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| The Good Samaritan, Vincent van Gogh, after Delacroix, 1890 http://edgeofenclosure.org/proper25a.html |
Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 25Christ the King Episcopal Church, Tucson. 25 October 2026
The old stories are still our stories, and as the Psalm says, we must tell the mysteries, the dark stories, as well as the brave and glorious stories. Not all the stories in the Old Testament are stories of triumph. Many of them are stories of deep mistakes and corporate sin. In fact what we have in our Psalm today recounting the deeds of the Exodus is how it is God who acts to deliver Israel.
Sure, Moses is instructed to strike the rock, but it is God who makes the water flow, God who brings provision and Providence to a thirsty and hungry and grieving people. It is God who again and again calls back the grieving, grievously mistaken people of Israel from their wrong path onto the path of truth, which, however painful the memories are, and how hard the work is, is the path that leads ultimately to peace and a resolution of justice.
This season, in which we encounter these lessons, is in some churches the season of creation. It began, in most churches, on September 1 with the feast of creation, and ends on October 4 with the feast of Saint Francis, which is a day really to celebrate creation.
So in the midst of a very long green season, as we may call the season after Pentecost, as we come to the end of summer, the end of summer on the calendar anyway, you have something new to think about as days shorten, temperatures drop a little bit, and we begin a new year for school in college students and teachers, and in programs in congregations.
We are in the middle of the creation season and anticipating its end. Last week I was in the middle of a forest overlooking a lake in the Sierra at a cabin long owned by family members, cousins. It was my first visit there, but in many ways, it was familiar territory, as it was in those mountains as a Boy Scout, summer camp lifeguard, and earlier with family camping.
In the season of creation it is good to get outside and remember and be a part of something older and larger. Big trees, old trees, ancient mountains, and glacial rocks serve as a lesson, as much as the parable of the Psalm. We are called to remember and pass on something older and larger for us as a church, older and larger than ourselves.
Our host in the mountains gave us a challenge: to explain to someone who lives in a cottage in England built in 1335 that the oldest Protestant church building in Arizona still in use for its original purpose dates to 1882. However the Tucson city of gastronomy celebrates 4000 years of local food culture. That brings home how old these new traditions of the new world are.
Exodus and the Psalm remind us not to forget or to set aside the old stories, however embarrassing, that are part of our heritage.
We have in the story of Exodus a heritage we have been invited into. We are new to it, new people, comprised of churches, congregations, and individuals. We can tell the story, the story that becomes ours as we pass it on to others to make it their own in turn. We now tell it as our own.
We remember the dark days of God‘s glory when shining before us he let us out of slavery in Egypt, how he found us food and water in the desert, led us to a new home; and how we rebelled and drew far from him along the way at the sea, or hungry and thirsty and complaining in the desert. And yet we are ever receiving Grace and Providence at the hand of a faithful God.
Recently I have been studying another origin story, another history of the founding of a people. It is the Aeneid of Virgil, the Roman epic poem, in an adult class at the university in Tucson. This poem was a secondary epic. Unlike the Iliad or the Odyssey which seem to have grown out of the ground, it was invented by a poet in Rome at just around the time of Jesus.
It was composed to give the people of the empire a story of origin, how they came to be where they were and how they were.
It’s about not the greatest warrior in the Trojan war, but a survivor who then took his household gods, that is the images of his ancestors, with him on a long journey, to fulfill what he believed was his destiny to found a new city, as if it were a second Troy.
He fetches up in Carthage and then in Italy, where he founds Rome.
Not the greatest warrior: he was a leader, he made mistakes, and he got into a lot of trouble, but somehow he survived and so did the people that he led.
And it was all made up out of old stories creatively reused to build a new epic, a sense of foundation, of the history behind their present situation.
The emperor was Caesar Augustus. He was called the Prince of peace because there was a cessation of violence, but that was because he had vanquished his rivals, after two civil wars, in his peace through victory.
And yet another kingdom was emerging.
Another kind of victory, another kind of peace, another Prince of peace were at work at the same time, bringing our story to a new apex, a new summit, and that that summit was on Calvary, where the true Prince of peace had his victory not by vanquishing rivals, force of arms, but by force of soul.
Were you there? The psalm for today begins by the psalmist announcing that he will sing of the mysteries of God, the mysteries that are the parables, which means stories that apply to us. The stories he tells are of the exodus, of the journey through the Desert, of hunger and thirst and of the people’s rebellion and complaint against God and of God’s inexorable, unrelenting grace.
Were you there?
A comment on this passage was that any good history book is a list of mistakes, including names and dates. Certainly this ancient people in the desert made a good list of them. They’re full of them. But of course, their history is also one of God’s love and sometimes of their faithfulness.
Were you there? Two of my ancestors were at the battle of Shiloh. I could brag about that, but they were there to fight each other. Our history is not entirely one of our triumphs, but of our mistakes and defeats.
Were you there with the people of Israel?
You may not be able to trace your DNA to Abraham and Sarah or even Isaac or Jacob. But the story we have told today, the story of the people God loves, is a heritage we can embrace if we choose to become and make it our own
We don’t earn our history, but we can embrace it.
And we are met the other way from God, the true hero of that epic who embraces us.
The story of God’s love for humankind is not restricted to anyone, nation or people or time.
Ultimately, in its crucial moment, Christ draws all people to himself.
Were you there? Were you there when they crucified our Lord?
No, and maybe yes.
Because you can be part of God’s people just as much as Abraham or Moses, or the complaining people in the desert, or the people who jeered at Jesus on the cross, or we can be part of those who wept as they watched him die and who were with him when he said:
This is my body broken for you, this cup is the blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sin. When we drink that cup and eat that bread, we proclaim his death until he comes again.
And we embrace that awful history, that glorious history, that gracious history, that can be ours, as we are and become evermore God‘s people.
27
Eighteenth Sunday after PentecostYesterday morning, I spent an hour or two reading the letters of a soldier written home to his mother. There were letters from his work before he enlisted, when he was a Forest Ranger in the White Mountains of Arizona. There were letters from Fort Bliss as he was processed in and eventually there were letters from Fort Bliss when he was processed out. There were letters from when he was training and letters when he was waiting to go overseas. There were letters about what he experienced behind the lines while he was overseas. (Discreetly, without place names.) There were letters when it was time to come home and then there was a letter asking, why serve?
Now there was time to ask that question; now there was time to think about it.
What was it all about? Why did we go? Was it just to prop up one economic interest against another? Was it to fight for freedom?
These questions asked by an American soldier in 1919 are still questions we need to ask today. These are questions we need to ask ourselves as we welcome home people who have served overseas. Why serve? Why did they go? Why did we expect them to? How shall we welcome them home? How shall we explain to them what it was all about?
Here are some online resources for worship and study that I use (and you can too):
The Lectionary Page
https://www.lectionarypage.net/
oremus Bible Browser
https://bible.oremus.org/
Bible Gateway
https://www.biblegateway.com/
Common English Bible
https://www.commonenglishbible.com/
Venite
https://www.venite.app/home
Church of England Daily Prayer
https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/join-us-service-daily-prayer
Mission of St Clare
https://www.missionstclare.com/english/index.html
The Lectionary Page, Venite, oremus Bible Browser, Bible Gateway, and Common English Bible are useful in looking up lectionary readings or Scripture passages.
Members of the ELCA may also use https://members.sundaysandseasons.com/Bible
Church of England Daily Prayer, Mission of St Clare, and Venite may be useful in daily prayer.
resources for preachers and listeners:
Feasting on the Word Additional Essays and Index
https://www.wjkbooks.com/Feasting-on-the-Word-Additional-Essays-and-Index/
Additional Essays
The Revised Common Lectionary offers two tracks of Old Testament texts for the Season after Pentecost or Ordinary Time: [1] a semicontinuous track, which moves through stories and characters in the Old Testament, and [2] a complementary track, which ties the Old Testament texts to the theme of the Gospel texts for that day. Some denominational traditions favor one over the other, and not all of the lections are included in the print volumes. Additional essays were developed following the same format as the print volumes to include all lections included in the Revised Common Lectionary for the season after Pentecost.
Jacob’s Dream
Ary de Vois, 1660 - 1680
What is sacred ground? What makes a place holy? How will we know it? Jacob didn’t know it, not until he had a dream. And in the dream he had a promise. Then he woke up, I did not know this was holy ground, and then he made a monument to his discovery, or rather, to its holiness.
We can imagine him running in from stage left, looking about distractedly, and then, finally, sleep overcoming him, laying down his head upon a stone. A stone that in the morning was transformed into a monument. This certain place, as the story calls it, that Jacob did not recognize, in the night set itself apart.
Angels, messengers of God, communicated between heaven and earth, and then the LORD was right beside him.
The promise he heard, the promise made to him, was the promise that Abraham, his father, and Isaac had received before him. It has been remade. It is new, in his hands, and old again.
Jacob has received the promise - from God. Not only the blessing stolen from his father. Now he has been chosen, like it or not, and he goes on from this place a man newly charged with a mission. He must carry forward, what he has received alone, into a new beginning, a new life.
He came into this place alone, and here he heard God. He was able to hear him, now. He is no longer son or brother, he is not yet husband or father. He is just Jacob, alone, before God.
And it is in this place, this in between place, on his journey from one place to another, one state to another, from son and brother to husband and father, that he is alone enough to listen.
When are we listening? When are we in a holy place? When are we on sacred ground?
There are plenty of times I know to touch stone, to call back a memory of a special place or person, and those times and places I cherish. I hope to experience them again soon. But the holy place is different: it is where we experience something of the sacred mystery that is God.
This is not necessarily a big deal, with trumpets, or a certificate. It may be in an otherwise insignificant place, or a place we did not know. Jacob said, “I did not know this was holy ground.” But now he does. Something changed. In him. In what he experienced. In what was there all along.
It may have been there all along, for you or me. But we did not know it. And that’s okay.
The spirit comes to us. We seek holiness. We do. We seek to do God’s will. Or an experience. Or just to be better today so we can be better tomorrow, than we were yesterday.
Where will we find sacred ground? Or is that the right question? When will it find us?
And where will we go from there?
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen.
– Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, page 79. (https://sacredpoetryworkshop.com/a-prayer-of-unknowing-by-thomas-merton/)
Centuries after the time of Abraham and Sarah, and even centuries after the time of Moses and Miriam, Hannah went to the Lord to pray. She was barren, unlike her rival wife Peninnah, and wanted a child. She prayed silently, moving her lips, and the priest Eli, at first confronting her for this strange behavior, heard her plea and assured her of God’s mercy. Indeed, in due course, a child was on its way.
She, following a vow she had made, presented her child to Eli to be raised as his helper – and as it turned out, his successor.
Here is part of what she prayed as she rejoiced in her expectancy:
And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, mine horn is exalted in the Lord: my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; because I rejoice in thy salvation.
There is none holy as the Lord: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God.
Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.
The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up.
He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail.
1 Samuel 2:1-3, 7, 9 (King James Version)
Sound familiar? In her praise and exultation, Hannah hearkened back to the joy of childless women made fertile in the past: from Sarah and Rebekah to Rachel, and echoes on through time, from Miriam to Hannah, to Elizabeth, cousin of the Virgin Mary. (And the song Mary sang after visiting Elizabeth.)
And the prayer of Hannah echoed the song of Miriam, sister of Moses, at the Red Sea:
Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. And Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”
Exodus 15:20-21
All these women, from Sarah to Elizabeth, form a sisterhood that is powerful. God over and over again overturns human expectation. The younger is preferred to the older; and the weak to the strong. It is all in fulfillment not of human purpose but that of God.
So you see there is more to the story of Isaac and Rebekah than just a sandwich generation, between their parents and their sons. Isaac had prayed, Rebekah had inquired of the Lord, and God answered them.
Because of them, of their pursuance of God’s fruitfulness, the promise and the covenant continued. God would make of their descendants a mighty nation, a nation of priests to serve their God, and all nations would be blessed in them. Them too.
And then there are their sons. Their vexatious children, contending from inside the womb and on into adulthood. Our Scripture portion for this morning only goes so far, in what it gives of their story. Later, spoiler alert! Esau in his anger vowing to kill his brother, is overheard by their mother, and Rebekah persuades Isaac to go away for a while. He goes east of Canaan, east of Edom, and back to ancestral Harran.
God has a purpose in this exile – as in so many other occasions. When he brings back Jacob with his newly acquired household, it is to meet Esau in reconciliation. The brothers embrace when they meet.
That is long after the story of ‘that red stuff’ and the birthright scorn.
Today we see the consequences emerging of his impulsive, brash, brusque, rude as rude can be, disregard of his heritage - and duty.
Esau will not be the one to bear the promise and the mission. It was Abraham and not Lot, Isaac and not Ishmael, so it will be Jacob and not Esau, that God chooses - not of their virtue but of his will.
What will happen when these boys grow up? Will the two nations continue to strive, one east, one west, of the Jordan River? And what in our own day will come of contending nations, and brash brothers?
Will we do better than these, God’s chosen ones, who in their folly, jealousy, pride and humanness, end up furthering his mysterious purpose?
The triumph of Rebekah was a strange joy, unearthly in its origin, and whether or not she saw the fulfillment of her own hopes is an open question. We see, from this distance, hope in the story, but wonder:
Do the people in the midst of the story have hope in the promise, or are they despairing in the desert? Only faith can make the difference.
And the providence of God – sometimes shown by human hand. In our own day, there are people wandering in the desert, or across seas, seeking a future with hope, in a land that God may show them.
*****
But wait, there’s more: after today’s reading, there is a whole chapter, a big chapter. It is between this week’s scripture portion, and next week’s. Chapter 27 of Genesis relates the astonishing story of how Esau, who had already bargained away his birthright for “some of that red stuff” loses the blessing of his father as well.
And when Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim (so that he could not see) he called Esau his eldest son, and said unto him, My son. And he answered him, I am here. Then he said, Behold, I am now old, and know not the day of my death. Wherefore now, I pray thee take thine instruments, thy quiver and thy bow, and get thee to the field, that thou mayest take me some venison. Then make me savory meat, such as I love, and bring it me that I may eat, and that my soul may bless thee, before I die.
Genesis 27:1-4 (Geneva Bible, 1599)
At this Esau finally wakes up enough to realize there is a problem and becomes very angry, but Rebecca has a solution for that too. She sends her favored son off to the land of his ancestors to find a wife.
As she explains to her husband, she’s tired of these Hittite women (Esau married two) and wants her son to marry from among his own kin from back home.
While she had been found for Isaac by Abraham’s servant, her son will discover for himself his bride.
It is on the outward journey that Jacob stops and dreams the dream of the ladder that we will hear about next Sunday.
Eventually, after long years of labor in the service of his bride's brother, he will return, unsure how he will be received by his own brother. He will encounter him by a brook on his way home.
Sundays and Seasons [https://members.sundaysandseasons.com/Home/DayResources] offers some resources on the readings of the day, including this comment on Genesis 25:19-34
The lectionary now cites four episodes in the story of Jacob-Israel. Again, the Lord intervened in nature so that the barren Rebekah conceived and bore Isaac twin sons. Although Esau was first born, the younger son Jacob inherited God’s blessing, and thus once again the cultural expectation of primogeniture was thwarted with the Lord’s blessing. This legend was important for the eighth-century Israelites, whose very survival was threatened by enemy conquest. Christians have enjoyed the details of these folk tales and have seen in them illustrations that God’s promises are kept.
And on the Response (Psalm 119:105-112):
As if we are Rebekah, struggling through childbirth; as if we are Esau, close to starvation; as if we are Jacob, leaping over the law: we sing Psalm 119:105-112. We are severely afflicted, but God gives us life. We join with Jacob to follow the law of the Lord.
