St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
March 13, 2022
Year C: The Second Sunday in Lent
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-55
God Invites Us to Have Faith in the Future
In last Sunday’s gospel lesson, we heard the story of Jesus’ forty days and nights in the wilderness.
It was a time when the devil tempted a starving and exhausted Jesus, offering him seemingly good things – making bread to eat, gaining authority over all the world, putting his complete faith in God – with just one catch.
All Jesus had to do was recognize and submit to the devil’s sovereignty.
Of course, Jesus successfully resists the devil’s enticements.
But Luke ended this story on an ominous note, warning that the devil and his temptations would be back at “an opportune time.”
Obviously, we face all sorts of temptations all the time.
But, in last week’s sermon, I suggested that, unfortunately, once again the devil has found an opportune time to tempt us.
Faced with an ever-growing pile of crises – around the world and in our own land and in many of our families - lots of us are sorely tempted by despair.
Some – maybe many - of us are even losing faith in the future.
In today’s lesson from the Book of Genesis, we meet someone who, it seems, has also lost faith in the future.
Right from the start, God made some big promises to Abram, calling him out of his homeland, assuring him that he would be the father of a great nation.
But, as we heard today, Abram’s faith in God faltered because he just couldn’t imagine a worthwhile future without children of his own.
In response to Abram’s gloomy view of the future, God made an amazing pledge, promising that this old man (and his old wife) will have descendants as numerous than the stars in the sky.
And now, for whatever reasons, Abram chose to trust God’s extravagant, even outlandish, promise.
And then we heard about a strange little ritual.
Abram is instructed to gather some animals, cutting most of them in two.
And then, that night, Abram witnessed “a smoking pot and a flaming torch” pass between the animal pieces.
It all sounds pretty bizarre to us, but this ritual was a way that some contracts were made in the ancient world.
The idea was that both parties would pass between the animal halves, symbolizing that if either party broke their end of the deal, well, they would end up like the cut up heifer, goat, and ram.
A crude, but effective, contract enforcement tool, I guess.
But notice that in this particular contract – this covenant between God and Abram and his descendants – it is only God who passes through.
God will keep God’s end of the deal but God knows that Abram’s future descendants will break the covenant, yet they will not pay the ultimate penalty for their unfaithfulness.
God knows only too well that we will continue to mess up and fall short.
I mean, just look at the world today.
Yes, God knows that we will give into temptation – but, despite all of our failures, God will not give up on us, no matter what.
And so, just like with Abram long ago, God invites us to have faith in the future.
At the start of today’s gospel lesson we heard some familiar posturing and plotting.
The Pharisees, members of a movement within Judaism who are usually depicted in the gospels as opposing Jesus, warn him that his life is in danger. Do they tip him off because they are genuinely concerned about his survival or are they playing their own game?
We don’t know.
In any event, Jesus uses this opportunity to remind everyone of the work he’s been doing - casting out demons and healing the sick.
And then Jesus turns his attention to Jerusalem – that holy city that had been – and continues to be - the site of much holiness and much suffering – the place where Jesus will complete the sacrifice of his life.
It’s important to remember that during Jesus’ earthly lifetime, Jerusalem was an occupied city – ruled by the brutal Romans, assisted by local leaders who tried to keep the peace, as uneasy as it was.
And it’s also important to remember that in the year 70, a few decades after Jesus’ earthly lifetime, the Romans will destroy Jerusalem, burning the Temple, sending Jewish refugees fleeing for their lives.
So, for the first hearers and readers of the Gospel, that was all the recent past – and the aftermath of Jerusalem’s destruction was their frightening and disorienting present.
Faced with so much terror and tragedy, it must have been hard to have faith in the future.
But, perhaps they were comforted by the remarkable motherly language and imagery that Jesus uses when he talks about Jerusalem:
“How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…”
Beautiful, right?
And so, God our Mother invites us to have faith in the future.
And now here we are today.
The war that Russia has unleashed on Ukraine has upset a lot of our assumptions about the present and the future.
Until a few weeks ago, most of us had assumed that the Cold War was long over, but now it looks like maybe we were just living during a pause in the tension, hostility, and danger.
Back in the 1980s, I was fortunate enough to visit Berlin a couple of times – a place scarred by the Cold War.
As you’ll remember, the former and future German capital was a divided city back then, with a wall – or, actually a system of fortifications and a wide no man’s land laced with landmines – meant to prevent people from the Communist East from escaping into the free West.
I had the unnerving and unforgettable experience of passing through a checkpoint into East Berlin – a place that looked and felt pretty much like any modern city, that is, until you remembered that most of the people passing by on the sidewalk going about their business were, in fact, living in a giant prison.
Seeing the wall and the guard towers and fortifications – and hearing about the brave and often tragic stories of escape attempts, it seemed to me back in 1988 that the wall would surely stand for the rest of my life, and probably a lot longer than that.
But, just a year or so later, it was gone – the gates opened and the barriers brought down, all without one shot having been fired.
And, if you visit Berlin today you have to look very carefully to find any evidence of the brutal gash that once divided the city.
God invites us to have faith in the future.
Two thousand years ago, out of the rubble of Jerusalem and the scattering of the Jewish people, a new Judaism arose, led by the Pharisees and their descendants, the rabbis.
And thousands of years before that, the old childless couple Abram and Sarai became Abraham and Sarah, the father and mother of descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.
And today, while there’s no question that we are in a tragic and dangerous moment, with much suffering all around, we can trust that the God who made an eternal covenant with Abram – the God who longs to gather us like a hen sheltering her brood under her wings – this God who will not let go of us, will not give up on us, no matter what.
And so, despite all the pain and sorrow and fear we see and experience, God invites us to have faith in the future.
Amen.
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