From the Pastor: Rising

Even if you are exiled to the ends of the world,
from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you back.
~Deuteronomy 30:4

Dear Friends,

As you read this, we are well into Lent, the season of preparation for the great celebrations of Holy Week and Easter. For centuries in the life of the church, the story of Holy Week has been framed as one of sin and forgiveness: Jesus dying on the cross, that we might have new life and reconciliation to God. Scripture seems to back this up, especially if we consider the story of the first man and first woman disobeying God by eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. By focusing on certain aspects of the writing of Paul our faith has told us that humans have inherited that initial propensity, called “original sin.” John Calvin said that, because of this “fall,” the image of God is completely defaced in humanity; he believed that we truly don’t know how to be good without God’s grace and forgiveness.

In fact, the emphasis on sin and forgiveness did not dominate the Christian consciousness until the medieval era. Before that, other great themes of scripture—in both the Old and New Testaments—were present among the faithful. “Sin and Repentance/ Forgiveness” is not the only Big-S-Story in scripture. Inspired by the Book Group’s recent reading of (the late) Marcus Borg’s “Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time,” I would like to share his insights in this area. Sin and Repentance is just one of three great stories. The other two are Bondage and Liberation, and Exile and Return.

The narrative of bondage and liberation is based on the story of the enslavement of God’s people in Egypt and their escape from bondage. But the story doesn’t end there. It is followed by a long sojourn in the wilderness and coming to their new destination of the Holy Land, where God will dwell with them. This story was the primary narrative of God’s covenant people for centuries, and it is acknowledged and celebrated to this day in the Passover seder. In terms of our lives as Christians, we can experience a kind of bondage: the narrowness of life when we are caged in by something or someone in contrast to the expansiveness of a life of liberation to love and be loved by God. Who is our Pharaoh today? To what are we enslaved? This can be anything from our phones, to our heroes, to opioids, to carbs, to a job that sucks the life out of us. Our connection with God can help us to release and be released from the things, ideas, and individuals by which (or whom) we are mentally, emotionally, or spiritually captive. We can move into a new life of freedom and hope.

The other great narrative of God’s covenant people arises from the occupation of Judah by one empire after another, and the deportation of those same people to a foreign land. This, of course, is followed by homecoming—beautiful, poignant, not always what we hope, but home, nonetheless. In what ways might we experience exile? Do we experience it through estrangement from someone to whom we were once close? Do we experience it by being the “odd person out” in certain social situations? By being the scapegoat of a family system? Or even as a result of living far away from a place we still consider home, whether by choice or by unresolvable circumstances? What would it take for you to find your way home? Or, to find a new understanding of home? How could your relationship with God guide that journey?

The awareness of these narratives can expand our understanding of our relationship with God. For example, an ongoing self-identification as “sinner,” someone who is constantly failing to live up to God’s “standards” for us, can obscure the truth of God’s steadfast love and compassion for us in our struggles. What if we thought of ourselves, instead, as on a path from captivity to freedom? A path from exile to homecoming? And how might these new understandings deepen our faith, restore our hope, and fill us with love?

I invite you, as we journey together through Lent, to consider how these stories may affect your sense of your personal journey with God. And may God gather you in to the home that is God’s heart, and may your days be filled with joy.

Grace and Peace,
Rev. Pat Raube