Mission-Focused

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

March 16, 2025

Year C: The Second Sunday in Lent

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

Psalm 27

Philippians 3:17-4:1

Luke 13:31-35

Mission-Focused

Let us pray.

God of the Seemingly Impossible,

Help us to resist the temptations of fear, distraction, and division.

Keep us focused on our mission of serving you by serving others.

Amen.

        Well, we had yet another action-packed week here at St. Thomas’ Church!

I’ll have more to say about that in a few minutes.

But, one thing I’ll mention now is that, behind the scenes, a few of us worked on the Letter of Agreement with our hopefully-soon-to be-hired-and-announced Assistant Rector.

As you probably know, the Church loves to come up with its own vocabulary.

So, it’s not the vestibule, it’s the narthex.

And it’s not a contract, it’s a Letter of Agreement.

But it’s basically the same thing. We the employer pledge to do a, b, and c and you the employee will be responsible for doing x, y, z. And this is how we will keep both parties accountable. 

Pretty straightforward. You don’t have to be a lawyer to know how this works.

But you may not have realized that in today’s Old Testament lesson from Genesis, we heard about another contract, another “letter of agreement,” a covenant, a covenant between God and Abram (the future Abraham) and Abram’s descendants.

As we heard, the story begins with Abram feeling kind of sorry for himself, sorry that he and his wife Sarai (the future Sarah) have no descendants.

But then, in very God-like fashion, God promises the seemingly impossible – a homeland, yes, but more than that, God promises that childless Abram’s descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky.

And, against all available evidence, Abram believed God’s seemingly impossible promises.

And then we have this strange ritual.

In the ancient world, to finalize a contract, the parties would sometimes slaughter animals and then divide their carcasses in half. And then both parties would walk between those divided carcasses, symbolizing that if they violated the deal, well, they would suffer the same fate as the animals.

Some people say that this is the origin of the expression “cut a deal.” That’s probably not true, but I’m guessing that this rather crude and bloody way of cutting a deal was effective.

But notice how God cuts this deal with Abram and his descendants.

Yes, the animals have been killed and the carcasses cut in half.

But it’s only God, represented by the smoking fire pot and torch, who “walks” between both halves.

God knows that Abram’s descendants will give into temptation.

God knows that we will not always keep our end of the deal.

And so, God spares us the worst consequences of our unfaithfulness. 

But no matter how many times we mess up, no matter how many times we fall short, God is faithful.

God keeps God’s end of the deal.

        God keeps God’s promises.

        If you were here last week, you’ll remember that we heard the story of Jesus’ forty days and nights in the wilderness, Jesus’ time of temptation.

        After failing to tempt Jesus, we’re told that the devil departs “until an opportune time.”

        And maybe we hear about one of those “opportune times” in today’s gospel lesson.

        Today we catch up with Jesus as he is making his way to his fate in Jerusalem.

        As he’s passed through villages and towns, he’s been healing illnesses and exorcising demons. No doubt the word about this most unusual teacher, this most powerful healer, has been spreading.

        No doubt some people were excited while others felt threatened.

        As we heard today, some Pharisees warn Jesus that Herod (the same ruler who had ordered the execution of John the Baptist) wants to kill him.

        It’s hard to know exactly what’s going on here.

        In the gospels, the Pharisees are almost always presented as opposing Jesus, so why would they care if Herod killed Jesus?

        Well, it could be that these Pharisees really did want to save Jesus’ life.

        Or maybe the Pharisees are hoping to trip up Jesus. If Jesus turns away from his mission to save his own skin, then the Pharisees can say, see, we told you he wasn’t a real prophet. A real prophet would trust God. A real prophet would never run away in fear.

        Well, the motives of the Pharisees don’t really matter because, as always, Jesus resists temptation – resists whatever temptation he might have felt to save his life.

        Jesus dismisses any concern about that fox Herod and remains mission focused.

        Jesus remains focused on his mission, knowing that it’s going to cost him a lot, knowing that it will cost him everything, trusting that God is faithful.

        Jesus knows that his Father and ours keeps his end of the deal.

        Like all of Abram’s descendants, we face many temptations.

And in this especially challenging time, we face particular temptations – the temptations of fear, distraction, and division.

Our temptations vary a bit depending on our station in life and our political views – but I think that right now all of us are sorely tempted to divide everyone into “us” and “them.”

But since our God of the Seemingly Impossible is faithful, we can resist the temptations of our lives, the temptations of our time, and we can remain mission focused, faithful to our mission of loving our neighbors, seeking and serving Christ in all persons, respecting the dignity of every human being.

Since our God of the Seemingly Impossible is faithful, we can be a servant church.

So, getting back to our action-packed week here at St. Thomas’…

After several years of discussion and discernment, last week work began on creating a new home for refugees from Afghanistan.

As most of you know, several of our parishioners have given countless hours to helping and guiding our friends from Afghanistan – navigating bureaucracy, making appointments, giving rides all over the place.

That generosity and hospitality has been just amazing. 

And now we’re taking the next big step. And I can’t tell you how proud I am to serve as Rector of a church that would make this kind of commitment, offering a home to people who have fled horrors to come to a faraway and no doubt strange land.

As it happens, during Morning Prayer, we’ve been reading Deuteronomy – and on Friday we read this:

“For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger…”

Since our God of the Seemingly Impossible is faithful, we can be mission focused.

In addition to starting work on a new home for our Afghan friends, last week also marked the return of Owls First, our afterschool enrichment program at Owings Mills Elementary School.

For Math Club, there were 14 tutors from St. Thomas’, some returning from last semester, others getting involved for the first time.

Our parishioners are working beside six student coaches from Owings Mills High School.

And for the sports component, John Xanders is working with two Owings Mills High School students, providing recreation and fun for about 20 kids.

Owls First brings together volunteers of different backgrounds and spanning a pretty wide age range, all committed to working with school children, helping them improve their skills, yes, but also offering genuine care – genuine care for kids who aren’t part of our family or part of our church, but who are known and loved by God and are now known and loved by us.

This is our end of the deal.

        This is our mission.

With the help of our God of the Seemingly Impossible, we can resist the temptations of fear, distraction, and division, the temptation of “us” and them.”

With the help of our faithful God, we can follow the way of Jesus.

We can remain mission-focused.

Amen.