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Lent Year B – March 1, 2015
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16;
Psalm 22:22-30 (LBW)
Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38
St
Stephen Lutheran Church
The
Rev. Maurice Frontz, STS
Grace
and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To
enter into a covenant is to bind oneself by one’s word;
to
let the word that is spoken in the present moment determine the future.
Last
week we heard of God’s covenant with Noah,
that
the human race, sin and all,
would
continue on the earth.
Genesis
tells us that rather than flood the sin of the world out of existence,
destroying
humanity in the process,
God
would be patient with sinners,
finding
another way to deal with the sin and evil of the world.
Today
we hear of the covenant
God
makes with Abram and Sarai;
a
covenant which God makes not only with them,
but
with their descendants after them.
Abraham
and Sarah will have a child,
and
not just a child,
but
a child who will have children who will have children,
until
many nations and kings all trace their existence
to
an ordinary man and woman from Ur of the Chaldees,
and
these childless until old age.
Like
the covenant with Noah,
this
promise is totally God’s own,
and
it determines the future.
Abraham
and Sarah surely don’t determine the future.
If
it had been up to them,
there
would be no future at all for God’s people –
indeed
there would be no God’s people.
It
was not because Abraham worshiped God
that
God made a covenant with him;
after
all, Abraham was a heathen until God called him.
Genesis
reveals Abraham and Sarah to be people with very little to their credit.
Sarah
laughs when the messenger tells her that she will have a child.
Twice
Abraham lies and calls Sarah his sister
to
save himself from being killed by a king who may desire her.
Both
of them are crafty individuals.
But
Paul looks back to Abraham as his spiritual ancestor.
This
crafty individual,
can
he really be the exemplar for the ultra-religious, ultra-scrupulous Paul?
Certainly
Paul is descended of Abraham’s family according to the flesh.
But
this is not why Paul looks to Abraham as model.
Paul,
like Abraham, had been called into a covenant,
a
covenant which he did not choose.
Like
Abraham, Paul had received a promise,
not
because of his own worth or accomplishment,
but
because God spoke a word by which he bound himself.
And,
like Abraham,
Paul
could do nothing about it
except
cling to this word and promise.
This
is what the Bible calls ‘faith.’
Often
we use the word ‘believe’ in connection to faith.
This
English word ‘belief’ is a little bit problematic.
We
usually think of ‘belief’ as ‘knowledge,’
when
we acknowledge that something happened or something exists.
As
in ‘I believe that in 1969, human beings walked on the moon,’
or
even ‘I believe that there is a God.’
But
the belief that Paul is talking about, this faith, is not simply an
intellectual matter
but
a matter of the heart.
It
is a trust that comforts and encourages us,
a
trust that God has made, is keeping, and will keep his promise.
So
when we say in the Creed, ‘I believe in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,’
we
are not saying ‘I’m not like those atheists who don’t think there’s a God.’
Instead,
we are saying, with the Church,
‘This
is the God in whom I put my trust, to whom I belong,
whose
Word and promise I depend upon.’
This
is why the Creed follows the readings, the Sermon, and the Hymn of the Day.
It
is a response in faith to the God who has been proclaimed there.
So
we are called to trust in God.
And
yet we are right to be annoyed when the ultra-religious say,
‘Oh,
I have such strong faith in God,’
or,
‘You just have to trust God.’
There
may be a time to say that kind of thing,
but
it needs to be done in great humility.
But
if we honestly look at our lives,
the
truth is that we don’t find a lot of trust there.
We
find a lot of running, a lot of resisting,
a
lot of doubting and a lot of telling God how to run the show.
Much
like Peter.
Even
after just having told Jesus that he was the Messiah,
Peter
was so ready to contradict Jesus when Jesus said something
that
Peter didn’t expect he should say.
Even
though Peter ‘believed,’ he couldn’t yet ‘believe.’
Peter
was ready to say that Jesus was the Messiah,
but
Peter couldn’t trust that word of Jesus
that
he should suffer and die and be raised from the dead.
None
of us could.
So
if we look at our trust in God and find it lacking,
we
understand that Peter and Paul had to learn too.
As
we’ve heard, so did Abraham.
So
how do we obtain faith and trust in God,
a
faith which shares in the faith of Abraham?
Only
one thing we can do,
keep
hearing the promise.
For
the word of the promise itself
creates
faith in that promise.
That
is why Christians do not come to church for a while
and
then decide they have enough faith,
or
finish a class
and
then say,
‘Well,
I’ve learned everything I need to know.’
Or
they don’t get confirmed
and
then think that they have ‘graduated.’
By
ourselves, without the Word of promise,
we
will so easily forget;
we
will put our trust and hope in louder voices
which
promise the present
but
which can do nothing for the future.
But
when we come to hear the promise
week
after week,
we
confess that we need it,
that
we need Jesus himself to speak faith into us
so
that we may cling to him for everything good
and
be protected from all that is evil.
As
Abraham, Paul, and Jesus lived by faith
that
God was faithful,
so
do we.
Great
is his faithfulness!
Amen
