February 28 Lent II
Who do you love? Lots of you will remember that old rock favorite. Who do you trust? I’ve never heard a song by that title. Trust hasn’t been the subject of many rock and roll hits. Trust and love don’t always go together. We don’t always love who we trust and we can’t always trust who we love. In the narrative conversation between God and Abram in our lesson from Genesis we see that even God’s incredible love and generosity was difficult for Abram to trust.
In the culture of Abram’s time, having heirs was the ultimate blessing. If you didn’t have heirs, God must not love you. Sarai and Abram were old, sixty and seventy, by the time they got word from God that Sarai would bear a child. They laughed but they waited faithfully as they had before. More time elapsed.
Again God told Abram he would have heirs. Abram replied, but God, you have given me no offspring, so a slave will be my heir? Your reward will be great, Abram. Your own heirs as many as the stars in the sky. Abram said he believed, but instead of being grateful, he was skeptical. He was willing to wait again for God’s future promise, but he wanted an immediate sign.
God didn’t punish Abram for his lack of trust. God’s response was more incredible generosity. God sealed the promise with a rich and mysterious ritual covenant dream. Sarai was impatient. After a while, she decided God needed her help. She sent Hagar to Abram for the express purpose of moving God’s promise to fulfillment. I don’t know abut you, but when I give unsolicited “help” it isn’t necessarily helpful or needed. That was the case with Sarai’s help even though God overcame her disaster.
We in the church do an awful lot of things to help God. For example, we fall into the trap of doing business instead of faith. Some organization is certainly necessary, but what about our strategies for church growth and development? The first point on our graph is the very highest point of Christian church attendance: the decade right after World War II. Anything less, numerically, spells people leaving the church in droves as if everyone had always beenin the church — right up to the 1960’s. Consequently, we begin with fear — fear that people won’t find God unless we make church attractive, and fear that the church, which is so important to us, will fail. Maybe God could use a little help, we think. What we need is a strategy, a good business plan. More programs, more dinners, more attractive buildings and grounds, more, more, more.
Please, don’t misunderstand me. These are all good. Bible study, conversations about our faith, educational programs for our children, good music, and fellowship in inviting spaces are all good, but what people want more than anything is to see that we, ourselves, are different because we are Christians. After all, if people only want good music, they can go to the symphony or download it to their IPods, or tune into their favorite music station on the radio. The Art Center and parks provide beauty. There are lots of good restaurants for sharing meals with friends and lots of venues with good lectures and discussion.
God doesn’t need our fear in place of faith. All of us, strangers and long time members alike, are attracted to Christ Church when peoples’ lives show forth God’s promises of fruitful life. The kingdom of God is being ushered in with or without our strategies, in people and places where the light of Christ shines in our hospitality, our worship, parties and teaching. The kingdom of God is being ushered in in spite of the media reports of failure and other evidence to the contrary. Jesus ushered in the kingdom of God knowing the Romans would still be in charge politically. God is healing, teaching, and feeding our spirits no matter what the GNP is, or even how inadequate health care and job opportunities are.
That doesn’t mean we do nothing. Jesus lived every day of his life doing something for someone and often for multitudes of people. He lived his life with one purpose, trusting God with his whole life. That’s what people who visit churches are looking for. They seek a place that is different from the gloom on the streets and in the news, a place of hope instead of fear. Whether or not they know how to articulate it, they are looking for people who live their lives like Jesus did – people who not only profess Jesus but follow him.
At diocesan church convention last weekend, we began Saturday morning at tables not of our own choice. There were numbers on the name tags designating our assigned tables. I think since I confessed in a sermon last month how much I dread small groups, I’ve been in at least three of them. In the most recent, we heard Michael Battles, a prominent teacher in the church, give a talk and then we had about twenty minutes for discussion. I was fortunate. At our table people stayed on track talking about the teaching we’d just heard.
At another table the discussion quickly veered off into gloom — the economy, the national debt, and everything that is wrong with our country, our towns and the church. When the discussion ended, a friend said what struck him was “there was no God in the conversation.” The apostle Paul calls us enemies of Christ when our minds are set on earthly things and he predicts that our end will be destruction.
He does not suggest we put our heads in the sand. “…our citizenship is in heaven,” Paul says, “and from there we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Even if, like Abram, it takes our entire lifetime to see the fruits, we know what to do – imitate Christ.
AA has a slogan: “let go and let God.” Many people have been cured of the terrible disease of alcoholism because they learned what it meant to let go and let God. Letting God is not doing nothing, it means who do you trust? yourself or God. We can all be healed of our frantic lives and worries if we learn to trust God more than ourselves.
I’m reminded of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Three people traveled down a dangerous road to arrive at their destinations. No doubt these destinations were important. People traveling alone on this road knew they were in danger of meeting robbers and these three travelers came across one of the robber’s victims.
Two of them stuck to their original plan—there’s been lots of wonder and speculation about their lack of compassion and compulsion to keep going – for example, maybe the priest was due to take his turn saying prayers in the temple.
Only one of the travelers decided his original agenda could wait or be accomplished by someone else. This man lying injured on the road needed his help right then. This injured man was one whom Jesus spoke of when he said when you did it to the least of these, you did it to me. These moments of decision bring us up short. We have to choose between two goods. There is no one right answer – there are more than two choices in most situations. The question for us is, Is God in the conversation?
Our personal agendas, our busy schedules, past disappointments and losses make us afraid to put ourselves out for someone else, afraid to trust promises, even afraid to trust blessings ( when will the other shoe drop? what will it cost me?).
The key is in the opening line of the passage from Genesis when God begins by saying to Abram, “Do not be afraid.” In scripture, do not be afraid always ushers in good news. Do not be afraid means all evidence to the contrary, I am with you and I will bless you. Do not be afraid preceded God’s gift of heirs for Abraham without any help from Sarai. It preceded a spring of water in the wilderness for Hagar and her dying son, and food for Joseph’s starving brothers. Do not be afraid preceded the delivery of Moses and the Hebrew slaves both from Egypt and from the wilderness. Mary was told, Do not be afraid before the announcement of the birth of Jesus.
Do not be afraid. God’s incredible love is with us. Amen.