Friday of the Fourteenth Week
One summer, when I was about fourteen or so, I had the chance to go to a music camp and learn to play the clarinet better. The camp was with a lot of people I'd never met before, but who all knew each other: they played in area orchestras together and had a good rapport. I approached it with a mixture of fear and hope, because on the one hand, I worried that I wouldn't fit in or that they wouldn't like me; on the other hand, I was hoping that learning to play the clarinet better might mean I could play in the youth orchestra for my state.
As it turns out, both things were true to some extent. It was really, really hard to be a new person in the midst of well-formed friendships. As a person with a hearing loss, I missed a lot of jokes and side remarks and that made it additionally difficult to fit in. But at the same time, I learned a lot - and as a result, I became a member of the Colorado Clarinet Choir; we traveled throughout the front range playing some fantastic music.
Today's scriptures speak directly to that experience. Genesis 46:1-7, 28-30 tells the beginning of Israelites' journey to Egypt. At first, Jacob doesn't seem to be afraid, but then we see that he is praying pretty hard. Recall that Jacob wants to go to Egypt because he wants to see his long-lost son, but still, he is stymied. (Maybe he has that feeling in the pit of his stomach like the one I get when I'm about to try something new....) God's response to Jacob indicates that God knows Jacob is afraid. But with God's promises in hand, Jacob goes to Egypt and is rewarded by seeing his son.
A key point to understanding this story, though, is that while Jacob's reunion with his son is great, the fact that the tribes will settle in Egypt is a very, very, mixed event, because Egypt is where they will be slaves. For Jewish readers of this text, and for us too, we should be reading this with a bit of trepidation - how can God send Jacob and his sons into this morass?
Then we get to the gospel reading (Matthew 10:16-23) where Jesus has a similar message. Life for the disciples will be tinged with both joy and sorrow; people will hate them; they will be sheep among wolves.
I think the best way to read these scriptures is to recognize that God is not really sending people to their doom, so much as, life is like this, especially so since we Christians have the audacity to proclaim that Jesus is Lord to an agnostic world. Jesus does not always promise a rosy future or a good outcome. But he does promise to be with us and he does promise that the world's bleak outlook is not the final answer.
I was thinking about that summer camp experience this week when I was taking my three year old to a new class. She was clearly afraid too. I saw even my adult self in her because I, too, become afraid whenever I embark on new things. Today's scriptures remind me that what I want for myself and what I want to teach my daughter is not to be afraid, because God really is with us.
- Jana M. Bennett