This Fall, we are studying the lives of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar and Lot as people called to leave behind the familiar, called as a group to stake their lives on God's promises. The idea is to find wisdom for our own lives here in Naivasha. Here where we are down to TWO (from 12) medical officer interns, where there are 49 babies in NICU, where a 1375 gram twin (3lb) didn't make the cut of the 12 smallest/sickest to squeeze 3-per-incubator in our 4 boxes held together by plastic ties and tape. Where teamwork and hope must be thoughtfully inculcated day by day.
On Monday, we looked at the story of Abram and Lot getting a little too crowded and close, and needing to divide the land. Abram, who in the last story was lying to save his skin and putting his wife in peril, has grown. He affirms his family connection with his nephew, and then gives Lot first pick, willingly scooting over. This takes wisdom, and a large amount of faith that all shall be well. That his family and flocks will find provision. That we live in a world of abundance of grace, where there is more than meets the eye. That God will come through
And God does, immediately promising him again the things he longs for: children and home, descendants to carry on his name and the space for them to establish themselves. That this family will be the means of redemption and enlargement and blessing for the entire globe.
We know how the story goes later. The 12 tribes that follow from Isaac and Jacob, as well as the 12 from Ishmael, rarely get along. For brief periods, a sense of patriotism (loyalty to a larger grouping that traces back to the father, Abraham) supersedes tribal instincts, then tribalism (promoting my immediate group against other groups) fractures the nation. The tribalism and patriotism that grip us all rarely transcends to a Godly globalism. Fear, selfishness, promoting one's kin, suspicion of the others, grabbing to control resources that are perceived to be limited, seeking power to insure one's interests win out over someone less related's interests, continue to plague the generations that follow. The original idea: chosen to be a conduit of blessing to the nations, a unique group of people meant to reach out to the world, blessed to be a blessing . . . gets lost. Even in the eras where patriotism outweighs tribalism, the descendants of Abraham try to hold onto the blessing as a means for power, not as a way to pour that blessing out into the wider world. This culminates in the showdown between Jesus and the Temple priests on the night of his arrest: the religious establishment wants to control the Temple, the power, the God-on-our-side-to-conquer-all-others sense of history, and Jesus quietly and subversively goes to his death, the curtain tears, the stone rolls, the blessings start to scatter out with no limits of ethnicity or geography.
Thousands of years post-Abraham, more than two thousand post-Jesus, here we are still stuck in our tribalistic ways. Kenya's leaders are betraying the people, if Naivasha hospital is any measure of reality. Voting occurs by ethnic "tribal" groupings, those in power grab for their group and oppress the rest. Half of America feels alienated from the other half, and in spite of the fact that the vast majority of us are a crazy mixture of immigration from other continents over several centuries, unjust capture and enslavement of humans from Africa, with perhaps a trace of original nation genetics from the people who survived an annihilating onslaught of disease and a full-scale seizure of lands, many of us feel entitled to the privileges we enjoy and are afraid our happiness will be diluted if we are too generous. Like Lot, we Kenyans and Americans and pretty much most places in between want to stake out the best for those we are related to. We are afraid we won't make it unless we control the resources. Too few have an Abrahamic vision.
God, I believe, loves the whole world. God celebrates diversity of culture and language and dress and custom and food, the uniqueness of each tribe brings glory (in the visions of the indescribable, the prophets carefully mention "every tribe and tongue", a kaleidoscope not a bland mash). But where a tribe or nation seeks only, or primarily, to promote themselves at the expense of the poor, to exploit for short-term personal enrichment the resources of the globe, we are not living by faith.
This week we've heard powerful men express the same me-first mine-first tribalism and patriotism that tripped up the children of Abraham, the same attitudes that confronted Jesus. "Blessed to be a blessing" has turned into "the right to hold onto blessing for ourselves". As a global health worker, it is unsettling to hear one of the world's leaders say "we reject globalism". Time for people of faith to re-examine God's promises and challenges to Abraham, Lot, Sarah, Hagar and thousands of men and women through the ages. Time to ask hard questions, to look for ways to celebrate our tribes and countries while generously opening our hearts and hands to the world.
On Monday, we looked at the story of Abram and Lot getting a little too crowded and close, and needing to divide the land. Abram, who in the last story was lying to save his skin and putting his wife in peril, has grown. He affirms his family connection with his nephew, and then gives Lot first pick, willingly scooting over. This takes wisdom, and a large amount of faith that all shall be well. That his family and flocks will find provision. That we live in a world of abundance of grace, where there is more than meets the eye. That God will come through
And God does, immediately promising him again the things he longs for: children and home, descendants to carry on his name and the space for them to establish themselves. That this family will be the means of redemption and enlargement and blessing for the entire globe.
We know how the story goes later. The 12 tribes that follow from Isaac and Jacob, as well as the 12 from Ishmael, rarely get along. For brief periods, a sense of patriotism (loyalty to a larger grouping that traces back to the father, Abraham) supersedes tribal instincts, then tribalism (promoting my immediate group against other groups) fractures the nation. The tribalism and patriotism that grip us all rarely transcends to a Godly globalism. Fear, selfishness, promoting one's kin, suspicion of the others, grabbing to control resources that are perceived to be limited, seeking power to insure one's interests win out over someone less related's interests, continue to plague the generations that follow. The original idea: chosen to be a conduit of blessing to the nations, a unique group of people meant to reach out to the world, blessed to be a blessing . . . gets lost. Even in the eras where patriotism outweighs tribalism, the descendants of Abraham try to hold onto the blessing as a means for power, not as a way to pour that blessing out into the wider world. This culminates in the showdown between Jesus and the Temple priests on the night of his arrest: the religious establishment wants to control the Temple, the power, the God-on-our-side-to-conquer-all-others sense of history, and Jesus quietly and subversively goes to his death, the curtain tears, the stone rolls, the blessings start to scatter out with no limits of ethnicity or geography.
Thousands of years post-Abraham, more than two thousand post-Jesus, here we are still stuck in our tribalistic ways. Kenya's leaders are betraying the people, if Naivasha hospital is any measure of reality. Voting occurs by ethnic "tribal" groupings, those in power grab for their group and oppress the rest. Half of America feels alienated from the other half, and in spite of the fact that the vast majority of us are a crazy mixture of immigration from other continents over several centuries, unjust capture and enslavement of humans from Africa, with perhaps a trace of original nation genetics from the people who survived an annihilating onslaught of disease and a full-scale seizure of lands, many of us feel entitled to the privileges we enjoy and are afraid our happiness will be diluted if we are too generous. Like Lot, we Kenyans and Americans and pretty much most places in between want to stake out the best for those we are related to. We are afraid we won't make it unless we control the resources. Too few have an Abrahamic vision.
God, I believe, loves the whole world. God celebrates diversity of culture and language and dress and custom and food, the uniqueness of each tribe brings glory (in the visions of the indescribable, the prophets carefully mention "every tribe and tongue", a kaleidoscope not a bland mash). But where a tribe or nation seeks only, or primarily, to promote themselves at the expense of the poor, to exploit for short-term personal enrichment the resources of the globe, we are not living by faith.
This week we've heard powerful men express the same me-first mine-first tribalism and patriotism that tripped up the children of Abraham, the same attitudes that confronted Jesus. "Blessed to be a blessing" has turned into "the right to hold onto blessing for ourselves". As a global health worker, it is unsettling to hear one of the world's leaders say "we reject globalism". Time for people of faith to re-examine God's promises and challenges to Abraham, Lot, Sarah, Hagar and thousands of men and women through the ages. Time to ask hard questions, to look for ways to celebrate our tribes and countries while generously opening our hearts and hands to the world.
2 comments:
Thank you once again, Jennifer. Please keep thinking and writing these thoughts which relate Biblical truth to the times we live in. I, for one, really appreciate hearing them articulated so well and so clearly.
Well said, Jennifer.
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