Quick Links
Sunday Worship
8:30 a.m. - Worship Service9:45 a.m. - Sunday School
11:00 a.m. - Worship Service
Contact Us
Address:First Baptist Church, Ashland
800 Thompson Street
Ashland, VA 23005
Phone:
(804) 798-9014
Fax:
(804) 798-9043
E-mail: fbcashland@verizon.net
Sermon for Sunday, August 24, 2008
“Nature, Nurture, God”
Genesis 32:22-31
In a 1995 issue of the New Yorker magazine, Lawrence Wright reported on some of the studies that have been going on of twins for decades. These studies not only tell us something about twins, but also tell us something about ourselves. By studying people who are identical in their genetic makeup they hope to determine what difference our genetics make in our behavior and our choices. How much difference does environment make?
By studying people who are twins, people of identical genetic make up, we can determine what effect if any environment, nurturing and parenting have upon the individual.
The article suggests that our views of parenting may need to be changed. In social sciences there has been that ongoing debate between nurture versus nature and it appears that the scale seems to be tipping back toward nature.
But I need to tell you that such studies challenge my thinking. I am a parent. I like to believe that some of what I do as a parent has made/does make a difference. I am also a pastor. As a pastor I want to believe in the power of conversion, the force of change. I want to believe that it is possible for people to radically change in their lives, despite their genetic background.
In this particular study case after case, the parents and upbringing seem to make little difference. Despite the similarities in identical twins separated at birth, one study concluded that the family environment had a much smaller impact on a child’s personality than previously thought.
I have always thought differently and had the impression that my parental guidance was important. Like you, when our children were smaller we made decisions that we hoped would positively impact their lives. But we must also realize that our children did not come into the world as blank tablets, but with some genetic make up.
The question is that if so much about us can be explained on the basis of our genetic makeup, then what’s left for us in life? Is it possible to change?
Where is the possibility of grace?
Jacob was a twin. His brother was Esau. Scripture says that when Jacob was born, he came out of the womb hanging on to his older brother’s foot. He was called the “grabber” because he was always attempting to grab his older brother’s birth rite. Jacob seems like a thorough scoundrel.
By the time we get to Genesis 32, his decisions in life have caused all kinds of discord in his family. He realizes that his brother is coming to meet him in what could be a more than intense confrontation. In football lingo, it is fourth and one and not looking good for Jacob.
It is on that night, by the River Jabbok, Jacob encounters a dark, mysterious stranger. He gets into a battle with this stranger, refusing to submit, refusing to be dragged down and under. He wrestles until the dawn.
Jacob was afraid…afraid to go forward or backward. He knows that he has cheated his brother, Esau, again and that Esau is on the other side of the river waiting to even the score.
That night, as Jacob wrestles with this stranger, he fights and will fight to the finish. Even when his hip is thrown out of joint, he fights and prevails. He demands a blessing from this mysterious stranger.
The stranger tells him that he will be changed…surely that is the implication of the renaming…”You shall not longer be called Jacob ---that is the grabber, the thief, the usurper….you will be called Israel. God will do great things through you.
We are not told who this stranger was, but Jacob is convinced that this stranger “looks like God.”
Jacob is not just wrestling with himself; he is wrestling with God and holding on for dear life. And in holding on, he is given a new life, a new name. He becomes a new person and he is given a new future.
And then we read research that gives the impression that it’s almost nailed down at birth. Gets kind of complicated doesn’t it? Is God sovereign or not? Is God tricked up by our history, by our genetic imprint, once it is made? Or is change possible?
In the article on twins from the New Yorker it says that this research on twins measures only personality traits, psychological characteristics, mannerisms, temperament, but not their ethics, religious commitments, values and attitude toward life. None of the studies analyze the raw stuff of selfhood.
One looks at twins, separated at birth and the similarities are remarkable, but what are they like, down deep, at the core of who they really are?
How could two brothers like Jacob and Esau nurtured in the same womb, come to want to murder each other? More over, how could one of these brothers be chosen by God, to be the father of God’s chosen people?
Genetic studies can be dangerous if wrongly interpreted. They might suggest that we come out of the womb fixed at birth, signed, sealed, done deal. If that were the case, why worry about economic conditions or trying to pass on family values and ethics? If it is all determined by nature, fixed at birth, what can anybody do?
The story of Jacob and Esau invites us to think otherwise. As long as there is a free, sovereign God, there is the possibility of change. Life is more opened than we imagined.
We are made in the image of God. We are different from animals. We are not merely a bundle of instincts, genetically programmed at birth. God comes to us, encounters us, and meets us where we are.
Here is the good news of the Bible --- Old Testament, New Testament, Hebrew scripture, Greek scriptures: God does not leave us as we are, to plod along the tracks handed to us at birth, to play the hand dealt to us by genetics. God is on a constant journey to encounter us, some times on a dark night, wrestling us to the ground, seeking to have a relationship with us, wanting to bring change, and new life to the core of who we really are.
Do you know what this means? It means that we are not permitted to give up on people. God doesn’t. It means we are not permitted to give on ourselves. God came to the Hebrews and led them through the sea. God called Israel through John the Baptist to come down to the waters and be recreated. God most supremely encountered us in the word and work of Jesus, reaching out to us, wrestling with us, until we sought the abundant life.
So you may be wrestling with some demon, a monkey on your back that seeks to control you. You can be encountered even there. You’ve had an abusive childhood, one that seems to haunt you and control you everyday of your life. You can change. You do not have to be controlled by those demons. Skillful therapy can help. It is one of those gifts from God. You can be changed by being encountered, by being met by God and changed by a power greater than yourself.
I know people right here in this congregation whose lives illustrate the dramatic power of God to change people. God took them at their lowest moments, genetic make up, things that happened in the past and all that and God was able to do more than they could ever imagined. Christians are taught to name that as grace…a loving intrusion by a loving God who not let us go. Thanks be to God.
Lord, we carry a lot of baggage in life. Some of it we have dragged it around for what seems like forever, but something in us longs for something new and free. Come to us, Lord. Come to us in order to change us. Do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, change us. Amen.
Church News
Special Events
