PLYMOUTH UCC CHURCH
Sermons
  • Home
  • Welcome!
    • I'm New Here
    • I'm a CSU Student
    • LGBTQ+
    • How Do I Join?
    • More Questions
  • Worship
    • What is Worship?
    • Worship Online >
      • Streaming Worship
      • Download Bulletins
      • Digital Pew Card
    • Share the Plate
    • Learn More >
      • Faith Statements
      • Sermons
      • Music Program
      • Worship Sign-Ups
  • News & Events
    • Church Blog
    • eNews
    • Special Events
    • Calendars >
      • Today's Schedule
      • Full Calendar
      • Calendar Request Form
  • Living Our Faith
    • Christian Formation >
      • Children
      • Nursery Care >
        • Child Care Handbook
      • Youth
      • OWL (Our Whole Lives)
      • Foraging for Faith
      • Adults
      • Visiting Scholar
    • Outreach & Mission >
      • The O&M Board >
        • Grocery Card
      • Climate Action
      • End Gun Violence
      • FFH
      • Immigration
      • Student Support
    • Labyrinth
  • Connect
    • Find Your Place at Plymouth
    • Contact >
      • Contact Us Form
      • Clergy & Staff
      • Lay Leadership
      • Building Rental >
        • Church Use Payments
    • Our Community >
      • Fellowship
      • Gallery
      • Calling & Caring
      • Meal Signups
    • Online Connections >
      • Church App
      • Text Connection >
        • Fun Text Question
        • Text Responses
        • Wellness Check-In
  • Give
    • All About Giving
    • Pledge Online >
      • Increase Your Pledge
    • Other Ways to Give >
      • Text to Give
      • Sustaining Gifts
      • Planned Giving
      • Share the Plate Giving
    • Statements
  • Member Info
    • Member Menu
    • New Members

6/25/2017

God Has Heard Us Where We Are

0 Comments

Read Now
 
The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
June 25, 2017
Genesis 21:8-21
 
Will you join me in prayer? Great and good God who loves us, makes us, and journeys with us, I pray that today I might speak a word of inclusion, peace, and love that is good, pleasing, and right with you—our rainbow, our rock, and our grace-filled Redeemer. Amen.
 
Gerhard and I have discovered the perfect antidote to stress, the cure (yes, the cure, I say) to taking oneself too seriously, the solution to pretension, and a self-care mechanism that I believe could revolutionize ministry and work related stress. At least for me, since I am married to a Venezuelan and trying to learn Spanish, this amazing new thing in my life is the Latin American soap opera genre known, as “telenovelas.” These short, compact, human emotion-filled Spanish-language sitcoms with complicated scenarios and drrrramatic acting remind me that the Sacred can be found in even the most unlikely situational comedy, plot twist, or family drama.
 
These short but powerful shows all are replete with intense close-up shots, catchy theme music, ridiculous over-the-top comedy, intense loss, marriage, death, betrayal, love, hate, also something that appears to be both love and hated at the same, often there is magic or curses, cautionary tales, morals of the story, and hope lots of hope! Additionally, I have noted that almost all of the Telenovelas have a loving and wise (and VERY religious) grandmother character that is actually, at the conclusion, the behind the scenes mastermind of everything! This is proof that God is actually a Venezuelan grandmother! More pointedly and seriously, these short televised stories are shorthand for the wholeness and complexity of the human experience.
 
Now, aside from being a nice way to distress in the evening from the very real stresses and scenarios of ministry and public advocacy in 2017, I have learned a little something about Biblical Studied from watching these shows: The book of Genesis in particular and most of the Bible is best understood when we pretend (while we are reading) that we are acting out a Telenovela Spanish Soap Opera!
 
Yes, when I thought of this comparison, I too thought it was sort of a funny joke to tell to start the sermon and help us relate to this complicated ancient text, but then I remembered that these stories started out as oral tales and community entertainment many thousands of years ago. A quote from Amherst College professor of Religion and scholar of Genesis, Dr. Susan Niditch, from The Women’s Bible Commentary, helps get at this Spanish Soap opera nature of Genesis. She writes, “The group of narrative and genealogical traditions called the book of Genesis describes the origin of the cosmos and its first inhabitants and unfolds the life stories of the earliest ancestors of ancient Israel. To read Genesis is to immerse oneself in the worldview and values of a distant and foreign culture, of a people who believed in a deity, Yahweh God, imagined as parent, river, spirit, traveling man, and warrior, communicating with ancestors through dream visions and waking revelations. To read Genesis is to encounter a people…Theirs is a different world and a different way of imagining and ordering reality from our own; yet they too love spouses and children, resent siblings, mourn the loss of kin, fear and face deprivation in the form of famine and infertility, attempt to take stock of the comprehensible and make sense of the incomprehensible features of their existence.”1 Telenovela!
 
The story of Genesis is a script, the story, the drama, the intrigue, the popular culture account, the soap opera (la telenovela) for ancient people that helps them make sense life. These stories, all of which would have started as oral accounts were part of what gave people context for survival. So… Today, we pick-up the story midway through these very dramatic, scandalous, and strange set of events. We turn on the Biblical TV in the middle of an episode.
 
So let me recap: back in Chapters 15 and 16, Sarah was upset that she couldn’t have children, so she recruited Hagar to be a surrogate. Sarah’s plan worked and Ishmael was born. Problem solved; but then God gets in the way. Then, as Hal preached on last Sunday, we have the story of the strange men showing-up, receiving hospitality, and then suddenly it turns out that the strange men are actually God and God is planning to have Sarah have a baby of her own, although Sarah is very old. Everyone laughs—that is the comic relief of this telenovela of Genesis. Sarah had her own baby named Isaac, and now in today’s episode of this very intense family epoch, Sarah (who was sympathetic in the last episode) now (turns into the villain) as gets rid her family of the former liaison, Hagar, and her offspring Ishmael. She does this by sending them OUT into the loneliness, the isolation, and the dryness of the desert of Beer-sheba to die. See, I told you that the book of Genesis is a soap opera. One minute you are rooting for or crying with a character, and the next second you have to reassess everything! Genesis isn’t the white washed, easy, clear, linear, Creation account that the Conservative Christians want it to be. It is messy, dangerous, hard to understand, entirely entertaining, and not at all ethical Telenovela from many thousands of years ago.
 
June is Pride month for the LGBTQ community. Today’s episode is the Pride Month episode in this Telenovela, because it is a story of God taking the side, as God often does in surprising ways, of the oppressed, the outcast, the one who is not to be heard from or seen again—the character at the margin. According, again to Sharon Niditch, “the God of Genesis, with whom the important value judgment2 lies is partial to marginalized people…”
 
Verses 15-20: 15 When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.

18 Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” 19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.
20 God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow.”
 
The boy’s name was Ishmael, and his name in Hebrew reflects the miracle of God’s presence, because, “Ishmael” or “Yishma e’‘l” in Hebrew means literally means, “God has heard” or “God listens.”
 
In our soap opera today from a far off time, in a far off land, in a forgotten language, we can still find something Sacred that speaks to us in deeply important ways. Today, what speaks to me in this time of our world where everyone tries to put words in God’s mouth, tries to say “God says” or “The Bible says” or “God never changes” or “God doesn’t like” or “God condemns” or “God hates…” God hates…(It would seem God’s main business these days is hating). In this world where so many claim to speak for a God who hates, today’s episode from Genesis still communicates one simple idea… A God who listens in the midst of the chaos, the family drama, and the political intrigue! Ishmael! Our God is a God who hears rather than condemning or ignoring to death in the desert… or a spiritual, emotional, physical, mental, deeply profound death in closets of falseness and thirst for authentic contact. Ishmael. God hears, God listens…
 
Friends, here at Plymouth this past week I heard the Open and Affirming movement referred to in the past tense… “The Open and Affirming thing was great… but now its time for something new and more exciting.” I have heard this before. How many of you, and please don’t raise your hands, think our work of being an Open and Affirming church or denomination is done now that you have hired two out gay associate ministers in a row and that marriage equality is achieved? From my network, I can tell you that the fear, the anger, the backlash is coming strong… and it is scary. We (we, the LGBTQ community) need you to be diligent, to pay attention, and to continue to learn the complexity of gender and sexual orientations. It isn’t easy and it can be exhausting, and yes the vocabulary is always changing, but this soap opera of a political season we live in isn’t safe for Gerhard, and me for anyone with an L, a G, a B, a T, or a Q in their identity. The church listened, we have moved, but we must keep-up and not give-up.
 
Ishmael… God has heard! Not only has God heard, but the text says that God heard Ishmael where he was… rather than where he was not. God meets us where we are, sisters, brothers, siblings in Christ!
 
God has heard us where we are when we find ourselves in times of discernment for our identities and our relationships. Ishmael!
 
God has heard us where we are if we are gay or lesbian. Ishmael!

God has heard us where we are if we are bisexual. Ishmael!
 
God has heard us where we are if we are queer or transgender. Ishmael! God has heard us where we are if we are liberal or conservative. Ishmael!
​
God has heard us where we are if we are lonely, overwhelmed, hurting, calm, and anxious… Ishmael!
 
God has heard us where we are if we are young or if we are old. We are heard, met, saved, loved, beloved.
 
God hears us and comes to us with solutions, with life, with promise of good things to come no matter who we are or where we are in this Telenoleva we all call life!
 
Here is what to take away from today’s scripture… the Bible is basically a long and complicated Spanish language soap opera—or really it is better and more correctly understood if we think of it that way rather than as a solemn tome from a God who doesn’t give a crap. Additionally, our very Telenovela-like episode today from Genesis is fundamentally about how God meets us in all of our diversity. God is not static, hatred filled, old man in the sky. She is a Venezuelan grandmother! As the ancients attest to, God manifests in many forms, change is part of the nature of God, and so God doesn’t yell at us… rather we have a God who still listens, still accompanies, and celebrates the diversity of sexual orientations and gender identities present at Plymouth and our world.
 
For nobody who wrote Genesis, Leviticus, or any other ancient text would ever claim that God was done hearing us out and negotiating with us for good, for wholeness, and for the arc of the universe that bends towards justice. That wasn’t what God was like in ancient times; we see that clearly in the text. God has always been and will always be unchanging in only God’s unpredictability, free-agent nature, and willingness to listen deeply to us in our lives. Amen.

  1. Susan Niditch, “Genesis,” in Women’s Bible Commentary, Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, edit. (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press 1998), 13.
  2. Susan Niditch, “Genesis,” in Women’s Bible Commentary, Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, edit. (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press 1998), 20.

Author

The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph ("just Jake"), Associate Minister, came to Plymouth in 2014 having served in the national setting of the UCC on the board of Justice & Witness Ministries, the Coalition for LGBT Concerns, and the Chairperson of the Council for Youth and Young Adult Ministries (CYYAM). Jake has a passion for ecumenical work and has worked in a wide variety of churches and traditions. Read more about him on our staff page.

Share

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

Details

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016

    Visit our sermon podcast site

    Categories

    All
    Abundance
    Accountability
    Advent
    All Saints' Sunday
    All Things Together For Good
    Antiracism
    Apostle Paul
    Ascension
    Ash Wednesday
    Authority
    Awakening
    Baptism
    Baptism Of Christ Sunday
    Beatitudes
    Beginnings
    Being Saved
    Belief
    Beloved Community
    Bent Over
    Blessings
    Book Of Acts
    Book Of Deuteronomy
    Book Of Ecclesiastes
    Book Of Exodus
    Book Of Ezekiel
    Book Of Genesis
    Book Of Habakkuk
    Book Of Isaiah
    Book Of Jeremiah
    Book Of Job
    Book Of Joel
    Book Of Jonah
    Book Of Joshua
    Book Of Leviticus
    Book Of Micah
    Book Of Numbers
    Book Of Proverbs
    Book Of Psalms
    Book Of Revelation
    Book Of Ruth
    Book Of Samuel
    Book Of Wisdom
    Books Of Kings
    Breath
    Call
    Celtic Christianity
    Centering Prayer
    Change
    Choices
    Christmas Eve
    Christmas Season
    Christology
    Church
    Comfort
    Coming Out
    Community
    Compassion
    Complaining
    Conflict
    Congregationalism
    Consecration Sunday
    Courage
    Covenant
    COVID-19
    Creation
    Dance
    Depression
    Desert Fathers & Mothers
    Dialogue
    Difficult People
    Discipleship
    Divine Love
    Dominion
    Doubt
    Dreamers/DACA
    Dreams
    Earth Day
    Easter Season
    Easter Sunday
    Elijah
    Emptiness
    Environmental Sunday
    Epiphany
    Epiphany Season
    Epiphany Sunday
    Eulogy
    Fairness
    Faith
    Fear
    Following Jesus
    Forgiveness
    Friends & Family Sunday
    Gardening With God
    Generosity
    Gifts
    Giving
    God
    God Is Still Speaking
    Good News
    Good Samaritan
    Good Shepherd
    Gospels: John 01 To 05
    Gospels: John 06 To 10
    Gospels: John 11 To 15
    Gospels: John 16 To 21
    Gospels: Luke 01 To 06
    Gospels: Luke 07 To 12
    Gospels: Luke 13 To 18
    Gospels: Luke 19 To 24
    Gospels: Mark 01 To 04
    Gospels: Mark 05 To 08
    Gospels: Mark 09 To 12
    Gospels: Mark 13 To 16
    Gospels: Mathew 16-21
    Gospels: Matthew 01 To 07
    Gospels Matthew 08 To 14
    Gospels Matthew 15 To 21
    Gospels Matthew 22 To 28
    Grace
    Gratitude
    Grief
    Guest Preacher
    Gun Violence
    Harvest
    Healing
    Heart
    Heaven
    Hero's Journey
    Holy Spirit
    Holy-week
    Hope
    Hospitality
    Immigration
    Inclusion
    Independence Day
    Instant Sermon
    Jean Vanier
    Jesus
    John Dominic Crossan
    John The Baptizer
    Joseph
    Journey
    Joy
    Jubilee
    Jubilee Sunday
    Juneteenth
    Justice
    Kingdom Of God
    Labyrinth
    L'Arche Communities
    Lay Preacher
    Leadership
    Learning
    Lent
    Letters: Colossians
    Letters: Corinthians
    Letters: Ephesians
    Letters: Galatians
    Letters: Hebrews
    Letters: James
    Letters: John
    Letters: Philippians
    Letters: Romans
    LGBTQ
    Liberation
    Life
    Light
    Lineage
    Liturgical Year
    Living In Exile
    Living Water
    Loss
    Lost
    Love
    Luke 07 To 12
    Lynching
    Magnificat
    Martin Luther King
    Maya Angelou
    Meditation
    Membership
    Memorial Day
    Memorial Service
    Mental Illness
    Metamorphosis
    Metanoia
    Middle Way
    Mission
    Newness
    New Year
    New Year's Resolutions
    Older-sermon-audio
    Palmpassion-sunday
    Palm Sunday
    Pandemic
    Parables
    Paradox
    Patience
    Pause
    Peace
    Pentecost Sunday
    Pilgrimage
    Pilgrims
    Podbean Link
    Possibility
    Prayer
    Prodigal Son
    Prophecy
    Protestant Reformation
    Rebirth
    Reclaiming Jesus
    Reformation Sunday
    Reign Of Christ Sunday
    Relationship With God
    Render Unto Caesar
    Repentance
    Resurrection
    Rev. Carla Cain
    Reversals
    Rev. Hal Chorpenning
    Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
    Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
    Rev. J. T. Smiedendorf
    Rev. Laura Nelson
    Rev. Mandy Hall
    Rev. Mark Lee
    Rev. Marta Fioriti
    Rev. Ron Patterson
    Rev. Sue Artt
    Righteousness
    Road To Emmaus
    Sabbath
    Salt
    Salvation
    Sarah
    Season After Pentecost
    September 11
    Sharing
    Showing Up
    Singing
    Soul
    Spiritual Practices
    Stewardship
    Storms
    Taizé
    Ten Commandments
    Thanksgiving
    Thanksgiving Day
    The Cross
    The Gospel
    The Last Week
    The Sower
    The World
    Thorny Theological Themes
    Totenfest
    Transfiguration
    Transfiguration Sunday
    Transformation
    Transitions
    Trinity Sunday
    Trusting God
    Truth
    Unity
    Vision
    Waiting
    Welcome
    Where Is Jesus?
    Wilderness
    Wisdom
    Women
    World Communion Sunday
    Wrestling With God
    Yeats

916 West Prospect Road Fort Collins CO 80526

Sunday Worship

9 & 11 a.m.

Contact Us

970-482-9212

​Members, log into F1Go here.

Subscribe

* indicates required
  • Home
  • Welcome!
    • I'm New Here
    • I'm a CSU Student
    • LGBTQ+
    • How Do I Join?
    • More Questions
  • Worship
    • What is Worship?
    • Worship Online >
      • Streaming Worship
      • Download Bulletins
      • Digital Pew Card
    • Share the Plate
    • Learn More >
      • Faith Statements
      • Sermons
      • Music Program
      • Worship Sign-Ups
  • News & Events
    • Church Blog
    • eNews
    • Special Events
    • Calendars >
      • Today's Schedule
      • Full Calendar
      • Calendar Request Form
  • Living Our Faith
    • Christian Formation >
      • Children
      • Nursery Care >
        • Child Care Handbook
      • Youth
      • OWL (Our Whole Lives)
      • Foraging for Faith
      • Adults
      • Visiting Scholar
    • Outreach & Mission >
      • The O&M Board >
        • Grocery Card
      • Climate Action
      • End Gun Violence
      • FFH
      • Immigration
      • Student Support
    • Labyrinth
  • Connect
    • Find Your Place at Plymouth
    • Contact >
      • Contact Us Form
      • Clergy & Staff
      • Lay Leadership
      • Building Rental >
        • Church Use Payments
    • Our Community >
      • Fellowship
      • Gallery
      • Calling & Caring
      • Meal Signups
    • Online Connections >
      • Church App
      • Text Connection >
        • Fun Text Question
        • Text Responses
        • Wellness Check-In
  • Give
    • All About Giving
    • Pledge Online >
      • Increase Your Pledge
    • Other Ways to Give >
      • Text to Give
      • Sustaining Gifts
      • Planned Giving
      • Share the Plate Giving
    • Statements
  • Member Info
    • Member Menu
    • New Members