March 8, 2009
Lent 2
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31
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Jimmy Carter is quoted as saying, “God always answers prayers. Sometimes it’s, ‘Yes’. Sometimes the answer is, ‘No’. Sometimes it’s, ‘You’ve gotta be kidding!’” I wonder if Abram might have muttered that very phrase to himself or maybe even out loud, when God announces to him that at the ripe old age, (very ripe), of 99, Abram will become the father of MANY nations. Who knows what he said under his breath. His mutterings, if there were any, are not recorded in scripture. What is recorded, interestingly enough, is what he DID! He fell facedown! Eugene Peterson in The Message states, “Overwhelmed, Abram fell flat on his face.” Is it any wonder? Out of the barrenness and emptiness that he and Sarai experienced for umpteen years, God is now promising something more! Lots more, new life, fruitfulness! But the fulfillment of God’s promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way.
In the first 7 verses from Genesis 17, God first reveals himself to Abram as God Almighty, El Shaddai. He instructs Abram, commands him to, “Walk before me faithfully and without blame. THEN I will make my covenant between me and you.” What does God promise? What is the covenant?
- that Abram will become the father of many nations, he will be VERY fruitful, his numbers will be greatly increased. (this also results in a name change....Abram to Abraham!)
- that a permanent relationship, an everlasting covenant, between God and Abram, and ALL of his descendants after him, will be established
- that God will be Abram’s God and the God of ALL his descendants after him.
- (verse following also includes the land of Canaan that will be given to him)
And of course, it is not just about Abram. God tells Abram that Sarai will be blessed and that surely Abram will have a son BY HER. Sarai will become Sarah. She will be blessed so that she will be the mother of nations and kings will come from her.
It sounds like the patriarch and matriarch have work to do. Time to come out of retirement, tell the family the good news, try to explain to the neighbors, make some clothes for the child to come, paint the nursery, and repeat over and over again, this is NOT a dream. We are going to be parents!!
Unbelievable though it may seem, Abraham and Sarah, are to be the parents of many nations, not one single nation, but MANY! The fact that the promise to both Abraham and Sarah is recorded is significant. God’s hand is at work, in both lives! Out of barrenness and emptiness, God is promising life and hope. This divine covenant which God is establishing extends to all the peoples that will come from their offspring. It becomes part of our story. And the story must continue to be told. God’s patient and long relationship with all of these generations of offspring down through the ages is meant to form and transform people who are willing to know God, to follow God, to serve God and to be instruments of God’s blessing to others.
Abraham is an important figure in Judaism. He is the model Jew. Abraham is also important in the New Testament. He is mentioned 72 times. 18 times in Romans. Another lectionary text for today, Romans 4:13-25, tells us a lot about Abraham. Chapter 4 is often seen as a ‘faith’ chapter. It focuses on Abraham’s faith, but also on God’s faithfulness. It portrays all who believe, Jews and Gentiles, as Abraham’s seed. The Abraham story is used in Romans to help address questions of the identity of the Christian community in Rome, the co-existence together of Jews and non-Jews. Abraham represents the inclusion of Gentiles in the people of God without circumcision or observance of the law. Abraham represents one who is saved through faith, not saved by works. He is the father of us all, Jews and Gentiles.
John Toews in the commentary on Romans writes: “Because Abraham is our father, all members of God’s people stand on the same level playing field. We become members of God’s people on the same basis, by faith and obedience, as all other believers. Children who have the same God and the same father(Abraham) should make peace with each other rather than fight each other.” (p. 129)
Abraham trusted God. This trust in God was not easy. When his body seemed incapable of human reproduction, Abraham trusted God to reverse the human condition......he trusted that somehow God would perform a miracle.
Peterson’s The Message, in Romans 4 expresses it this way:
“When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, “You’re going to have a big family, Abraham!’
Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, “It’s hopeless. This hundred year old body could never father a child”. Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That’s why it is said, ‘Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.” But it’s not just Abraham, it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right WITH God.”
Faith in God is a struggle, especially when you see a very real situation and see no way out of it, when the reality of the circumstances are so complex and complicated that in human eyes and hearts it feels hopeless. Abraham trusted God above the reality of the circumstances and his situation. He lived “out of faith”. His children are people who live “out of faith” in God. Abraham is the father of those who trust God in confidence that they are included in the community of God’s people. It is part of our story. Are we telling the story? How are we telling the story?
We know that God’s hand was upon us as a people, down through generations in our Anabaptist history. People who trusted God, who had to trust, because sometimes they lived in difficult times and circumstances and in desperate situations. The seeds of the martyrs produced faithfulness for the next generations. The stories continue.
In 1573, Maeyken Wens is burned at the stake in Antwerp, Belgium with a tongue screw in her mouth to prevent her from witnessing during the execution. She, a young mother with children, writes from her prison cell a letter to her family, encouraging her son, not to be afraid. She writes that the Lord has taken away all her fear. She lets go, relinquishes her family into God’s care, rather than renounce her faith. That’s a story that cannot die. It reminds us of the unconditional trust and faith that we must have in God.
Are we telling our stories? Ann Weems, a Presbyterian writer, in the mid 1980's came out with a book, Family Faith Stories. She takes us through many stories of her own rich heritage out of the Scottish Presbyterian faith. She reflects on the question, “Who are my people?” For her they are the Scots who left the land of Scotland for the shores of South Carolina, and there they knelt in prayer in gratitude for God who led them to this land.
Who are your people? It is an ancient question? What is your tribe, your clan? Where do you come from? What are your roots? What are your stories and who is telling them? Will the next generation know our stories of faith? God’s faithfulness to us? Our faith in God that brought life out of death, hope out of despair, fruitfulness out of barrenness?
Ann Weems writes:
Ours is the faithGod blessed Abraham and Sarah. God continues to bless us. God called them out of retirement for there was still more for them to do......become parents of nations, and kings and peoples. They trusted God. God continues to call us for there is more to be done. We, too, need to trust in God. God equipped Abraham and Sarah for what they needed to do as father and mother to nations. God equips us for whatever task he is calling us to do.
that directs our coming in and going out,
the faith that orders our lives,
the faith that demands risk and standing up and speaking out,
the faith that asks us to believe and to love,
the faith that asks us to live all the rest of our days
for the furthering of the Kingdom of God. (p. 29)
Our children need to know our stories, our faith stories...how God has continued to walk with us and work in our lives.
In December I was Christmas shopping at a local large bookstore. I found this book and bought two of them. (From Grandma with Love) Most of you know I am a proud grandma of two beautiful granddaughters. This book, one for each of those girls, will tell them much about my story and the important things in our history. It will be a huge project that will be done in stages, I’m afraid, as I have time. The part that intrigued me most was the 4th chapter, titled, What I Leave to You. It provides space and a way for me to share important events in my lifetime and during my lifetime. There is a section on Hard Times (and how I survived them) Where I turned for strength....where I found comfort...what I learned from the experience...some lessons I learned. Another section includes, Grandma’s wisdom, (what life has taught me). The last section of that part is titled My Dreams for You.
Working on this has already been an interesting experience. It will be a major accomplishment for me to complete, but if it never gets totally finished, what I can get done, will be enough. I want my grandchildren to know from whence they came. I want them to know our stories, family stories, treasured memories of joy and pain, faith stories and my hopes and dreams for them. I want them to know what connects them to the generations before them and what needs to be told to their children some day, over and over again.
Ann Weems writes:
These people who lived six generations back and I....
We are linked forever throughout history.
I am flesh of their flesh,
but even more,
I am heart of their hearts,
For who they are
they gave away to those of us who followed....
And the children of Israel
(back generation after generation after generation)
And I
are linked together throughout eternity,
For in the beginning was the Word
and through time the Word
is spoken.
Those who hear the story
live
abundantly,
the love of God written on their hearts. (p.43)
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