Sermon 6/6/21: "Hide and Seek" Pr. Michelle Sevig
Pr. Michelle Sevig
Lectionary 10b
June 6, 2021
Hide and Seek
3-2-1, ready or not here I come! I bet you know what game I’m playing. Hide and Seek—the play anywhere, at anytime of day, with any number of people, game where one or more players hide and one person seeks them out until everyone is found. I haven’t played it in ages, but I have fond memories of playing it with my cousins after dark out on the country farm. Or with the youth group during a lock-in at the church. And as camp as a counselor playing with the young children.
There is something kind of fun about finding just the right hiding spot. In the dark, hiding behind a tree or laying on the ground under some bushes. Breathing as quietly as possible and not moving one bit, so the seeker who is walking by will not hear a thing. Sometimes I would even grab a few branches to try and camouflage myself to fit in with my surroundings.
Now Adam and Eve were likely not playing a game of hide and seek with God, but there is no doubt that they were hiding, and that God was seeking them out. In the story from Genesis God is taking a stroll in the garden at the time of the evening breeze and God is looking for the earth creatures. They heard the sounds of God rustling in the garden, so they hid themselves from the presence of God, camouflaging themselves in the lush greens of the garden.
Maybe you’re familiar with the Adam and Eve story, because it’s been used for centuries to teach us that there is sin in the world because of Eve’s actions when she ate from the forbidden tree of knowledge. It is a true story, but it’s not a factual story. Yet it’s true because it tells the story of our human experience.
We attempt to gain knowledge or facts about God instead of living in the mystery of God’s embrace. We point fingers and blame others, even if it’s true that our own actions have harmed. We hide behind our own mistakes, cover up our flaws, doubt whether we are good enough to stand bare before God with our authentic and vulnerable selves.
The two hid in the garden, not because the were ashamed of their unclothed bodies, which is how their nakedness is usually interpreted. But they hid because of the knowledge gained when they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A Hebrew biblical scholar writes, “By partaking from the tree, the primal couple gained a level of self-consciousness, an awareness of their vulnerable condition, and their newly acquired ability make decisions on their own. Unwittingly, in their attempt to become fully divine, they became fully human.”
Becoming fully human implies that one is willing and able to embrace one’s vulnerability. And oh my, that is so hard to do! As Brene’ Brown has shown in her extremely popular research on shame and vulnerability. For many it’s just too much to live a wholehearted life, to accept love from others and from God, because we believe we are not good enough. We instinctively hide our true selves—our questions, our faults, our traumas, our addictions, because we don’t want to be fully seen.
But God seeks us out, asking, “Why are you hiding?” I see you, all of you, and you are mine. God is with us, wandering in the garden, continually present in all our flawed endeavors, inviting us to live wholeheartedly in the life God created for us.
The biblical stories the New Testament tell the story of God, in Jesus, continuing to walk in the garden seeking out the lost, the forgotten and those who are caste out. Jesus seeks us out in our rebellious hiding, and asks us, “Who told you that you were naked?” You are only naked insofar as you continue to hide from me. And there is no reason to hide.”
During pride month I am reminded of the harm the church has done in Jesus’ name to force people into hiding. Telling LGBTQ people subtly or outright that we do not belong in Jesus’ family. Now I see pastors and LGBTQ Christians calling people out from their hiding, posting memes like “You are loved!” and “I see you, and God loves you. Inviting those who have been traumatized by the church to bring their whole selves to the communities who recognize and celebrate Jesus’ acceptance and love for everyone.
In the gospel story today, Jesus is preaching and teaching in his hometown, Nazareth. His mother and brothers are embarrassed when he shows his true self as both human and divine. Speaking as God’s self, they think Jesus is possessed by demons, not the spirit of the Holy One. It is not the kind of speech or actions they expect from the promised one. They had their own expectations about who God was and how religious people should be.
They think they have God pinned down. They know what the Holy Spirit is supposed to look like, and Jesus doesn’t fit the bill. Inside the house sit the outsiders — the misfits, the rejects, the tax collectors, the prostitutes. They’re not interested in dogma or piety or tradition; they just need love and healing; and they seem to have found it in a man who heals the sick and feeds the hungry. And in the midst of them? Smack dab in the center of the sick, the insane, the deviant, the hungry, the unorthodox and the unwashed? There sits Jesus, saying, “This. This is my family.”
Family for Jesus is not defined by DNA tests, adoption records or custody papers. Jesus opens wide the circle of belonging to the ones who are typically not seen, not heard, not loved. Jesus seeks you out and welcomes you in.
I know intimately and well, maybe you do too, the hunger to belong, to have someone safe and loving to belong to. We know what it’s like to yearn for someone who can hold all of who we are, and love us still, without flinching. That is exactly what Jesus does for the crowds that day. He invites them in, their whole selves, with their flaws and hurts fully exposed and he asks them to stay, and he makes them family.
So, stop hiding. Come out come out wherever you are! Jesus—the gardener, the healer, the one who loves you fully, without flinching, welcomes you into his family.
