Calling for a Little Backup 1/13/2002

William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture: Genesis 3:17-35

Where to begin….this sermon….any sermon….a year’s worth of sermons? How about a love story? You can never go wrong with a love story. Besides, isn’t that how we ended the year just past….with a love story (albeit, of a different kind)? That one spoke in “baby talk” about God’s passionate devotion to his creation. This one speaks (in gritty adult conversation) about Jacob and Rachel’s passionate devotion to each other. Oh, it’s a good one. So good that somebody ought to film it. But who would play Rachel? Meg Ryan? Gwynneth Paltrow? Julia Roberts? Ponder that for a while. Drop me a note, mid-week, if it keeps you awake. Somebody in the church should think about it before the people in Hollywood think about it for us.

Actually, Rachel enters the story late. As does Jacob, by a few seconds. A few seconds, that is, behind his twin brother Esau, at whose heel the Bible says Jacob is grabbing when they come…. first one, then the other….from the womb. It is as if Jacob is saying, even prenatally: “Out of the way. Me first.” Which wasn’t how it turned out at birth. But which was very much how it turned out in life, given that Esau was never so quick again as the day he came into the world. In fact, Esau was slow. Of step. Worse yet, of wit. And hairy, too (or so the Bible says). For we are told that Esau was a hairy man while Jacob was a smooth man.

I don’t know much about that. What I do know is that Jacob soon surpassed his slightly-older brother….tricking him once….tricking him twice….even tricking their daddy with the connivance of their mommy (go to work on that one, all of you amateur Freudians)….to the point that by the time both boys were teenagers, Jacob owned the elevator while Esau got the shaft.

Which made Esau rip-roaring mad. And which made Jacob leave town (quickly), finally landing in the land of Aram (which, today, would put him squarely in the middle of Syria). Which was his mother’s brother’s land….meaning his uncle’s land….meaning his uncle Laban’s land. But before Jacob reaches town, he reaches the town’s well….the local “watering hole” as it were…. where, as sometimes happens at local Birmingham watering holes, he meets a woman. And he falls deeply (and immediately) in love. Within three verses of meeting sweet Rachel, we are told that he kisses her and breaks into tears. Jacob is the first person to fall in love in the Bible (or so Harold Kushner, America’s favorite rabbi, tells me). Prior to Jacob, men take wives and may, or may not, come to love them once the deal is done.

Jacob wants to marry Rachel but, because he has left town quickly and because his wealth is future-wealth rather than reach-in-your-pocket-and-flash-a-big-bankroll-wealth, he has no money to pay for Rachel. For you see, in agricultural societies, the loss of a daughter represented the loss of a field hand. So the would-be suitor needed to put up some kind of compensation for thinning the family work force. Which Jacob did by saying to Laban (his uncle….Rachel’s daddy): “Look, in exchange for sweet Rachel, I’ll work for you seven years. Work hard. Work long. Work cheap. Like, for nothing.”

Seven years come. Seven years go. And concerning those seven years, the Bible says: “They seemed to Jacob as but a few days because of the love he had for her.” All you single guys out there, write that down on your bulletin. If a variation on that line doesn’t wow her, she’s got a block of ice where her heart should be.

So there is a ceremony. Everybody sings. Everybody dances. Everybody drinks. Everybody drinks too much. And old Uncle Laban….wily old Uncle Laban….pulls a fast one on the fast one, slipping Rachel’s older sister, Leah, into the marriage bed in the place where Rachel ought to be. Leading Jacob to learn what many have subsequently discovered. That as clever as you are, sooner or later you’re going to run up against somebody slicker than you are.

So, back to the drawing board. How many more years for Rachel? Seven more years for Rachel. Which Jacob pays. I told you this is a love story. Finally, fourteen years after their first kiss, Jacob and Rachel are properly husband and wife, just as Jacob and Leah are husband and wife (although Leah, if you read Genesis carefully, is primarily a baby-maker, while Rachel is clearly the beloved).

Still, nobody leaves Syria for six more years. During that period, Jacob prospers….both in terms of children and animals. Then, in year twenty, Jacob (with a little nocturnal nudging from God) says to wives, kids, manservants, maidservants and sheep (insofar as one can talk to sheep): “It’s time to get out of here. Let’s go home.”

The story, which is actually a paste-together job of two different writers, then gets a tad fuzzy as to whether Jacob’s getaway is going to be easy or hard. Assuming it is going to be hard, Jacob rounds everybody up and leaves the ranch while Laban’s back is turned, giving himself (and his not-unsizable entourage) a three-day head start on his uncle.

But with all those babies.…not to mention all those sheep….Jacob can’t move very fast. So seven days later, Uncle Laban and his band of merry men catch up with the departees, whereupon everybody huffs a lot, puffs a lot, bluffs a lot, but nobody hurts anybody….or even threatens to hurt anybody….until Laban says: “You stole my gods. It’s bad enough that you took my daughters, my grandbabies and my sheep. But why did you have to grab my gods, too?”

What are we talking about here? We are talking about “teraphim” here….household idols…. small cultic worship objects….maybe with a carved face, maybe not….maybe figurines, maybe not. Nobody’s quite sure what they were. Or who took them. And in the dominant version of the story, Jacob doesn’t know who took them. In fact, so sure is Jacob that nobody in his party took Laban’s gods, that he tells his uncle: “Go ahead and look. You find ‘em….whoever has ‘em….I’ll kill ‘em.” Well, you know who has ‘em, don’t you? Of course you know who has ‘em. Rachel has ‘em. She swept them up on the way out of town and has been hiding them ever since. But Laban, at Jacob’s urging, goes hunting. He turns Jacob’s tent upside down. No gods. He turns Leah’s tent inside out. No gods. He searches both maidservants’ tents….and, for all I know, every other tent on the grounds. No gods.

Finally, he reaches Rachel’s tent. Where Rachel is sitting. On the gods. And she says: “Pardon me, father, if I do not rise up and show you proper respect, because (at the moment) it is with me as it sometimes is with women.” Meaning that Rachel is in the red tent (to borrow an image from a well-written and popular novel). For to “be in the way of women” is to be religiously and ritualistically “unclean.” To which Laban can only say: “Oh….(or) Sorry….(or) Next time I’ll knock.” In point of fact, whatever Laban said is lost to history, since neither storyteller bothered to record it.

The question, of course, is why? Not why didn’t they record it. But why did Rachel steal the gods?

            To add to the booty?

                        Possibly, but not likely.

            To show up her daddy?

                        Possibly, but not likely.

            To present to her hubby?

                        Possibly, but highly unlikely.

The gods Rachel stole were not representations of her husband’s God. Presumably, over the twenty years of conversation following that first kiss, Jacob’s God had become Rachel’s God. Presumably, they had come to some kind of agreement that theirs was the one God….the creator of the heavens and the earth….the God of the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and soon-to-be Joseph (her child, Joseph)….the one God of Moses and the Law, David and the monarchy, Isaiah and the prophets….the God of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ….and through him, the God of our faith, apostolic and universal, which even we (at least one Sunday in six) rise and fervently proclaim. So what is this business about Rachel’s sweeping “holy stuff” off her daddy’s mantel and stuffing it under her skirt?

Well, I think I have figured it out. What’s more, I’ve even found a trio of scholarly commentators who agree with me. Rachel grabs the gods because she wants a little backup in case the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (and all those other guys) can’t cut it and falls short on delivery. Concerning Jacob’s God, Rachel saluted, but isn’t certain….signed on, but isn’t sure….traveled seven days down the road, but is covering her bets….just in case. And, in that regard, I submit that she is not all that different from a lot of us. Her sin (if schlepping the gods under her skirt can be termed a sin as opposed to a “weakness of the spirit”) is not thievery, nor is it idolatry, so much as what I called in last Sunday’s unison prayer: “Our on again, off again, trust in God.” “Sure I believe,” she said. “But in a world where slam dunks are hard to come by, doesn’t everybody hedge their bets?” She steals the gods from her father because she never knows when she may need them. And she hides her theft from her husband because what spouse wants to tell the last of the true believers (or, in her case, one of the first of the true believers) that, spiritually speaking, she’ll go where he goes, but she’s not where he is.

I abhor telling old preacher-stories that have already found their way into 74,000 sermons. For you’ve heard at least one variation about the man who tumbles off a cliff, finds himself in free fall, grabs a branch, hangs on for dear life, looks in the general direction of the heavens, and then lifts a prayer: “Hey, I say, is there anybody up there?” To which God answers: “Hey Joe….I know….I’ll show….let go….my arms will hold you.”

Still clinging to the branch, Joe prays once more: “Again, I say, is there anybody up there?” Second time, same answer: “Hey Joe….I know.…I’ll show….let go….my arms will hold you.” Third time, same prayer, same answer. Fourth time, new prayer: “Hey, I say, is there anybody else up there?”

The last time Billy Graham was in town, I chartered a bus, posted a sign-up sheet and took a bunch of my parishioners to the Silverdome. We sang. Billy preached. Then we settled ourselves in for the altar call. During the third verse of “Just As I Am,” one of our most committed leaders rose from his seat and went down front. We waited on him, just like Billy said we would. A half hour later, our paths crossed on the way to the bus. I half expected he would say: “You know, Bill, I’ve always been a Christian and I’ve always loved the church. But something happened tonight that touched a nerve in me and that opened a door for me….one that I just needed to walk through.” In point of fact, I had figured out half a dozen things he might possibly say to me. But what I was not prepared to hear was the explanation he finally offered, when he said: “I just figured, hey, it can’t hurt.”

Twenty-five years later, I’m still thinking about his answer. It’s clear that he wasn’t talking about a just-in-time commitment so much as a just-in-case commitment (just in case the commitments I have made before weren’t enough….just in case the beliefs I’ve expressed before weren’t enough….just in case the faith I’ve proclaimed before wasn’t enough). Nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong at all. But pushing the logic, maybe he should join three or four additional churches, then get baptized in every one. He sounded like my father who never had any feeling for things “Catholic,” yet never drove a car (I mean never drove a car) without a St. Christopher medal pinned to the headliner….just in case, don’t you see….just in case.

No big deal, really. No big deal at all. If it makes you feel better….more confident….more secure (ah, that’s it, more secure)….why not? In fact, why make a fuss about Rachel’s keeping a skirtful of gods? Only this….“this” being my suspicion (just a suspicion, mind you) that loyalty divided is loyalty diluted. Spiritually speaking, sooner or later you’ve got to put all your eggs in one basket. There is nobody else up there.

In the sixties there was what the Roman Catholic Church called the Second Vatican Council. And the changes introduced were so radical that they upset a great many of the faithful….including, to the surprise of absolutely no one, a great many of the priests. In an effort to soften the impact, sessions were scheduled for Catholic clergy, and Jesuits (who have always had a holy calling for teaching) were conscripted to explain the changes. One enlisted to this task was Father Gene Monahan. On the day in question, Father Monahan stood (center stage) before a throng of his colleagues….barefooted….wearing just a pair of whitewashed trousers and T-shirt (an undershirt, really)….and looking into the eyes of an auditorium filled with bewildered priests, this is what he said:

           " I am 54 years old. I have spent most of my adult life with my back turned to the congregation as I ministered to the altar. Now, the church says: “Turn around and face the people.”

           " I have spent most of my life hiding among the incense pots and candles doing my work as a cleric. And now the church says: “Come out and be with the people.”

           " I have spent most of my adult life saying the mass in Latin. And now the church says: “Speak English. It is the language of the people.”

On and on he went, describing the changes (personally and painfully)….until he reached the end of his litany and concluded: “As you can see, I have been stripped of almost everything. All that I have left is God.”

My friends, I would submit to you that where he stopped his speech is the best of all possible places to start our year.

Bigger Than a Breadbox 4/28/2002

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture: Job 38-42 (selected segments)

Recent letter writers to the New York Times are bemoaning the loss of the golden age of radio. If that be true, I don’t have the foggiest notion when that age was, let alone where it went. But I do remember a day before television when we sat in the living room and watched radio. If you don’t believe such a thing is possible, ask somebody who was there.

Among the shows I remember “watching” on the Philco was a game show entitled Twenty Questions, which featured a panel whose task it was to guess the name or nature of something by asking questions, no more than twenty. The only panelist’s name I recall is that of Lyle VanDeventer. I am certain, however, that by 12:05 this afternoon, I will have the entire panel, the emcee and the corporate sponsor, so gifted are you at coming up with such things.

There are only three “specifics” I remember about the show. First, the panel was very good. Second, the panelists were given one clue, namely that whatever was to be guessed could be classified as being animal, vegetable or mineral. Third, somewhere in the twenty questions a panelist was bound to ask: “Is it bigger than a breadbox?”

The very question dates me. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a kitchen with a breadbox. In fact, let’s have a show of hands if you still have a breadbox in your kitchen. Yesterday afternoon, in an antique shop in Tequesta, Florida, Kris found an old breadbox and suggested I carry it home as a prop. The price tag said $28, which wasn’t daunting. But then I realized I’d have to haul it on the plane. So, thanks to Duane Young of the 8:15 crowd, I now have this breadbox in the pulpit as a visual reminder.

The “breadbox question” was the panel’s way of getting at the issue of size. So much so, that the phrase “bigger than a breadbox” came to represent something that was rather large. A “yes” answer to the breadbox question kept the panel (and the rest of us ) from thinking in terms too small. But it is time to leave radio trivia behind and confess a theological bias. I am finding that I am at a stage in my life where it is becoming increasingly important to view God as being “bigger than a breadbox.” Or, to put it another way, I am growing increasingly irritated with movements that strip God of grandeur and holiness, the better that God might be perceived in terms more accessible and intimate.

We are witnessing the domestication of God in our time. Which is not without appeal. For it is nice to have a God who is comfortably relational. And relationships come easier when the one being related to is of a similar size. Several years ago, Modern Screen Magazine ran a series entitled “How the Stars Found Faith.” It was there that the late JaneRussell announced: “I love God. And when you get to know Him as I know Him, you’ll find He’s a living doll.” Which doesn’t do much for me. But I’m sure it meant something to Jane.

While the intimacy of Jane’s relationship with the Almighty seems a bit too intimate and familiar, I vividly recall a hymn of similar closeness:

            My God and I walk through the fields together.

            We walk and talk and jest as good friends do.

            We clasp our hands, our voices fill with laughter.

            My God and I walk through the meadows hue.

Other verses continue the image:

            He tells me of the years that went before me,

            When heavenly plans were made for me to be….

And then, jumping from pre-birth to post-death:

            This earth will pass, and with it common trifles,

            But God and I will go unendingly.

As a boy, I sang that hymn as a solo. It spoke powerfully once. And there are moments when it speaks powerfully still. I like the idea that mine is a “companioned journey.” There is comfort in the notion that God might take my hand in his. But a “companionable God” does not speak to all of me. For that God is a bit too small….and a bit too near. In that sentiment, I may well be alone. But hear me out.

When I used to teach Stephen Ministers how to be Stephen Ministers, one of my teaching specialties was prayer. It was my task to teach people how to pray out loud….in the company of others. Which is hard for the average person to do, given that prayer is perceived as being both personal and private. But there are techniques associated with doing it publicly. The first is to find a comfortable form of prayerful address. How are you going to address God aloud? What noun are you going to use? And what adjectives are you going to use to modify the noun?  In those years, I gave Stephen Ministers lists of nouns and adjectives, encouraging them to circle the ones that felt most natural. Some circled adjectives like “loving” and nouns like “Lord.” Others circled adjectives like “gentle” and nouns like “Friend.” A goodly number, both male and female, expressed an affinity with the noun “Father.” As do I. Yet I modify “Father” with adjectives like “almighty” and “heavenly.” I find myself less able to pray when the terms of address are too intimate, or when they suggest that prayer is simply a quiet little chat with someone as near as my elbow. Meaning that, as a form of approach, “gentle Friend” doesn’t do it for me.

I am in good historical company. The Jews of ancient Israel were terribly concerned lest God became overly familiar. Their concern permeated their laws. Don’t build statues of God. Don’t make images of God. Don’t even refer to God by name. That concern also permeated their stories. Consider Moses. God met him in a burning bush. But Moses was immediately told to take off his shoes, lest there be any assumption (on anybody’s part) that Moses, in full dress, had any right to be standing there.

But out of that encounter, God forged a relationship with Moses that was haunting and compelling. There was little doubt in Moses’ mind that he must do what God asked, which was to rescue God’s people. God had heard their groanings all the way from Egypt. Therefore, Moses was being sent to command the liberating effort, as well as be God’s chief negotiator in the court of Pharaoh. But in order to answer Pharaoh when the Egyptian ruler asked, “Says who?” (as surely he would), Moses said to God: “You had better give me your name.” But God simply answered: “Just tell them I Am who I Am. Tell Pharaoh that the great I Am sent you.” All of which was God’s way of saying: “There is more to me than any name can encompass.”

On another occasion, when Moses got overly close to God’s presence, he was told to turn around, face the mountain and hide himself in the cleft of the rock until God passed by, given that “no man can see the face of God and live.”

Sure, these stories are ancient. But they aren’t there by accident. These stories exist because our ancestors in the faith knew there was a danger in allowing a too-cozy relationship with deity to develop. For everything we humans get our hands on, we want to massage, manipulate, manage and muscle into submission. So why would it be any different if we humans were to get our hands on God?

We have seen the wisdom of such counsel. It explains why we begin worship with expressions of God’s grandeur. Didn’t we open our service this morning by singing:

            O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder

            Consider all the worlds thy hands have made.

            I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,

            Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

            Then sings my soul….WOW

            ….which was omitted from the text of the hymn, given that the lyricist decided to substitute the words “how great thou art.” But you get the idea.

There are, you see, good worshipful reasons for beginning thus. But I am not content to leave it there. I find myself needing to sing “How Great Thou Art” for a pair of personal reasons which, only now, are becoming clear to me. Kindly hear me out.

First, I need to sing of God’s grandeur as a way of clarifying whether my primary desire is that God serve me or lead me. I am 61 years old. This makes me at least middle aged. While far from the scrap heap of once-useful clergy, it has been a long time since anybody referred to me as “that bright young Turk of the church.” I have pretty much assessed my strengths, accommodated my weaknesses, and gotten comfortable with who I am. While I am sufficiently restless so as to never be completely settled, I do understand how easy it is for routines to become ruts, and for ruts to become caskets (albeit without ends or tops), and how tempting it is to cozy up to a God who will take care of me, companion me, fulfill me, forgive me, and allow my needs to set the agenda for our conversation, the better that I remain comfortable and secure.

But that is not the way I got here. I did not get here simply because God said “yes” to me, but because I also said “yes” to God. I did not get here simply by saying “Come into my life,” but rather “Take my life.” And I did not get here simply by making God welcome, but by submitting myself to obedience. For more than 60 years it has most often been “well with my soul” when I have been stretched in my skin. Comfortable as my surroundings are (and they are quite comfortable, thank you), this is still a barren land. And competent as I appear, I am very much a pilgrim. And so last Sunday’s hymn remains this Sunday’s prayer: “Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim in this barren land.”

A pair of lay people were talking about their newly-appointed preacher. Said one: “There is no question he will love us as we have never been loved.” To which the other responded: “But when the time comes, will he be able to lead us where we have never been led?” At this stage of my life, I need God the Leader every bit as much as I need God the Lover. At 60 years of age, I am reasonably certain that I am loved. Truth be told, I haven’t spent ten minutes in the last ten years wondering whether God loved me. What is less certain is that I know, with clarity, where God would have me go.

Second, I sing a hymn of grandeur because I need to turn large chunks of my world over to a God I can trust with confidence. At 61 years old, I am at the top of my game. I am healthy. I am competent. I do not lack for education or experience. I know how to get people moved. I know how to get things done. I know how to affect change. But every day I realize that what I bring to the world’s need….what I bring to the church’s need…..what I bring to your need….is literally a drop in the bucket of what is necessary. It is a strange feeling to have reached a point in my life when both my sense of confidence and my sense of inadequacy are higher than they have ever been.

In a great book title, Philip Watson paraphrased Martin Luther by reminding us to Let Go and Let God. And, on more days than not, I find myself saying: “What choice is there?” Still, I need to believe that God is equal to all that I dump in God’s lap.

John F. Kennedy once said the thing that surprised him the most about the presidency, once he got there, was how little power he had to actually do anything. I read Kennedy’s statement 30 years ago. But I am only coming to understand it now. For, even at the height of my powers, I can’t do much of anything, either. To be sure, I can choose which side will receive the weight of my oar. But this boat we call “history” seems increasingly beyond my capacity to steer….or beyond anybody else’s capacity, either. Most days, it seems as if we have settled for steerage by committee (which may explain why we keep going in circles). So handing more and more of it over to God seems like the only reasonable alternative.

Woody Allen once quipped that God wasn’t dead but was merely an underachiever. Which, to some, was irreverent….to others, funny. But it’s a fear that many hold. Is God up to the challenge? Therefore, it is imperative that (in my search for God) I end up where Job does, face to face with a God who is bigger than I am….knows more than I know….and whose immensity and intellect I can somehow trust. In fact, it is probably more important (at this stage of my life) that I trust God, than that I love him.

A few years ago, I found myself in the copilot’s seat of a twin engine prop plane piloted by a man named Ralph. Ralph was flying six of us from the Livingston County Airport to the St. Clair Inn for dinner. It was one of those charity auction deals where Kris and I got to tag along with the winners. And, for reasons not entirely clear to me, Ralph suggested I sit up front.

Copilot is the best seat in the house. Or it was, until I realized I didn’t know the first thing about flying or landing that plane. I mean, what if Ralph suddenly grabbed his chest and pitched forward? What would we do? So I watched everything Ralph did….just in case. I asked some very pointed aeronautical questions….just in case. I even tried on Ralph’s headset so that I could sense a connection with the voices on the ground….just in case. But there was no way I could learn enough, fast enough. That plane had only one pilot. And it wasn’t me.

As it turned out, there was no cause for worry. Ralph was an experienced pilot with a good record. And a good heart. I even noted that when the waitress at the St. Clair Inn took the beverage order, Ralph said: “Make mine tomato juice.” I smiled, knowing that I was in the hands of a prudent and responsible man. I was also in the hands of a friend.

But whether Ralph was a friend or a stranger was largely irrelevant to my flying experience. Sitting in the copilot’s seat, I found it did not matter whether Ralph loved me, liked me, or merely tolerated my presence as one who came with the deal. What mattered was Ralph’s ability to fly the plane.

Another Ralph (an embalmer by trade) once gave me one of the nicest compliments I ever received. I had just finished speaking to his Lion’s Club which, in those days, met in the basement of a bar. As we were walking back to the car, Ralph said: “You know, I love to watch a craftsman at work. I don’t care whether it’s a meat cutter, a bricklayer, another embalmer, or someone who does what you just did. I can’t get enough of it.”

Which brings us back to Job. Filled with doubts….filled with complaints….filled with uncertainties….his head swimming with questions about God and God’s ways….his hands bloody and raw from beating on the gates of heaven, refusing to leave without an audience with holiness….what does Job get?

                        Answers? No.

                        Assurances? No.

                        Affection? Not really.

What Job gets, for all of his trouble, is the privilege of glimpsing a Craftsman at work. Somehow, I find myself wanting to believe that as Job listened and watched (longer than anybody has before or since), he finally tiptoed away, closing the gate quietly behind him….satisfied that even if he (Job) was still in the dark, at least God knew what God was doing.

Note: Prior to the sermon, I confessed to an imbalance in my usage of the Bible for preaching, given that the last time I built a sermon around an Old Testament text was in the month of January. I then talked about the Book of Job….what it was and what it wasn’t. I suggested that the first 37 chapters alternated between Job’s lament and Job’s complaint, relative to the disproportional amount of suffering that had befallen him. But I suggested that chapters 38-42….when Job is finally granted an audience with the Almighty…. did not so much record God’s answers as God’s questions. I then said it was not too far out of line to suggest that the sum of God’s interrogation could be gathered under the heading: “So What Do You Know About Running a Universe?” Following which I read selectively from God’s questions to Job and, more pointedly, from Job’s humble responses to God….where, in effect, Job confessed that he really didn’t know much about running a uni