“Ask the Questions”

Reverend Amy Zalk Larson

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church  

 Decorah, Iowa

Click here to read the story for today.

Beloved people of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

Recently a school board in Utah decided that the Bible should be removed from elementary school libraries. Utah has a new law banning “pornographic or indecent” materials in public school settings. In an attempt to undermine that law, a parent made the case that the Bible should be banned. After all, she argued, the Bible contains descriptions of incest, prostitu- tion, rape, infanticide. The majority of the school board sided with her. Not surprisingly, the decision is being appealed.

That whole situation has helped me think differently about the story of God asking Abra- ham to sacrifice Isaac. I’ve sometimes wondered if we should even read it anymore, espe- cially in public worship with kids present. It’s so troubling. What kind of God would ask this of Abraham and put Isaac through this? Even if there was a larger plan, why traumatize Isaac by asking his father to bind him and hold a knife up to him? Why does Abraham agree so readily? Why doesn’t he protest?

I’m concerned about how this story has been heard and used throughout the centuries. How does it sound to survivors of abuse and violence? How often has it been used to justify religious extremism?  An attitude of I must fear God before all else has led people to neglect and harm those who get in the way of such single-minded devotion. There is a lot of evi- dence that this story helped the Jewish people move away from the common ancient prac- tice of child sacrifice. God provided a ram showing God does not desire the death of child- ren. Still, many argue that this story has done irreparable harm and should never be heard again.

The recent discussions about banning books are giving me a new perspective on this story.

When there are things that make us uncomfortable – in our scriptures, in our society, in our own lives – it’s tempting to avoid them or push them away. But does that help? Does it work to push family secrets under the rug? Is it good to keep children from learning painful sto- ries? We often do that these days, but how is it working out for us and for the kids?

What happens when we face what is hard with curiosity, with compassion together? This week, I’ve been curious about Isaac’s role in this story. Often, we focus on what God may have been trying to teach Abraham through this whole ordeal. But then Isaac just becomes an abstraction, an object lesson, rather than a person, a child. It seems important to pay at- tention to the child in this story. Abraham does that. Even as he is responding to God, he is also responding to his son.

Maybe you caught this when we read the story together. God calls to Abraham twice and both times, Abraham says, “Here I am.” Isaac also calls to him, and Abraham responds the same way, “Here I am.”  Abraham attends to the voice of God as well as the voice of his son.

It’s interesting, too, that Isaac does have a voice in this story. He speaks. He asks a question, ‘Where is the lamb for the burnt offering, father?’ I picture Abraham wincing at Isaac’s question, thinking “Ugh … I was hoping to keep this from him a bit longer”, hoping he wouldn’t notice the missing animal just yet.

But kids often pick up on a lot more than we realize. They don’t miss much. Kids in our day also ask difficult questions: questions about gun violence, racism, climate change, about  what kind of future we are leaving them. How are we attending to what they ask of us? Will we try to silence their questions, their voices? Will we seek to shield them from pain, try to pretend it doesn’t exist?

Abraham’s child asks a painful question that points the way forward. “Where is the lamb … father?” Abraham responds, “God will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” I 

wonder if Abraham is surprised by what comes out of his own mouth. I wonder if Isaac’s question and his response help him begin to trust, begin to hope that maybe God will pro- vide, maybe he doesn’t have to provide everything himself.

I wonder if Abraham needed Isaac’s painful, revealing question. I wonder what questions we need today? How can we welcome uncomfortable observations, painful revelations,   hard questions, rather than avoiding them or pushing them away? How can we stay with what unsettles us? How can we respond, “Here I am,” to God and to others, even when we feel uncertain and afraid?

This is a place, a community, where we can ask hard questions about God, our lives, the life of the world, the future. This is a community where we can be with what is uncomfortable –

breathing with it, praying with it, staying with it – where we can bring all that troubles us to God. This is a community where we can begin, again and again, to trust, to hope, to discover the ways that God does provide.

Here we are assured that God doesn’t shy away from what’s hard. God faces it head on. Our Heavenly Father knows what it is to give his own son, to witness his son’s death. Jesus knows what it is to suffer. The Spirit shares in our own weakness.

We are not alone.

We are accompanied, every step of the way, by the God who provides.

We can practice compassion and curiosity, trust and hope, together.

“Kindness Amid Regrets”

Reverend Amy Zalk Larson

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church  

 Decorah, Iowa

Genesis 21: 8-21. Click here to read scripture story for today.

Beloved People of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

If only…

What if?

I regret…

No regrets.

What do we do with regrets, with that feeling that things could have been different? I just read a story about a woman named Jane Parker who says she has never regretted anything in her life. “I made all my choices in good faith, so how can I regret anything?” she explained to a forgiveness researcher who had come to interview her. Yet as the researcher prepared to leave, Jane began to look uncomfortable. “You know, there is one thing I do regret,” she admitted, “I need to be perfect- ly honest here. I regret saying something [harsh] to my father [when my mother was dying.]”

How do we deal with regret in our personal lives, and as we look at the world around us? If only we’d paid attention to climate scientists earlier. What if that election had gone differently? If only

I hadn’t said that. What if I’d known that then?

I wonder if regret is what makes Sarah treat Hagar and Ishmael so badly. We need a little back-

story to get at what’s happening in our story for today. After years of waiting, Sarah’s son Isaac is finally born. She rejoices with laughter and calls everyone to laugh with her. Yet, as her child ages,

something casts a shadow over this joy for Sarah; or rather, someone casts a shadow – Ishmael, Abraham’s firstborn son. Whenever Sarah looks at Ishmael, she feels anger. She feels jealous and protective of her own son.

And, I wonder if Sarah also wants to kick herself. Ishmael wouldn’t even exist if not for her. It was Sarah’s idea to have Abraham conceive a child with Hagar, the woman they’d enslaved. Sarah had been waiting so long for God to keep the promise of a son. She was getting weary and impatient.

So, she took matters into her own hands. She told Abraham to go into Hagar and Abraham listened to the voice of Sarah, rather than the voice of God. Hagar conceived and great tension grew be- tween Sarah and Hagar. Sarah treated Hagar terribly and the pregnant Hagar fled to the wilder- ness. An angel of the Lord found her and told her to return to Sarah and Abraham, and promised that her soon to be born son would be a father of multitudes.

Now, Sarah sees Hagar’s child Ishmael every day. Everyday, Sarah must face the consequences of her failure to trust God. I imagine her regrets grow as Ishmael grows, and that these regrets hard- en and corrode Sarah’s life. I wonder if she beats herself up for it all, if she just wants to rid her- self of the constant reminder of her own mistakes. After her own son is born and survives infancy, Sarah can’t take it anymore. She orders Abraham to cast Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilder- ness.

This whole saga provokes great animosity between the descendants of Isaac and those of Ishmael,

animosity that persists still today. Since Jews and Christians claim Abraham as the father of our faith, through Isaac’s line. and Muslims claim Abraham through Ishmael’s line.

If only … What if?

If only Sarah and Abraham hadn’t enslaved Hagar.

If only Sarah had trusted God.

What if Isaac and Ishmael had grown up together, under one roof?

If only there was more respect and understanding between all the children of Abraham. How would human history be different?

What do we do with regrets on a personal and global scale? How do we deal with the conse- quences of mistakes and failures: individual, generational, and collective sin? It might help to look at how God deals with it all. God shows great compassion to Sarah, as well as to Hagar and Ishma- el. After Sarah unleashes this division in Abraham’s household, God could say, that’s it! Sarah, you messed up, I’m writing you out of the story, going to work only with Hagar and her son now. But that’s not what happens. God keeps the promise to Sarah and her son is born. God brings Sarah laughter and rejoicing.

God could also say, oh … this Hagar and Ishmael thing is not what I intended. Things will be a lot easier if we all just pretend that they never existed. God doesn’t do that either. Both times that Ha- gar is wandering in the wilderness, God finds her, helps her, and makes promises to her. The first time, when she’s pregnant with Ishmael, Hagar even gets to name God, naming him El-Roi the God who sees. She is the only person in all of scripture who gets to give God a name. The outcast is lift- ed up.

In her story, we see that God treasures Hagar and Ishmael as well as Sarah and Isaac, that God treasures all people, not just the chosen people. It’s clear that Abraham and Sarah are chosen

not because they’re so morally superior, and that being chosen doesn’t mean everything will be easy. Being chosen simply means God wants to bless the world through them. In the stories of Hagar, Sarah, and Abraham, we see God’s compassion and care for all of us broken people. This compassion provides a way forward.

When we are wandering in the wilderness, suffering the consequences of individual, generation- al, and collective sin, God sees us and hears our cries. God finds us and accompanies us with prom- ise and provision. God’s compassion can also help us live differently with regret. We can’t change the past. Yet God guides us into more life-giving responses. If we beat ourselves up, we get hard-

ened and harsh. If we try to banish any regrets, they’ll likely persist in the margins of our lives

and imaginations.

In our country, for instance, it doesn’t work to deny the impact of enslaving human beings for generations. We need to face the consequences with compassion for everyone who’s been impact- ed by this. As author Resmaa Menakem helps us see in his book My Grandmother’s Hands, we all carry racialized trauma in our bodies because of centuries of chattel slavery. We all need compas- sion to work it through our bodies.

God’s compassion provides a way forward. God guides us onto new paths – paths of kindness to ourselves, paths of kindness to others. God opens our eyes to provisions, to water, to life, that we had overlooked. God provides wellsprings of compassion, connection, and forgiveness in creation,

in the sacraments, in our bodies, in community.

Hagar is right.

God is a God who sees.

God sees all our sin, all our regret, all the messes we’ve made.

Yet God looks upon us, upon you and me, with such love.

God leads us in the way of love, the only way forward.

Reverend Amy Zalk Larson

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church  

 Decorah, Iowa

Click here to read scripture story for the day.

Beloved People of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus. Amen.

What do you call an angry carrot?

A steamed veggie.

Where do polar bears keep their money?

In a snowbank.

How do you make an egg roll?

You push it!

Consider these cheesy “dad jokes” a shoutout to anyone who tells them and to all of you who get to endure, I mean enjoy them.

We need laughter. It is an essential gift from God. Sarah’s story reveals this. When she overhears divine messengers promise that she will have a son, Sarah can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. This is a ridiculous promise. She is well past childbearing age. Abraham is old. Besides, Sarah has been living with some version of this promise for almost twenty-five years now. And it has totally upended her life multiple times.

When God first came to her husband Abraham and said, “Go, I will give you children and land and you will be a blessing”, Sarah left everything behind, all her family, everything she’d ever known. Soon fam- ine hit and they had to detour to Egypt. Sarah was forced into Pharaoh’s harem of wives, thanks to Abra- ham passing her off as his sister. Then Sarah decided that a woman they’d enslaved, Hagar, would pro- vide the child for Abraham. She regretted that decision almost immediately and behaved very badly.

The long unfulfilled promise of a son has led to great suffering. So, when Sarah hears it renewed, she laughs. She laughs at how ridiculous, how absurd, how silly it all is. Sarah’s laughter reminds me a bit

of what we often call gallows humor – grim and ironic humor in a desperate or hopeless situation. I remember a Zoom call with other pastors during the Omicron surge. We were weary as we talked about recording worship in still empty sanctuaries, outdoor worship in the bitter cold, updating COVID poli- cies yet again. Then one person held up an individual serving of communion. Well, she said grimly, at least we have “Jesus Lunchables.” The laughter that erupted was a release of tension and a defense a- gainst despair.

Sarah needs that kind of laughter. When hope hurts, when you wake with longing that is unmet, laughter is essential. When Sarah overhears the divine messengers, she laughs to herself, a little too loudly as it turns out. God hears her and asks, why did Sarah laugh? She tries to deny it, and while God does insist on the truth, “Oh yes, you did laugh,” God also doesn’t condemn Sarah. I imagine God saying, “Oh yes, you did laugh”, with a smile, with a twinkle in God’s eye. I imagine that God knows Sarah needs to laugh.

I believe God knows we need to laugh. We need the release, the bonding, the defiance, the endorphins

that come from laughter. And we need so many different kinds of laughter: giggles, chortles, belly laughs, guffaws, laughter that makes you snort, gallows humor, sarcasm, even dad jokes. We need to laugh with each other. We need to laugh at ourselves, not take ourselves too seriously. We don’t need the jeers and sneers involved with laughing at other people. But most laughter is holy and healing.

And, as Luther Seminary Professor Kathryn Schifferdecker puts it, God creates the best comedy there is, comedy in the classical sense. “Which is to say God doesn’t create stand-up routines or canned laugh tracks, but comedy as something so extraordinarily good that it’s hard to believe, something so out-of- the-ordinary that we laugh until the tears stream down.”^[1] God creates what Fredrick Buechner describes as the high comedy of Christ, the high comedy of resurrection. High comedy which ultimately brings “glad tears, at last, not sad tears, tears at the hilarious unexpectedness of things rather than at their tragic expectedness.”^[2]

Much of our lives is governed by the tragic expectedness of things. Lives are upended. We regret our decisions and behave badly. We get sick. Our loved ones die.Racism persists. This is the way of our broken world – tragic expectedness. Laughter helps us connect to a deeper reality, that God is at work disrupting the ways of the world. When Sarah’s child is finally born, she declares, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.”

God does absurd, unexpected, ridiculous things to subvert tragic expectedness. Babies are born to 100- year-old parents, a shepherd boy defeats a giant bully, Jesus raises the dead and is raised from the dead.

Yet still, it can be hard for us to laugh, to rejoice in these events when we pray for miracles that don’t come to pass: When the long-awaited baby isn’t born, when prayers for healing seem to go unanswered,

when we must carry grief for our children to our graves.

Author Debie Thomas writes that God’s miracles are not an end to themselves but rather, a glimpse into the heart of God. “What kind of God multiplies loaves and fishes for the poorest of the poor?” she asks.

“What matters most to a God who stops in his tracks to heal a woman ravaged by a hemorrhage? What kind of joyous, celebratory laughter resides in a God who makes the wine flow at a wedding? What

kind of tender heart beats in the chest of a God who raises a dead son and restores him to his widowed mother?”

Thomas also reflects that God’s miracles ask something of all of us. “Since [we’re] called [as Christians] to walk in the footsteps of this loving, liberating, healing, resurrecting God, then how should [we] live?

If Jesus’ miracles are about rupture and resistance, if they are subversive acts of defiance against the world’s sin, suffering, and brokenness, then what will [our] resistance look like? How will [faith in a God who works such miracles] translate into Christlike action?”^[3]

Laughter can fuel Christlike action. Laughing along with others allows us to practice empathy and ac- company each other as we wait and pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth. Laughter builds commu- nities of hope and faith. Laughter helps us experience and share resurrection, God’s disruptions, God’s new life.

Scriptures call us to weep with those who weep and to rejoice with those who rejoice. It is also impor- tant to laugh. So, thank you, dad jokes. Thank you, God, for you fill our mouths with laughter, and our tongues with shouts of joy.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

[1]https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-11/commentary-on-genesis-181-15-211-7-6

[2] Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale (Harper & Row, 1977), p. 61.

[3] https://www.christiancentury.org/believing-in-miracles

Reverend Amy Zalk Larson, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Decorah, Iowa

Click here to read scriptures for this Sunday.

Beloved People of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

It’s funny the things that stick with you from childhood. I don’t have a great long-term memory but for some reason, the chorus of a song I learned in Sunday School has stayed with me:

I am a promise
I am a possibility
I am a promise with a capital “P”
I am a great big bundle of potentiality

I loved this song as a kid, though I didn’t know what potentiality meant. But it came to mind this week because the story of Abram and Sarai stands in such sharp contrast to it. God chooses the two of them to become the family through which God will bless the whole world. And when God chooses Abram and Sarai for this role, they aren’t great candidates for the job. They certainly are not great big bundles of potentiality.

They’re getting on in years. And in all their long years, they haven’t been able to conceive and bear children. They haven’t done anything flashy to win God’s favor. They certainly don’t have the energy of Sunday School kids belting out a song about their promise or the hopefulness of new graduates launching into a bright future. Sarai and Abram are just two names in a long list of names, so and so was the father of so and so who was the father of so and so. The only thing noteworthy about them is that they can’t have children.

As they face the ends of their lives without children to keep their memory alive, things feel bleak for them. Then, out of the blue, God comes to Abram and says, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”

God makes them a promise:

God doesn’t say you have a lot of potential, so I will bless you;

God doesn’t say, I’m pleased with you, so I will bless you;

God doesn’t say, if you clean up your act, I will bless you;

God says, go, I will bless you.

The promise isn’t because of who they are. It is because of who God is and what God does. God makes promises. God chooses unlikely people, people without a lot of promise or potential. God does something new when all looks bleak and barren and hopeless. The promise depends upon God, not on Abram and Sarai.

That “I am a Promise” song, and so much of American Christianity, puts the emphasis on the ego’s favorite words, I and me, rather than on God. Every single line of the chorus and of the whole song starts with I, as in I am, I can. In the twelve lines of lyrics, the words I and me show up fifteen times and God is mentioned just four times. This song is an extreme version of what’s often at play in our lives: We place so much emphasis on ourselves! Yet a focus on human potential and promise can lead us into two ditches in this journey of life. One ditch is the anxiety that comes when we feel everything depends upon us. We better live up to our potential and make things happen. The other ditch is despair when we see how messed up we humans are and think that there is absolutely no hope.

Thanks be to God, it isn’t all up to us. Life and goodness and change and possibility and newness do not depend upon us. Our hope is not in our own promise. Our hope is in the God of promise who brings new life when all looks bleak and barren and hopeless:

God brings new creation and order out of chaos;

God gives life to all that is dead;

God orients us to hope when all looks bleak.

God changes everything for Abram and Sarai. Eventually, even their names are changed to Abraham and Sarah to indicate that they will be father and mother of a great nation. Their story is the stuff of legends. Yet, God is always at work, sometimes in less dramatic ways, to bring new life and hope to us, to you.

God is at work when life feels chaotic and you are reminded, God is God, I am not, I can rest.

God is at work when you are assured: In the name of Jesus your sins are forgiven and then can let go of the shame you’ve been carrying.

God is at work when you keep on hoping and trying and working through long years of waiting, when others keep showing up for you and you keep showing up for them.

Whether you are feeling flashy or bleak, despairing or full of potentiality, God is at work in, for, and through you. You are loved, forgiven, and set free to follow God into God’s promised future, a future with hope.

Reverend Amy Zalk Larson, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Decorah, Iowa

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved People of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

Our Bible was forged from a crisis of faith. That’s how one of my favorite authors describes the formation of the Hebrew Bible which is also known as the Old Testament. Forged from a crisis of faith, writes the late Rachel Held Evans in her book, Inspired. Held Evans also imagines a night in a Jewish home long ago, a night that reveals more about that crisis of faith, and why it led the Jews to narrate the creation story that we just read together. I’ll share an abbreviated description of this imagined night.

The Sabbath is about to begin. It’s time for the family to gather and remember God’s goodness. Except tonight, the family’s teenage son, Haggai, is late. Mama and Papa are getting worried and frustrated. Sabbath has always been important but it’s essential in these times. It reminds the family that they are God’s people, a truth that’s hard to claim these days. Once their people had a beautiful temple, a king, and a great expanse of land. But then the ruthless Babylonians destroyed it all. Now their people must live in exile in Babylon and serve their conquerors. Sabbath helps them remember a power greater than Babylon. 

But Haggai is late. When he finally bursts into the house, he can’t contain his excitement. I heard the most amazing story! he exclaims, and then launches into a violent tale about the creation of the world, one he’s heard on the streets of Babylon. In the beginning there was just chaos, Haggai declares. The gods began to fight and then there was a huge battle between the god Marduk and his grandmother, the god Tiamuk. Marduk won and used the remains of Tiamuk’s body to order creation. He got everything under control, with him on top of it all. He created humanity from the blood of his enemies so that hu- mans could serve the gods. The King is his emissary. 

When Haggai is finished narrating this tale, he bows. The house is silent. Finally, after a long pause, Papa invites the whole family to gather around him. I have a story too, he says, a twinkle returning to his eye, one passed down from my father and his father and his father before him. Listen carefully. Papa then tells a story like the one we just read together from Genesis. Papa’s tale shares elements with the Babylonian creation story and yet paints a very different picture of God, creation, and humanity.

There was chaos in the beginning, but the Spirit of God was moving over the waters. Then God spoke and creation began. No great battle between the gods, no grandmothers killed. God brought order through life giving words, not domination. God created all people in God’s image, all are charged with watching over creation. All people are God’s emissaries, not just the King. None are to be slaves. When Papa finishes, Haggai is reflective. He apologizes for being late for Sabbath. Papa tousles his hair and forgives him.

The Genesis 1 creation story was forged as the Jewish people struggled to hold on to and pass on their faith during a time of exile. Our questions and struggles are different now, yet this creation story still speaks to them. Everything can feel chaotic, yet the Spirit of God moves over the chaos and orders the chaos with the Word. God can handle chaos. We often despair that anything can ever change, yet God speaks and things happen, life emerges, and it is good. We feel driven by ruthless task masters: the clock, the bottom line, the market, deadlines. Yet God takes time at the end of each and every day to reflect, to notice, to celebrate the goodness of what’s happened.

I love this aspect of this creation story. At the end of each day, God doesn’t say, Oh, I only got the land done, I should have done the plants and trees too. No, God delights in what’s been done, taking time to savor. It would be good for us to do the same at the end of each day. Years ago, I was encouraged to find at least three reasons to be grateful each night. Some days I’m just grateful that the day is over, but that counts! Evening came and then morning. A new day is coming.

This story also speaks to our loneliness and isolation. We have a God who is relationship at God’s core: One God, who is also three – God the creator, God the life-giving Word, God the Spirit. The three persons of the Trinity have been in a life-giving, self-giving dance since before the world began. And God has made room for us in this dance. God says, now we will make humans, and they will be like us. We are all made in God’s image. Every single person is of God and can help us to know more of God.

In this time of climate change, this story proclaims that we are all responsible for what God creates. We  are all charged with watching over and tending to creation each day, in big ways and small. The creation story in Genesis 1 is a story we need today. It isn’t the only creation story in scripture. There are actually around 20 depending on how you count. They all describe creation differently, especially the first two creation stories in Genesis. Which one is true? All of them are.

Our culture tends to think something is true if it can be proven by a scientific experiment or if it actually happened the way it was written. Yet there is truth that is beyond fact, beyond proof, truth that tells us who God is and who we are. These are mysteries that cannot be explained. They can only be experienced through stories, experienced in our bodies and our lives.

The same is true of the Trinity. We can’t explain how God is one and yet three. So, we gather to hear the stories. We gather to encounter and be in relationship with our good God. As we do, we are reminded of a power greater than rulers, greater than chaos, greater than the isolation, greater than the ruthless task masters of our day, greater than all that causes us to despair.

We encounter God who continues to create, redeem, and sustain us each new day.