The Second Sunday in Lent Sermon

I had a friend years ago, early in my seminary years. She’s passed now, and at the time, I was in a spiritual direction program. As it became clear that Barbara would not beat the colon cancer, she asked me if I would be her spiritual director. I was early in the program, and somewhat insecure, so I declined, saying I wanted simply to be her friend. And it was true, but even now, sixteen years later, I am saddened by that decision. Yes, we remained close friends to the end, and I was with her up to her last twenty-four hours. But what Barbara wanted, and deeply needed, was a confessor. Now you need to understand what was behind my reticence.

In those days I was moving away for several reasons, from a tradition whose focus was often on human depravity, and only through a particular and specific declaration of faith could a person find peace with God, individually. Personally.

I resisted this focus, this lens, frankly because I am a woman who birthed three babies. When I imagine God gazing down at God’s children, I don’t imagine God seeing a cockroach (a simile once offered in my southern Bible college, a land where cockroaches sometimes reigned). I imagine a deep and abiding love for a child who’s had a rough time finding their way in life. So, when Barbara wanted desperately to confess her sins, all I wanted to say to her, to try to convince her, was that she was precious, and loved, and need not fear passing through the veil to God.

However, I now see the importance for us, especially as believers and followers of Jesus Christ to have a place and a person to share the burden of our bumbling, self-focused, harm doing, at times. But even so, in humility remembering we are not God, and that in our humanness we grow tired, and cynical, at times full of hubris and pride, and most of all short sighted and frustrated for not getting our own way: I remain absolutely convinced of God’s tender affection and unflappable holiness.

So yes. We are human.

And today we see our ancestor, a very human Abram asking God who is promising to protect and reward him, about that promise made awhile back. You know, the one where his barren wife, Sarai, would have a son, who would be his heir and the beginning of a great nation? Well now he’s a hundred years old, and Sarai, ninety-nine, and there’s no son…. so, what the heck? He reasons some alternatives, but God says, no, no your own issue will be your heir. And then God directs some activity to seal the moment and convince Abram the promise will come to pass.

We know the story. Abram becomes Abraham, Sarai, Sarah. Their son Isaac is indeed born and the promise, along with a bit of a digression, has come to pass. The nation Israel is begun.

However, what I come away with here is steadfastness.

God looks at his bumbling children trying to find a way to make the promise happen through Sarai’s maid Hagar and her son by Abram, Ishmael, and sees not a rebellious couple sinning in their doubtfulness, but his children messing things up in their effort to find a way forward. A way to protect what is theirs. A way to survive.  There are consequences of course, but what I find remarkable and memorable in this moment is God’s steadfast love.

Now I want to turn to Paul’s letter to the Philippians in which he is making a contrast between right living and the enemies of the Cross those whose god is their belly, whose glory is their shame. Paul reminds us that in times where the actions of the enemies of the way of Jesus are weighing heavily on those trying to live rightly… well, this letter reminds us that while they, and we, live in times of oppression and power, our citizenship is in heaven. And it makes me wonder what that means.

In fact, I often wonder what we mean as we repeat, week after week at the Eucharist: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We don’t know what heaven is like. And we don’t think in terms of kings and kingdoms in this country. But we do, at least in this place I think, know what the way of the Cross is about. It was God walking in humanness, healing, teaching, loving, being frustrated and tired, and dying. That’s the way of the Cross. And we are not God, but we follow the way of Jesus, God in the flesh, and we care. And we love. And we learn better ways to be neighbors and live in kinship rather than as isolated far-off individuals, protecting only ourselves. That is why we gather, and that is why I send you out each week to love and serve the Lord.

So, can we in moments like the one we’re living in now, remember that God is steadfast in love, in presence, in attention? Both to individuals and groups, to nations, to the world?  Is God here?

I once heard an interview long ago with Billy Graham’s daughter who, when asked, “why do you think God allows all this bad to happen in the world?”  She replied simply, ‘Why do we blame God for the actions of people?’

Jesus doesn’t ask that question. God didn’t answer it either in Job, remember? The why, why, why? Here, in Luke’s Gospel we see Jesus, not running for the hills under Herod’s threat. He simply says, … ‘you tell that fox I am about my work, and I will continue to be about my work until I’m done.’

So why do I start this sermon today with a story about confession of sin? Because, friends, our days, each of our days is numbered, and just like Abram and Sarai we are bumbling through our lives trying to make things work and trying to gain that promise, whatever it is. But just like Jesus, we have a beginning and an end. A birthday and date of death. All that we hear and see in scripture reminds us God is steadfast in love. Jesus was steadfast in his mission. So, if you have sins or disappointments, or anger that is holding you back because of shame or guilt, confessing our sins to one another, as is appropriate and to whom it is appropriate, gets us free of them, and allows us to serve the God of steadfast love, wherever our journey takes us.

I say this because in times like these, where the world seems always to be looking for someone to blame, I am reminded of the time Jesus told the self-righteous ones who were without sin to cast the first stone.

It is good to remember and take up our own part in the mess in the world, whatever part that may be. And then to hold fast our collect today as we pray for ourselves, our neighbors, and even our enemies:

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ…

So be steadfast my siblings, in your hope. Be steadfast in your faith.

Amen