By Rev. James Lamkin"Flawed Families...and the Faith They Inspire"
While studying this upcoming summer's lectionary texts, a sermon series emerged.
Scratch the surface of most any Old Testament story and you will see that every family in the Bible is flawed. And not just a little flawed, but big time!
A brief walking-tour includes, but is not limited to: the first boy, Cain, kills his brother, Abel; Noah gets drunk and naked...in that order; the polygamist patriarchs played favorites with their wives; Abraham abandoned his son, Ishmael, and almost killed his son, Isaac; one mother manipulated her kids, Jacob and Esau, into a major league sibling rivalry; fathers-in-law betrayed sons-in-law; and a band of brothers ganged-up on their youngest sibling, Joseph, sold him as a slave, and told their daddy that he was dead.
All of the above is just a few weeks' worth of summer scriptures. We won't even get to David who may qualify as the greatest king and worst father of all time.
As awful as these families are, the Bible's punchline is not about their failures or their flaws. It is the faithfulness of God, and the faith these flawed families inspire in us.
God refuses to abandon them, though they often abandon each other. Human dysfunctioning does not determine God's functioning.
Almost by default, these saints and sinners grace us by their mess-ups. We read their stories, close our Bibles, look at each other, and say, "Then, there's hope for my family, too."
So we will soak this summer in these stories. We may even discover that our flaws, the cracks in our armor, qualify us as containers of God's grace.
2014 Summer Sermon Series
"Flawed Families...and the Faith They Inspire"
(Some of the Bible's first parents, kids, and couples...and how God redeemed their mess-ups.)
June 15: Genesis 1 and 2 (Adam and Eve)
"In the Beginning: The First Family Was Dysfunctional"
Issues: Choices, Differentiation, Stuckness
June 22: Genesis 21(Hagar)
"A Certain Man Had Two Wives"
Issues: Regret and Manipulation
June 29: Genesis 22 (Abraham and the Sacrifice of Isaac)
"Why Isaac Never Looked forward to Father's Day"
Issues: Faith, Fatherhood, Absente Parenthood
July 6: Genesis 24 (Isaac marries Rebecca)
"The Flawed Marriage of Church and State"
Issues: Romance and Grief
July 13: Genesis 25 (Esau and Jacob)
"A Certain Mother Had Two Sons"
Issues: Sibling Rivalry
July 20: Genesis 28 (Jacob's Ladder)
"Wherever You Go, There You Are, Part I"
Issues: self-avoidance
July 27: Genesis 29 (Jacob marries Rachel)
"Warning: Your Kin Will Do You In"
Issues: Betrayal, Trust
August 3: Genesis 32 (Jacob wrestles God)
"Wherever You Go, There You Are, Part II"
Issues: The pain of healing
August 10: Genesis 37 (Joseph sold to Egypt)
"Playing Favorites"
Issues: More sibling rivalry
August 17: Genesis 45 (Joseph forgives)
"What you Meant for Bad, God Meant for Good"
Issues: Forgiveness, Providence, Redemption
August 24: Exodus (Moses and the Basket)
"Pharaohs that Know Not Joseph"
Issues: the anxiety of productivity
August 31: Exodus (Moses and the Bush)
"Shoeless Mo...."
Issues: Intervention, Vocation
