Sermons

Second Sunday in Lent
Sunday 4 March at 10am

Simon Cowling
Readings: Genesis 15. 1-12 & 17-18; Luke 13. 31-35

Jewish history begins with Abraham - or Abram as he is known until Genesis chapter 17. Although the people of ancient Israel looked to Moses as the one to whom the roots of their faith could be traced, it was to the story of Abraham that they turned in order to trace the beginnings of God's covenant relationship with his people. So in Genesis chapter 15, part of which we heard this morning, God promises Abraham that he will have as many descendants as the stars in the sky, and that the land between Egypt and the Euphrates will belong to those descendants. This covenant promise is independent of God's written law - that law will have to wait until Moses' encounter with God on the holy mountain hundreds of years later. The emphasis here is firmly on God's apparently unconditional promises to Abraham.

It's perhaps not surprising that, because Abraham's relationship with God preceded the giving of the Jewish Law, Abraham acquired an immense significance for early Christians too. These Christians were clear that their story was part of the wider story of God's relationship with his people as described in the Jewish scriptures; and they looked to Abraham as a model of trust, faithfulness, obedience and piety, one who transcended the particularity of God's covenant with the Jewish people. St. Paul reminds the Galatians of the universality of God's promise to Abraham that we find in Genesis chapter 12: all nations will be blessed through you. Paul even describes this as an advance announcing of the Gospel, the Good News.

So let's look for a moment at Abraham as this model of trust, faithfulness, obedience and piety. Right at the outset Abraham hears and obeys God's call to leave his country, his relations and his father's home and to go to a land which God will show him. The writer of Genesis Chapter 12 describes a 75 year old Abraham leaving Haran with all his possessions for the land of Canaan, setting up altars when he gets there so he can worship the God who has taken him away from all that is familiar. In chapter 13, after quarrels between Abraham and his nephew Lot, Abraham gives Lot the first choice of the land. Lot, not surprisingly, chooses the fertile land of the Jordan valley. This decision turns out badly for Lot, though, as he gets caught up in fighting between local warlords. It is Abraham who sets out from Mamre to rescue his quarrelsome nephew and who then declines to profit from the booty he has acquired from the warlords. In chapter 18 Abraham famously offers hospitality to the strangers who arrive at his tent during the heat of the day and who then confirm what God has already promised - that the aged Abraham and Sarah will have a son through whom God's promises will be fulfilled. In chapter 21 a local king called Abimelech recognises Abraham's stature before God by telling him that God is with you in everything you do, And perhaps most famously, in Genesis chapter 22, Abraham passes the supreme test of faith when he is prepared to sacrifice his long-promised son, Isaac, in obedience to the God whose call he first answered many years before in Haran.

A picture of Abraham, then, as a universal model of faithfulness and obedience to God. (I'd like to add, in passing, that I find Abraham an attractive figure for another reason: his is no artificial piety. On two separate occasions Abraham attempts to pass of his wife, Sarah, as his sister in order to save his own skin. Both times this brings misfortune upon his host before the deception is discovered. Abraham also does little to stop his wife, Sarah, dealing harshly with his Egyptian slave woman Hagar - something for which Hagar rightly reproaches him. It is not to condone these actions to recognise that here we are dealing with a real human being, not what one writer has called a 'cardboard stereotype'. Like the other patriarchs - Isaac, Jacob and Joseph - Abraham is a deeply complex and flawed personality. Just like us, in fact.)

But back to Paul. In the letter to the Galatians St. Paul uses Abraham's obedience to God to make an important point about our righteousness before God being acceptable because of our faith in him rather than because of our 'doing what the Law requires'. But he goes on to make another point, which amounts to this: yes, Abraham believed God and because of his faith was accepted as righteous; yes, Abraham is our ancestor as much as he is the Jews' ancestor; yes, we should have before us the example of Abraham when reflecting on our own situation. But for Paul and for us God's promises to Abraham and to his descendants are only understandable when seen in the light of Jesus Christ. It is in Jesus Christ - in his life, in his suffering and death, and in his resurrection, that God's promises to Abraham are made real for us. It is Jesus who has closed the gap between us and God, allowing us to see that what God promised to Abraham is fulfilled in him. Through our faith in Jesus Christ we can, in Paul's words, 'receive the Spirit promised by God.'

But having received God's Spirit, what then? We've been thinking about Abraham this morning. Here's a story about him. Before God commanded Abraham to leave his country, the patriarch could be likened to a jar of exquisite perfume which was tightly sealed and kept in a remote corner. The superb aroma could not escape and no one could have any benefit from it. But if the jar were to be uncorked and moved about from room to room then its precious fragrance could be distributed all around So God said to Abraham, "Abraham, you perform many good deeds and you have taught some of your neighbours the truth about the one God, but the effect is very limited and the world outside knows nothing about you or your faith. Therefore I want you to move about in the world so that your teaching and example can spread and my name will be great in my world." How far do we allow the aroma of our faith in Jesus Christ to spread? How much does the world outside St. Edmund's know about us, about what we believe? Let's uncork our perfume bottles and see what happens…. Amen

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