Migration Stories (again)

 Migration Stories (again) 

 

We continue exploring Migration Stories in Genesis for the month of July. This weekend we will fast-forward a few chapters, so before we move ahead, let’s circle back and remember where we have been. In our first story (Genesis 12:1-9), God called Abram to “Go,” but it was more of a “Go from …” than “Go to …” since the destination is vaguely, “to the place where I will show you.” In other words, Abram was commanded to leave behind everything that gave him identity and security – his country, his kindred, and his father’s house. It is important to remember that not every migration story begins with a catastrophe or crisis. This one began with a call. The second story (Genesis 12:10-20) was initiated by a famine. This is one of the most common causes of migration, especially mass migration, throughout human history (and a recurring cause in the Scriptures). This part of the story puts Abram and Sarai in solidarity with so many people in the world today and – I suspect – even more people tomorrow who will be driven by changing climates. 

 

The third story (Genesis 13), which we heard last week, was not driven by deprivation, such as a famine, but by surplus. Abram was very rich; Lot was also wealthy. Their herders began to compete for watering or grazing resources. This, too, was a migration story that was not driven by despair or tragedy, but by wealth with a threatening tone of violence. The story has a moment of tension that is quite common: When Abram’s and Lot’s herders began jostling over water and grazing, the moment was fraught with the potential for violence. 

 

I think one of the best analyses of a moment like this, when communities begin to compete over resources, is a book from 1986 by Andrew Bard Schmookler entitled, The Parable of the Tribes. It is a long and detailed book, but it begins with a profound “parable” of some tribes, living in close proximity and how when one of those tribes decides to respond to the anxieties of limited resources by pursuing the path of violence, the other tribes have no choice but to submit, flee, or imitate the aggressive tribe. Schmookler then analyses much of human history through this lens of the parable, along with theories about war, economics, nationhood, colonialization, and other ways of interpreting history. The story of Abram and Lot threatens to reach that point: Their herders are on the verge of aggression and violence. And that is where Abram’s story takes a dramatic turn from much of history and from much of human tendency. Abram – who is the wealthier, the elder, and therefore in the position of greater power – reaches out with generosity. Abram believed in God’s promises to take care of him, and therefore he was able to respond to the common human anxiety about limited resources with generosity. 

 

I think this connection between faith in God’s provision and generosity can help us stipulate a difference between ‘wealth’ and ‘abundance.’ Wealth – as I am using it here – becomes concerned about protecting itself, increasing itself, and establishing itself as security. The parable in Luke 12:16-21 is a moment when Jesus addresses this kind of wealth-dependency thinking. What it leaves out of the equation is the God who gives life. Abundance – as I am using it here – looks like wealth in many ways. Abram had cattle, herds, servants, gold, and silver after all. But Abram’s trust was in God’s provision and therefore he was able to be generous, offering Lot his first choice of where to settle and make his way. In many ways, wealth has a way of taking hold of us, where abundance is a gift that we can share. 

 

I am trying to hear these stories as a way of structuring my own life – my anxieties, my investments, my giving, my spending, my dreams, and so forth. For now, despite all his flaws elsewhere, that ability of Abram to be generous when the human tendency is to be anxious is something that I am carrying around in my heart. Is my trust in God enabling me to be non-anxious and generous? Is yours? How can we lean in together with one another, recognizing that we often have legitimate worries, but always have a compassionate and abundant God who cares for us? That’s what I am finding profound about this third story in the Abram saga. 

 

This weekend we are moving ahead in our Migration stories. I hope to see you in worship! And please keep our youth in your prayers as they leave for Montreat today. 

 

Mark of St. Mark

The Grace of Doing Nothing

 The Grace of Doing Nothing 

Exodus 3:1-5; Luke 10:38-42

July 16^th/17^th 2022

St. Mark Presbyterian Church

D. Mark Davis

 

So, about six weeks into my sabbatical I started wondering, “What will be the Scripture text when I return?” I had decided ahead of time to follow the Common Lectionary for Worship, so that I could know what was coming and that Ryan and Alicia could plan ahead with me having to supply them with a sermon series or something of our own creation. It just seemed simpler to say, “When I get back we’ll follow the lectionary for a while, until we decide to do something else.” So, I looked it up and “Lo and Behold!” it was a story about a woman who gets criticized for not doing anything. One sister is working furiously and the other is just sitting there soaking it all in and the busy bee complains to Jesus about the sitter and Jesus actually sides with the one who is not working. THAT WOULD BE A PERFECT TEXT WHEN COMING BACK FROM A SABBATICAL, ESPECIALLY IF THERE ARE FOLKS OUT THERE WHO HAVE BEEN COMPLAINING, “WHY DOES HE GET TO DO NOTHING; I DON’T GET TO DO NOTHING!” The problem is nobody around here has been making that complaint – at least not out loud. On the contrary, you all have been incredibly supportive and encouraging to me throughout this time of being away, even if my absence did put some more work on some of your shoulders. So, we have this story and we do not need to use it as a bludgeon against those who are suspect of people who aren’t working hard enough. 

 

In fact, I want to begin by being sympathetic to Martha, the busy bee sister in this story, whose complaint to Jesus seems to get shot down in the end. It is true that Martha’s complaint about Mary is not sustained in this story – I’ve always felt that if we don’t like the way a story goes then we need to go find ourselves another story. But even so, that doesn’t mean that Martha is an awful person or being totally unreasonable. In fact, we can make the case that Martha is being exactly the kind of disciple that Jesus is calling, one who sets aside their own self-interest and looks to the needs of others. Look at the way that Martha welcomes Jesus into her home. The word that Luke uses here for “welcome” is used 3 other times in the New Testament, each one as an example of someone doing the right thing. And, frankly, Jesus needs to eat at some point. He may be the son of God but he’s the son of God in human flesh and humans need food to keep living. And Jesus has an entourage, so it’s not just a matter of adding a bit of water to the soup. Hospitality is a very important and central value in the Scriptures, so to the extent that Martha is offering hospitality to Jesus and his crew, she is doing the right and just thing. So, let’s start there. It’s not that “doing” is a problem or that having a servant’s heart is wrong. 

So, then, what is the problem? Luke uses a word that our version of the bible translates as “distracted.” That’s a fine translation, but the root of the word, “spao” is the word from which we get our words “spasm” and “spastic.” So, the issue here is not that Martha is doing something, that she’s serving, that she’s ensuring that the food gets from the pot to the bowls, that the drinks get from the pitcher into the cup, that everyone has what they need. The problem is that it’s all one big, giant tangled ball of need and frenzy and it causes Martha not only to serve but to lash out at the one whom she feels isn’t pulling her weight. We recognize that this is all set within a patriarchal setting and Martha doesn’t ask Jesus to tell Simon or Bartholomew to get up and shake a leg. But she does lash out at her sister and tries to get Jesus to join her, to make it a righteous indignation, not a matter of spastic frenzy. And that is not the kind of service that Jesus is willing to defend.  

 

Back in 1934, when Japan invaded Manchuria, there were a lot of folks in Europe and in the US, remembering the awful events of the First World War who began rattling their sabers and demanding military intervention to stop the aggression. And that is when Richard Niebuhr, an excellent theologian and ethicist, published an article in The Christian Century entitled, “The Grace of Doing Nothing.” Niebuhr was not arguing for quietism generally or passivity in times of trouble. He was addressing a specific moment that he put this way, “We are chafing at the bit, we are eager to do something constructive; but there is nothing constructive, it seems, that we can do.” Niebuhr said that I moments like this, “The problem we face is often that of choice between various kinds of inactivity rather than of choice between action and inaction.” 

 

There are different ways of “doing nothing.” There is laziness; there is fear; there is apathy; there is a lack of intervention because it doesn’t serve our own self-interest; there is a jaded way of hoping that the system will destroy itself in order to start anew. What Niebuhr was arguing for, in a situation where there was nothing constructive that could be done, was a kind of inactivity that “appears to be highly impracticable because it rests on the well-nigh-obsolete faith that there is a God—a real God.” For all of the language that we cultivate in church there is still a very deep skepticism even among Christian people that, when it comes to serious events of justice in the world, there is a God – a real God – who is active in history. This kind of faithful “doing nothing” is grounded in the self-awareness of our own faults, that whenever we intervene and act we are just as likely to make matters worse as to make matters right. So, this kind of “doing nothing” is grounded in repentance. Perhaps what is driving Niebuhr at this point is the observation that John Calvin made that the more we see God’s glory the more we can see human frailty. This kind of inactivity is not about being superior to others, but being aware of the God in the midst of it all.

 

In our story, Martha is serving and serving others is a manifestly Christian activity. But, spastic frenzy is a different matter. It is possible to be so attentive to getting the food from the pot to the bowls, the drinks from the pitcher into the cup, to stopping human trafficking, to curbing climate change, to enacting gun control, to giving women their right over what happens inside of their own bodies, to housing those who are without a home, to justice for the oppressed, to reversing the history of racism, to fixing all that is broken that we can overlook the presence of Christ, right here in our midst. That may be one reason why many people of faith – especially those of us who consider ourselves progressives, fighting for justice in the world – are often impatient with worship. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, to God be the glory, now let’s get moving!” 

 

Mary shows us another means of being faithful, which Jesus says is her way of choosing the good part. She is sitting at Jesus’ feet – not the place of someone in charge of things. And unlike Martha, whom Jesus says is anxious and perturbed about many things, she is focused on one thing –hearing Jesus’ word. And there are times that even in the midst of many things that need doing, even in the moment when we know that something must be done, even when the injustices of the world seem to be piling up one on top of the other bring us to a frenzied state of trying to fix everything all at once – there are times when grace lies in doing nothing, just sitting and listening to the word of the Lord. 

 

I am being very careful to say “there are times.” I cannot imagine that Mary’s inactivity is the only way of being faithful and we will hear another story next week that makes that very clear. In fact, one month after Richard Niebuhr published his essay entitled, “The Grace of Doing Nothing,” his brother Reinhold Niebuhr published a furious rebuttal entitled, “Must We Do Nothing?” We will hear Reinhold’s approach to the matter – much in line with Martha in our story – next week. But, today, I invite you to give Mary her moment and consider that even when, perhaps especially when, we feel the need to fix everything everywhere all at once, there is a peculiar grace of doing nothing that is grounded in trusting the God in our midst. 

 

 

 

Migrant Stories #2

 As you’ve heard me say, we are spending the month of July looking at “Migration Stories” in the book of Genesis. We started last week, looking at God’s call to Abram (later, Abraham) that started with the command to “Go from your country, your kindred, and your father’s house.” That simple beginning shows the enormous costs of migration – unrooting oneself from those places, customs, and relationships that give us our identity and security. It may be hard for those of us with cell phones and international means of communicating to feel the intensity of this moment. Migration begins with leaving. Leaving it all behind. And that is true whether one migrates willingly, like my Welsh ancestors coming to the US, or forcibly, like victims of war, or someone escaping domestic violence. 

 

Over the last week, many of you have reminded me of how present migration is in our own lifetimes. After worship someone introduced herself to me as a “second-generation immigrant.” Others remembered how St. Mark was heavily involved in resettling refugees from Viet Nam, a part of the migration story of Vu Tran that I mentioned in my sermon. Another person remembered the experiences of those who fled the dust bowl in Oklahoma and found it challenging to be accepted in other states, such as California. And last weekend, Bobbi Dauderman joined a group from one of our sister presbyteries that traveled down to the border to engage in “accompaniment” with migrants. If you want to learn more about this calling, you can watch John Fanestil’s remarkable presentation on it here. Migration has always been a part of human existence, initiated by any number of factors. And making a home, being in one’s place, having a rooting in culture, language, and space has also been a value. Let’s explore for a moment the tension between the migrant experience as the human experience and making a home as the human experience. 

 

One worship practice that the Hebrew people had – after they had settled in the Promised Land – was to remember their migrant roots. In Deuteronomy 26, there is a litany that one would recite when presenting an offering of “first fruits” from the harvest, that began with the words remembering Abram, “My father was a wandering Aramean.” The power of this litany was to remember one’s identity, one’s history, one’s roots, which is so easy to forget over time and when one is prosperous. I suspect US policies – both national and neighborhood – toward immigrants would be kinder and more just if every European descendent began their day with the words, “My ancestors, too, came to this land with hopes for a better life.” Part of the reason we offer an occasional “Land Acknowledgment” in worship is so that we don’t forget who we are by remembering where we are. 

 

The Christian Church also had to address the tension between being a migrant people and making a home. This conversation often took the form of how to practice a faith that is rooted in Jesus, a faithful Jew, and practice it among peoples who were not traditionally Jewish. That’s why I find Paul’s letter to the church in Rome to be such a powerful part of our faith. Here is a church, some with Jewish roots and some with Gentile (i.e. non-Jewish) roots, worshiping God and claiming Jesus Christ – a Jew condemned by his own religious leaders and executed by the Roman Empire. That church in Rome didn’t fit anywhere! Perhaps this is why Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon describe the Christian Church as “resident aliens,” never quite fitting in a world that is often shaped by violence and greed, antithetical to the Christian message. 

 

My point is that these migrant stories in Genesis are not just historical phenomena, and they are not just part of the story of general mass migrations. They show us what is at stake when one pulls up roots, leaves the identity and security of one’s own people behind, and follows God’s call with vulnerability. That is why I find the call to Abram in Genesis 12 to be akin to Jesus’ call for his followers to “take up our cross” and leave our securities behind. 

 

This week, we will hear a story during worship that shows how vulnerable Abram and his family were when answering God’s call. It is a maddening story, mostly because it is a true-to-life story. 

 

See you in worship,

MD