All of the stories
All of the stories (excerpt at 0:23 min)
It strikes me as I have been sharing with you stories of Esther and Ruth and Abraham and Sarah—sharing stories of their courage and their chutzpah and their ability or decision to trust a future that was unknown, a decision to live and walk in vulnerability—that it's quite possible that we haven't shared the whole story. So what part of the story do we not hear when we peek into those archetypal characters? We don't get the gory details. We don't get the rustling, the sobbing, the retreating, the hitting the walling. We just get the invitation and then the response to move forward. And so I would not be telling the truth if I did not as well suggest that there are lots of challenging moments and quite possibly lots of tears in these archetypal movements.
And so I'd like to offer a psalm of lament, which is also part of the biblical tradition. The Book of Psalms is full of lament songs. We have a whole book of Lamentations, which was an expression of profound grief by the people of Jerusalem at the loss of their city. The Babylonians came in, razed the city, razed the temple, and took many of them off into exile. And so we have these lamentation poems that are intended to express that which the heart can barely hold. And so I think it's time to live in the spirit of Esther, who had to summon up courage for a cosmic assignment that involved saving her people. I think we have to live in the faithfulness and vulnerability of Ruth, who agreed to accompany her mother-in-law, another very vulnerable woman, back to her homeland in the hopes that a future would break up open for them. And I think we have to live with the resignation and hope of Abraham and Sarah as they decide and agree to a journey whereby they had to leave so much of what they knew behind and yet were unaware of what was ahead of them. So I suspect that all of these decisions, all of them were accompanied by moments of anger—oh, anger and sorrow, maybe even resentment and tears—before the "yes" was final.
Covid Sunday story: For such a time as this, living with curiosity, creativity and courage - full video.