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May I speak to you in the name of
the one, holy and Triune, God, the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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Amen.

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Please be seated.

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Thank you for that, Hymn.

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That's my favorite hymn at,
I remember about 11 years ago

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when I was elected Bishop.

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And it, I was in Arizona and it was very
early in the morning and Karen and I

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were still finishing up breakfast and
I was in my bathrobe and the electing

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convention called me and they had me
on speaker phone and they wanted to

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surprise me by singing my favorite hymn.

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So I told them what my favorite hymn was
and they said, I don't know that one.

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So thank you for learning it well enough
that  I had a treat on this almost

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the 11th anniversary of my election.

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Sometimes things are not
what they seem to be.

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Sometimes things are not
what they seem to be.

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We think we know what's going on,
but what's actually happening is

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something completely different.

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I don't know.

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I was thinking I was gonna have to rewrite
this whole sermon yesterday afternoon.

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As I was scrolling Twitter frantically
trying to figure out what was going

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on in Russia, it seemed like there
was a coup, perhaps even a civil war.

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And I was getting worried
about what that would all mean.

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And then all of a sudden it
was like psych and it wasn't.

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I looked on Twitter because on Twitter
you can find someone who will explain

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everything to you, and Twitter told
me that this was all a CIA plot.

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And another person on Twitter I
thought was very interesting, said,

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you stupid Americans, you think
everything revolves around you.

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Sometimes we think we know what's going
on, and sometimes we think it's our story.

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And we want to understand it
through our lens and our experience.

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And in fact, it has nothing to do with us.

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It is somebody else's story, and
we are just touched by it briefly.

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When I was in graduate school and
I should have been doing research,

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I was instead reading a series
of fantasy novels in my lab.

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And I remember the novels,
the Bulgaria series.

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And a young boy in the series is the
focus of a great cosmic prophecy,

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and the story in the book is how
at each sort of juncture in his

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life, there is a fulfillment of
the prophecy, and the prophecy

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actually speaks to him in his head.

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And so everything that happens
is full of meaning and import in

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the story, except this one thing.

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The boy is standing in a field
and a far off in the distance.

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He sees a young colt trotting across
the field to him, and the colt

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walks right up to him and muzzles
his hand with the colt's nose, and

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he hears the sound of the prophecy.

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Hm.

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The whole of the atmosphere is filled
with that quiet ringing bell, and he

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wonders to himself, what does this mean?

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And the prophecy speaks in his head
and says, nothing to you at all.

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This is not your story.

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This is part of another story.

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And I remember thinking about that because
it reminds us that sometimes we really

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do think that we are the main character
of everything, and sometimes we are not.

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And something much more important is
happening to somebody else than to us.

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In the Old Testament lesson
today, the story of Ishmael and

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Hagar, we hear the story of Hagar.

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We hear of how Ishmael becomes
the father of a great nation, and

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we also only see them briefly.

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They disappear from the story of the
children of Abraham, at least for us.

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You remember how this goes?

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Abraham and Sarah are promised by
God that they shall have a great

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many children and they shall father
a nation whose descendants will be

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as many as the stars in the sky.

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No, but they're pretty old.

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They're in their eighties
and they know how this works.

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People don't usually have
children in their eighties, and

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they started to get nervous.

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And so Sarah wanting to help God along,
took one of her slaves, an Egyptian

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princess who has somehow become a
slave in Abraham's house, Hagar,

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and said, go sleep with my husband.

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And they did, and they had a
child and they had Hagar deliver

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the child on Sarah's lap, and
they said, this is the new child.

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This is the error to
the promises, Ishmael.

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Well, God was not pleased, and in
fact, a few years later the angels

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came and Sarah was given her own
child and they named that child Isaac.

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Well, here's a problem.

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You've got Ishmael running around and
you've got Isaac and Sarah's saying, well,

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but, but my child is the one God likes.

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And one day she sees  Ishmael
and  Isaac playing together.

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She gets upset with that.

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She's worried that maybe this isn't
going to work out the way she wants to.

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And so she says to Abraham, get
rid of her and get rid of the kid.

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And Abraham is torn.

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So he sends Hagar and Ishmael
into the desert, gives him a skin

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of wine, good luck, and sends
them into the desert to die.

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And Sarah feels better about things.

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But what about Hagar?

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And Ishmael turns out as the story
goes, God heard the cries of Ishmael.

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And God saved Hagar and Ishmael
in the desert and through

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Ishmael raised up a great people.

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Ishmael was the father of the
people of the Arabian Peninsula.

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The Arabs recognized their dissent
through him just as the Jewish P people

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recognized their dissent through Isaac.

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And this becomes a problem because
you have a fight even today

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between the Arab people and the
Jewish people in the Holy Land.

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And both are using this story to
explain why they are more loved by God.

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If you read in the Quran, they say,
look, Ishmael was the firstborn.

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Clearly, he is the one who
inherits the promise of God.

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And it is through Ishmael that Abraham's
children have filled the earth.

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And if you read in Torah, it says,
no, it was through Isaac, because God

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always works through the outsider.

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He works through the second son.

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He works through the, oh, I don't
know what was, what was David?

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He was like the eighth son, right?

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He works through Jacob,
the second born twin.

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He works through, oh, I don't know
Jesus, who didn't really even have

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a father that people could tell.

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There's always this thing that God does
of working through the outsider, so you

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recognize God, but the people who read the
Quran have a completely different story.

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The story of Hagar and the story
of Ishmael are also part of

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the story of God's family, but
they're not part of our story.

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They're part of a different
story, and it's probably.

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Just as important a story as our own
story, even though it only happens

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briefly within the Bible, and then they
pass from the annals of our history.

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They have their own story.

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If you talk to Arabic people, if you talk
to people who  read  the Quran, who follow

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Islam, they will tell you that no, no, no.

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Hera or Hagar was oppressed.

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She was enslaved.

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She was forced by the cruel mistress,
Sarah to have this child, and then they

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took the child from her, and when they
no longer needed the child, they disposed

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of them both in the desert to die.

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It's actually pretty awful when you think
through how the story is being told.

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And the Jewish people
have a different story.

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If you read the midrash on this, they
will say, well, no, actually it was

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Sarah's saintliness that was willing to
have Hagar take a child up for Abraham.

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And she put aside her own rights
and it's completely different

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account of how this all works out.

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And they both use it to
justify their own position.

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Look, God saves Hagar either
way through Sarah's behavior,

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whether it is saintly or selfish.

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If you take it as the story tells
it through her selfish behavior,

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Hagar and Ishma are sent in the
desert so that God can encounter

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them in the desert and save them.

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God is using the unexpected.

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That happens again and again and
again in the Bible sometimes.

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That act of shunning and pushing out
is the way that God actually saves us.

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It was the pushing out of Hagar and
Ishmael that God used to save them.

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Sometimes we see this again
and again in our own story.

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God pushes us out to save us.

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It's taught that it is said that in the
Episcopal church, most adult members were

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originally raised in a different faith.

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I won't ask you to put your hands
up, but it's something like 40 or 50%

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of Episcopalians, maybe more these
days were either Roman Catholic or

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were another tradition and found
their way into the Episcopal Church.

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And when I talk to people who come out of
those other traditions, it's hard because

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you have to upset your grandparents.

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You have to upset your family.

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Sometimes you have to be
honest about who you are.

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To find a home in an Episcopal church,
but it is through the shunning of

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your family that you found this place,
and it is here, that you are finding

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the stories of God and being fed.

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It is through the unexpected
that God has saved you.

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Your story is now different than your
family's story, at least for a while.

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In the gospel, Jesus says, look, I
come into the world to bring truth,

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and that truth will divide families.

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He doesn't say it's gonna make one family
member right, and the other family wrong.

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He says it will divide families.

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And I think that's an important
piece for us to keep in mind that

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the truth sometimes does cause us
to be divided, but sometimes two

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things can be true at the same time.

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Two things can be true at the same time,
if you have half an hour, I'll teach

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you a brief class on quantum physics and
show you how this is not just a metaphor.

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This is actually true.

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And in fact, all those cool things that
your cell phones can do depend on the fact

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that two things are true at the same time.

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Well, the same is true in
our faith life as well.

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Frank Griswold once said that we
have to learn to live into a world

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that is filled with chloroform truth.

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That means multiple truths, and that
means we have to hold our truth and our

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story lightly, that this is our story.

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But it does not mean your story
isn't true for you as well.

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Your experience is valid.

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Their experience is valid.

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And if we can hold that and know that
sometimes there are two stories being

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told that the truth is dividing us but
is not requiring us to turn on each

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other, it is just requiring us to take
different paths, at least for a while.

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If you can do that, you actually
find that we can rebuild community

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much more effectively because
we haven't burned any bridges.

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We haven't turned away from each other,
and we can undo maybe someday what

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has happened in the Middle East, what
is happening today in our society,

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what is happening in our families,
what is happening all around us?

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Just recognizing that you can be
right and your neighbor can be right,

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but maybe right now you're both
going to be right in different ways.

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So, And being comfortable with that.

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Like I said, it seems to be
the way the universe works.

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Look at this story.

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How old was Ishmael in the story?

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If you count on your fingers, he's 16,
and yet it says that Hagar carries him.

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As a 16 year old into the
desert and leaves him under a

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bush to cry himself to death.

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How old is Hagar?

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How old is Ishmael?

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There are contradictory details
even in this story of contradiction.

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Truth is complicated and chloroform and
multifaceted, and we celebrate that cuz

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it reminds us that that is true about God.

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And that is true about us.

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Amen.