Welcome to
the second Sunday of Lent. How’s Lenten
journey so far?
We’re deep into
it today. Our lessons, though containing
some ultimately comforting hope, are also presenting us with the promise of
challenges in our walk with Christ.
Comfort and
challenge – a good combo on which to cogitate this Lent in our walk with Christ.
Comfort: God
has promised to be faithful to us, even when times get tough. We are known by
name and beloved by our creator. We
inherit this promise not “through the law (by following all the rules most
perfectly) but through the righteousness of [our] faith”, as our ancestors
Abraham and Sarah did (Rom 4:13-14, 16).
God sent is love to us in the very tangible form of Christ Jesus and has
gifted us his Holy Spirit – comforting, indeed.
Challenge: While
there is great freedom in being beloved of God and inheriting his Spirit,
living up to this love and into this inheritance requires sacrifice on our part. It’s risky and costly to graciously seek and consistently
share culture-challenging charitable love with others as Christ has done with
us. Furthermore, God’s Word made flesh,
Jesus, has shown us and told us that when we set our mind more on our will than
on divine will (more on our sense of how things should be rather than God’s
desire), we inhibit the holy mission, risk forfeiting our life, and head toward
shame.
Let’s look a
bit closer at some of our lessons for today and then consider what the Spirit
might be leading us to re-consider during our Lenten journey this year.
Abraham & Sarah
As Paul is
suggesting in the excerpt from his letter to the Romans that we’ve heard this
morning (Rom 4:13-25), faith and trust are most fundamental to our right
relationship with God. Well before Moses encountered God on the mountaintop and
delivered ‘law’ to us (traditions meant to support and encourage our faithful
living), we have the story of God’s outreach to Abraham and Sarah, the actions
they faithfully take in respond to God’s call, and God’s promise to redeem us
all through their legacy.
Before
Abraham and Sarah, God sought to turn us from self-centered ways and return to
divine righteousness as a family. God attempted
a re-boot through the great flood and the call of Noah to restore better order. Alas, as faithful as he was initially, Noah fell
off the wagon.
Then along
comes Abraham. We’re not really clear
why Abraham, a decedent of Noah, is chosen, but perhaps there’s a lesson in
that. God seems to be less interested in
Abraham’s past story and more concerned about the strength of his faith and the
trust that both he and his wife have in God’s intentions… and what that will
mean for the future generations that they shall parent.
God calls
Abraham and Sarah to leave behind the comforts of the life they have known – to
uproot their identity in the current context;
to sacrifice their senses of safety, security, protection, and
prosperity - and to venture forth into something new – a new place that will be
blessed and greater than where they’ve been.
Initially, despite their faithful sacrifices and trusting follow, they
endure many hardships (e.g., famine and war).
Furthermore, try as they might to fulfill what God has said they shall
do (fruitfully procreate), they can’t beget a child of their own (Sarah is
barren).
Abraham and
Sarah weren’t perfect (as Paul’s rendering might suggest) and this couple had
their moments of doubt (e.g., Abraham initially falls on his face laughing at
the notion that they’ll be parents in the old age) and sometimes acted
according to their own will first (e.g., perhaps weary of waiting on God to
act, they take it upon themselves to create a child by Abraham impregnating
Sarah’s slave, Hagar)… but more often than not they were faithful and trusting
in God’s comforting promise, despite their circumstantial challenges. Because of this, God appears again to refresh
the promise to bring forth a multitude of nations from this faithful and
trusting couple, blessing them with their own child and new names to seal the
deal.
 |
To the end,
they remain faithful and trusting in God, even though their circumstances seem
more challenging than comforting most of the time. E.g., Abraham is even shows
God that he’s willing to sacrifice their beloved son Isaac if it be God’s will.
Today, three
of our great religious traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) consider
themselves ‘Abrahamic’, considering themselves ancestors of this faithful
couple through whom God’s comforting promise was fulfilled.
In the story
and legacy of Abraham and Sarah we can find deep comfort in the enduring nature
of God’s commitment to us that is based on faith and trust. And, we can also see/hear that God hadn’t
promised that we’ll never endure hardship and suffering. What we’re to trust in is that God remains
committed to our well-being every step of the way and will redeem even the
seemingly most barren of circumstances if we will just remain faithful to
seeking God’s will more than our own.
The story of
Abraham and Sarah is compelling… and, I’m even more drawn to the character of
Peter and how his story embodies these elements of promise, comfort and
challenge.
Peter
Don’t cha
just love Simon Peter? Here’s a regular
ole fisherman who gets pulled into this whole story by his brother and then
eventually ends up on a mountaintop witnessing the Transfiguration of our Lord
and becoming one of the primary leaders of the early church.
Peter is both
the disciple of little faith (when he calls out to Jesus for help while trying
to walk on water, Matt 14:28-31) and then later he’s the sturdy rock (petros) upon which Jesus says the church
will be established (Matt 16:13-20).
Peter is
first to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah (Mark 8:29 - just prior to what we’re
hearing this morning) as well as later the first to publicly deny (three times,
no less!) knowing Jesus after the going gets tough (when Jesus is taken into
custody before his trail and execution).
This morning we’re
hearing what happened right after Peter’s proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah.
Following Peter’s bold proclamation that
Jesus is the messiah, Jesus reveals more about the suffering that he must
endure in this role. In another bold
move, albeit misguided, Peter then pulls Jesus aside and “rebukes” him (that’s
right – rebukes, like what Jesus has been doing to demons). Faithful Peter is
also fearful Peter when confronted with the implications of what following a
suffering servant messiah will mean.
We might
imagine Peter saying something like “hey J.C., that’s not the type of messiah
we’ve been hoping for… suffering as the Son of Man isn’t what we want… there’s
another way to do this…” Or, as one
commentator imagined Peter saying, “Suffering, rejection, and death are not on
the agenda. Prestige, power, and
dominion are the agenda. It’s David’s
throne we’re after, ruling the nations with power and might. We signed on for a crown, not a cross!” (W.
Hulitt Gloer, PhD - Professor of Preaching, Truett Seminary at Baylor
University)
Peter’s
instinct is to avoid this way if possible and find another way to enjoy all the
benefits of the kingdom without having to endure the Passion. I can relate to that… can’t you? And while I might not dare to boldly rebuke
Jesus as Peter did, I’m sometimes pretty good at passive aggressively avoiding
Christ. What about you?
Rather than
comforting Peter and alleviate his fears and concerns, Jesus challenges this
trusted disciple and promises all listeners that there will be more challenges
ahead in their walk with this messiah.
 |
| Get Thee Behind Me, Satan. James Tissot, 1886-96 (Brooklyn Museum) |
Then, turning
to the others who have now gathered around them, Jesus goes on to challenge everyone
by saying that order to inherit all that the messiah promises and become heirs
to God’s kingdom, they too must surrender, sacrifice, and suffer for the sake
of the ultimate good news.
Here are two
other renderings of what Jesus says to them (to us):
(from The Message) Calling the crowd to join
his disciples, he said, "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me
lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace
it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all.
Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What
good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What
could you ever trade your soul for? If any of you are embarrassed over me and
the way I'm leading you when you get around your fickle and unfocused friends,
know that you'll be an even greater embarrassment to the Son of Man when he arrives
in all the splendor of God, his Father, with an army of the holy angels."
(from a
sermon by The Rev. Rickey Del Edwards, March 19, 2000) "If anyone would
come after me, let them sacrifice themselves and take up their choices and
follow me. For whoever would hide their choices will be lost, and who ever
would witness to their choices for my sake and the sake of others will live.
For what does it gain to hide behind idols of prosperity, health, leisure and
comfort and loose one’s life. For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, I will
be ashamed of them when I come with the holy angels."
After the
great hopes and joys that people have built up following this miracle-working
messiah, now they’re hearing him say that he will be rejected, will suffer, and
will be killed… and that they, too, must carry the cross to be his true
follower.
As Brother David Vryhof of the Society
of Saint John the Evangelist says, “It’s no wonder that Jesus’ family [and
followers] was concerned about him. By his actions he was showing that
principles which most people value above everything else – security, safety,
and a good reputation in the eyes of others – meant nothing to him. How
countercultural is that?”
Concluding
thoughts / questions:
This Lenten
season reminds us that if we’re honest with ourselves, we find ourselves living
somewhere between the comforting glory of the resurrection promise of eternal
life and the challenging realities of what we must surrender and endure in
order to follow God’s incarnate Word in this life.
We spend so
much of our contemporary lives trying to avoid and dull our own discomfort that
we too often neglect the visceral memory that God’s passionate love for us
through Christ involved sacrifice and suffering to relieve the deeper pains of
this world.
Good news…
No matter how
off-track we can find ourselves, we are already forgiven and beloved (that is
comforting). And, this penitent season
of Lent offers 40 days of grace-filled opportunity to live up to the love and into
the expectations of God’s Word.
We’re invited
in these forty days of Lent to re-consider both the comforting promises of our
covenant with God, as well as the challenging propositions of what it means to
truly follow Christ – what it will require of us body, mind, and heart.
Before yearning
to celebrate the comforts of Easter, we are invited for these forty days to
embrace the challenges of self-sacrifice and what needs to be put to death on
the cross.
How are you challenging
yourself during this Lent?
What are we
each willing to sacrifice for the promise of new life together?
What do you
need to surrender in order to walk the way of the cross with Christ?
AMEN.
No comments:
Post a Comment