2022 03 13 Sermon

Sermon for March 13, 2022 Lent 2 C House of Prayer Lutheran Church

Genesis 15:1-18; Luke 13:31-35 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

Do you remember the first time your parents signed you up for piano lessons or dance class? Or for Little League, soccer, or Scouts? I can remember the excitement of learning to play an instrument and experiencing how marks on a page can be turned into music. I remember the thrill of being on a team, and the commitments and responsibilities and pride that came with putting on a uniform.

When you got older, do you remember signing the lease on your first apartment? Or taking out your first car loan? Or making the down payment on just the kind of house you’d been looking for? In those cases, the excitement is still there, the sense of possibility that opens up when you have your own car or your own place. That excitement also comes with perhaps a bit of dread, or at least a heightened sense of responsibility and commitment. The bank and the landlord want to be paid whether or not this was a good month for your bank account. But even with the added responsibility, we still freely take these commitments upon ourselves, because ultimately they lead to better things.

All of the examples I just shared are different forms of what the bible calls “covenants” —binding agreements between two parties, or two people. Each person receives something beneficial, even while each person agrees to extra responsibility, while also limiting themselves in some way. You’re basically saying, “I agree to play for this team whether they end up being good or bad. I agree to pay for living in this house, regardless of whether I like all the neighbors.” The things we sacrifice in order to make covenants also help us to build communities, develop friendships, learn new skills, and connect us with people and institutions.

These covenants I’ve mentioned make sense to us, as just the way things are. We may not even be able to imagine any other way to do things. Yet if Abram—from today’s Old Testament story in Genesis 15—were to step into a time machine and be instantly transported to the present time, and observed how we make commitments and responsibilities, with forms and contracts or even handshakes…well, Abram would be utterly dumbfounded. It just would make no sense to him. He might even ask, “Why don’t you just take a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a pigeon, sacrifice them, cut them in pieces, lay the pieces against each other, and then walk between them?” Abram might also say, “Isn’t it obvious? That’s how everyone agrees to covenants!” And then we’d look at Abram, scratch our heads and say, “Huh?”

As we hear this story from Genesis 15, we are essentially stepping into a time machine, looking back thousands of years into the cultural practices of the ancient middle east. In that world, cutting sacrificial animals in two and walking between the pieces was simply how it was done. The Hebrew phrase in the Old Testament literally says, “to cut a covenant” and this particular covenant is known as “the covenant between the pieces.” And so, as the Lord appears to Abram in a vision, to cut to a covenant with him, God makes his intentions known in a way that Abram could understand. This is the way of God—and even why God sent Jesus into the world—because God wants to communicate in ways that we can understand.

This was not the first nor the last covenant God made with humanity, but in every case God has used different methods so that we could understand. In the earliest days of human pre-history, with Adam & Eve, God tried “the carrot” approach, so to speak. He gave them everything in a paradise on earth we call the Garden of Eden. But it didn’t work. Adam & Eve disobeyed God and ruined it for themselves. Later on in the days of Noah, God tried “the stick” method. Humanity had become so evil that God figured he’d wipe everyone away and start again. That didn’t work either, because people remained people; human nature remained consistent, with our peculiar blend of the potential for good and evil inside each one of us.

So with Abraham and Sarah, God tried a third way—of “divine companionship”; of “Do not be afraid, for I will be your God, and walk with you in an ongoing relationship of give and take.” But even with this new and improved covenant, Abram—being who he was, with both heroic faith and terrible failings—gets impatient. Abram believed what the Lord had promised: that he would be the father of nations, with descendants more numerous than the stars in the sky. But it wasn’t happening on the timetable that Abraham preferred. It was taking too long. Here Abraham was an old man, Sarah an old woman long past child-bearing age, with no children of their own. How would God ever keep this promise?!? Abraham gets impatient and takes matters into his own hands, instead of handing his worries and fears over to God. And each time Abram takes matters into his own hands he messes things up more and more.

Until finally, in today’s story, Abram finds himself with a bunch of animals cut in half at the Lord’s request. To teach him patience, the Lord makes Abram wait just a bit longer, through the evening. Abram has to run around shooing away the birds of prey looking for a bite to eat, as he waits for the Lord to act.

Then God does something really smart, using these ancient cultural practices, to send Abram a message he can really understand. God symbolically passes between the pieces of sacrificed animals, but not Abram. This means that God alone takes full responsibility for fulfilling the covenant—it is not Abram’s job to fulfill the covenant, or to take matters into his own hands anymore. Abram simply needs to trust God, that God will fulfill the promises; in God’s way and on God’s timetable.

To top it all off, God cut this covenant of divine companionship right after Abram had fallen into a deep sleep, while a terrifying darkness descended upon him. God took all the responsibility just when Abram was helpless, and had no control, and was filled with doubt and fear. God was making it very clear—it is by God’s gift of grace alone that you are saved, and faith is how you realize that God’s grace is even for you, especially when you need it most.

As with Abram, God is present within our own doubts and fears, working in a mysterious way, even when things seem terrible, and even when we grow impatient. There sure are many terrible things we’ve seen lately, and we’ve also had more than our fill of waiting over the past two years. What a gift to know that God takes full responsibility for fulfilling his covenant with us, by promising to be present in the darkness, even when everything is in pieces.

We can continually receive assurance of God’s divine companionship and ongoing relationship with us, through the covenants of the New Testament—whenever you witness a Baptism or come to the altar and receive Holy Communion. And if you ever find yourself unable to put the broken pieces of life back together, remember that God’s “covenant between the pieces” is still in effect. God is in the space between the pieces of our lives, so that Christ can take the broken pieces we offer, and gather them together like a hen gathering her chicks under her wings. Christ fulfills God’s promises to us through the cross and resurrection; and puts our pieces together again through faith, so we can patiently trust that God’s grace will be enough to lead the way through life, and bring us at last to salvation. Amen.