Lent 2

Lent 2, year C, 2025

I was taught that preachers are to ‘preach with a bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other’ an adaptation from Karl Barth.  I always thought about this as ensuring that the preaching and scripture were relevant to the day.  That it was important to read the news, keep up with politics, and be aware of the issues of the day.

So that there would be a link between, a relevance between, the world we live in and scriptures written thousands of years ago. These days thought, I dread reading the news.  I fear what will happen next in politics and the issues of the day seem to be getting worse and worse.  I watch the news and then end up with CSI or Criminal minds, or some other murder program because I know that at least they’ll catch the bad guy at the of the show.

Terms like ‘news related anxiety’ and articles on how to deal with the overwhelming sense of dread from the media are becoming more common.   It is overwhelming and it has been for years, COVID was just 5 years ago…a global pandemic, but it almost seems to pale in comparison to the crazy of today.  There are just too many disasters at once.

And today, in church we read our psalm

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? * the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid? When evildoers came upon me to eat up my flesh, *

it was they, my foes and my adversaries, who stumbled and fell. Though an army should encamp against me, * yet my heart shall not be afraid; And though war should rise up against me, * yet will I put my trust in him. “

How can we say that?  There are armies encamped.  There are evil doers.  There is fear.  Lots of it.  Yet we say that we will put our trust in the Lord, that we will praise and sing and seek the fair beauty of the Lord.  How is scripture relevant in this time and place? Amidst this chaos? How can the stories of the past help us now?

Abram, that great forefather of Judaism and main figure in our first reading today lived some 4,125 years ago and the reading reflects that time difference. We read of about flaming torches and butchered pigeons, things that seem archaic, even barbaric.  Seen with the eyes of our present time, there is no relevance, no comfort, nothing here that speaks to us here and now.

Yet in the eyes of Abram…thousands of years ago, he was facing a crisis.  The most important priority for a man, long ago…is the same question that many face now. 

How can I protect my family?  In Abram’s time family security and the well being of your extended family was immediately reliant on one generation taking care of the previous.  Children grew to care for their parents, family and ensured the security of the women, children, slaves, property, livestock against any number of outside forces. 

Abram, we read, had no children.  It was his responsibility to provide, and he had no future.  The heir that everyone relied on after Abram died was the son of one of Abrams slaves.  Could Abram rely on a slave to inherit everything and still remain to provide safety and security for those who enslaved him?   Everything Abram has and loves is at risk, this was a major personal crisis.

The word of the Lord cam to Abram in a vision, ‘do no be afraid, Abram’.  “But Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’ And Abram said, ‘You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.’”

“He brought him outside and said, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

In essence, you will be safe…your heritage is ensured…your family will be cared for…this present disaster is not the end.

This is the beginning of God’s covenantal relationship with Abram and in time with us.  The beginning of a promise that God will be with us, and that the disasters we see are not the end of all things.  That we see in the moment, God sees beyond.

We can only see one disaster at a time.  COVID seemed the end of the church, if we could not gather we worried that the church wouldn’t survive.  

Reading our scriptures reminds us that we see disaster and the end, but God sees beyond and enters into relationship with us into a future that we cannot yet fathom. 

And Abram believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness

Psalm 27         “For in the day of trouble he shall keep me safe in his shelter; * he shall hide me in the secrecy of his dwelling and set me high upon a rock. Even now he lifts up my head *  above my enemies round about me…. Hearken to my voice, O Lord, when I call; *  have mercy on me and answer me. You speak in my heart and say, “Seek my face.” * Your face, Lord, will I seek.”

Christ shows us that same trust some 2000 years after Abram. 

The Jewish people are flourishing in number, but under Roman Occupation.  It is a situation both, terrifying and tenuous and Jesus as we know from our scripture, is upsetting the status quo and challenging people to move from fear of Rome, to trusting God. 

 “At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’”   Even if they did not believe Jesus to be the messiah, the pharisees wanted to help him escape from the terror that Herod had shown himself capable of. 

Run!  They tell Jesus live and teach another day!

Yet, Jesus doesn’t go.  The pharisees with the best intensions could only see the disaster before them, Jesus sees differently.  He will not run, “I have work to do” he tells them. Yet, I will go…in time Jesus says; I will go to Jerusalem and to my death.   No one hearing these words at that time would have seen value in them.  The most they could imagine at that time was martyrdom, commendable, but would it change anything?

None but God knew salvation was at stake.

We see Jesus in the midst of disaster, and we would expect Jesus to run…we would run!  Jesus, however responds not in fear, but in empathetic longing

“How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” 

Jesus trusts God and can see a time when we will all be able to look back and say ‘Blessed was Jesus and all he did, even to his death’

Paul writing decades after Christ’s death saw the world as dualistic, a place of evil and self-centredness which contrasted dramatically with the Kingdom Christ died to bring to pass. He understood things in black and white.  You had to choose your citizenship…that of the world or that of heaven. For Paul being Christian was living in a world at war and you had to pick a side. 

Paul’s world was a mess, just like ours.

“For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things” 

Their god is their belly… people spent their focus on what they hungered for…and they hungered for earthly things.  Power, wealth, status.  But Paul knew that was not the world as it should be;  not the world God covenanted with Abram to transform; that Christ died on the Cross to redeem.  

Our’s is a world seen with human eyes, from moment to moment, broken and short-sighted.  Our vision is humanities limited sight and right now it is so painful to watch that I’ll admit I often turn away.  You can only take so much at a time, and in our multi media world we can see a literal world of pain from multiple screens and in multiple formats.

I cannot claim to know what God sees, but I believe it is similar to that of our gospel

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”

God must weep to watch how we take care of this house left to our stewardship.  How we as heirs and stewards of God’s world have failed to give generations to come stability, safety and provision, as Abram desired.  Yet, in spite of it all, God’s promise still holds true.  The people of God will continue.  There will be a day when we al cry out Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. 

Unfortunately, we need God’s own eyes to see when that will happen.  Until that time we are to live, to survive, day by day.  Imitating the good examples set before us as Paul tells us and following the example that Christ gives us

“‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way” 

Doing the work of Christ, using our hands, feet, words, prayers, and actions; today, tomorrow and the next day until we meet our destination.

There have been crises in this broken world for thousands of years and they easily overwhelm us poor mortals, but we have scripture, traditions, reason and experience that tells us that God has walked with us each and every time.  Gathering her brood under her wings when we would come and providing salvation in Christ even when we persisted in running away.

Times are hard.  The future is unforeseeable.  What will life and church look like in the years to come… I don’t know.  None of us do.  Neither did Abram yet “ he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

We are not called to know…we are called to believe, and act according to Christ’s teachings, knowing that in God’s own time this broken world will be made whole once more and the prince of peace will reign over God’s own kingdom on earth.

What if I had not believed that I should see the goodness of the Lord * in the land of the living!

O tarry and await the Lord’s pleasure; be strong, and he shall comfort your heart; * wait patiently for the Lord

AMEN