Once upon a time…i
In the beginning…ii
It was a dark and stormy night…iii
The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house. All that cold,
cold wet day.iv
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man, in possession of a good
fortune, must be in want of a wife.v
In the great green room there was a telephone and a red balloon and a picture of…vi
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…vii
A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…

From their very first words, stories have the power to take hold of us and to transport us to different times and distant places. Stories carry the strength and wisdom of their characters. Stories invite us to learn from their characters’ failings and foibles without experiencing them ourselves. Stories bear truth about both the joy and suffering of life, truth we find difficult to accept from even the wisest advisor. From stories we learn something of who we are.

All of us have our own stories, with famous first lines that may sound something like this… “Back in 1957…” or “When I was in second grade…” or “On September 11th, I was…” Often our families and friends know exactly what is coming next when these words spill forth from our mouths. Our stories bear something of who we are.

Woven within, throughout and around our stories is a larger story: the story of God’s relationship with humankind. This story is told in different ways by different peoples. As Christians the common threads of our story are knotted together in the Bible.

A wandering Aramean was my ancestor. Because this is our story, with these words we find ourselves on the plains of Moab. Where after thirty-nine years, eleven months and one week in the wilderness, the Israelites are gathered, poised to enter into the Promised Land. After nearly forty years of feeling lost and unsure, everything for which the Israelites had endured, suffered and sacrificed, was now within their reach. The sense of God’s blessing and grace must have been palpable.

In the portion of the story from Deuteronomy, that was just read, Moses tells the people where, when and how to worship when they enter the Promised Land – he offers the people a liturgy so to speak. He instructs the people of Israel to remember their story as they worship. They are to give thanks to God with the first fruits of their harvest because they have a history with God – they are a part of God’s story. Their fore-bearer, Jacob, lived a nomadic life and yet, because he had a relationship with God, he came to be father of the twelve tribes of Israel and a great nation. Moses wanted the people of Israel to know themselves to be inheritors of that legacy… just as are we today.

We are a part of story of an absurdly abundant God. A God who meets people right where they are – whether they are wandering in a wilderness, or trapped in a seemingly impossible situation, or confused and disoriented or truly happy with life, as they know it. Our story teaches us that there is no place God will not go to meet us. God will never abandon us on the journey – even if it takes 40 years – a very long time – a lifetime. This is a story to celebrate in worship. For even if this story merely lurks in the scenery of our life, when we feel abandoned and left behind, we will remember. We will know ourselves to be loved and pursued by a God who is faithful.

Moses’ mandate to celebrate our story in worship should sound very familiar to us for this is something we do every time we gather as a community to worship. We hear our story read from four different books of Scripture. Together, we recite our official story – the creed. And every time we gather at the table we tell the same story. “On the he was handed over to suffering and death, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread…” Moses understood, when we know our story, our story becomes a source of strength.

The writer of Luke’s Gospel connects Jesus back to the stories of Deuteronomy. Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness are an echo of the forty years endured by the people of Israel. During his time in the wilderness, Jesus meets the devil and resists the devil by remembering his story” “One does not live by bread alone… Worship the Lord and serve only him.” Jesus frustrates the devil with the story of the people of God: “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

If this is our story, then we are participants in the story. We get to make decisions about how we interpret and internalize the story. Allstate Insurance Company seems to understand the power of story. Allstate has an advertisement running on television right now that highlights the ways people have adapted to tough times. Allstate is of course trying to convince us that we are highly adaptable and smart people and that even in trying economic times, insurance is a good investment. The actor, Dennis Haysbert, narrating the ad asks this question about the state of the economy. “Will this be remembered as the Great Recession or the recession that made us great?” Allstate understands that we get to choose. They are betting they will sell more insurance if we choose the happy ending.

We choose how we respond to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We choose how stories are remembered, whether a story becomes a source of strength or a source of pain. A wandering Aramean was my ancestor. If we are filled with stories that teach us that we are a people who are loved madly by a creator who wants the best for us, that we are a people who overcome incredible odds, who are resourceful and creative, and who are worthy of dignity and respect… then we are far more likely to live into those stories and choose the happy ending.

Lent is a season of penitence – A time to acknowledge that we have disregarded our connectedness – to God, to each other, and to creation. But Lent is also a celebration, a celebration of our story. Throughout Lent we will hear stories of God’s efforts to meet people where they are. Some of the stories are reassuring and some of the stories are challenging. They are all told for one purpose, to remind us that God has only one desire for all of creation… a happy ending.

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iThe concept/idea for this sermon came from “Living the Word: Reflections on the Lectionary”, Christian Century, February 9, 2010 written for this issue by Adam Thomas, a talented, young Episcopal priest, who blogs at wherethewind.com
iiGenesis
iiiEdward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford
ivDr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat
vJane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
viMargaret Wise Brown, Goodnight Moon
viiCharles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
viiiNick Carter, “Homiletical Perspective: Deuteronomy 26.1-11” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C Vol. 2, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Eds., (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 29.
ixThomas, 19.