Read an Excerpt
The Light Shines Through
Our Stories Are God's Story
By Carole A. Wageman Church Publishing Incorporated
Copyright © 2017 Carol A. Wageman
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8192-3341-7
CHAPTER 1
The Promise God Just Doesn't Forget
A Story of God's Covenant with Abraham
Reflect: Have you ever received an unfulfilled promise?
Read: Genesis 15:1–6 and 17:1–7
My husband and I live on the western side of Vermont with the Green Mountains to our east, the Adirondack Mountains of New York State to the west, and Lake Champlain along with the extensive Champlain Valley in the middle. We are far enough away from any large city or town that light pollution does not impact us very much. On clear nights the stars stretch from horizon to horizon and some evenings we can see the Milky Way. I love those quiet moments of standing beneath God's grandeur. In the silence, one phrase from Psalm 8 always rings in my head:
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses, what is man that you should be mindful of him? (Ps. 8:4–5, BCP)
It is humbling to be reminded of the magnificence of creation: the stars, planets, galaxies; the bodies of water and all that swims within them; the many different climate zones and all that survives in them; and even the creative and mysterious splendor of the tiniest weed seed. In the midst of all that wonder, God just doesn't forget about us. What is humankind that you should be mindful of us and seek us out?
Looking at the stockpile of stars on those dark nights also makes me wonder what our ancient ancestor Abraham must have thought about God's promise to him:
"Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them." Then he [God] said to him, "So shall your descendants be." (Gen. 15:5)
I imagine Abraham had many such evenings of looking up into the heavens and pondering what God had in mind. Considering that God's covenant was to grant him descendants as many as the stars must have seemed like a pretty impressive promise for someone who, along with his wife, Sarah, was beyond child-bearing years.
Abraham did pretty well as a nomadic traveler. He would have been considered a wealthy and successful man with many possessions and an active household. He was able to defend himself and those for whom he was responsible with trained soldiers, but he was facing a troubling future that he could not seem to fix. He had no offspring. When the day came that he and his wife died, there would be no genetic line to continue on. No one to carry his name; to pass on his story to future generations; to inherit all he worked for in this life; to even remember and honor where Abraham, the faithful forefather of all this promise, was buried. Of what use was all that he had? He did not have that which really mattered to him. At the time of his death, his presence on this earth would be forgotten. In that time and culture, children were an indicator of a healthy relationship with God, so there was a bit of theological quandary here as well as spiritual disappointment in his situation.
The book of Genesis uses the words "Abram" and "Sarai" in the first covenant promise of chapter fifteen. The second covenant promise found in chapter seventeen is where God changes Abram's name to "Abraham" and Sarai's name to "Sarah." For simplification here, I am using "Abraham" and "Sarah" throughout unless quoting Scripture directly.
God's assurance of "Do not be afraid, Abram. ... Your reward shall be very great" (Gen. 15:1) did not seem to comfort him at all. What could God possibly give him that would really make a difference in his life? He had no children and even feared that his own servant, Eliezer of Damascus (most likely his chief steward), would wind up being his heir simply by default.
Abraham had already lived a pretty long life with Sarah, but giving birth to their own offspring had eluded them. This one thing, that was more important than anything he possessed, had never come his way and there was nothing he, himself, could do to fix it. It was truly not in his power to create a child of his own just because he wanted it. Yet God tells him to look up to the heavens in the silent night sky. What does he see? Billions of stars stretching from horizon to horizon; his ancestors will be like that, so many he will not be able to count them. How could that be possible?
And then comes a very short, almost throwaway line in the story: "And he believed the LORD ..." (Gen. 15:6). He simply believed, and God regarded his integrity as honest and upright. So God made a covenant with Abraham that indeed there would be descendants of Abraham's line even if it did not seem so at the time. God's word was more than a promise, more than a personal assurance; it was a covenant.
The idea of "covenant" appears several times in the Old Testament. It is a very ancient and complex understanding that goes back to treaties that ancient societies would make with each other for coexistence. A covenant was typically between two political entities, but throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, it is used to describe a unique understanding of God's relationship with his chosen people, and frequently some kind of "sign" went along with the agreement as a way to mark the pledge. The rainbow in the story of Noah is the sign that marks the covenant between God and all of creation following the Great Flood. In chapter seventeen of Genesis, the sign of covenant is circumcision of all males, symbolizing the singular relationship between God and Abraham and the descendants God promises will follow. Still later in the Moses tradition, the tablets of the Ten Commandments represent the covenant between God and all the Hebrew people who have been rescued out of slavery in Egypt. They eventually put the tablets in a box that they built according to God's specific blueprints so they could carry the commandments with them; it was called the Ark of the Covenant.
For Christians, perhaps the greatest sign of God's covenant with us is found in the life of Jesus, who gave himself fully to God by giving himself fully to us in obedience to God. It is no surprise, then, that Jesus marked that unique relationship by giving us a sign of the "new" covenant with God in the words and ritual offered up in bread and wine during the Last Supper that we continue with today:
"This is my body that is for you. ... This cup is the new covenant in my blood." (1 Cor. 11:24, 25)
Covenant is also part of our modern world. In preparing couples for marriage, we talk about the idea of covenant; in their marriage vows, they actually are not promising anything. They are making a covenant with each other, something much deeper than a promise. I can promise to do a lot of things: take out the garbage, call to make an appointment for an oil change, take my vitamins, but in a covenant relationship there is a mutual commitment to be together in some new way that is different from daily expectations. It is a choice that is freely made. It transforms the covenant partners from a place of separateness to a place of intimacy and reliance on each other. It is a tie that binds two different pieces together into one new and whole thing. It is a mutual pledge to take care of each other and be faithful with each other that grows into a continually transforming bond of love, devotion, loyalty, forgiveness, and faithfulness. It takes time to live into a covenantal relationship. You don't just take a pill and get it instantly. It needs to be nurtured and is nurturing in return. It grows when tended and stagnates when ignored. It is always there because both parties want it to be so.
We also live in a covenantal relationship with God, even though we are not living in the time of Noah, Abraham, or Moses. And our covenant relationship has the same qualities as those just described: it is a choice that is freely made by God and by ourselves. No one can "make" you a believer. It transforms us from a place of separateness to a place of connection through love, forgiveness, and faithfulness. It is a mutual relationship that needs to be lovingly tended, consistently nurtured, and persistently cherished at all times and through all things.
In the sequence of things, Abraham believed first and then God marked that with a covenant sign. God's faithfulness was never in question nor was God's faithfulness called into being because Abraham asked for a miracle. God's faithfulness was there all along. It came first when God said: "Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield" (Gen. 15:1), but Abraham had to make his own choice about trusting God with the unknown and unknowable before God's covenant would mean anything. "The Holy Spirit gate-crashes no one's heart. He waits to be received." The constancy of God's love is there all the time, but we first need to believe that placing ourselves in those hands is where we belong; otherwise we are just looking for a miracle worker to make us feel better temporarily, and what good is that?
It is through those moments of sacred connection and covenant that God weaves the tapestry of our lives and our world. We are honed and purified in our wilderness journeys, whether as a faith community undergoing leadership change or as an individual learning to trust in God's future. God does not leave us to wander alone but walks beside us through all things. That is God's covenant with us and it is worth remembering.
Like Abraham, we have freedom of choice and in spite of the choices we make, God's covenant relationship with us is constant in the signs of love and grace that slip into our world unannounced and unpretentious. Blessings, large and small, are showered upon us through the smallest window of opportunity along the way.
God was already there, waiting for Abraham; God is already here, waiting for each of us. It is the generosity of a God who can't stop loving us and who pours himself out fully without reservation regardless of our ability to be faithful 100 percent of the time. God is wildly, crazy in love with us. All we need to do is to turn to God and God joyously meets us the rest of the way.
Covenant is one of the fundamental aspects of God's storyboard in Scripture. It serves as a foundation for all that comes afterward. God's storyboard continues on through the ins and outs, the successes and failures, the times of war and times of peace, and through the growing up of the People of God as a nation, but also as a people of faith. Eventually, we come to the story of Jesus and his disciples that, for Christians, unwraps God's invitation to be surprised by something new.
Connecting with Abraham or Sarah
Step into Abraham or Sarah's "skin" for a moment. Stand beside them looking at thousands of stars in the dark silent sky. So many stars you cannot count them. God has promised, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them. ... So shall your descendants be" (Gen. 15:5). There are thousands of pinpricks of light shining within your view, and from this barren and elderly couple will come as many ancestors as those stars. As either Abraham or Sarah, what is going through your mind? What do you wonder about? What has been your greatest joy? Your greatest disappointment? What does it feel like to trust in something that does not seem plausible nor possible, yet God has said it would happen?
Pondering
A storyboard is a sequential group of drawings that outline how a particular story arc will unfold from the beginning of a story through to the end. It is a visual graphic tool used by artists, digital writers, screenwriters, and storytellers to outline the overall direction of a story before production. For our purposes, we are referring to the arc of history within which God has been continually active. Draw your own multiple panel storyboard using one of the suggested options below or something of your own choosing that outlines, for you, what the broad sweep of God's story in Scripture looks like visually.
Option #1: Briefly sketch what you would outline as God's story in Scripture. What stands out as important? What are the major themes that draw you in? What notes would you add in the margins as questions, considerations, or ideas? What questions occur to you that you would like to pursue further? What is missing?
Option #2: Briefly sketch your favorite stories from Scripture. What do the people in those stories have in common? How do you intuit God at work in their life events? What is it that resonates with your own story?
CHAPTER 2
Who Do People Say That I Am?
A Story of Jesus ad Peter
Reflect: Who do you believe Jesus is?
Read: Matthew 16:13–24
I have gained A greater appreciation for the people in Scripture because in almost every case, the key figures were engaged in some aspect of figuring out where they fit in God's big picture. As mentioned earlier, it is easy to overlook that they didn't know how their stories would turn out. They were just living their lives one day at a time and sometimes moment to moment. The people in the stories of God's big picture had to frequently walk by faith in the dark, not knowing where things were heading yet trusting, or not, that God was in the mix with them.
Trying to keep a focus on the big picture while living day-to-day experiences is especially apparent in the stories of the disciples who are frequently depicted as braving Jesus's "on-the-job" training.
Jesus asked his disciples:
"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He [Jesus] said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God." (Matt. 16:13a-16)
Now, Peter is never described as being a disciple who spent much time pondering deep questions, reasoning out well-thought-through observations, or speaking in a carefully crafted narrative. He was a fisherman. He was practical. He called it like he saw it. In his unrehearsed response, he seems to have unexpectedly realized that there had been some deep knowledge in his heart that he suddenly found the words to express: "You're the Messiah!" What had finally made its way to Peter's consciousness? In Jesus he saw living proof that God had, indeed, entered into this common and dusty world.
And Jesus knew where this revelation had come from: "Whoa — Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven" (Matt. 16:17). And picking up on a question Peter never asks, Jesus tells Simon Peter who he is meant to be as well: "And I tell you, you are Peter [petras, the rock], and on this rock I will build my church" (Matt. 16:18a).
It would be on the foundation of the perseverance, persistence, resolve, devotion, and love of flawed, impulsive, doubting, slow-to-understand, very human disciples that Jesus would build the future so that God's light and love might shine in and through them.
For anyone being publically referred to as the "Messiah," however, these were dangerous political and religious waters. It is no wonder Jesus told them not to tell anyone. They were expecting a mighty king, but Jesus was not playing by those rules.
Jesus had some serious reeducating to do with the disciples about what their understanding of the coming of a Messiah should be about.
The people of Israel had been a subjugated people for generations; they had lost hope of ever gaining world prominence again like they had in the ancient days of King David and his son, King Solomon. For a people who deeply believed they were the chosen People of God, it was hard to accept that they might never fulfill what they felt God had called them to be and do in the world. Over time, they had begun to look for divine power to accomplish what human power could not, reading the words the prophets had proclaimed so long ago. The Messiah they were waiting for would be a human sent by God to be God's agent, God's king, to do three things: 1) rebuild or restore the temple in Jerusalem, 2) defeat the enemy that was threatening God's people, and 3) bring God's justice, power, and peace to bear both within Israel and out into the world.
But this cosmic shifting would not take place without violence or destruction. For those who lived in the days of Jesus, the idea of a Messiah had one meaning only:
The Messiah, the Christ, was thought of as a great superhuman hero crashing into history to remake the world and in the end, vindicate God's people. Nations would ally themselves against this Champion of God but there would be a total destruction of these hostile powers smashing them into extinction. It was violent, vengeful, nationalistic, and destructive. And finally, on the back of such chaos, horror, and destruction would come the new age of peace and goodness which would last forever. A New Jerusalem would come down from heaven. Jews from all over the world would be gathered together into the new city. All nations would be subdued but it would be a peaceful subjection.
No wonder Jesus wanted them to keep quiet for a while. This overthrow of the natural order, including the destruction of the Romans in particular, is what would have been in the minds of most people who waited for a Messiah, and it is likely that expectation might have been in the minds of the disciples as well. They had already seen Jesus at work bringing miracle after miracle and teaching new ideas that challenged the status quo. The people were responding
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Light Shines Through by Carole A. Wageman. Copyright © 2017 Carol A. Wageman. Excerpted by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated.
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