🦁 Epiphany 2-7
Readings: Psalm 86; Genesis 16:1-14; Luke 18:15-17.
From the TRNG Room:
Reflection
Good morning, and welcome to the second Wednesday after Epiphany. This is Brother Logan Isaac, broadcasting from Albany, Oregon. This morning's readings come to us from Psalm 86, Genesis 16, and Luke 18. And I must apologize for my extended absence. You heard from Tim Tribble yesterday. And as you may know, if you're following the news, there's been a big ice storm, and being in the Pacific Northwest that I'm in the middle of it you might see a bunch of stuff around Portland and Seattle, but we just had the second day of school canceled after a three day weekend. So it's been, what is it, a five-day weekend? And I'm kind of an introvert, and I have two very incredible but also very active children. And I recharge when I'm by myself. And so I'm just kind of, my, my batteries, my energy level is real low. But I also want to take this moment to share some of the things that are coming up for First Formation.
If you haven't subscribed to First Forward, I hope you do, and that is because I'm going to try to dedicate the next three years to reflecting on the Sunday readings. And Tim, who is entering the novitiate for the Hospitology of St. Martin and undergoing certification to become a lay preacher in the Episcopal Church, will be picking up some more of the days.
So we won't I don't think we'll have as many dailies but the Sundays I'm hoping to do a better job of. You haven't heard from me this past several days because of the weather and me trying to find a rhythm and a place that works. You might even be able to hear my kids playing around downstairs.
And so I'm I'm trying to find systems that work for recording consistently and hopefully regardless of, you know, how my, my mood or my spirit is at the time. But to the readings this morning The, the Genesis reading stands out to me because the, you are, you are pregnant and shall bear a son and she'll call his name Ishmael is a line that sounds familiar because it's what Hannah, I believe was told about Samuel.
It's about it's similar to what Samson's mother was told Samson's mother, I believe it remains unnamed. And then, of course, the angel Gabriel announces to Mary. that she will bear a son and shall name him Yehoshua or Joshua. So this line of God or God's angel bringing to the attention of a, of Previously barren woman goes through all these cycles, except here with Hagar, she's not barren.
She's just outside the center of the story. She's Sarai's servant, not, you know, a child or something else. It's also a place that reminds us that family and community are sometimes permeable. Ishmael is one of Abraham's children, right?
Ishmael is the firstborn of Abram. And so we mustn't forget that whatever kind of other meanings or interpretations we put on top of it, including that Arabs are descended from Ishmael and the language about it'll be a while, don't give a man his hand against everyone, everyone's hand against him and trying to paint that onto our own modern context and the conflicts that have been going on since, certainly through the 1900s and through till now that's fine, but we also must not forget that they are still a part of the Abrahamic family.
This isn't some, this isn't an other that we deal with. This is an us and in the gospel reading, you know I'm kind of surprised at the choice because it focuses on children instead of being a child of Abraham. And that may be because Abraham's name has not been changed yet. He hasn't made his covenant with God.
But. You know, it's, it's an important reminder that family is important, but it's also not always how we depict like the nuclear family. Ishmael is Isaac's no, yeah. Isaac's half brother by Abraham or by Abram. And so. Not, it's not just that children as children are important, but, and, and ourselves as children, but recognizing that if we are children, our family is probably wider and larger and deeper than we often imagine.
If I could, you know, I could, you know, bring into that kind of interpretation, like all the 23andMe and the fertility doctors that are like not. Acting as they should and you find out that you have all these half siblings because some whack job doctor like Has helped in his fertility clinic in ways that are immoral and unethical anyway family Is something that we don't get to choose and we often find our family is larger than we think and I think that Could potentially remind us if we let it That our, our preconceived notions, our biases for and against are not always what we think.
And so if we want to talk about how family is important God may remind us that our families are, are larger and broader than we often think, both through blood, but also through marriage. And, you know, just as a kind of a training room plug, then, I'll put it in the show notes, the Holy Family was made up of military dependents.
You know, Joseph doesn't appear in any way until Matthew and Luke's gospel. Mark doesn't write about Jesus having a father. Aren't you the son of Mary when he's in Nazareth? Saul. Or Paul doesn't mention Mary by name, but that he does have a mother, or of course he has a mother.
But mentions no father whatsoever. And so even the holy family is not exactly what we think. Joseph may have been kind of a late addition. And if that's the case, it reinforces that, that Yahweh is Joshua, or Jesus's father. And if Yahweh is a warrior, according to Exodus 15. 3, that makes Mary a military spouse and Jesus a military brat.
And so don't, don't think we know who our family is because God might break those boundaries open. Outside our own preconceived notions about the nuclear family or immediate family, quote, unquote, with the square, square quotes. So, let's consider using family in a more inclusive. Broad perspective instead of an exclusionary, narrow concept that puts people out.
Family is meant to put people in, keep people in, and give them a place to belong, and that precisely is what the church is meant to be and to do.
