Michael Denton
February 24th, 2007
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
St. Paul’s, Franklin Park
26:1 When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 26:2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. 26:3 You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, "Today I declare to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our ancestors to give us." 26:4 When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the LORD your God, 26:5 you shall make this response before the LORD your God: "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 26:6 When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, 26:7 we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 26:8 The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 26:9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 26:10 So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me." You shall set it down before the LORD your God and bow down before the LORD your God. 26:11 Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house.
Greeting
Prayer
The reading we heard from Deuteronomy is a story about our heritage. It talks about who we are and who we’ve been. We all have these stories from our biological ancestors that tell of who we are, where we come from, what our families aspired to and what the values of our families are. Even in those cases where some of us come from adoptive homes, the stories shared with us by our adoptive family are an attempt to share the values of those who tell the stories; the values of the families we are a part of. This reading today, is the same kind of attempt to pass on stories to the next generation. Most of us are not ethnically Jewish but we have adopted these Jewish texts that we call the Bible as our story – a story we choose to center parts of our lives around. There is something special about hearing a story that is particularly about us that does something for us and to us and that makes it clear we’re part of something that is bigger than us.
On my Mom’s side of the family, there is a particular story that my grandfather passed on to me in particular way, at a particular moment.
My great, great grandfather lived on the property of Count Baron Von Esterhazy in Hungry as a share cropper. It was far from an easy life. They had seven children to raise. They were always poor and, because of the way society was structured, always feeling poorer. Well, this grandfather of mine decided he wanted a different kind of life for his family. He heard about this promised land called Pahnesveela, Oheeo (a place we call Painesville, Ohio) and decided to move his family there.
He took some big risks. He bought a shotgun (the ownership of which was a capital offense in these days) and, late at night, hunted deer on the Count’s land (another capital offense). He hid the gun, in three pieces, in a secret compartment under the cow shed. He fed the meat to his hogs to fatten them up and, eventually, was able to sell the hogs for a good price on the black market. With this money, he was able to buy his way to the US where he worked in the salt mines and unloaded ships on the shores of Lake Erie.
For three years, he sent money back to his family until, eventually, they had enough to get the whole family to the US. After greeting his children and his wife, my grandmother took off the big babushka that she’s had resting on her head and pulled out the three pieces of the gun that had come to mean so much to my grandfather. At first, he was angry. As the story goes, he looked at her in disbelief and said, “What are you crazy? Do you know what the soldiers would have done to you if they’d caught you with this gun?” She replied, “I may be crazy but a soldier would have to be crazier to try and stop a mother, traveling overseas, with seven children in tow.”
I didn't know this story of my great, great grandfather until my grandfather was in the process of giving me that gun. He’d filed down the firing pins so that no one could even attempt to fire it. He cleaned it up and mounted it on a piece of an oak tree that came from another relative’s land. He told me the story as he gave me the gift. He also wrote the story down in his own hand and gave that to me, too.
Knowing this story has made my life different. I remember the feeling of sacredness and holiness that I felt as the story was being told. It was at this moment that I realized I was part of something; that my family was more than those who I knew and loved. This was the story of people I'd never met but if they'd never come here, I wouldn't be here. This is a story that just doesn’t speak to me but speaks about me. Although these things didn’t happen to me directly, it’s still my story to tell. It’s an important story to tell. It’s important that it’s remembered. It says something about my family’s intent to make life better for those who come after them. It’s an important story.
There’s also the reality that, really, I don’t know if it happened exactly like this. This is the story my grandfather knows and told but, really? I don’t know if this is how everything happened. The story I was told was probably the most complementary version. There may have very well been parts left out that just wouldn't have sounded as good.
Just as importantly, perspective matters. There are parts of the story that, if told more through the eyes of my great, great grandmother might have sounded quite a bit different. Life in Hungary without my grandfather couldn’t have been easy. I’m sure there were times she hated this man who had left her and wondered if she was ever going to see him again. It had to have been awful.
Or can you imagine this story told through the eyes of the Esterhazy's? What would they say about this man who committed now one but two capital offenses? This man who hid a gun away and essentially stole the Count’s deer? Who left his family to fend for themselves in a world that was easy on neither women nor children? What kind of values might have they suggested this man had?
As well as we know any story, we can count on the fact that whoever tells the story effects the story itself. Unintentionally or intentionally, there is a reason a story is told in the way it is. The way a story is told has as much information in it as the story itself.
The current debate about immigration, for example, tells several different stories. Some see this as a debate between what is legal and illegal and simply see themselves as protecting the United State’s interests by doing everything to prevent illegal border crossing. Some of the language used treats this like an invasion, of sorts, suggesting that there is some sort of effort to actually take over the US by, specifically, Mexican nationals. Still others make claims and tell stories that reflect values that are, if not racist, pretty close to it. These are some that suggest that any influence of, in particular, Mexican culture is somehow a sign that US culture is in decline. There are intentional efforts to harass those who may have some pride in their Mexican roots and even attempts to pass “English only” laws thereby intentionally and selectively making life for some more difficult. I’m sure those who tell all of these stories with pride and tell some particular stories to emphasize their points, to reflect their values.
In the same way, there are also others who insist that their “Mexican” culture has long been a part of US culture and we might as well deal with it in a more open way than not. In the Louisiana Purchase and in battles over Texas, land was acquired that already contained the homes and farms of those who had previously been part of Mexico. There were folks who already spoke Spanish and related much more to the culture that was, now, south of our borders more than north of it. Others suggest that the problem isn’t as much a debate about what is legal or illegal as much as what is just and unjust. Some tell the story of how the passage of NAFTA and decisions of the Mexican government created such a poor economic situation for them in Mexico that they who come to the US as an economic refugees. They tell stories of villages that have been decimated by corporations that are selling their milk, corn and other produce in Mexico for less than it costs Mexican farmers to grow it thereby putting farms out of business and sending local economies in to decline. They tell stories of the promise of industry jobs that went unfulfilled and open jobs in the US that pay more than they could ever hope to be paid at home; jobs like those my great, great grandfather took.
How a story is experienced, told and perceived all depends on who’s telling the story, what values they’re trying to convey and what they think is important. Although, sometimes, the story is told in a certain way for a certain intent, I wonder if – most of the time – the meaning and values conveyed are much more unintentional; that we become so wrapped up in what we perceive to be reality that we tell a story that matches that reality or our optimism about what reality should be. Since humans tell the stories, these stories are bound up in human fallibility and prejudice and hopes and dreams and wishful thinking and fears and politics and self-interests; all of those things that make us so, so human.
None of these thoughts should be far from or mind when considering the stories we read in the bible. Although some biblical literalists suggest that everything in the bible was written by God’s own hand, we in the mainline church have a different attitude about scripture and see God more as the inspirer, as opposed to the author, of the stories in the bible. Today’s reading from Deuteronomy is a great example. Most scholars suggest that Deuteronomy was written by several people who were putting together a guidebook of sorts for the Israelites to suggest both how they should regard their story and live this story out in the days of the great migration – that 40 year journey – back to Israel.
And, in some ways, this is where some of this story stuff gets tricky because some of this applies to us in this time and place a great deal and some of it doesn’t apply to us nearly as much. There are parts of this story that are clearly our story and other parts of it that are clearly about the early Israelites. There are some parts of these verses today that speak to and inform our values and our behavior related to our values and some that don’t. Although, for most of us, this isn’t a story of our ethnic ancestors, this is clearly a story of our spiritual ancestors and that makes this story no less important. It is our story to tell.
There are some perspectives of this story that we do not know. We don’t know what it was like to be one of those who were living on the land when the Israelites came back after their 40 year journey from Egypt and made the claim, on God’s behalf, that the land was now their’s. We don’t really know what it was like for those other Jews who’d never left Israel and now had to figure out how to deal with these refugees from oppression. We’re getting one part of the story in today’s reading.
Still, as a people who have adopted this story as their own, there’s important values to lift up. I’m going to suggest that, within this text, there are three main attempts to pass on some important values reflected in the perspective presented in this story. The first is that, even though God may name this land as the land of the Israelites, ultimately the land is still God’s. When the first fruits of the land come, these are to be given as an offering. Not the leftovers, not even the second round of the harvest but the very first fruits. As the spiritual ancestors of the Israelites, this is an important idea for us to remember, too - this idea that everything we have is God’s – and that God gets the best of what we can offer. I think a lot of us are more than willing to give to God what is left over. (Smile) We offer the time we have (after everything else is done), the money we have (of the money that is left over), even the devotion we have (after we give to whatever else it is we’re devoted to). This text suggests that, instead, we get what is left over and we give our time to God (first), our money to God’s purposes (first) and our devotion to God (first). It’s an ongoing challenge to reorder our priorities and work to center our lives around God.
The second lesson is remembering what it’s like to wander and treat those who we find wandering with the same compassion our ancestors wish they would have found. At first, this seems to be one of those ideas that applies particularly to the Israelites as a part of their ethnic story as opposed to us but the reality is that every ethnic group had had this wilderness experience as a part of their history be it war or famine or disease or slavery or economic depression or immigration. As a part of all our histories, whether or not we remember it in our lifetimes, we’ve had this experience of painful wandering that is still affecting us. Alternatively, maybe the painful wandering that is most present for us wasn’t communal but personal. Maybe we have struggled with our own history of depression or drug addiction or joblessness or grief. It’s as important for all of us to know this history as it was for the Israelites to know about theirs because, from out of this knowledge of our history comes an empathy for those who are going through this kind of wilderness experience in their present. It means that we have a special responsibility to those who are in their own wilderness experience, now. This leads us to what I see as the third point of this scripture.
The third is too simply (or maybe not so simply) remember that to be thankful for getting beyond the experience of those painful wildernesses – that painful wandering - means that we share with those who are in those painful moments; that we celebrate how God has made us a way out of what seemed like no way; and that we give gifts out of pure thanksgiving to God’s purposes in this world so that our gifts from God are passed on to others. This means that when we consider the refugee and the immigrant we treat them in the best ways that our foremothers and forefathers were treated or, if they were treated harshly, we treat them as we wish they had been treated. It moves us from the hostility of some to acting out of hospitality for all. It means that the first fruits of our own congregations are used to welcome and to make a spiritual home for those who are away from theirs. It means that we reach out to those who, like us, suffer in the midst of drug addiction, depression, grief or any of the other conditions that human’s suffer and share those things we wish we would have had when we were in that position. It means we compassionately share our stories of thankfulness in a way that points towards hope and healing but doesn’t demand immediate embracing of hope and healing. Most often it means we give gifts of thanksgiving to God by simply being gently present with those who are hurting while recognizing that God is at work in those moments and may be calling us to do some of God’s work.
Sisters and brothers, we are a people of stories but the stories never really stand on their own. The stories we know are vehicles for meaning; are claims of current responsibility that God has on us and challenges to us as people who God has brought a very, very long way. God is a good God who loves us so much that God invites us to participate in the joyful, healing work of God. This God loves us so much that she is able to take out stories of pain and transform them in to motivation for current compassion. This God loves us so much that he is able to offer us opportunities to celebrate the abundance of life and love in those places where it sometimes seems as though life and love are absent. God is a good God who loves us very much and, ultimately, that is the fact that emerges from our stories. God is a good God who loves us. Sisters and brothers, we have stories to tell and are challenged by other stories that we can help have a happy ending. Amen and Amen.
February 24th, 2007
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
St. Paul’s, Franklin Park
26:1 When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 26:2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. 26:3 You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, "Today I declare to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our ancestors to give us." 26:4 When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the LORD your God, 26:5 you shall make this response before the LORD your God: "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 26:6 When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, 26:7 we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 26:8 The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 26:9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 26:10 So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me." You shall set it down before the LORD your God and bow down before the LORD your God. 26:11 Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house.
Greeting
Prayer
The reading we heard from Deuteronomy is a story about our heritage. It talks about who we are and who we’ve been. We all have these stories from our biological ancestors that tell of who we are, where we come from, what our families aspired to and what the values of our families are. Even in those cases where some of us come from adoptive homes, the stories shared with us by our adoptive family are an attempt to share the values of those who tell the stories; the values of the families we are a part of. This reading today, is the same kind of attempt to pass on stories to the next generation. Most of us are not ethnically Jewish but we have adopted these Jewish texts that we call the Bible as our story – a story we choose to center parts of our lives around. There is something special about hearing a story that is particularly about us that does something for us and to us and that makes it clear we’re part of something that is bigger than us.
On my Mom’s side of the family, there is a particular story that my grandfather passed on to me in particular way, at a particular moment.
My great, great grandfather lived on the property of Count Baron Von Esterhazy in Hungry as a share cropper. It was far from an easy life. They had seven children to raise. They were always poor and, because of the way society was structured, always feeling poorer. Well, this grandfather of mine decided he wanted a different kind of life for his family. He heard about this promised land called Pahnesveela, Oheeo (a place we call Painesville, Ohio) and decided to move his family there.
He took some big risks. He bought a shotgun (the ownership of which was a capital offense in these days) and, late at night, hunted deer on the Count’s land (another capital offense). He hid the gun, in three pieces, in a secret compartment under the cow shed. He fed the meat to his hogs to fatten them up and, eventually, was able to sell the hogs for a good price on the black market. With this money, he was able to buy his way to the US where he worked in the salt mines and unloaded ships on the shores of Lake Erie.
For three years, he sent money back to his family until, eventually, they had enough to get the whole family to the US. After greeting his children and his wife, my grandmother took off the big babushka that she’s had resting on her head and pulled out the three pieces of the gun that had come to mean so much to my grandfather. At first, he was angry. As the story goes, he looked at her in disbelief and said, “What are you crazy? Do you know what the soldiers would have done to you if they’d caught you with this gun?” She replied, “I may be crazy but a soldier would have to be crazier to try and stop a mother, traveling overseas, with seven children in tow.”
I didn't know this story of my great, great grandfather until my grandfather was in the process of giving me that gun. He’d filed down the firing pins so that no one could even attempt to fire it. He cleaned it up and mounted it on a piece of an oak tree that came from another relative’s land. He told me the story as he gave me the gift. He also wrote the story down in his own hand and gave that to me, too.
Knowing this story has made my life different. I remember the feeling of sacredness and holiness that I felt as the story was being told. It was at this moment that I realized I was part of something; that my family was more than those who I knew and loved. This was the story of people I'd never met but if they'd never come here, I wouldn't be here. This is a story that just doesn’t speak to me but speaks about me. Although these things didn’t happen to me directly, it’s still my story to tell. It’s an important story to tell. It’s important that it’s remembered. It says something about my family’s intent to make life better for those who come after them. It’s an important story.
There’s also the reality that, really, I don’t know if it happened exactly like this. This is the story my grandfather knows and told but, really? I don’t know if this is how everything happened. The story I was told was probably the most complementary version. There may have very well been parts left out that just wouldn't have sounded as good.
Just as importantly, perspective matters. There are parts of the story that, if told more through the eyes of my great, great grandmother might have sounded quite a bit different. Life in Hungary without my grandfather couldn’t have been easy. I’m sure there were times she hated this man who had left her and wondered if she was ever going to see him again. It had to have been awful.
Or can you imagine this story told through the eyes of the Esterhazy's? What would they say about this man who committed now one but two capital offenses? This man who hid a gun away and essentially stole the Count’s deer? Who left his family to fend for themselves in a world that was easy on neither women nor children? What kind of values might have they suggested this man had?
As well as we know any story, we can count on the fact that whoever tells the story effects the story itself. Unintentionally or intentionally, there is a reason a story is told in the way it is. The way a story is told has as much information in it as the story itself.
The current debate about immigration, for example, tells several different stories. Some see this as a debate between what is legal and illegal and simply see themselves as protecting the United State’s interests by doing everything to prevent illegal border crossing. Some of the language used treats this like an invasion, of sorts, suggesting that there is some sort of effort to actually take over the US by, specifically, Mexican nationals. Still others make claims and tell stories that reflect values that are, if not racist, pretty close to it. These are some that suggest that any influence of, in particular, Mexican culture is somehow a sign that US culture is in decline. There are intentional efforts to harass those who may have some pride in their Mexican roots and even attempts to pass “English only” laws thereby intentionally and selectively making life for some more difficult. I’m sure those who tell all of these stories with pride and tell some particular stories to emphasize their points, to reflect their values.
In the same way, there are also others who insist that their “Mexican” culture has long been a part of US culture and we might as well deal with it in a more open way than not. In the Louisiana Purchase and in battles over Texas, land was acquired that already contained the homes and farms of those who had previously been part of Mexico. There were folks who already spoke Spanish and related much more to the culture that was, now, south of our borders more than north of it. Others suggest that the problem isn’t as much a debate about what is legal or illegal as much as what is just and unjust. Some tell the story of how the passage of NAFTA and decisions of the Mexican government created such a poor economic situation for them in Mexico that they who come to the US as an economic refugees. They tell stories of villages that have been decimated by corporations that are selling their milk, corn and other produce in Mexico for less than it costs Mexican farmers to grow it thereby putting farms out of business and sending local economies in to decline. They tell stories of the promise of industry jobs that went unfulfilled and open jobs in the US that pay more than they could ever hope to be paid at home; jobs like those my great, great grandfather took.
How a story is experienced, told and perceived all depends on who’s telling the story, what values they’re trying to convey and what they think is important. Although, sometimes, the story is told in a certain way for a certain intent, I wonder if – most of the time – the meaning and values conveyed are much more unintentional; that we become so wrapped up in what we perceive to be reality that we tell a story that matches that reality or our optimism about what reality should be. Since humans tell the stories, these stories are bound up in human fallibility and prejudice and hopes and dreams and wishful thinking and fears and politics and self-interests; all of those things that make us so, so human.
None of these thoughts should be far from or mind when considering the stories we read in the bible. Although some biblical literalists suggest that everything in the bible was written by God’s own hand, we in the mainline church have a different attitude about scripture and see God more as the inspirer, as opposed to the author, of the stories in the bible. Today’s reading from Deuteronomy is a great example. Most scholars suggest that Deuteronomy was written by several people who were putting together a guidebook of sorts for the Israelites to suggest both how they should regard their story and live this story out in the days of the great migration – that 40 year journey – back to Israel.
And, in some ways, this is where some of this story stuff gets tricky because some of this applies to us in this time and place a great deal and some of it doesn’t apply to us nearly as much. There are parts of this story that are clearly our story and other parts of it that are clearly about the early Israelites. There are some parts of these verses today that speak to and inform our values and our behavior related to our values and some that don’t. Although, for most of us, this isn’t a story of our ethnic ancestors, this is clearly a story of our spiritual ancestors and that makes this story no less important. It is our story to tell.
There are some perspectives of this story that we do not know. We don’t know what it was like to be one of those who were living on the land when the Israelites came back after their 40 year journey from Egypt and made the claim, on God’s behalf, that the land was now their’s. We don’t really know what it was like for those other Jews who’d never left Israel and now had to figure out how to deal with these refugees from oppression. We’re getting one part of the story in today’s reading.
Still, as a people who have adopted this story as their own, there’s important values to lift up. I’m going to suggest that, within this text, there are three main attempts to pass on some important values reflected in the perspective presented in this story. The first is that, even though God may name this land as the land of the Israelites, ultimately the land is still God’s. When the first fruits of the land come, these are to be given as an offering. Not the leftovers, not even the second round of the harvest but the very first fruits. As the spiritual ancestors of the Israelites, this is an important idea for us to remember, too - this idea that everything we have is God’s – and that God gets the best of what we can offer. I think a lot of us are more than willing to give to God what is left over. (Smile) We offer the time we have (after everything else is done), the money we have (of the money that is left over), even the devotion we have (after we give to whatever else it is we’re devoted to). This text suggests that, instead, we get what is left over and we give our time to God (first), our money to God’s purposes (first) and our devotion to God (first). It’s an ongoing challenge to reorder our priorities and work to center our lives around God.
The second lesson is remembering what it’s like to wander and treat those who we find wandering with the same compassion our ancestors wish they would have found. At first, this seems to be one of those ideas that applies particularly to the Israelites as a part of their ethnic story as opposed to us but the reality is that every ethnic group had had this wilderness experience as a part of their history be it war or famine or disease or slavery or economic depression or immigration. As a part of all our histories, whether or not we remember it in our lifetimes, we’ve had this experience of painful wandering that is still affecting us. Alternatively, maybe the painful wandering that is most present for us wasn’t communal but personal. Maybe we have struggled with our own history of depression or drug addiction or joblessness or grief. It’s as important for all of us to know this history as it was for the Israelites to know about theirs because, from out of this knowledge of our history comes an empathy for those who are going through this kind of wilderness experience in their present. It means that we have a special responsibility to those who are in their own wilderness experience, now. This leads us to what I see as the third point of this scripture.
The third is too simply (or maybe not so simply) remember that to be thankful for getting beyond the experience of those painful wildernesses – that painful wandering - means that we share with those who are in those painful moments; that we celebrate how God has made us a way out of what seemed like no way; and that we give gifts out of pure thanksgiving to God’s purposes in this world so that our gifts from God are passed on to others. This means that when we consider the refugee and the immigrant we treat them in the best ways that our foremothers and forefathers were treated or, if they were treated harshly, we treat them as we wish they had been treated. It moves us from the hostility of some to acting out of hospitality for all. It means that the first fruits of our own congregations are used to welcome and to make a spiritual home for those who are away from theirs. It means that we reach out to those who, like us, suffer in the midst of drug addiction, depression, grief or any of the other conditions that human’s suffer and share those things we wish we would have had when we were in that position. It means we compassionately share our stories of thankfulness in a way that points towards hope and healing but doesn’t demand immediate embracing of hope and healing. Most often it means we give gifts of thanksgiving to God by simply being gently present with those who are hurting while recognizing that God is at work in those moments and may be calling us to do some of God’s work.
Sisters and brothers, we are a people of stories but the stories never really stand on their own. The stories we know are vehicles for meaning; are claims of current responsibility that God has on us and challenges to us as people who God has brought a very, very long way. God is a good God who loves us so much that God invites us to participate in the joyful, healing work of God. This God loves us so much that she is able to take out stories of pain and transform them in to motivation for current compassion. This God loves us so much that he is able to offer us opportunities to celebrate the abundance of life and love in those places where it sometimes seems as though life and love are absent. God is a good God who loves us very much and, ultimately, that is the fact that emerges from our stories. God is a good God who loves us. Sisters and brothers, we have stories to tell and are challenged by other stories that we can help have a happy ending. Amen and Amen.
posted by Rev. Michael Denton at 10:06 AM
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