Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
I might as well tell it like it is and let you know that it was the Olympics that inspired my choice of topic for this morning’s sermon. For everything there is a season, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing…
There is a lot of embracing going on at the Olympics.
The image that most poignantly portrayed for me the power of embrace was the one shared between Paula Findlay, the Canadian triathlete and her team doctor. Part way through the run of yesterday’s women’s triathlon – she is clearly struggling to complete the race – a race that even on that course she had won twice prior to an injury a year ago, but after coming back from injury – and not truly “race ready” – yesterday morning she struggled to even complete it and finished 52nd or last. In the most telling moment of her struggle we catch a television glimpse of her being embraced for a moment by her doctor, as she leans over in pain – likely both emotional and physical. Later we see her valiantly finishing the race. Was it that embrace part way through the event that helped her complete it?
Of course it is hard to say what all the factors might have been but complete it she did complete it and she will likely race again.
I suspect there were many embraces before and there will be many embraces afterward that have been and will be part of her journey and will continue to play a role in how things unfold for her going forward.
To embrace or to be embraced is a powerful experience. It is an important type of human contact, intimate human touch, and we know from developmental psychology how critical it is for the healthy development of infants and children.
What do we do most naturally with a newborn? – We cuddle, hold and embrace them – especially when they cry – and we hope that the security of our embrace will sooth and make better whatever distress the crying evinces. And if the rest of us as older children, youth or adults are in pain ourselves, sometimes an embrace from the right person in the right context can help to sooth that pain,
But we are also keenly aware that knowing the right time or place or context for an embrace is sometimes tricky. Clearly there are times to embrace and times to refrain from embracing and to make it more complicated there are ways to embrace and ways not to embrace. Just this week on CBC radio’s Q, Henry Alford, author and humorist spends time in conversation with Jian Ghomeshi deconstructing the art of social kissing or the initial embrace when you greet someone. When Jian asks him why he would take up this topic in a recent article, Henry Alford replied that it is because it can be a real “patch of awkwardness.” Is it one peck on the cheek, or three? Is it a full on bear hug or a mere touching of shoulder to shoulder and who gets to decide?
In the end he suggests that in social kisses or embraces we would be wise to take our cue from the other and go with the less is more approach.
Although this conversation was a kind of fun and superficial and almost Seinfeldesque way to address social ritual. The reason the conversation is interesting at all is because we know that there is real power in human touch, particularly the human embrace.
Our Bible knows this too.
Biblically speaking the word “embrace” is used in many different contexts, but there are some discernable patterns.
First, I noticed that it is regularly used in the context of intimate familial relationships.
Uncle Laban embraces his nephew Jacob – as a way of welcome, provision of safety and hospitality.
Family reconciliation is another important context for relational embraces in Genesis in particular.
Esau runs to meet his brother Jacob, embraces him, falls on his neck, kisses him and weeps.
Later Joseph when he reveals his identity to his brothers throws his arms around his brother Benjamin, embraces him and weeps and then kisses all of his brothers and continues to weep.
The word embrace is also used in texts about blessings, when Joseph brought his sons to their grandfather Jacob for a blessing, he embraces them and kisses them.
In these ancient Hebrew stories, the word embrace is also commonly used for the husband and wife relationship – “the wife you embrace” or between the lovers who desire to become bride and groom in the Song of Songs chapter 2.6:
O that his left hand were under my head,
and that his right hand embraced me!
or when Sarah gives her maidservant Hagar to Abraham, she describes that encounter later in anger, ‘May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my slave-girl to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!’ Which brings up another category of the use of the word embrace in our text. When it happens inappropriately or when it might rather have been a time to refrain from embracing – then it can be problematic – think David and Bathsheba, and other such stories.
While all of the above references to embrace refer to human intimacy – the way we most commonly think of it,
there is another category of the way in which the word embrace is used in the Bible and that is, the warnings against the human tendency to embrace idols and its corollary – the injunction to embrace wisdom instead.
the warning against idolatry can be heard in the following words from 2nd Kings 4:16
Then they will say, “Because they have forsaken the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, worshipping them and serving them; therefore the Lord has brought this disaster upon them.” ’
And the injunction to embrace wisdom in
Prov 4:7-9
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever else you get, get insight.
Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;
she will honour you if you embrace her.
She will place on your head a fair garland;
she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.’
Given this quick romp through important texts about the word embrace I wonder again about its power. What happens in an embrace – what precisely is its power – whether it brings to mind the intimacy between humans or the intimacy between humans and idols or humans and divine wisdom?
The power is in that which melts away in an embrace. When we touch, the boundary between self and other is altered. When that boundary is altered – as in becomes more permeable – we can be changed. I think of a hand embracing an ice-cube. The surface of the ice becomes water and the hand becomes wet and starts to burn with cold – encountering one another changes both hand and ice.
I think about Paula Findlay in the brief embrace of her team doctor at her lowest moment. It may not have been the only factor that allowed her to finish the race, but in that moment, maybe she gained the one more ounce of strength she needed to make the decision to finis
h. And what might the impact of that embrace have been on the doctor? – I suspect a part of him went with her in her struggle.
And that brings me to what I would argue, is the most important embrace of all, God’s embrace of willful and wayward humanity. Jesus tells us about that embrace in his story of the prodigal father – maybe more commonly known as the story of the prodigal son.
“But while the son was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.”
Receiving that embrace of mercy and compassion would have changed the son more than the son’s decision to return and become his father’s servant could have. The father’s embrace of the son changed things. That embrace re-established a familial bond. It cemented a sense of belonging that powerfully affects both father and son.
A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing? If we stay with the prodigal father story to the end, where the eldest son refuses to rejoice with the father at his brother’s return – Even the father is not free to embrace the eldest son if the eldest son refuses that embrace.
A touch from God, an embrace from God – Have you ever wondered if God longs for this opportunity as much or more than you or I do? What about the traditional Judeo-Christian Blessing from Numbers 6:22-27
May God bless you and keep you
May the very face of God shine upon you and be gracious to you
May God’s presence embrace you and give you peace.
This blessing in its original context sounds like this:
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them,
The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.
Lord is the English translation of YHWH – the tetragrammaton, or the Hebrew equivalent of God’s name. YHWH spoke to Moses and YHWH will bless you and keep you and YHWH will make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you and YHWH will lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
“So they shall put my name on the Israelites and I will bless them,” – this is familial relational stuff. And as we have it recorded here in scripture, this desire for familial intimate connection and blessing is a desire of God.
The children of Israel will carry and be blessed with God’s name – because God desires it.
Granted the last line as I most frequently use it, May God’s presence embrace you and give you peace is an alteration of the words may God lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace, but I suspect that to have God’s countenance upon you in a way that gives you peace is like saying may God regard you in a positive and intimate way – and when considered alongside the power of having God’s name placed upon you and the very Jewish story of the prodigal father’s God-like embrace
– it isn’t too great a stretch to change lift up his countenance to may God embrace you.
For everything there is a season, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. If we understand the power of an embrace maybe we will have a clearer idea of the times for embracing and refraining.
Most importantly, however, remembering that the power of an embrace has its origins in God’s embrace of us helps explain its transforming power to give peace.
One more example from the Olympics: When Jessica Zelinka the Canadian Heptathlete finished 7th overall yesterday – it was disappointing for her because she had the talent to do much better in the high jump and long jump than she was able to do in this competition. At the end of the day, after a long cry, all she longed for was a perspective enhancing and soothing embrace from her three-year old daughter.
The Toronto Star article I read this morning, put it this way,
“If every parent has felt the stresses and strains of a tough day soothed by the perspective of a child’s loving embrace, Zelinka spent the moments after her competition craving that redeeming solace.”
By now, the morning after her event, she will have obtained the peace of that hug. Thank God for the power of the embrace.