Reclaiming our Stories: Sarai/Sarah

By Mandy Achterberg 

Read more of Sarah's story: Genesis 12; 16; 17:5, 15; 18:10-15; 20; 21:1-21; 23:1-21 

Sarai is introduced through her lineage and connection as a descendant of Shem through her marriage to Abram. The first thing we learn about her is that she is Abram’s wife and the second is that she is barren. Nothing is noted about where she came from or who she is, but unlike many other women in the Old Testament, she has a name. Through nearly ten chapters the story of Sarai, who becomes Sarah, unravels before us. 

At first, I was reluctant to take on the story of Sarah. When other theologians speak of her, one of two things happen. The first is that she is lifted up and revered as being a mother of the faith, one who heard God speak, and demonstrated faith as a partner to Abraham. The second is that she is fraught with scandal, who laughed at and lied to God, and that she became complicit in the abuse of another woman. Rarely are both discussed together. As I reflect on Sarah I want to hold all of her, even the parts we don’t want to look at, even when they are in tension with who we want Sarah to be for us. 

The first thing I noticed is that Sarah herself is not unfamiliar with the harm and violence that patriarchy causes women. She would have been owned by her father, who likely received payment for her hand in marriage. She is barren and seen as useless. This is perhaps why Abram seems to have no qualms “giving” her in marriage to Pharaoh to protect his own life. Of course, when Pharaoh learns of this trickery, he sends them both away. The slimy thing here is that Abram gets to keep his spoils of offering his wife to another man. 

After this we get the story of God making a covenant with Abram, and even though he is childless – which Abram makes quite a gripe about – God promises Abram that he will have as many descendants as there are stars in the sky. As he continues to be childless, I imagine that Sarai heard these complaints of his nearest heir being Elizer of Damascus. I imagine she felt the pressure to fulfill a role as a wife. I imagine she felt the pressure to help make God’s promise come to be. There is no way she can see herself as bearing a child, so she does what she thinks she needs to do to save the dreams of her husband and offers her Egyptian slave, Hagar. Ultimately doing so much harm, and usurping God’s plan in the process!

But all of this does not change God’s plan for Sarah to be included in the birthing of a great people. Sure, it complicates things, and the situation is complex! She is old and barren and has already worked it out so that Abraham will have an heir in Ishmael. Yet, God’s promises remained true and Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Sarah remains a faithful participant in God’s story with humanity.

I am reminded of many things in my reflection. First is that hurt people, hurt people. When we are hurt and hurting, we tend to be reactive and are unable to see how our actions may harm others. The second is, we are immensely capable of being both sinner and saint. Sarah’s complicity in the harm of Hagar does not negate her from the promise of God, but it also dramatically changed their relationship. I wonder if Sarah’s harsh treatment of Hagar tells us more about Sarah’s reaction to her own brokenness, putting the hoped for thing before the faithful thing. 

But I am left with a renewed compassion for Sarah, and a reminder to acknowledge the ways we have been harmed by other humans and to remember that God is a God who does not ask us to sacrifice relationships or life to fulfill the things that God promises. 

How have hurt and trauma impacted your life negatively? How has hurt and trauma revealed an inner resilience, or led you to make an impact in the world? Where do you find God’s promises revealed? What reminds you of God’s promises?

Prepare to Repent - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Matthew 3:1-12 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

The Proclamation of John the Baptist

3 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”
x

4 Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9 Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

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This sermon was originally preached by me, Rev. Sarah Locke, at Redeemer Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, Florida on December 8, 2019. You can read the manuscript below, and/or you can listen to the sermon (with infusions from the Spirit) at this link. 

Are you ready? It’s December 8th already. We only have 17 days until Christmas. Panicking yet? 

Even if the weather does not quite show it, it appears that Christmas time is here. Christmas music is playing on the radio, all the displays are out, I saw last Sunday night that Santa is at the mall waiting for his picture to be taken. 

For our college students at UNF and JU, it means finals week is upon us, some of them are graduating, other are gearing up for the seasonal holiday hours at their job. 

For others it means finishing up projects at work or bracing yourself for your children to be out for Christmas break. 

There always seems to be an abundance of things to do to prepare for Christmas: Making lists, checking them twice, if you’re my mother, you’re running around making sure everyone has the exact same number of gifts under the Christmas tree. Lots of other people are still decorating, baking, cooking, and traveling. 

Preparing for Christmas seems a bit more like a sprint than a marathon and, as a pastor, by the end of it, I’m winded and ready to never do it again… until next year. 

But preparing for Christmas seems to look very different than preparing for the coming of Jesus. 

In the text this morning, we hear the words of John the Baptizer, the man who was called and sent to prepare people for the coming of Jesus. Like a prologue of a book, or a prelude in our worship service, John tells the people what is about to happen. He preps them for something that is better and more important than himself. But it doesn’t sound much like shopping and baking and decorating. 

“Repent,” John says, “for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

He continues, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

So what does it mean to John to prepare for Christmas? Well, it means preparing for the coming of Jesus, and he says we won’t be ready for that until we repent and recognize that a Jesus’ birth marks a new age— something wild and new and wonderful that we could never even dream of. 

Repentance is not necessarily the word we would immediately associate with Advent and Christmas preparation. For one thing, here in this Episcopal church, as well as many others across the country, we use the hopeful and anticipatory color blue for Advent instead of the repentant and penitential purple that other congregations might use, the same color we use for Lent in the spring. 

But it seems that repentance is of utmost importance to John, and throughout the gospel according to Matthew, we will see this liturgical year, that it is also very important to Jesus. 

It is important that we prepare our hearts and our minds and our attitudes for Jesus. We are reminded to do this figuratively throughout Advent, but what we will celebrate on Christmas Day is not only the miracle of Jesus coming to be with us in the form of a tiny baby, marking the beginning of the coming of the Kingdom of God, but also looking forward to the day when he will return to us, at the end of time, when Isaiah’s prophecy will be completely fulfilled in God’s promise. 

Repentance, at its core, means to change direction, to pick a different course, to turn around. And that is what John is asking the listeners— and us— to do. John’s sole calling is to alert people to the fact that what they are doing is out of step with God’s purpose and desire for their lives and for all of creation. “You brood of vipers,” John accuses, something new is happening and you’d better be ready for it. And that newness is what Isaiah describes: a time when there will be no predator and prey, no fear or hatred, no anger or rebellion. There will be peace, reconciliation, equity, and grace. Paths that are straight and lives that are full. 

Repentance, John says, turning toward this peace, reconciliation, equity, and grace, is the first step in joining Jesus in this new world and in this new kingdom. 

That is my favorite thing about John the Baptizer. He minimizes himself in order to glorify the one who will come after him. All that he does and all that he is points to the one who will save us with baptism in the spirit, with his birth, life, death, and resurrection. John points to the one who embodies what it looks like for us to repent. 

So how do we prepare for the coming of Jesus? How do we prepare for Christmas? Repent. Be transformed by this age-old story and change direction. Turn from idolatry, violence, injustice, exploitation, slavery, and scarcity— and turn toward devotion, peace, justice, equity, freedom, and abundance— turn toward God and the one whom we await on Christmas morning and on the last day, Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Faith - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Luke 17:5-10

⁵The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” ⁶The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. ⁷“Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? ⁸Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? ⁹Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? ¹⁰So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’”

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This sermon was originally preached by me, Rev. Sarah Locke, at Redeemer Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, FL on October 6, 2019. You may read the transcript below, or listen to it (with infusions from the Spirit) at this link. It was also our celebration of "Blessing of the Animals," which adds a little context to why my dog was with me that morning. 

God of mercy, help us to understand that we already have enough faith through your Son, Jesus Christ, to live our days in Christian obedience. Amen.

A few weekends ago, I attended a women’s retreat that focused on spiritual gifts. Before the retreat, we were all supposed to take a spiritual gifts assessment online and bring our results with us. 

As we began our conversations, I listened to various women confess, “well, it says my most prominent spiritual gift is faith, but I don’t know about that.” The other women, their friends who had come with them, and the one who listened to their stories over the weekend began shaking their heads. “Yes,” they said, “it is so obvious to us that faith is your spiritual gift. Just the way you walk through life and encounter people— it is certainly a prominent gift in your life.” 

The faithful women didn’t see big flashy, newspaper worthy signs of the faithfulness— maybe they never left their homes to live in poverty, perhaps they weren’t traditional ministers or nuns, maybe they’d never been recognized for their faith ever before that day. 

Whatever it was, they didn’t feel like they had “enough” faith, which is what the disciples were looking for in themselves because Jesus was asking them to do what they thought were big, huge, flashy things. The disciples had heard Jesus tell people about the true cost of discipleship— a lifestyle that would cost them not only their relationships, their livelihood, but ultimately their very lives. 

It’s really no wonder that the disciples were demanding Jesus to increase their faith, but Jesus obviously thinks it’s the wrong request. 

Faith, Jesus says in not so many words, is not something that can be measured, but something that has already been gifted to us— in ready abundance— by the Holy Spirit. Faith is something that we walk every day, obedience we called it, perhaps, as Jesus implies by his story of the slaves serving their masters. Faith is simply doing what we are told by God to do— nothing flashy, nothing worth praise or a news story. 

But the disciples didn’t want faith to simply make it through the day, they were asking for faith to do great works and great wonders according to their own desires. But this was not according to God’s own grace and love. 

But I understand the disciples’ cry for more faith— it would be nice if we were recognized a little more for how much faith we have, wouldn’t it? Just so we know we have enough. But the reality is that we do already have the faith that we need, and more than that, we already demonstrate that faith every day. 

God gives us enough faith through the Holy Spirit to continue in the Christian life, to continue to turn back toward God despite our sinfulness and temptations. Not flashy, but good and true and measured everyday faith. 

It’s the faith that Jesus speaks about at other times— not the faith of moving mountains or of uprooting a mulberry tree and throwing it into the sea. 

It is doing small, faithful things repeatedly. It is the faith of a mustard seed, the faith of salt and grain and ordinary life. 

Presbyterian pastor, Courtney Ellis says, “It is what we do in those ordinary times that matters most because those are the days that shape us most regularly.” God works in the minuscule things. God works in our every day, faithful acts of obedience. 

When we decide to turn toward our neighbor instead of away, God works in that small faithful act. When we spend an extra few minutes snuggling with our child at night, when we decide to just do this dishes instead of fussing at our spouse or roommate. God works in that small faithful act. When we prayerfully decide to commit a few extra dollar to the mission of the church this year, God works in that small faithful act. When we come to worship with our friends and family, when we bring our pets for a blessing. God works in that small faithful act. 

And God works in those small faithful acts day after day, even when we trip up and feel like we haven’t done a single faithful thing in weeks. Because God is faithful to us. And it is God’s faithfulness that keeps us moving toward the Kingdom.

There are countless examples of every day faithfulness in my life, people I can point to and say, “that’s exactly what God is like.” But the best example I could think of this week was Cooper, our seven year old husky here. 

We also have a one year old little boy, so every day Cooper is whacked with toys and bottles, he has his fur tugged on and pulled out, and he’s regularly used as a footstool. We don’t walk him as often as we should and he spends a lot of time at home sleeping. Yet he remains faithful. He is always calm and happy, always willing to stick close to our son and me when we do go on walks. Every day he demonstrates his obedience and devotion to us, despite the way we sometimes unknowingly neglect him. 

We see that kind of faithfulness in so many pets, service animals, and therapy animals. The faith of simply continuing to look forward to the next day, no knowing what it holds, but knowing that God is there guiding us and being faithful alongside us. 

And that faith might not be flashy or glamorous, it might not feel like a lot and some days it will feel like it is barely there, God works in that too. Amen. 

Live among God's faithful people

I think there is a reason that baptismal covenants often start with something about relationships.

Do you intend to continue in the covenant God made with you in holy baptism: to live among God's faithful people?

Relationships are quite possibly the most important part of our faith lives. Bonhoeffer's famous book about the Christian life is appropriately named Life Together. We simply cannot be followers of Christ without being in relationship with others. It's not possible.

For many people who were raised within Christian households, this may be second nature. We attended worship services, Bible studies, Sunday School, and maybe some of our closest friends and our parents' friends were from the congregation in which we grew up. It just made sense to live life together as God's people. But sometimes the church, as we experience it growing up, is not the best place for growing toward relationship with others or even toward relationship with God.

I invite you to hear Derek's story as he shared it with me:

"LCM [Lutheran Campus Ministry] taught me what it means to live among God’s faithful people. I grew up in a large church that was impersonal, isolating, and, at times, abusive. Even though I attended this church for over a decade, there was always a metaphorical wall between me and the people that I saw every Sunday: I was afraid to be vulnerable with anyone there. I actually walked away from religion entirely for several years after leaving this church. LCM was instrumental in helping me heal from this experience. At LCM, I found a community where I did not have to wear a mask or put up a front. I began to feel close to God and to other people for the first time in my life. There is, perhaps, a reason that “living among God’s faithful people” is listed first in the baptismal promises: it is difficult to share in God’s word, proclaim the good news, serve others, and strive for justice if there is no foundational sense of community. I am grateful to LCM for providing me with the fellowship and solidarity that I needed to begin to live out these other promises."

Campus ministry provides an opportunity for many students to not only find a new community in Christ, but oftentimes heal from the experiences of previous communities. Simply being in relationship with people who are struggling through the same life situations as you can be immensely helpful in furthering your faith. When we live among God's faithful people, we begin to understand ourselves and our God more fully. No one understands this sentiment more than Alex Long, who spent two years as in intern for campus ministry.

"For two years I lived in a church basement.  I was the ministry intern at Jacob's Porch, the Lutheran campus ministry at Ohio State, and part of the salary included housing in the church.  I was on scene for all the joys and triumphs of being a college student, as well as all the dramas and doubts.  I was blessed to see the day by day faith lives of dozens of people I still call friends and family.  From Bible studies to random sleepovers, sermons to coffee breaks, worship services to concerts, study breaks to trumpet practice at 9 in the morning, I was there for all of it.  There was nothing more rewarding and more draining than to live among God's faithful people.  And, there was nothing that helped my faith life more than helping others' faith lives.  My faith grew more deeply and richly than it ever would have done if I hadn't been the Porch intern and resident.  Living among God's people is not only a good thing to do for a solid faith life, I believe that it is a necessary thing to do for one's self."

It is not that students are unable to find their own clubs, social engagements, and groups to be a part of in college. But how many of these clubs are truly helping students form relationship, fellowship, and faithfulness during an incredibly challenging time in their lives? Campus ministry has an opportunity to be a place of safety, questioning, and encouragement for people struggling and celebrating through this formative time. Campus ministry has the opportunity to be a beautiful place in which we live among God's faithful people now, and for years to come.