"That’s Who I Am"

(Ex. 12:1-14 and Deut. 6:4-9)

          In my family there's the one about Uncle Roger and the grape juice.  My paternal grandmother told it better than any of us; suffice it to say the story begins with a small boy, dressed in a white suit for church, trying very hard to help get the family breakfast ready before his parents come downstairs … and ends with both kitchen and boy dressed in a lovely shade of purple. There's also the one about my ancestor Andrew Hannay, a couple of centuries earlier, who mustered the troops in our small town in upstate NY during the Revolutionary War and marched them many miles north to fight in the Battle of Saratoga, only to discover that the battle was already finished by the time they got there.  If the stories we tell define who we are, you can be sure mine is a family of hard-workers with good intentions.  Situations may not always turn out the way we'd like, but we'll continue to try hard and give it our best shot!

          Some family stories are less comical, of course.  I think of Ken’s grandfather, a Korean pastor imprisoned during the Japanese occupation for refusing to bow to the emperor - and the ways that memory has shaped the faith of Ken’s mom and all of her siblings, and all of their kids. 

I think, too, about my maternal grandmother, who longed for so many years to return to school to get her doctorate.  She worried, since she’d be 62 years old when she graduated, that it wasn’t worth doing, but her daughter reminded her she’d be 62 whether or not she went back to school, so she might as well go for it.  I’ll never forget visiting my grandma in her lab as she did cutting edge research on limb regeneration in amphibians, and cheering wildly for her at her graduation with a doctorate in Vertebrate Zoology.  There’s no question the stories I call to mind of both of these amazing women – my mom and my grandma - have profoundly shaped the person I am today.

          Of course our daughters are learning about Roger and Andrew, and their Great Grandpa Lee and and their Great Grandma Pat, and countless other stories from my family and from Ken's, and someday they’ll be able to hit the punch lines with the same punch as the rest of us.  For the stories belong to them as well.  They have every right to claim them as their own. 

          I'm sure many of you have stories you treasure from your family history, stories you look forward to passing on to each new generation.  Some of them no doubt are serious, some are funny, but all of them in some way help to define who you are as a member of that clan.

          Church families have their stories too – ask any of our older members to tell you what the Wallingford and Ravenna congregations were like years ago, long before our merger in 2004, about the people that stand out in their memories, the events and relationships that shaped them in their journeys of faith. Those of you with fewer gray hairs have important church stories to share too, stories of individuals and experiences that have helped to shape the people you are today.  Keep in mind these are memories we will want to pass along to the children of the church – so they can become their stories as well.

          The story of the Passover and the Exodus from Egypt was for the earliest Israelites that kind of story--only more so.  If the stories we tell remind us who we are, then this was THE story of the people of Israel, and in many ways it continues to be THE central story for Jews even today.  It is a story of their beginnings, a story of their religious identity. Time and again throughout the Old Testament, or Hebrew Scriptures, biblical authors would refer to the Exodus event, sometimes in detail, sometimes only with a brief allusion, but the story was so central and so powerful that it never drifted very far into the background. The Ten Commandments begin with the words: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery..." (Ex 20:2)  Later on in the law, the people of Israel are commanded to show hospitality to the strangers in their midst, remembering that they were once strangers in the land of Egypt.  The names 'Egypt' and 'Pharoah' were picked up by the prophets to refer in a symbolic way to other rulers, other nations who had since come to power and who now dominated the nation of Israel.  When during the Babylonian exile prophets offered words of comfort to the people, they spoke in terms of a new Exodus, when their God would once again bring them out captivity and allow them to reenter the promised land.  The story of the Exodus was told and retold, picked up by each new generation, made relevant and contemporary in each new situation.

          So central was the Exodus story for the people of Israel that God commanded the Passover meal to be celebrated each year to commemorate this foundational event.  In the Lord's Supper Reformed Christians not only remember Christ's death, but celebrate his living presence among us. So, too, the Passover celebration is not simply an act of remembrance, but an affirmation that events from the distant past continue to offer living truth for the present and hope for the future. "The Jewish liturgy for Passover stresses that worshipers in every celebration are actual participants in God's saving deed:  [Those who celebrate the seder meal together say] God brought us out of Egypt." (Fretheim, p. 139)  It's a story of amazing grace.  And it's a story that each new generation can claim as its own.

          That's all well and good, you say, but since I’m not a Jew by birth, what relevance does this have for me?  To paraphrase the way the apostle Paul puts it in Romans 11, we Gentiles have been grafted on to the same family tree whose sturdy lower branches bear the names of those first believers in Yahweh: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob, Rachel, and Leah, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.  We've been invited to become a part of the story, to add our names to the family tree, and so to claim the stories of this great family of faith as our own.

          It may be helpful to think in terms of an analogy from our own nation's history.  We've all learned stories about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in school.  We know about Francis Scott Key and his composition of "The Star Spangled Banner."  When we sing that song and tell those stories it's because they belong to all of us.  Some of our families arrived here hundreds of years ago, some have been here for a decade or less, but as each new family of immigrants is incorporated into the American family, they are invited to claim our country's early history as their story. 

          So, too, we as Christians are privileged to be able to claim the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures along with those of the New Testament.  The whole of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is a part of our heritage as a family of faith.  It is not all written in the form of stories, of course (there is law, doctrine, song, and so on) but in a broad sense we can talk about it as a single story, one we are invited to learn and to claim as our own.

          If the Exodus story reminds us that we have a right to claim the Biblical story as our own, then the book of Deuteronomy charges us with the task of passing on what we have learned.  The modern reader can't help being drawn in, as the earliest readers would have been, by the number of times the words 'you' and 'your children' and 'today' appear throughout the book. The law is not simply to be memorized and recited as a matter of historical interest but to be discussed and applied in every age by people seeking to be faithful to God.

          Why should we, as twenty-first century Christians, claim the biblical stories as our own?  Why pass them on to our children and our children's children?  Well, for one thing they’re good stories. There's more swashbuckling action, romance, sex, intrigue, and plot twists here than you're likely to find in the next blockbuster movie. (If you haven't come across these particular elements yet, Ken and I would be happy to make some suggestions for your reading pleasure.)  But more importantly, the stories of the Scriptures offer truth.  They remind us of our connection with women and men of faith throughout the centuries.  They remind us that even in biblical times folks were trying to make sense of who God was and how to live as people of God.  They help us understand who we are as people of faith, and they challenge us to continue to grow into the individuals and communities God calls us to be.

          Some of you have been blessed, as I have, with the gift of wonderful Sunday School teachers through the years, who loved the stories and songs and sayings of the Bible and enjoyed passing along what they had learned to their students. It is a gift that teachers in this congregation will continue to give this year, and we are so grateful to them for their dedication to this important ministry.  But our WPC kids aren’t the only ones who can benefit from becoming more familiar with the stories of the Bible.  If you're someone who's gotten excited about Bible study as an adult, individually or with a group of other adults...by all means continue to make these stories your own!  If you are someone who grew up attending Sunday School, but for one reason or another you've not particularly continued your Christian Education as an adult, I encourage you to re-familiarize yourself with the stories you loved as a child--I promise you will uncover riches of which you were scarcely aware when you were first introduced to Moses and Pharaoh, Noah, Esther, Jonah, Daniel, and Ruth.  And if you're someone who did not grow up in the church, for whom these stories are not yet your stories, begin to read them, get to know them, so that you, too, may one day claim them as your own.

          Let's all go back to school this fall.  Let's dive in together and enjoy the marvelous stories and songs and words of wisdom contained in the Scriptures. Together in corporate worship.  Here in our Sunday School classes.  In Bible study groups.  And at home. 

          I’m so pleased that one of our daughters’ favorite songs includes these lyrics (and I especially enjoy it when they adapt them with our own family names when they sing along…)

          I am Rosemary’s granddaughter,

          the spitting image of my father,

          and when the day is done, my mama’s still my biggest fan…

          It’s all a part of me – that’s who I am.

All of our family stories, all of our church family stories, all of the Bible stories we read – all of it together helps ground us with a strong sense of identity. 

          For the world will ask us -Who are you?  And each of us should be able to answer with pride – I am the daughter, the brother, the nephew, the granddaughter of some pretty amazing people.  I am part of a church family with a rich history of faithfulness in good times and in bad.  I am part of a biblical story that reaches back over three thousand years. 

Above all, we should be able to offer the answer the kids have learned so well from Julie: “Who are you?” “I am a child of God.”

          Children of God, we have a right and a responsibility to claim this biblical story as our own.  Let's use the new church school year to enjoy what is rightfully ours.  Amen.