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St. Charles' Episcopal Church - Saint Charles, IL
The Second Sunday of Lent - Lent 2 -- Year B
Sunday March 8, 2009
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 - Psalm 22:22-30 - Romans 4:13-25 - Mark 8:31-38
The Reverend William R. Nesbit, Jr.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

"I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous." As we work our way through Lent this year, the Old Testament readings are all about the various covenants of God. Last week we heard the covenant of the rainbow. Next week it is the Ten Commandments. This week we hear the first of the great promises of the covenant between God and Abram.

Usually when we think of God's promise to Abram, now Abraham, we think of the three men at the Oaks of Mamre, with Sarai, now Sarah, hiding in the tent and laughing. It's a popular story from the Bible, and I must admit, one of my favorites. I think the Lectionary folk's felt the same way, because they left out a part of the narrative this morning that is important to the overall story. It's the part where Abraham laughs. And he doesn't just laugh, he falls on the ground laughing. This part comes right after the part we heard and goes like this:

"God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her." Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, "Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?" And Abraham said to God, "O that Ishmael might live in your sight!" God said, "No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you; I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year."

This part of the story is important for so many reasons, not the least of which is Ishmael, the progenitor of the Muslim faith. The long lens of history makes it easy to turn Abraham, and more directly the faith of Abraham, into an inhuman pillar that is never shaken, never moved. Indeed Paul, in the excerpt of his Letter to the Romans we heard this morning, appears, in my mind, to have fallen into this trap. To hear Abraham's incredulous response to God's outrageous promise is to remember how very human Abraham is. To hear his very real concern for the son he has, born of Hagar, also humanizes the legend. To humanize Abraham does not invalidate the importance of his place in history. Indeed the humanness of Abraham gives even more power to the story. This story gives strength to the simple faith we have been given, as we see a real human wrestle with the realities of faith. We must never forget the audaciousness that lies at the center of faith. That the creator of all that is should know us intimately, and love us and care for us in spite of all our faults and weaknesses is an audacious supposition. The only true first response should be to fall on your face laughing. But that is the only the first response.

One of the intriguing parts of this story is the name change that both Abram and Sarai under go. Abram gets his name changed to Abraham and Sarai gets her name changed to Sarah. In Hebrew, the change is accomplished in both names by the insertion of the Hebrew letter (He). In Judaism, is often used to represent Hashem, meaning "the name," as a way to reference God without actually saying the name of God, a great sin. As a faithful Jew, we would read this story and take something special away from the name changes, something we post- modern Christian might miss. By their very name changes, both Abram and Sarai take the name of God into their identities. God become an indelible part of who they are at the deepest level. Still we might have a chance if we are really paying attention. Even in English we get some clues. The English sound inserted in their names is the breathed "hah" sound, and breath has always been associated with the Spirit through ruah and pneuma. At the very least we might pick up the humor of God inserting "ha" into the names of these people who always seem to laugh at his blessings.

In our Gospel this morning we see the other side of the coin. In place of the apparently faithless response of Abraham leading to a growth in faith, we see almost the opposite response in Peter. Just before the story we hear this morning, Jesus is sitting under a tree with his disciples asking them who they think he is, and Simon blurts out, "You are the Messiah!" In Matthew's version of this scene, this is where Simon gets his new name, Peter, the rock. In our Gospel this morning we see that a new name doesn't necessarily guarantee a new vision. Peter is barely done calling Jesus Messiah, and here Jesus is calling Peter Satan. What is Peter missing?

Well, before we get ready to throw Peter under the bus, I ought to tell you that it is essentially the same thing that we miss all the time. It is the kingdom of God. Right in front of us. As Jesus shares with his disciples the true cost of his way of life, the cost he will have to pay, and the cost that they will all eventually have to pay, Peter misses the point. To be fair, they all miss the point, but Peter at least has the guts to stand up and say something. And when he does he gives Jesus the opportunity he was waiting for. The opportunity to jar the disciples, to stun them, and wake them up to the new reality they have been missing. "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things." Or to put it another way, you are looking to restore the kingdom of David, not reveal the kingdom of God. It is a wake-up call that we all need to hear, and regularly. To be a disciple of Jesus, to take up your cross, is to see the world through the eyes of Jesus. To see in excruciating detail where the kingdom of God is possible and yet absent, both in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. To see clearly where we fall short of the ideal society we are all meant to be together, because of our own sin. To see in stark contrast the myriad ways we consistently choose to set our minds on human things when all the blessings of the divine things wait just out of our grasp, not because we can't reach them, but because we choose not to. If it weren't such a tragedy I have no doubt that God would fall on the ground in front of us laughing. But it is a tragedy. And it breaks God's heart again and again. And it should be breaking ours as well.

It is time for us to return. It is long past time. In the old prayerbook, the 1928 version, the confession used for morning and evening prayer speaks of this call to return to the path of God in ways our more modern version misses for me. I invite you to listen with your heart:

Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, we have offended against thy holy laws, we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.

But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, spare thou those who confess their faults, restore thou those who are penitent, according to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord; and grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.

Let it be so, dear Lord. Let it be so.