Called

10^th Sunday after Pentecost

July 29, 2018

Ephesians 4:1-16

“Live a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”

I did not grow up reading comic books or familiar with the stories of all these superheroes whose movies are coming out. I knew Spiderman from the newspaper comics. I knew Batman from the old 1960s TV show with Adam West and Burt Ward. I knew vaguely of Superman and Wonder Woman. All the rest of these guys have been new to me: X-men, Ironman, Ant Man, Captain America, the Black Panther. It’s been a whole new world that my husband has introduced me to. The ones that intrigue me most are the ones whose stories have biblical overtones, the ones whose values are Christian virtues of honesty, integrity, trust, the ones whose stories are about redemption, loyalty, and human frailty. Ironman is the prodigal son, he’s actually called that in the first movie and there were so many biblical references in that movie it was easy to craft a sermon around it. In addition to movies, Marvel Comics is also dropping TV series on Netflix. We’re currently in the middle of season 2 of Luke Cage. Luke went to prison for a crime he didn’t commit and while in prison, voluntarily went through some experimentation that left him with unbreakable skin and superhuman strength. Season 1 is the story of after he gets out of jail and now in season 2 he is reunited with his father, who’s a pastor. They have some great heart-to-heart father-son conversations, and Luke’s dad tells him that his power is a gift from God and that he has a calling. There are a few more details than that, but it’s the first time where a superhero’s power is attributed to God and where a superhero’s mission is called a calling. Luke has a calling, to use his power for good, to help people, to help bear the burdens of pain and brokenness and darkness, to free people from the oppression of the enemy.

We read this morning Paul’s encouragement to the Ephesians to lead a life worthy of the calling which you have received. This is what Luke tries to do. Live a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. God graciously extended this calling to you. So, lead a life worthy of it. What does that mean? Well, it helps to know just what this calling is.

First, the first thing God calls you is his beloved child.  Before you were called anything else, before your parents named you, before you received nicknames or titles or labels, before you were told you were good at this and bad at that, God called you his beloved child with whom he is well pleased. Before you belonged to anyone else, you belonged to God. Before anyone else gave you a title or a name, God said you were his beloved child. Before anyone else knew your strengths and your weaknesses, God knew. Before anyone else tried to tear you down, God was there, building you up. You are God’s beloved. You were “intimately loved long before [your] parents, teachers, spouses, children, and friends loved or wounded [you].”[1] Listen to that voice that says, “I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine… my Beloved… I have molded you together in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother’s womb. I have carved you into the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace… I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you… You belong to me… Nothing will ever separate us.”[2] That is your calling. You belong to God. You are named as God’s own. The seal is placed on our forehead during baptism and nothing can undo it. Living into that life of the baptized, the life of God’s people, that’s what Paul’s talking about when he encourages us to live lives worthy of the call we’ve received. This isn’t making sure we’re worthy of God’s love or worthy of our call; we’re not talking about a burden of proof. This is worthy in the sense that our lives match the call we’ve received, that we’re following the call God has extended to us.

You see, as God’s beloved, God sends us into the world. God sends us into the world to show love, to bind the wounds of the brokenhearted, to offer a kind word, to join God in his work of redeeming and restoring the world. And it’s not so much a doing as it is a way of being in the world. As Paul tells the Ephesians, we are to be “humble and gentle; be patient, [and] bear with one another in love.”[3] What a difference a gentle touch can make! What a difference a kind gesture can make. Letting someone go in front of you. Sharing what you have. Smiling at someone who looks like they’re having a rough day. And bear with one another in love. It’s what we do here in the church. It’s what we do with our families. We love each other, we’re in this together for the long haul, so let’s figure it out. Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of this verse is to say “Walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.” Pouring yourself out for each other in acts of love. That’s what it means to live a life that matches God calling you his beloved. Remember, God, in the person of Jesus, poured himself out in acts of love. God becoming incarnate, taking on flesh, being born as Jesus, right there is God pouring himself out, long before you even get to the cross. Jesus poured himself out in acts of love many times. We are called, we are invited, to do the same.

“God not only says, ‘You are my Beloved.’ God also asks, ‘Do you love me?’ and offers us countless chances to say ‘Yes.’”[4] Did you say yes at the grocery store, when another shopper pushed past you? Did you say yes, while driving, when another driver apparently didn’t know the rules of a traffic circle? Did you say yes, when listening to a friend who has made some very different decisions than you would have made? Did you say yes when you got up this morning, or did you grumble at having to get up? I still remember a retreat speaker I heard years ago talk about two different ways to greet the Lord in the morning. You can choose to say, “O Lord, it’s morning!” Or, you can choose to say, “O Lord! It’s morning.” How do you begin your day? At every point along your journey there is a choice to say yes to God’s calling and a choice to say no.[5] At each step you can choose to testify to love, to what Jesus has done for you, and act accordingly. Or you can say, no. In a few weeks we’ll read about disciples who left Jesus and stopped following him because his teachings were too hard to accept.[6] They couldn’t do it. And the truth is we couldn’t do it on our own, either. We can only accept God’s invitation to lead a holy life by God’s grace and with God’s help. We need Jesus, too. Because with his help, then we can live lives that are a fitting response to what God has done.  Then we can equip God’s people for the work of ministry and build up Christ’s body, the church. We are in the construction business, not the demolition business! We are here to help each other, to affirm each other’s calling as God’s beloved, to lift each other up when they fall. Because that’s what God’s family does.

Finally, while all are called beloved, while all are called to love God and love your neighbor, while all are to follow John Wesley’s three simple rules of do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God, sometimes there is a call within a call. You may have heard this phrase if you’re familiar with the life of Mother Teresa. At age 18 she became a nun, joining the order of the Sisters of Loreto and was sent to teach in the order’s schools in India. Eighteen years later, she received “a call within a call.” She discerned that God wanted something more from her, “to be poor with the poor and to love [God] in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor.” Her order gave her permission to follow this call within a call and she moved to Calcutta and replaced her nun’s habit with a white sari with blue border. At age 40, the Vatican gave her permission to organize the Missionaries of Charity and it was decades more before the world noticed her work.  Mother Teresa followed her call and offered the dying of Calcutta into her home to receive loving care and respect until they died. Mother Teresa knew she was God’s Beloved and she knew this was how God called her to share his love with the world.

Talking about “the world” can be such a vague and unhelpful term. Yes, broadly, we are called to share God’s love with the world. That’s the general call. Yet, there’s also a specific call, we are to share God’s love with people here, in this place, at this time. Here, where we’re planted. The description I find the most helpful in figuring out the details is the way author and pastor Frederick Buechner puts it, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.” This is the intersection of your gifts and passions with the world’s needs. What does our community need? What does our church need? What are your strengths and gifts? How would you love to serve the Lord?

God calls you Beloved. God sends you into the world. How do you live so that your life aligns with God’s call? How, specifically, do you build up the church? How do your gifts intersect with the needs of our community? Who are you going to choose to be, remembering that on that great day you’ll be called up and God will ask what you did with the gifts he gave you?[7] Live as people of peace, with humility, gentleness, and patience, pouring yourself out for one another in acts of love. And God will say, “well done, good and faithful servant.” You are God’s beloved, given to the world to bear witness to God’s love, sharing that no one has to prove that they are worthy of being loved, they already are.

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[1] Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen, p. 36

[2] Ibid., p. 36-37

[3] Ephesians 4:2

[4] Nouwen, p. 133

[5] Ibid., p. 134

[6] John 6:60-66

[7] Matthew 25:19

Given

9^th Sunday after Pentecost

July 22, 2018

John 6:1-15

This story of Jesus feeding 5,000 men plus women and children is a familiar one to many of us, so let’s change it up a little bit. What would it look like if it happened in a church today?[1] The Finance team would echo Philip’s concern that it would be really expensive to feed this many people. Those on Outreach might reinforce Andrew’s position that there’s not enough money in the budget to cover this project. Worship probably wouldn’t even give an opinion, because they’d be getting ready for the fast-approaching religious festival. The Trustees would help everyone get seated on the lawn, although some might worry about the effects of this event on the church’s landscaping. And if a church did act according to those caricatures, then they’d miss that a miracle was about to happen. Their expectations would be for things to go exactly as planned, no more, no less. Their actions would be simply to ensure the survival of the church, and not to allow room for God to work. Ministry is about doing your best, expecting others to do their best, and leaving space for God to break through. If you put God in a box, if you put the church in a box, then you’re going to miss ways that God can work.

The doxology we read in Ephesians is one of my top favorite verses in the Bible. “To him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”[2] God is able to do far more than anything we can ask or imagine. God can make a way where there seems to be no way. That’s what a miracle is. An eight year old who doctors didn’t think would live past age two. Surviving a car accident that totaled the car. Falling in love again after being devastated by an ex. Feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish. Don’t put a limit on what God can do. Then you’ll miss what God is doing. And certainly don’t tell God “never.” I was so burnt out after finishing my master’s in education, I said I’d never go back to school. [Pause.] A mere four years later, I started seminary.

Dave showed me his Ironman pin last weekend. If he hadn’t told me that’s what it was, I would have thought he got it at Cokesbury or another Christian retailer. It said, “Anything is possible,” which is the trademark for the Ironman triathlons. It’s also a variation of what the angel tells Mary, just after saying Mary’s about to become pregnant with Jesus and her barren cousin, Elizabeth, is six months pregnant, “Nothing is impossible with God.”[3] Another way of saying this is what Paul tells the Philippians, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”[4] And, to the Ephesians, God can accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine through his power at work within us. Anything is possible with God. So don’t limit God. Don’t think God can do this but God can’t do that. God can’t redeem that person. God can’t use a certain person. God can’t act in this way. Unh-Unh. Anything is possible with God.

The second thing we learn about God in this story is that our God is a God of abundance. Our God is not a god of scarcity, which seems, ironically enough, to be in abundance these days. We hear from so many places: there’s not enough. I have to get mine now or I might not get it at all. I have to get what I want. I deserve what I want. Some of this scarcity is created: companies who only make a limited amount of product. Disney putting movies in a vault for fifty years, so you better buy it now! A mindset of scarcity is based on fear. There’s not enough room. There’s not enough food. There’s not enough money. There aren’t enough Tickle-Me Elmo’s or Build-a-Bear’s or whatever the latest craze is. We’re afraid that what we want is going to be sold out. I have to have mine, and I’m so fearful for it that I’m going to hoard it, I’m not going to share it, it’s mine and if there’s not enough, then too bad for you. Jesus tells a parable about a guy who says the exact same thing.[5] This guy’s a farmer, and a rich farmer, because he doesn’t do the work himself. He owns all the fields and has servants do the sowing and harvesting and stores his grain in bigger, better warehouses. He does not share his grain and you know he does not pay those servants well. What does God tell this rich businessman? “You fool! This very night you will die and then who will get what you prepared for yourself?” Jesus ends the parable by telling the crowd that “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” Those who stores up things for themselves have a mindset of scarcity. Not enough.

Those who are rich toward God share God’s mindset of abundance. “Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap.” This is the promise Jesus makes in Luke 6. Have a mindset of abundance, as in so much that everyone eats all they want and there are still twelves baskets of food leftover! Don’t worry about there not being enough to go around. There will be. There will be enough and more than enough. You don’t have to hoard it. Don’t be greedy. In the Lord’s Prayer we ask God to “give us our daily bread,”[6] not today’s and tomorrow’s bread, or next week’s bread. Just today’s bread. Enough for today. Let tomorrow worry about tomorrow.[7] You know when the Israelites tried to collect manna for tomorrow it went bad before tomorrow got here.[8] Trust that there will be enough. You don’t have to worry about getting your slice of the pie. God’s got a bigger pie. And more pie. I’m starting to get hungry here.

So, let’s talk about bread, and pie. When you pull that pie out of the oven and it looks all nice and hot and steamy and smells delicious (anyone else hungry yet?), does it ever look too good to eat? Not in my house! In my house it looks good enough to eat! I rarely have any qualms about digging in. But every now and then I pause first. I take a picture of the kids’ birthday cakes before we cut into them. Every now and then I pause to appreciate how the cake or pie or bread or whatever it is looks whole. But you can’t share it around the table if it stays whole. The birthday cake gets cut up. The bread gets broken. It has to be broken before it can be shared, just like I showed the kids at children’s time. You have to peel off the husk and the silk of an ear of corn in order to get to the kernels. A seed has to die in order to produce a plant. It may be the best seed there ever was, but it won’t reach its potential as a great crop unless you take it and plant it and the seed breaks open for the plant to grow.

This is where we’re getting with following Henri Nouwen’s “Life of the Beloved.” We are taken, we are chosen by God, we are blessed, and we offer blessing to others, we are broken, we know this, and then we are given, we are shared. We are taken, blessed, and broken, in order to be given for others. This is what Jesus did with those five loaves of bread and two fish. He took the loaves, gave thanks (blessed them), and distributed them among the crowd, meaning he broke them and he gave them out. Then Jesus did the same with the fish. And it’s the same pattern we do at communion. We take the bread, we bless it, we break it, and then it is given to each of us. The bread has to be broken in order to be given. And same with our lives. Nouwen writes that he “clearly does not mean that we should inflict pain on each other or others to make us better givers. Even though a broken glass can shine brightly, only a fool will break glass to make it shine! As mortal people, brokenness is a reality of our existence, and as we befriend it and place it under the blessing, we will discover how much we have to give – much more than we may ever have dreamed.”[9] And when we break bread together, when we eat together, whether here at church or elsewhere, it’s because we want to be give our lives to each other, it’s because we want “to be given to each other in our brokenness.”[10] I had lunch with a church member this past week and I’ll tell you, when the conversation really got going was when we each shared about our chronic health conditions and all the medications we each take and how often and for how many years! And it wasn’t a competition, there was no oneupmanship. It was a sharing and a building not of sympathy, but of empathy, because we each know what it’s like for the other. Sharing a meal together is vulnerable, because we don’t always know how others are going to react to our brokenness, because we’re afraid of showing our brokenness. My husband and I feel like eating out with our kids puts our parenting skills on full display, for better or worse. Yet the greatest gift you can give someone is the gift of yourself, warts and all.

You are a gift. No, you’re not perfect, no one is. Hopefully you’re aware of both your strengths and your weaknesses, or, your growing edges. And they are all there for you to offer to others. God can do far more with you than you can. Don’t hoard yourself up like grain in the rich fool’s barn. Don’t worry that you’re not tall enough, old enough, young enough, short enough, smart enough, good enough, or any other enough. You are enough. You are a gift. And gifts are made to be shared.

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[1] Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 3, p. 284

[2] Ephesians 3:20

[3] Luke 1:37

[4] Philippians 4:13

[5] Luke 12:16-21

[6] Matthew 6:11

[7] Matthew 6:34

[8] Exodus 16:20

[9] Life of the Beloved, Henri Nouwen, p. 110

[10] Ibid.

Broken

8^th Sunday after Penecost

July 15, 2018

2 Samuel 6:1-23

The Old Testament story we read this morning is one we so often read as a story about the ark of God being brought to Jerusalem, the end of its travels and nomadic life. And we tend to focus on the part about David dancing before the Lord, half-naked, and doing his best to cut a rug. This time, though, what caught my eye reading this passage was the one verse about how Michal, David’s first wife, because he had many wives, the first woman he married, watched him dance and despised him for it. The lectionary ends this passage on a high note, after David gives bread and cake to everyone in the crowd and everyone goes home. But I extended it this morning to include the confrontation between Michal and David that happens after that. David, coming off a huge high, having finally, successfully, brought the ark of the Lord to Jerusalem on the third try, having led a grand celebration with all the people, blessing them and giving them bread and cake, then returns home to bless his household, too. And you can imagine Michal there, waiting for him, arms crossed, foot tapping, that look on her face, and the sarcasm that drips from her mouth, “How the King of Israel has distinguished himself today! Half-naked, in front of his slave women, just like a dirty old man!”David denies it, says, “No, I was dancing before the Lord, not the slave women,” yet at the same time, David knew they were watching him, too. And so of course he’ll be held in honor by them, they got to watch their gorgeous king dance half-naked![1] And the last line is that Michal had no children. Not that she was barren, but that she was childless, meaning that David, her husband, chose not to sleep with her. In what appears to be a story about great celebration, bringing the ark to Jerusalem, its final home, yay, in the midst of that story, is another story, a story of brokenness. You see, the problems between Michal and David began a long time ago.

Michal was the younger daughter of King Saul. After David defeated Goliath, King Saul offered his older daughter to David to marry. David said, “No. Who am I, or who is my family, to become the King’s son-in-law?” Basically, I’m a poor shepherd, my family isn’t well-to-do or high class, I don’t belong in the royal family. I’m not good enoughKing Saul accepted that. But then he found out his younger daughter, Michal, was in love with David. So he offers Michal’s hand in marriage to David. David said the same thing, I’m not worthy to be the King’s son-in-law. So, King Saul had his servants tell David that the price to marry Michal is 100 dead Philistines (because Saul was trying to get rid of David and he expected the Philistines to kill David before David could kill 100 of them). And now King Saul had a deal. David could prove his worth, and David did, killing 200 Philistines, and Michal and David got married. However, King Saul kept trying to kill David, but since Michal loved David, she helped him escape from her father. After that, David married other wives and had children by them, and King Saul took Michal and gave her to another man! Some time went by, and King Saul died. After grieving for him, David then got ready to take the kingship of Israel, the one promised to him by God through the prophet Samuel so long ago. He made an arrangement with a guy named Abner to unify Israel and make David King. David gave Abner a condition, though: to bring Michal back to him, away from that other guy. Abner did, and the other guy followed her, and wept, until Abner told him to go away. It appears Michal might have found love and acceptance with this other guy, and it sounds like she, also, might have been sad to leave him. Anyway, shortly after this, and a few battles, David became King of Israel, and not long after that, he tries to bring the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, bringing us to today’s story.

This time when Michal saw David dancing in the street was probably the first time she had seen him again after all that. It sounds like she’s no longer in love with him. It sounds like she had found love with that other guy and David took it from her. It sounds like David didn’t actually want her as a wife, but as a possession, a political pawn, just like her father, King Saul, had used her. And so she tells David the truth about himself, when she first sees him again. “You were dancing like a fool, like you have no shame, like you didn’t care who was watching, but the King always has to be aware of who’s watching. And you knew who was watching. You knew they were eating it up. They liked it and you knew it.” She may have said it with a bitter tone of voice. She may have said it self-righteously. She may have said through tears. She may have said it calmly and matter-of-factly. Regardless, it reveals a lot about her brokenness and pain. “I loved you, and you didn’t love me back.” “I covered for you, lied for you, saved your life! And you didn’t come save me when my father took me away.”

We are on week three out of four exploring how Henri Nouwen outlines the life of God’s beloved. We are taken, chosen by God, each of us special in God’s eyes. We are blessed, we are affirmed, we speak words of blessing to others who also need to hear good things spoken of them. And we acknowledge that we are broken. More interestingly, Nouwen writes that “Our brokenness reveals something about who we are… The way I am broken tells you something unique about me. The way you are broken tells you something unique about you.”[2] The way Michal was broken tells us something unique about her. Unrequited love. Found love with someone else, which was taken away from her from the first guy who didn’t love her. Now she’s back in his house again, powerless, and watching him make a complete fool out of himself. Each person suffers in a different way, in a way that no one else does.[3] And there is no comfort, no consolation, in comparing your pain and mine. It’s not helpful. It’s not comforting. It’s not a competition. We each have our unique brokenness, just like our unique chosenness and blessedness.[4]

Nouwen believed that in the West, the most painful suffering is feeling rejected, ignored, despised, and left alone.[5] Michal wasn’t western, but that was also her suffering. Used as a pawn by her father. Ignored by her husband, until she’s used as a pawn by him, too. And left alone. I’ve heard it said that we live in an age when we are more connected than ever, thanks to the telephone and the internet, and yet we are more lonely than ever. I see it in some of you. I’ve felt it myself. The Beatles sang about it 50 years ago, “Ah look at all the lonely people. Ah look at all the lonely people. Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice, In the church where a wedding has been, Lives in a dream, Waits at the window, wearing the face, That she keeps in a jar by the door, Who is it for. All the lonely people.”[6]

There is some good news here, if you’ve been wondering. While our natural responses to pain are to avoid it at all costs, or ignore it, or deny it, or get angry about it, Nouwen offers two healthy responses to suffering. First, to befriend it. He says “the first step to healing is a step toward the pain.”[7] You have to face it, acknowledge it, live through it, and yet the irony is that you cannot do that on your own. You need a good friend, a loved one, a trusted mentor, to keep you standing in it and to assure you that you will get through it.[8] That is what real care is. Going with someone to that doctor’s appointment. Being a shoulder to cry on and an ear always willing to listen. Keeping your arms open to hug. It’s hard to face brokenness. Even if you’re lonely, you don’t have to do it alone. Don’t be afraid to ask. Ask anyone here, and they’d gladly help. The funny thing about loneliness is that you can feel alone even when you’re not. It’s a tricky feeling that can’t always been trusted. You can feel alone in a crowd. You’re not alone, you’re in a crowd, yet you feel that way. And that’s a good time to tell that feeling, no, you’re wrong. I’m not alone. There are others here with me and Jesus is always with me. So you can go away.

The second healthy, helpful thing to do about pain is to put it under the blessing. As I mentioned two weeks ago, it’s easier to believe we live under a curse. It’s easier to believe negative things about ourselves. It’s easier to believe that we’re unlovable than to know that you are loved, and loved so much. So, when we follow that curse instead, pain becomes a confirmation of our negative feelings about ourselves.[9] I’m not good enough, and so of course I’m broken. I’m not worthy of being healed, so of course I’m sick. I’m no good, so of course bad things happen to me. I love how Nouwen phrases it: “We are easily seduced into connecting events [in our lives] over which we have no control with our conscious or unconscious evaluation [of ourself].”[10] We are ‘easily seduced’ into explaining our brokenness as confirmation of being cursed! We say, or think, things like, “Of course bad stuff always happens to me! I’m a magnet for it! I’m cursed.” Instead, we must pull our brokenness away from the shadow of the curse and put it under the light of the blessing.[11] Remember what we read during Advent and Christmas, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”[12] We don’t have to stay in the darkness. We can come out into the light. Or, as the hymn says, “I want to walk as a child of the light.”[13] Yet this is hard. I can sing to you but I can’t sugarcoat it. It’s hard because “The powers of the darkness around us are strong and our world finds it easier to manipulate self-rejecting people than self-accepting people.”[14] It’s easy to feed someone’s fears and anxiety about not enough and scarcity and not good enough. But when someone knows they are loved and accepted and they have confidence in that, it’s much harder to get them to buy into fear and scarcity and not enough, because they know they are enough.

Putting that brokenness under the blessing, under the light, means remembering that even in the midst of brokenness God loves us, no matter what. It means remembering that you are special in God’s eyes. It means that any negative things others may say about you, negative things you may say about yourself, do not matter. What matters is what God says about you, which is that you are God’s beloved child, made in God’s image and uniquely you. And you are blessed. You are loved, even in the midst of brokenness. God is always with you, even in the midst of brokenness. No brokenness is too broken for God. God’s the master physician, the master healer, the one who is about redeeming and restoring brokenness in the world God created.

I don’t know which way Michal went, toward the curse or the blessing. The last thing we’re told about her is that she was childless to the day of her death. We’re not told whether she felt cursed by her life or whether she found peace with it. It’s easy to believe from what we know of her story that she felt cursed and never enough and lonely. She certainly would have gotten that message from her father and her husband. Yet she had the courage to speak the truth to David. Maybe that came from a place of quiet confidence that David couldn’t hurt her anymore. Maybe. Either way, it shows she faced her brokenness, she acknowledged her life wasn’t great, she’s one of those in the bible who doesn’t get a happy ending.[15] Yet she serves as a reminder that David wasn’t a golden boy, that David wasn’t worthy of the Lord’s favor on him, and this is even before Bathsheba! Michal was blessed when she figured out she couldn’t be manipulated anymore. She knew the truth and she was secure in it. After all, the truth will set you free. It was probably a long journey for her to get there. These things take time. Yet God was with her, too, and there is a whole chapter in Isaiah dedicated to the childless woman.[16] It calls on her to sing and rejoice, do not fear, for you will not be ashamed, and the Holy One of Israel will redeem you. May the Holy One of Israel redeem you, too, in the midst of your brokenness. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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[1] http://www.wilgafney.com/2018/07/12/why-michal-rightly-despised-david/

[2] Life of the Beloved, Henri J.M. Nouwen, p. 87

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid., p. 88

[5] Ibid., p. 89

[6] “Eleanor Rigby,” Beatles, 1962

[7] Life of the Beloved, Henri J.M. Nouwen, p. 93

[8] Ibid., p. 95

[9] Ibid., p. 96

[10] Ibid., p. 97

[11] Ibid.

[12] Isaiah 9:2

[13] UMH 206

[14] Ibid.

[15] http://www.wilgafney.com/2018/07/12/why-michal-rightly-despised-david/

[16] Ibid.