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sorry. Uh last last fall the theme of the sermon series of the chapel was on memories and for the sake of continuity because I really like the theme . I decided to stick with it for this sermon

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as well. And then talking about mary memories if I think about what I remember and how I remember things I realized that I'm actually rather pessimistic. Remember there's such a thing, I seem to recall bad

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things, you know, more keenly or better than the good things. I remember criticisms more vividly than the praises of failures, more keenly than the successes that hurts more vividly than the recovery. The points

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of happiness more quickly than the points of uh you know, sort of the uh points of unhappiness more than the point of happiness. So for example, I remember how my brother stole the bike that I

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won in a contest more vividly than I remember. Like happiness I felt in winning this contest. Or you know, I recall how my cousin broke my finger by pulling the heart on it when we were

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playing. Uh more than I remember having the fun , you know, playing with it. I remember the difficulties of homework and tests and schools more than the joy I felt when I graduated. This is

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not something about you who are graduating. Okay. Uh I remember in other words and moments of suffering more than the happiness that comes post suffering. And it seems that for people like me, like many

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of us of even those who are optimists, they have emptiness of the glasses, somehow stickier in our memory than they have fullness of this class. You can might call this ungrateful Nous. I guess that's

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one term for it. Uh maybe. I mean , I don't know if it's negatively motivated quite like that. I just think that for many of us , difficulties in the horror ships get more firmly entrenched

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in our minds for some reason, than the good things. Um, and then remembering the bad things more easily, I am similar to the Israeli writers . They too seem to more keenly remember the bad

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things that have happened to them in their country, in their history. The Israelite writers also seem to be archivist sort of co conspirators of the Glass is half empty memory approach. For example, uh,

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they repeatedly recall how they're enslaved in Egypt. Now , of course, they also remember how we got freedom from the sorry state. But this memory is usually followed by what happens in the aftermath as a

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result of God's deliverance is re agrees to follow God's commandments. And this agreement goes terribly with bruises all around the country, never lives up to his potential and promise. And the history of Israel as a

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writer's recall, it is really a history of the country's failure. How they repeatedly and constantly failed to adhere to desires of their God. And in so doing how the country constantly disappointed their beauty, not

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just religiously, but historically and politically, Israel's history is remembered by the risers as a series of continual letdowns as well. They remember how terrible and chaotic Israel was before they got a king. How terrible

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! You know, chaotic Israel was. Once they got a king, how neighboring nations continually threatened to destroy them or oppress them or treat them badly, until finally, one foreign nation actually succeeded in doing

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so. That is destroying their country, their temple , scattering their people, okay, taking them away from their homeland. How they Israel had the refugees for an incredibly long time. They remember all of

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this and this is just the history of Israel and its ancient past. The modern history of Israel and the jewish people I don't need to mention has brought renewed miseries, greater horrors for this group. In

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paris. Then the Israelites remember so many bad things because well, bad things keep happening to them with some alarming frequency. Uh, for some reason, a series of terrible things keep occurring for this group

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of people and it's not made up, but kind of their lives, reality, that our lived experience . Okay, added to this, I think is the fact that the memory of the Israeli writers are

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very similar to mine. Okay, like myself, they more easily recall the bad things that have happened . Now. You can say, well, they have more reason to, yeah, you know,

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if you nearly died or if your country or culture or your family or history nearly annihilated several times. Yeah, I guess you would also vividly recall those , you know, sort of cliff edge of the

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cliff moments morbidly. Okay, they have more reason to complain. That's true. Okay. Um so why the biblical writers remember the horrors in their past is understandable. What is weirder, however, is

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why the Israelite writer, the biblical writers looking back on their country's past and then writing about it. Why they remembered and therefore portrayed their role in this history so badly. And what I mean here are

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the ample and sometimes lurid stories about key Israeli figures , like the one you just heard? Okay, the greats of Israeli history, the foremothers and forefathers . A golden period monarchs, the foundational ancestors.

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Why did biblical writers and remembering writing about their past ? The pit these folks so badly. Why there's so much dirty laundry? Okay. Especially about your forefathers and foremothers, the most important figures in your

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country. Why I remember them portrayed them as tricksters , cheaters, liars that points murderers. Okay, why recall one's family in national history like this? And why write it down so that it can be

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preserved and told and retold and remembered a new by subsequent generations. Why not clean it up a bit ? Okay, Make these folks just a little bit more heroic. Just a little bit more sanitized.

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That's what I would do, I guess maybe. And to dog the memory, let me offer a few examples of these illustrious ancestors of Israel. Take for example, the great Israelite patriarch, Abraham,

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father of the phase, founder of three great monotheism , Christianity, Judaism. Islam Abraham According to the bible tries to pass off his wife as a sister for which she gets money. There's another term for

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this I won't use here. Um kicks out his second wife, Hagar, and their child, Ishmael , which is a little bit of water into the desert, therefore assuring them a certain death, asked

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for his other child, a beloved long awaited for Isaac him. Abraham tries to murder or something. Mhm. Sarah, His wife, the great matriarch of Israel and the mother of Isaac. Well,

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unfortunately, is not that much better. Okay. She gives her slavery Hagar to her husband and then guess Hagar thrown out twice. Well, she Sarah finally bears her own kid or is just this satisfied

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with hair with such parents is pretty miraculous. Or Isaac himself turns out to be generally okay, though scholars think he might have been a bit of an idiot. That's better than being a murderer. Which

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is how the brothers of joseph are portrayed unhappy over the favoritism shown by their father of joseph. They're younger, they're younger brother, the sons of Jacob , who are the forefathers of the tribes of Israel

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decided to trap their brother in a and then murder him, luckily some merchants come along, so they sell their brother into slavery instead. Okay though joseph is a joseph is a bit of a spoiled brat

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depicting Israel's forefathers as intent on killing their sibling. Even a little snot like joseph. Well, this is just kind of beyond being honest and real about one's ancestor in one's history and speaking of murderers,

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I'm not even going to talk about King David. There's dissertations down on this stuff. Okay, as many scholars have suggested when the biblical texas read carefully , it is pretty clear that David is not okay

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. Okay. A title of a book on him , David, secret demons, messiah murderer, traitor King. Pretty much sums it up. Okay. Um, I think of course, go on and

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on, but will end with just one more example , which comes from our reading, considering how many stories we have about this figure, Jacob the third and last pitch work of Israel, he is undoubtedly

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supremely important. Okay, as I mentioned earlier, Jacob is the father of the many sons who will become the head and answer the ancestors of the 12 twice of Israel more over Jacob, who was renamed

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Israel after a wrestling scene, uh is the patriarch from which the country receives its name. Now. To be fair to this character, there are some things we need to know about Jacob to make sense

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of this story that you've just heard in Genesis 27 , the proceeding biblical Tax tells us that Jacob is a twin and that when his born, Jacob comes out grasping his brother s as hell. Aside from

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the wordplay, that word for hell. Um A cave sounds a lot like his name, Yakult, Okay uh Jacobs manner of birth indicates that the two brothers were struggling to come out first, they were

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fighting and Jacob seems to have lost round one. Jacob's trickery. A poor blind Isaac Jacobs, his father cannot really be made sense of without realizing how it stems directly from Jacob being second born, what

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Jacob fails to accomplish in the room and during birth that is to come out first. He tries to do outside of the womb through deception and trickery. Now it seems however, that this rivalry might be

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a bit one sided, namely it is Jacob who is always trying to outwit. Ece. Ece does not seem to have too much weight to outwit anyone with. Uh and this is evident in the narrow

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for this tail of Jacob's deception and theft, of jesus blessing and immediately preceding story, Jacob outsmarts his brother out of his first right as well. Jacob sa comes in Hungary and famished one day and Jacob

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makes him swear that he will give Jacob the birthright . That is a double portion of the inheritance in exchange for a bowl of stew stew. Okay, Okay. Not very brotherly. That's Jacob and Esau

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kind of mathematically challenged, okay. And he agrees the deal. So by the time we get to genesis 27 the text for today, Jacob has already scammed, outwitted. You know, there's nicer words

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or harsher words, Okay, scammed his brother Esau out of the birthright. The double portion of inheritance . Okay, for soup money however, is not enough for this ambitious Jacob and with the help of

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is equally duplicity as mother Freud would have a field day. Jacob dresses up, pretends to be ISA uh before his blind near death. Father and thieves . The blessing meant for ISA and the blessing might

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even be more important than the birthright. As a blessing entailed a kind of future. Telling a way to establish the future status of the person and their descendants. And it was once altered. Once uttered

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, unalterable, it cannot be taken back. Okay , now there's lots of interesting things to talk about with this passage, but the simple thing I want you to take away from the story today and the

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reason why I chose it was to show how badly Jacob, one of the most important figures in Israel before father, from whom all Israel claimed descent. How problematically this figure is portrayed and in so doing

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to note that Jacob is one out of many figures in the old testament depicted in such a manner. So we returned to our questions a question that if you've ever taken intro class with me, I always

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ask, I think um why did the Israelite writers remember their ancestors as such bad or ambivalent or duplicitous or just bad people? What is the purpose of the airing of the country's 30 laundry? If you

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are writing the sacred history of your country, why not edit a bit, put a little sheen on them? Okay, give you know something or someone , you know that nice Israelite Children can look up

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to. You know, why portray your great ancestors as such terrible people as people descended from someone who is willing to take advantage of their dying father in order to thieve his brother some more. Now,

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when I asked this question, I guess some really nice answers and one good answers, especially if we view the text theologically and economically, is that these stories of Israel's terrible ancestors show us God's grace,

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so it shows you that God can really work with anyone, no matter how awful you are. Okay , this is nice answer. And it may well be true. I hope so. Okay. The

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problem is that if we push on this answer a bit, the narratives about gods, ancestors are precisely not about everyone. It's not really that democratic. Okay, it's specifically about the people, especially chosen

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by God, ensure the God of the Hebrew bible does not really use or like or necessarily even I'm afraid to say extend grace to everyone. God does not use Diesel for example, despite his idiocy,

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nor does he use Ishmael, despite him being born of Hager, at least not in the old testament . Okay, nor Davis other brothers, whatever happened to that, in short, the writers do not

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feel necessarily, I'm not sure if it's correct to say that the writers feel that everyone is special. They feel mainly that Israel is special. Israel is chosen by God and therefore Israel is deserving of divine

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grace. I have a simpler explanation as to why these awful stories about Israel's ancestors were especially remembered instead of the nicer, more plastic stories and it's simply that these stories were more interesting. Yeah, they

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remember such imperfect people because it's easier to remember your crazy uncle, I don't know tim who nail gun his knees by accident nearly shot his best friend when drunk on too much eggnog. You know this was

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really great. Uh it's easier to remember and I'm using tim just randomly. Okay, just uh you know it's easier to remember this uncle than it is to remember. Your nice uncle Peter who became a

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pharmacist and has a nice condo and pays all the bills on time. Um not only are such stories about flawed people just a lot more fun to tell , but as a result they are easier to remember

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. These ancestors are flawed but they are interesting and interesting. People are always by default rather special and who knows maybe God chose such people for the same reason because they were interesting, unpredictable. Certainly livened

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up life of it. Okay. I don't know . But it seems to me that at least so fast that of memory intersects with issues of practicality. Crazy people are just easier to recall now. Now

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that we've established this, let's push on this conclusion is a little bit more by asking a related question . If I say that the writers remember their bad ancestors more easily. What am I really saying?

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Right? What does remember or memory? What does that mean in the old testament? Does the term remember have the same kind of connotations there in the ancient text and that it has snapped. This is

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a dissertation worthy questions. I'm gonna simplify it for the sake of the time that I have here. Uh memory or the act of remembering remembering did indeed have a different connotation in an ancient Israel. And

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the key difference is that remembering was not seen solely as an inner process, not just bringing to one's mind something or someone in the past as you know Miriam Webster defines it now. Um It was this

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true but it was more okay. A scholar named Malcolm sarna sums it up when he states in the bible remembering particularly on the part of God. It's not the retention recollection of a mental image but of

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focusing upon the object of memory that results in action memory or remembering in Israel was not internal, not just internal audits but was external okay intimately connected to the action that resulted from that memory? It's not

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just a thought, but what happens? What comes the action that comes from it? So, for example, we have lots of these examples. It states in exodus 3 20 for that. God heard

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the groening's of the enslaved Israelites and remembered his covenant with their ancestors and so immediately after afterwards, God doesn't just remember he, you know, he takes action, he calls moses to deliver his people out

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of slavery. It's because memory is so linked with action that due to on me, which is basically a big long book of laws and commandments and things are supposed to do. Uh This is why this

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book repeatedly tells Israelites to remember. Deuteronomy is not just telling Israelis to recall something. Okay. Rather , the remembrance is linked to an action to the jury of the commandments of the Lord. So,

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for example, take you know, Famous 10 commandments . Ok, remember the sabbath sabbath and keep it holy notice the connection here. They're not saying oh just remember it. You know they're saying you know

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remember it and therefore do something about it sanctify. Keep it holy do the actions that will make the sabbath special. Okay, A phrase in Deuteronomy which is repeated, sums it up, I think it

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says remember that you were a slave in Egypt, Doctor Thought and therefore I command you to do this . Okay this is not an animal. I can go on lots of examples uh in short memory into

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O. T. Is linked to action. And if so then we can push the conclusion. That my conclusion is just a little bit more. If the Israelites writers remember these stories about bad people better

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for practical reasons, why did they write down just as they remembered it? Even if you remember it , you can you don't have to write down that way. You can tweak it a bit, make

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it nicer. So why did the Riser? Writers and editors continually choose to write about their ancestors, ancestors in this way, thereby causing them to be continually remember that these liars and murderers. If memory

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is linked to action, what action is supposed to be taken about this? Indeed, whose action is being called upon to be accomplished or, you know , performed or done with these remember stories? And

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when I asked this last question, there can only really be to recipients of these memories, Okay. To audience audience members who are to remember these narratives and as a result, take appropriate action the first

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or the Israelites you tell and recall your awful ancestors , and in so doing, perhaps you are reminded of God's mercy that he's showing you in the past . Okay. And maybe this leads to better action

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and say maybe because uh, I think that the history of Israel that I just went over shows that really better actions can't be truly expected from this group . Not very well frank, frankly of any group

00:19:03.900 - 00:19:15.990

. Okay, so yes, the Israelites certainly are are one audience that's being addressed with these stories? Um, there is, I think however, a 2nd, 2nd recipient, The second audience. Okay

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. Uh, and that is God. These stories are a way to remind God to remember a divine call to memory addressed to Israel's deity. Okay, so you may ask, well why would you want

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to remind God about how unethical and terrible your ancestors were? Okay, Why tell God to recall your forefathers and how much problems they caused? Okay, and heartache to God, why why not remind God

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that you okay uh that you are descended from people who are good and worthy of God's attention? Okay well mm it kind of depends on what you want God to do for you and how you think you

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can get God to react. Okay. Uh and again it has to do with how memory works. As I said, remembering the old testament entails a kind of action if you tell and therefore remember stories

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about your duplicitous cheating murders ancestors. What you may be doing, what you're doing is trying to recall these stories and these ancestors in the mind of God and and making them be remembered by God. You

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are you are pleading with God, showing God how he should take action on your behalf, you who are the descendants of these awful people. Why? Well, precisely in recalling the stories precisely because in

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recalling these stories, you both acknowledge how awful you were and how awful your ancestors were and how undeserving of help you are. And yet also in doing someone telling these stories, you are also recalling moments

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in the past when God remembered and came to your rescue despite Israel despite his ancestors being so awful. In short, the point of these stories about Israel's and terrible ancestors goes something like this place. God

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remember how awful we were from the very beginning. But you helped us anyway, remember us again three stories okay. About you know how terrible and murderers and treacherous our ancestors were. And in remembering please

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do something and help us as you've done in the past when you helped are awful terrible ancestors. Anyway , you can call it a kind of false humility , a kind of memory as guilt trip. Okay

00:21:33.500 - 00:21:45.570

, divine guilt trip. I'm nice way to think about it really. Is that these stories about bad ancestors or these sort of unethical stories are means by which the community of Israel put on his garb of

00:21:45.570 - 00:21:56.860

repentance and regret mourning clothes. If you will, a way to show God that you're sorry, that God is needed by your sad group, a way to hope that God will remember and take pity and

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come to your rescue. Anyways. Okay, um , this idea makes even more sense depending on how you date these stories. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Okay, uh, many patrons, patriarchal

00:22:07.650 - 00:22:18.670

narratives now are dated to the post eggs, Ilic period. That is the period when Israel was destroyed as temples gone, its way of life decimated. Uh citizens exiled. Uh, so the Israelite Raiders

00:22:18.680 - 00:22:30.220

isn't writers were not faking it when they did this kind of sad me, poor me. Kind of storytelling, they truly must have felt that they like , their ancestors had acted badly, had messed it

00:22:30.220 - 00:22:41.070

up. Two stories then are kind of this funny , heartbreaking emission, a way to look back on the past, remember it, regret the mistakes one made and yet quote for a better future, A

00:22:41.070 - 00:22:53.910

kind of pitiful love letter to the one who got away, I think I'm taking into here. Uh you get what I'm saying uh insure these stories of memory are not just stories and the numerous tales recalling

00:22:53.910 - 00:23:10.950

the sinfulness of Israel's ancestors are not just the mere airing of dirty laundry nor are they just a device from uh you know, for memory thing rather I think they're theologically important. Their mission of false guilt

00:23:10.960 - 00:23:21.550

. A trip down memory lane sure, a list of regrets, an acknowledgement of divine deliverance and mercy , especially in the past and at the end, I think they function as a kind of prayer to

00:23:21.550 - 00:23:27.410

God, a prayer for God to remember and be gracious. That is a call, a plea to