We begin this morning with a shout out to all the fathers…
Today is your day!
Happy father’s day to the hundreds of fathers who have crammed into our pews…
Let me see… counting myself, I think there are ___ of us.
But perhaps what we lack in quantity we make up for in quality?
I like to think so…
But, even though there are fewer of you in the pews, it is important to acknowledge fathers too.
And, as it happens, the passage that Carol just read for us contains a subtle message that is customized specifically for fathers. You might have missed it. Allow me to lay it out for you…
In the passage that Carol just read for us, Abraham took Hagar, his “slave woman” and Ishmael, the son that he fathered with her, and sent them out into the desert with a few pieces of bread and some water. They weren’t going for a day hike. He told them not to come back.
So… fathers…
Here’s a subtle piece of advice that comes straight from today’s reading…
Should you ever be tempted to send your son out into the desert…
Don’t do it…
As stellar fatherly acts go, sending your son out into the desert has little to recommend it.
If you are looking for a role model for being a good father, you best steer well clear of Abraham. He may have been the first patriarch, but neither of his sons would have given him a five star rating as a father. Believe it or not, this business of sending Ishmael off into the desert to die is not even the worst thing Abraham is known for…
He is also famous for coming this close to killing his other son Isaac with a knife.
To be fair to Abraham, there is some evidence in the text that kind of absolves the old man.
In this passage, God tells Abraham not to “be distressed” because God intends to “make a nation” of Ishmael.” From this Abraham knows that Hagar and Ishmael will not perish in the Wilderness of Beersheba.
Abraham had the inside scoop. When he handed Hagar and Ishmael some bread and water and marching orders, he had it from a good source that they were not destined to perish in the wilderness.
God assured Abraham that, when the time was right, an Angel of God would step in and save the day…
And just so… the story goes: the text tells us that, when, in her despair, Hagar laid her young boy Ishmael down under a bush, and lamented his imminent death, the Angel of God appeared to her and spoke to her saying:
God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
That was pretty good timing on the Angel’s part.
The same thing happens later in the Book of Genesis. Just when Abraham is raising the knife to strike the life out of his other son, Isaac, the Angel of God steps in and stops him.
Good timing again! Another moment and that knife would have fallen.
Not once, but twice, the only thing that saved Abraham killing his sons, was the timely appearance of the Angel of God.
**
In addition to being Father’s Day, today is also the day after Juneteenth.
America’s newest and most misunderstood Federal holiday.
Well, that’s not entirely true.
Black Americans have been celebrating June 19th for over a hundred years, but it only became a Federal Holiday that we can all celebrate, in 2021.
Do you know the origins of Juneteenth?
Juneteenth commemorates the day – June 19th, 1865, when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and 2,000 Union soldiers entered Galveston, Texas, to proclaim and enforce General Order No. 3, which read as follows:
The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, “all slaves are free”. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves…
There is an admirable clarity to this statement which, in a few short sentences, abolishes a great evil from the face of the earth – or at least aspires to.
But, that said, I have always wondered why this particular moment in the long history of Black emancipation has been singled out as cause for celebration?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to commemorate January 1st, 1863 – the day Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and, with one stroke of a pen, freed the approximately 3.5 million enslaved Black people in the Confederate states?
Or how about April 9th, 1865 – the day Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at the courthouse in Appomattox, Virginia?
Weren’t these the “landmark” days along the road to emancipation? To me, they seem more significant than a two sentence decree issued by an otherwise unknown general who sailed into a seemingly random Texas port two months after Appomattox, to enforce the law that had already gone into effect throughout the country…
Why does the holiday celebrate the achievement of freedom on a small scale, in one region, if freedom was being achieved on a big scale, throughout the country?
Is this why Juneteenth has been slow to catch on? Because the holiday refuses to conform with the ways that we are accustomed to view history?
**
When President Joe Biden signed the Bill that made Juneteenth a Federal Holiday in June 2021, there was a little old Black lady standing next to him watching his pen with a giant smile on her face.
You may remember her from the news.
This old lady’s name is Opal Lee.
Miss Opal – who is pictured on the back of today’s bulletin, is known from coast to coast as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth.” The oldest of four children, Miss Opal was born to Otis and Mattie Flake on October 7th, 1926 – which, if you do the math, makes her, currently, 4 months shy of her 100th birthday!
When Miss Opal was 12 years old, in June of 1939, her parents, realizing the ambition of long years of struggle, achieved the American dream of purchasing their own home – a brick house in the Terrell Heights section of Fort Worth Texas.
But their dream was short-lived.
When their white neighbors learned that a black family was in their midst, they rose up – some 500 strong – to drive the Flakes out. The family fled for their lives while the mob vandalized, and ultimately burned down their dream house.
These frightening events took place on June 19th, 1939. So a day of celebration for the Black community, became a day of trauma and loss for the young Opal Lee and her family.
One might be tempted to ask the question – where was the Angel of God?
When we read parts of the Bible – like, for example, the two stories about the near deaths of Abraham’s two sons, Ishmael and Isaac – we are led to believe that even when things look really bad the Angel will step in and save the day at the last possible moment.
The Flake family escaped with their lives, but all they worked for – all they dreamed of – went up in smoke.
No Angels stepped in.
**
The appearance, or the absence, of the Angel of God is a source of very serious concern to me, as a pastor.
When, in the course of my calling, I encounter someone who is suffering – someone who is looking directly into the face of despair or death – at such times I would love to be able to say:
“Don’t worry, the Angel of God will show up. It may be at the last moment – but fear not, he’ll step in and save the day.”
But I can’t promise that. The Bible may tell us that the Angel of God will step in and save the day, but we live in a world in which cars crash. Cancer spreads. Pain becomes chronic. Young people overdose. All these things happen, and it seems like the Angel of God is nowhere to be seen.
Sometimes… sometimes people are miraculously cured. Sometimes the steering wheel jumps the right direction, or the shark swims away. Sometimes… Sometimes, the Angel of God does seem to show up… but can we be sure?
I don’t think so. Not sure enough to promise anything.
And say the Angel of God does appear… are you to understand, then, that you are loved by God?
LIkewise, if the Angel of God does not appear – does that mean you are abandoned by God?
These stories about Abraham’s sons – they seem to present that narrative. God made sure they were saved, because they were Abraham’s sons, and God had plans for them.
It’s a fine narrative if you are Abraham’s sons. If you are not… it’s a troubling narrative.
So, in the face of this, what can we be sure of?
Can we be sure of anything?
**
Miss Opal Lee campaigned tirelessly to make Juneteenth a Federal Holiday. She organized. She created petitions. She walked. Her efforts created news stories – she became known as the grandmother of Juneteenth. She was the face of that movement.
Why?
Recalling the time her family’s house was burned down, Miss Opal once told a newspaper reporter:
“The fact that it happened on the 19th day of June has spurred me to make people understand that Juneteenth is not just a festival.”
Something about the burning house made the struggle for Juneteenth personal for Miss Opal.
The same thing can be said for the nature of Juneteenth itself. It is does not conform to the slave master’s view of historical landmarks – it is inspired by the personal reality of the last of the enslaved people being set free.
This is not the history of the colonizer. It is the history of a people set free.
It’s personal.
In June 2024, Eighty five years after her family’s house was destroyed by a mob of white supremacists, Opal Lee was presented with keys to a new house, in the same neighborhood.
A coalition of people and businesses in Fort Worth got together and built her a new home and gave it to her.
The mob, in 1939, was enflamed by hatred.
This coalition was motivated by love.
It took a while, but eventually, Miss Opal’s angels did show up.
Just like the personal nature of Juneteenth, the arrival of an angel is a personal thing…
We don’t have to wait around for the Angel of God. Ultimately, it’s up to us.
As Saint Teresa of Avila once said:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
We cannot guarantee the appearance of the Angel of God, but…
the personal truth is…
If we choose, we can bring an angel. We can bring an angel by being an Angel.
We don’t need to go far from home to learn this beautiful lesson.
Last Sunday before church, Jessica told me that her brother Sean’s illness has brought about a beautiful series of events…
Sean’s friends – some of them going back to elementary school, have returned to him.
They’ve taken turns bringing him to chemo.
They come over to be with him so his mom can go out or take a nap.
They moved a bunch of furniture to help set up for the hospital bed.
They threw a party for him.
And now…
Now our beloved Jess herself will leave us for the summer to be her brother’s angel.
This is the beauty of how we are created.
All we need is a little love to be transformed into angels.
Amen.