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The Second Sunday In Lent
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from thy ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of thy Word, Jesus Christ thy Son; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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The Second Sunday In Lent
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Scripture citation(s): Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Luke 13:22-35
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Luke 13:22-35
✛
Children of Abraham
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[Abram] believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Abraham is the father of believers in God. His name, which the Lord changed from Abram (“exalted father”) to Abraham (“father of multitudes”)¹, reveals his biblical identity. Jews trace their lineage to Abraham through Isaac, the promised son of Abraham and Sarah (“mother of nations”). Arabs trace their lineage to Abraham through Ishmael, his son by his servant Hagar. Christians trace their lineage in the Spirit through Jesus Christ, then through Israel to father Abraham.
God called Abraham out of Mesopotamia to Palestine, a land which God promised to give to Abraham’s descendents. The problem was, Abraham and Sarah were old and childless. Today’s reading from Genesis takes place some time after Abraham first heeded God’s call and picked up stakes to move from the Fertile Crescent to the Holy Land. Abraham and Sarah weren’t getting any younger. The scene opens with God appearing in a vision and reassuring Abraham not to fear; that he, the Lord, was Abraham’s shield and reward.
For the first time we hear Abraham speak back to God. Abraham asks two natural questions. First, Abram replies, All this is good, but “what wilt thou give me?” I go childless, and have nothing but servants to inherit my house. God answers, saying Abraham will indeed have descendents from his own body, as numerous as the stars.
Abraham, says the Scripture, “believed in the Lord” and the Lord “counted it to him as righteousness.” But then Abraham asks a second, equally natural, question: “How am I to know that I shall have this inheritance?” God’s answer comes in a ceremony that to us seems very strange, but to Abraham was clear and reassuring.
Four thousand years ago, when tribal chieftains such as Abraham made treaties, they solemnized them with such a ritual as was described in our passage from Genesis. They cut and sealed the deal, the covenant, by splitting sacrificial animals in two, then walked between the pieces of the sacrifice with words to this effect: “May I be as these slain animals if I do not keep this covenant.” In this case, the Lord himself, through the signs of the smoking pot and the burning torch (the pillar of cloud and of fire), passed between the animals Abraham had sacrificed.
Abraham would have further lapses and detours in his pilgrimage, as well as tests that showed the reality of his faith. He and Sarah would even laugh at God’s promise of their childbearing. [The name Isaac connotes laughter!] What is important, however, is that God regarded that faith of Abraham, for all Abraham’s faults, “righteousness.” This is a different kind of righteousness from that normally associated with the word, righteousness. We might even translate it, “integrity.” Our text could read: Abraham believed the Lord, and the Lord credited it as Abraham’s integrity. Christ and the Apostles laid great stress on this particular virtue in Abraham, a virtue which was not a possession but rather a gift which he received and exercised by grace, from the time he first heeded God’s call, through many renewals of that call.
Abraham’s faith was his life-force. It animated him. It saw him through everything, including many difficult and dark moments. Not only that, Abraham’s faith is the means by which Abraham still lives to God. Jesus said that when the Lord identified himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, that meant Abraham and all people of faith still live, “for he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” (Mk 12:27; Mt 22:32; Lk 20:38)
Jesus also said that “Abraham rejoiced to see my day,” and then he astonished his hearers by declaring, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” (Jn 8:56ff) In other words, as the pre-existent and eternal Son of God, Christ was laying claim to Abraham’s faith. In so doing, Christ commended that same faith to his followers, to us. It is the very thing that draws us to the person of Christ and finds its fulfillment in him. Our faith, like Abraham’s, is our integrity, our righteousness; by faith we are “Abraham’s seed.”
This integrity, this righteousness, is not a matter of law-keeping, the maintenance of an unblemished record or reputation, the establishment of moral and ethical rectitude; important as lawfulness, reputation and ethics are. In fact many biblical heroes of the faith, true children of Abraham, are not always respectable: Jacob the trickster, Rahab the harlot, Samson the rogue, Ruth the Moabite foreigner and her great grandson King David and his lust, to name a few. These heroes of faith did not stand on self-righteousness. They did truly repent, they did not revel, concerning their sins. They all found that they simply could not live without God. Without their faith, everything collapsed and went flat. Without faith, the life and light went right out of things, as it still does.
In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus is asked if those who are saved will be few. This is a question of curiosity. Jesus does not answer it. Instead, he turns on the questioner, “Strive to enter by the narrow door.” He also says that the time for striving to enter, like the time of life itself, comes to an end. So entering is an urgent matter. It is the most important thing in life, even more primary than family or career; faith in fact shapes one’s vocation both at home and work. Abraham and his children are those who strive to enter that door, and their striving is not in vain. In fact, the striving itself, the desire for God, is that great gift which God credits to his people as righteousness.
My prayer is that Saint Thomas Church be that very door for many people, the gate of heaven, a place where Abraham’s children will hear God’s Word preached, Christ’s Gospel clearly taught and his Sacraments duly offered. Even more, when people enter here, may they also find their fellow-pilgrims to be warm and welcoming, kind and comforting, generous, ready and willing to serve. Of all the credentials of this Church, let the first one be that we believe in the Lord, and he credits it to us as our integrity.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
___________
¹See Genesis 17:5; also Gen 17:15-16 for Sarah, princess, and “mother of nations.”
