarch of the three great biblical religions, and, supposedly, the example of faith.

He's 70 years old when God makes the promise that Abraham will be the father of a nation as populated as stars on a clear winter night. Thirty more years go by, though, and nothing happens. Abraham panics. Sarah's now 90 years old, she's not much help, so Abraham finds himself a concubine.

That's one thing that needs an explanation, but I'm not going to do it. Those things just happened in those days. It was fairly common for patriarchs or kings: Make arrangements for "a little something on the side," with or without permission from their wives, to make sure they got male children. It worked. Hagar the concubine got pregnant and had a son, Ishmael. He was first-born, then, the one to carry on the name, inherit the property, and begin the family tree. Abraham could relax.

So did Sarah, I guess, and, like those things happen, suddenly she's pregnant, too. In her old age, God's promise was fulfilled. She had a baby, Isaac. He's there in the genealogy. But from here on their story turns tragic. Listen:

"Sarah saw Ishmael the son of Hagar playing with her son Isaac. So Sarah said to Abraham, 'Cast out this slave woman and her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be first before my son Isaac.'" [1]

We read this story through Christian eyes, and it's awful. What Abraham and Sarah do is flat-out wrong, even reprehensible; they use Hagar and then just toss her aside. Think of the suffering that happens because of that. And if September 11 and events since then are in any way connected to the story of Ishmael and the aftermath, well...

What's confusing is that God seems to condone this original behavior - not condone terrorists and murder, certainly, but in the story God sides with Sarah; Isaac is to get the promise. In spite of the ancient law that the first-born (legitimate or not) gets the inheritance, Isaac (second-place) is going to get the blessing, not Ishmael, and worse, God tells Abraham to do what Sarah wants, and get rid of Hagar and her child. "God said to Abraham, 'Do what Sarah says,' so Abraham rose early in the morning and sent Hagar away, along with the child, and she wandered about in the wilderness, and she lifted up her voice and wept." It's a bad story.

It's there in the Bible, though, because it does explain how Isaac (and therefore the children of Israel) got to be the apple of God's eye. Well, Israel wrote the story. I mean, someone later in the history of Israel wrote this down, thinking that this was a simple explanation to why his people were the children of God and why other people (their own cousins, obviously) why other people were not. History, you know, is written by the winners. The victors get to say how and why it all came out. But God is a subtle and effective editor, and God takes the winners' story and finds other things to say with it. Talk about the inspiration of Holy Scripture? Here it is. The story of Hagar and Ishmael, a story no one would never use on the day before Christmas Eve. But there's Christmas here! We see a pattern that will be repeated often in the Bible, including Matthew chapter 1, the family tree of Jesus, complete with bad apples - and what God makes of them. God finds the least and lowliest and lost and makes something of them. Sound familiar?

It oughta be; it's one of God's favorite themes. After Abraham, Isaac - his two sons, Jacob and Esau... Jacob is the younger one; Jacob gets the blessing. Jacob's children, 12 of them, the last two tag-alongs, after-thoughts, maybe even Oops-es. One of them is the boy everybody knows now; we're going to sing about him right here, come February, Joseph and his amazing Technicolor dreamcoat. But to his brothers, he started as a loser. Then there's David, little brother sent to take care of the livestock 'cause he's not leadership material - and he's the one anointed king. Black sheep and bad girls, grafted onto the family tree because God can choose even damaged people for great and holy purposes. You can look at the twelve disciples, look at Mary Magdalene, and tell that story.

But something else, too: The temptation for those who are chosen, losers who end up on top - temptation for those who are privileged because of what God did back then for their parents - temptation for people who aren't black sheep, like Joseph in the Christmas story, not a black sheep at all; "Joseph was a righteous man," it says. The temptation is to think that God has given these good things to us and that's the end of it and we walk away.

God has other ideas. Joseph, come back here; you can't walk away from Mary. Joseph's goodness was used to make a righteous woman of Mary, and her son besides. That's his name, Emmanuel, "God with us." No matter what our story is, good or bad, God with us. First place, second place, last place... God with us, Emmanuel.

That's why the story of Hagar and Ishmael is in the Bible still today, even if it's hidden behind more glamorous stories. It's there to remind Isaac the winner that he has a brother. It's to help those who have the blessings of life see that those on the other side, those not as blessed, they are family, too. Jews, today, descended from Isaac, are relatives of Arabs and Palestinians, descended from Ishmael. And Arabs, Muslims: remember that Isaac and his Jewish children are Ishmael's brothers and sisters.

Winners are tempted to lord it over losers - but losers, too, are tempted... tempted to take revenge, take what they think are God's plans into their own hands and wreak havoc and destruction. We've seen far too many examples from Ishmael and Isaac to this day. Is that how September 11th and this story connect? Maybe. I do know now we're tempted to take revenge.

Well, sure, look long enough in anyone's Bible and you can find plenty of vengeance stories - in parts of the Quran and parts of the Bible. As a Christian I'm ashamed that there are some other Christians who use vengeance stories from our Bible to justify all sorts of hate-filled repugnant behavior toward others.

I think those vengeance stories are no longer valid in light of the new information God has given us and how the world has changed because of what God has done. For us, at least, the crucifixion story is a story not of reasons for revenge but forgiveness. Peace, not warfare - that's the way God's "will now be done on earth as it is in heaven." This world is not to be a wilderness of half-breeds crouched in angry self-defense, reacting to each insult, hoarding what they have, but a family of half-brothers and step-sisters and one big blended family trying hard to live in harmony... making a lot of mistakes, to be sure, but agreeing from our scriptures and God's influence - and for our own survival! - agreeing that we've just gotta give peace a chance, and let it begin with me.

If you wanna quote the Bible, quote this: "Love your enemy; do good to those who hurt you." For Christians, at least, Jesus' death and resurrection is prime evidence. God is not limited to what he used to say about his enemies and do to them - and if God himself isn't limited to the past, neither are we.

Here's what I mean; winners may write the history, but the Holy Spirit can re-write it. Instead of disaster for those two losers, Hagar and her son, here's the way their story finishes:
"When the water in the jar was gone, Hagar placed the child beneath a bush and went a good way off, so that she not hear her son cry himself to death. And God heard the voices of the boy and his mother, weeping, and God said to her, "Come, lift your son into your arms and hold him fast, for I will make a great nation of him." Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went and brought the boy a drink. God was with the boy and he grew up."

That's inspired. That's God talking, and I think it's often missed for all the macho battle plans and revenge and religious testosterone in anyone's scriptures or foreign policy. It means that God is the one who makes the plans, plans for good. God can make a cornerstone of someone who is rejected and cast out. That's what those bad girls and Mary discovered about themselves, and so did Joseph and those disciples, too. They're not only in a genealogy but in the family tree of Jesus.

And that brings us the long way around back to the weekend before Christmas. From the manger to the Upper Room and beyond, "a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham," the son of God and your brother. A real-life family tree - some black sheep and bad girls, plus the men who called them bad and the men who made them bad - and all the rest of us as well. A real-life family tree, shaped something like a cross.

Thank God we're in its branches, too.

Nate Castens
Chanhassen, Minnesota

[1] Genesis 21:8-21
Ideas about Hagar & Ishmael from Mark Trotter, Preach What You Practice, 6/23/96, and from my own sermon of December 22/23, 2001