Not finished with us
Commentary
I know this is going to give my age away but I still remember seeing an elderly man in the 1960s wearing a t-shirt that had this on the front: "Be Patient With Me Because ..."
And on the back of the shirt was "... God Hasn't Finished With Me Yet!"
As I read about Abraham and Sarah in our text today, I think they could have benefited from that t-shirt philosophy, because in their minds, and in view of the age, they were finished -- done with!
The epistle lesson today seems to echo the same sentiment (Romans 4:19) in how Paul describes Abraham: "He was then almost one hundred years old ... he thought of his body, which was already practically dead ... Sarah [ninety years old herself] could not have children ..." (Good News Bible). The New Revised Standard Version translates this verse: "... when he considered his body, which was already as good as dead ..."
They must have thought that God had given up on them, that they were finished. What could even God do with an old, childless couple? A lot, as we shall see, and a lot with us, too, no matter how old or giftless we may feel. God's not finished with us.
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Today's lesson continues a theme from last Sunday -- covenant. The Bible from beginning to end is about the God who seeks fellowship with us, even though we often turn away or do things that break that fellowship. God just keeps on trying to connect with us. God reaches out again in Abram. Many centuries later, as we believe, God would reach out as never before through a child of Abraham and make a whole new covenant.
Just who is this who seeks to make a covenant with us? "I am God Almighty," literally "El Shaddai." The all-powerful Creator is the one who wishes to be with us, to commune with us. Why? Only because God loves us.
God demands something of Abram, however. He is to "walk before" God and "be blameless." A holy God requires a holy people, a people who reflect God's own character.
Four promises over all are made to Abram: he would be the father of many, they would be given a land of their own, his name would be great, and other nations would be blessed through him and his lineage.
Here the first promise is emphasized. Abram, with no heir, no child of his own is told that he will be the "father of a multitude of nations." Elsewhere his descendants are described as being as many as the sands on a beach. This must have been hard for him to believe, and we know from the accounts in Genesis that it made him laugh, as it did Sarai. But Isaac is born and his name means "he laughs," which I take to mean not only Isaac laughs but God has the last laugh. For, after all, Abram was 99 and Sarai was almost that old. They had no children in their prime so there was no hope of ever having their own now. Sarai, in fact, in chapter 16, acts to give Abram a child through her servant Hagar. That caused all kinds of problems. Abram and Sarai felt like withered up fruit trees. God says they will blossom and bear more fruit than they can imagine. God had not finished with them.
In fact, this wondrous thing God was going to do meant they needed new names. Abram would now be Abraham and Sarai would now be Sarah. They are given new names because they are new persons with new destinies. "Abram" and "Abraham" mean almost the same thing, though here it's intended to say that "Abram" means "exalted father" and "Abraham" means the "exalted father of multitudes." "Sarai" and "Sarah" probably mean "princess." Some scholars believe the name "Sarah" is related to the name "Israel," thus making a clearer connection to the nation.
It's also important to note here that this relationship with God involves others. His name change implies responsibility to others, to those who will follow him. As the New Interpreter's Bible says, "He must now live up to his new name, which focuses not on his personal relationship with God but on his relationship to the nations. The name looks outward, centered on the lives of others. Abraham's election involves mission" (Vol. 1, p. 459).
Over and over again it is emphasized that this special relationship, this covenant with Abraham and Sarah, is not just with them but with their descendants (v. 7). God wishes to have the same kind of relationship with the children of Abraham, with each new generation. God's relationships do not wear out. Time does not end them. This relationship also extends to us, as Paul is about to say.
Romans 4:13-25
Paul had been preaching that our response to what God has done in Christ is faith. That we are "justified" or made right with God because of the grace of God that we accept in faith, not by works of the Law. To further prove this, Paul goes back to Father Abraham himself. His point is that Abraham was not justified or made right with God because of his actions, but because of the promises of God to which he responded in faith (see Genesis 15:6). What was true for Abraham, Paul is saying, is also true for us, except we are justified by what God has done for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus and our acceptance of it in faith. Indeed, Paul seems to see God's promise to bless all nations through Abraham as now being fulfilled in the coming of Christ and in those, both Jews and Gentiles, who respond in faith.
Paul goes on to describe the nature of Abraham's faith. It was such that he believed God when God said that Abraham would have many descendants, despite their being past childbearing years. Such was a great faith! Now another great faith is called forth to believe that all God has promised to have done in Christ is true. In Christ, God was offering a covenant, an acceptance of all persons back into a loving relationship with God based solely on grace. Faith is trusting the God who makes such promises. It is the opening of the mind to believe it and the opening of the heart to experience this unconditional acceptance, even if it seems too good to be true. But, then again, God's promise to Abraham and Sarah seemed beyond belief, too. But that promise was kept because of the One who made it. Likewise, what God has promised in Christ is also true and can be wholly accepted by faith.
The gist of this, in light of all the readings, is that God really does love us. God wishes more than anything to be in covenant with us and has gone to great lengths to show that. Faith is accepting this. It is saying, "Yes," to God's invitation. It is opening one's heart to a God whose love was displayed for all time atop a cross on a hill outside Jerusalem.
Mark 8:31-38
Up to this point in the Gospel of Mark, the theme has been the power and authority of Jesus. But opposition to Jesus has been growing. Now the theme changes. Jesus begins to "teach" his disciples that he would be rejected and killed, and what it means to then be his disciple. So you might say this is really about who Jesus is and who we are called to be as his followers.
Just before this passage Jesus has asked them. "Who are people calling me?" The answer is that they seem to think he is one of the prophets or even Elijah who was expected to return before the Messiah. Then Jesus asks them, "But who do you say I am?" Peter, who is the spokesman for them all, says, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." And Jesus affirms Peter for this answer. But, as we will see in this passage, Peter understands how Jesus would be the Christ in a very different way than Jesus does.
The way Jesus prefers to refer to himself in Mark is "Son of Man." Although it does have some messianic associations, it is a telling bit of evidence for how Jesus saw himself and his mission. It is certainly a much more humble, lowly title than he could have chosen and that, in fact, Peter had just bestowed on him. He chose it because it fit so well with his understanding that he came to be a servant, a suffering servant to give his life, not to claim special status for himself, not to be the grand and glorious military Messiah that everyone expected, even Peter. God's will was otherwise. Somehow, through his death, God's redemptive purpose would be carried out. This mystery is something Peter could not understand then. He could not see how the cross could lead to a crown, how humiliation would lead to exaltation. (The story of the Transfiguration, which follows this, confirms what Jesus is saying here as Peter is given a glimpse of the Christ beyond the cross in all his resurrected glory.) In time he would understand. In time he would find himself on a cross, willing to literally follow his Lord.
Now, however, Peter rebukes Jesus for talking this way. This is not at all the kind of Messiah he wanted or expected. It was just unthinkable to him and most everyone else that "Suffering" and "Messiah" would be used together. Peter was most likely speaking for the other disciples as well. Having just complimented Peter, Jesus now refers to him as Satan (though notice that Jesus turns and looks at all the disciples).
It is helpful here to recall the temptation of Jesus. There, in the wilderness, Jesus was tempted by Satan to abandon his understanding of suffering as the way God had chosen for him -- to be, in other words, the kind of Messiah everyone expected. He rejected that then. Now, in the words of Peter, Jesus hears the voice of Satan again tempting him to take the easy path, to live up to the expectations of everyone else. Once again Jesus rejects it.
Jesus had looked ahead and saw the route for him led to a cross. He also saw what was coming for his disciples and tells them so. If they didn't like what he said about his coming suffering, you can imagine how they felt when he started to talk about what was awaiting them as well.
Jesus does not pull any punches. He does not make false promises. His way is not an easy way. It involves self-denial, taking up a cross and following him. What Jesus is saying is that he is going to give up his life in complete obedience to God. Anyone who truly follows him will be called upon to do the same thing.
To take up a cross is an interesting and meaningful phrase. It does not mean to bear things -- burdens -- over which we have no control, that's "a cross I have to bear." No. Jesus, I think, is talking about a metaphor for discipleship, a way of living that willingly suffers and sacrifices in obedience to God and for love of neighbor. To take up a cross also means to take on ministries and tasks that will be costly to us, make us sacrifice and perhaps even suffer, in order to be of service to God and others.
Application
Abram and Sarai may well have felt washed up, of no use to anyone anymore. Our society seems to feel the same way about the elderly. They are washed up ... have nothing else of value to contribute. They are just in the way, so let's put them away. They are "as good as dead."
I fear that many of our older citizens believe that. They see themselves the same way. Like Sarah, they feel barren and of an age and health that they no longer have any reason to live.
Someone has said that the difference between an elderly person and someone who is just old is a sense of purpose. You do not get "old" until give up on yourself, until you think you're finished and believe that you can no longer grow, that you no longer have a purpose.
But I know lots of people who will never be "old" because they have a purpose. Just like Abraham and Sarah, they live in the faith that God's not finished with them! They still have a part in God's plan. Such people are eternally young, for they are always growing, always opening themselves to the new things God wants to do in them.
An admirer of Longfellow asked him how he continued to write so beautifully and remain so vigorous in his old age. Longfellow responded by pointing to an apple tree that was in full bloom and saying: "That is a very old apple tree but the blossoms this year seem more beautiful than ever before. That old tree grows a little new wood each year, and I suppose it is out of the new wood that these blossoms come. Like that apple tree, I try to grow a little new wood each year."
In our text today, we see that God wants Abraham and Sarah to grow a little new wood, for there's more fruit God wants those aged limbs to bear. God had not finished with them.
Genesis 17:1 reads: "When Abraham was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said...."
God came to this old man and old woman, washed up in their own eyes and the eyes of many, and spoke to them, and in essence said, "I'm not finished with you! You will have a son! You will become the parents of more descendants than sand on the ocean shore, than stars in the sky! You will be the mother and father of kings! Through you all the nations of the world will be blessed!"
Finished? Hardly!
I have often wondered, though, just how they took this, I mean, really felt about it. Other verses, not in our reading for today, tell us that at first they both fell on the ground and roared with laughter. Who could blame them? But, of course, we know who had the last laugh, don't we?
Surely on one level this was good news. All their lives they had longed for a child. But that wasn't possible now at their age. But God said it was! Dare they believe? They had had their hopes up too many times before.
But there was a downside to it. "A child? At our age? That's going to require more of us than we have to give!"
Think about it: Who is really ever up to parenthood?
Maybe there was a part of Abraham and Sarah that secretly hoped God was finished with them, at least in the sense of asking so much from them.
And here is the heart of the matter: not that God is ever finished with us, but us having the faith and the courage to be open to all the new things God wants to give birth to through us in spite of our age, our handicaps, our health, even our past. It is very tempting to just say, "God, I'm finished. I'm retired. Let me rest and let the younger folks take over."
But God wants to bring to birth new things through us. Yes, it will require a lot of us -- just like parenthood. But God's not going to let us retire, to let you get old because God still has a purpose for you and me -- just as he did for Abraham and Sarah. God's not finished with you!
An Alternative Application
Mark 8:31-38. Taking Up Crosses: My wife has a favorite picture of me taken in the 1970s at college. I was wearing a blue leisure suit and around my neck was a necklace with a large wooden cross. I guess I thought I was really bearing the cross, as did a lot of my friends back then, for such crosses were the things to wear. Whenever my wife needs a laugh, she gets out that picture.
I heard this on a morning news show not long ago, "Stay tuned; later we will look at the hottest fashion item for summer -- crosses."
Cross? A piece of jewelry for most of us or a bright shiny ornament on the Communion table or hanging on the wall. How very strange this would be to people in the days of Jesus to wear a cross as jewelry. It would be like wearing a miniature electric chair around your neck today. No one would do that. Not even Romans. For when people heard "cross" in the days of Jesus, it sent shivers up their spine. The people of Jerusalem had seen too many times what it meant to bear a cross, as persons were forced to carry one through their streets and outside the city where crucifixion poles constantly stood to remind people of what awaited anyone who messed around with Rome.
No wonder Jesus did not attract a lot of followers. He talked about bearing a cross. No one in their right mind would wish to do that. What did he mean?
Some people speak of a grouchy boss or some affliction or situation they cannot avoid as being "a cross I have to bear." But this is not what Jesus means. The crosses he asks us to bear are not ones we have to bear, they are tasks, burdens, and ministries we choose to bear for Christ's sake. "Take up your cross ..." that's a free choice, a decision. Our crosses, I think, are the difficult, costly, even distasteful tasks we willingly accept in love of God and neighbor.
The late Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest, said, "If you want to follow Jesus, you had better look good on wood."
First Lesson Focus
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
When God called Abraham in the 18th century B.C. to leave his homeland and family in Mesopotamia and to journey to a land that God would show him, the Lord made Abraham four promises. He promised to make Abraham the forebear of many descendants (to become a "great nation"), to give his descendants a land to call their own, to make a covenant with those descendants, and through them to bring blessing on all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:1-3; 17:7-8). In other words, God set out through Abraham in the history of salvation to reverse the effects of human sin that brought curse and death upon the earth (cf. Genesis 3-11).
We do not know how long a time expired between the time of God's promise to Abraham and the time that is stated in our text for the morning. In Genesis 17:1, Abraham is 99 years old, an aged man without offspring and much of a future. But now, says our text, God begins to fulfill his word to Abraham. He promises to enter into a covenant with Abraham and his descendants and, most important, he promises Abraham that Sarah his wife will bear him a son.
So important is the divine word in this text, that there are three versions of the promise of a son to Abraham in the book of Genesis. The first is found in Genesis 15:1-6 and probably comes from the author we call the Elohist. Another is located in Genesis 18:1-14 and bears the vivid and earthy characteristics of the Yahwist's writings, telling the engaging story of the three strangers who suddenly appear at the door of Abraham's tent in the heat of the day. But the version in our text of Genesis 17 is from the priestly writers, who assembled the traditions of Israel into a document for the Israelite exiles in Babylonia in the 6th century B.C. Each version has its own theological emphases and serves to round out the fullness of the revelation.
But each version is also careful to reveal that Abraham did not deserve the promise given to him. It was not because he -- or his wife Sarah -- were persons of such great faith and piety, constantly worshiping and serving the Lord. In all three versions, Abraham and/or Sarah do not believe the promise of a son. After all, they were well past the age of childbearing! In Genesis 15, Abraham flatly contradicts the Lord when he hears that he will have a heir (v. 3). In Genesis 18, Sarah stands behind the tent door and laughs in disbelief when she hears the promise (v. 12), while in Genesis 17, Abraham just falls on his face and he-haws when he hears the promise (v. 17) and then contradicts God by saying, "O that Ishmael (the son of his slave woman) might live in thy sight" (v. 18).
These forebears of ours in the faith were not made the recipients of God's promise because they were such religious people. No, God simply chose them out of his free grace to be the bearers of his promise, in order that he might use them in his salvation of the world. Surely that is a hopeful note for us, who also are not people of great faith and obedience, but whom God may nevertheless choose to carry on this work of saving the world. That salvation-history began a long time ago, with these Semitic ancestors of ours, but God kept all of his promises in that history, and he is still at work today, transforming his sinful world into his realm and bringing upon his creation his blessing instead of curse.
God promises in our text to enter into an eternal covenant with Abraham and his descendants, thus binding himself to Abraham and his people forever. God will be God to Israel, and Israel will be his people to all generations. To be sure, in the centuries that follow, in the writings of the prophets, we find God withdrawing from his people and leaving them to their own devices because of their continual unfaithfulness toward him (cf. Hosea 1:8-9; Amos 8:11-12; Ezekiel 11:22-25). And yet, God never does permanently give up his people in the Old Testament, and beyond every judgment, we find God weeping and forgiving and taking back his people, despite their perfidy toward him (cf. Hosea 11:8-9, for just one example among many).
As the rainbow was the sign of the covenant with Noah in Genesis 9, so circumcision becomes the covenant mark in Genesis 17:9-14, and for the first time, a command is attached to the covenant sign. Every male in Israel, whether native or foreign born, is to be circumcised, and those who refuse the sign are to be banished from the community. Indeed, Abraham is bidden by God to walk before him and to be blameless, an admonition to probably carefully observe the sign of the covenant. Circumcision was especially emphasized among the exiles in Babylonia who were living among foreigners.
Abraham is promised not only a son in this text, but is told that he will become the father of a multitude of nations, and that kings will come forth from him. Surely a long line of kings descends from Abraham, most notably among them King David in whose line then our Lord Jesus Christ is born.
The fact that both Abram and Sarai are given the new names of Abraham and Sarah in our text is indicative of the fact that they now are new persons called to a new role in the purpose of God. We might loosely compare the naming to that which is done to a child in baptism in our time. A Christian baptismal name is assigned to the baptized, signifying that the child now has a new status as a child of God and has become an adopted member of God's household.
For Abraham and Sarah do indeed have a new life granted to them by this covenant with the Lord. Not only now are they claimed by God forever as his chosen folk, but with that claiming they are given the new role of cooperating in God's work of salvation. God now works through their faithfulness and their obedience to further his plan for all humankind. Surely that must have been a hope-filled revelation for the Babylonian exiles, for whom this tradition was assembled. After all, they languished in captivity, with no hope whatsoever for their future. But this text pointed out a future for an aged man and his wife, who thought they had no future and enlisted them in God's enterprise.
Is it too much to say that the same is true of you and me? We Christians too have entered into covenant with our Lord, and that covenant is renewed for us every time we sit at the Lord's table and hear our Lord say to us, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." So with that bond you and I too are enlisted in God's work, as were Abraham and Sarah. And by our obedience and faithfulness to our Lord, we can hinder God's work or prosper it. There is no doubt that God will accomplish his purpose of salvation for his creation. The only question is whether we will further that loving work or not.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 22:23-31
We will meet Psalm 22 in its entirety on Good Friday, but here, the lectionary designates just verses 23-31. The rationale of the lectionary psalms is that the selected portions are for a meditation on the week's First Lesson, which in this case, is about the covenant initiated by God with Abraham and Sarah, in Genesis 17. The nine verses from this psalm, while not inappropriate, nonetheless leave us looking for an obvious connection with the First Lesson.
Structurally, the entire psalm falls into two parts. Verses 1-21a are a prayer for help and verses 21b-31 are a song of praise for help given. In this second part, the one who has been delivered comes to offer praise for the deliverance and to arrange to pay whatever vows had been made (v. 25) during the plea for help.
Perhaps a connection with the First Lesson text can be draw between vow-keeping and covenant-keeping, though in biblical practice, vows tend to be made in connection with specific events whereas covenants tend to describe a whole way of living. Nonetheless, it can be useful to talk of vows today.
One reason to do so is that some people think of vows in terms of "bargains" with God. "Just let my wife get better, O Lord, and I will give up smoking," or "Help me out of this one jam, O God, and I promise never to lie again." While the Old Testament does give an example of that kind of vow making (Genesis 28:20-22), more often the talk of vowing has to do with freely made promises that are not necessarily quid pro quo (though once made, they are considered binding). In the New Testament, Jesus condemns the abuse of vowing (Matthew 15:4-6; Mark 7:10-13).
In any case, it is worth challenging people on this matter of attempting a bargain with the Almighty. While it is certainly an understandable reaction when faced with the serious illness of oneself or a loved one or when contemplating the unpleasant consequences of one's misdeeds, it is also a way of making God too small.
Recently, a man told me of how he prayed during his young son's struggle for life following a freak accident. The man, though a professing Christian, also viewed pornography from time to time, but in the face of his son's hospitalization, vowed to God to give up the pornography if only God would spare his son. A few weeks later, but before his son's outcome was certain, it came to the man while in prayer that he had no business treating God as someone to be bargained with. And so, while he continued to pray for his son's recovery, the man turned his son's well-being over to God and changed his vow to be that no matter whether his son recovered or not, he would give up the pornography. He would do that out his devotion to God. As it happened, the son made a full recovery, and the man kept his promise, but he told me that he was prepared to do so in any eventuality. The vow had been made.
And on the back of the shirt was "... God Hasn't Finished With Me Yet!"
As I read about Abraham and Sarah in our text today, I think they could have benefited from that t-shirt philosophy, because in their minds, and in view of the age, they were finished -- done with!
The epistle lesson today seems to echo the same sentiment (Romans 4:19) in how Paul describes Abraham: "He was then almost one hundred years old ... he thought of his body, which was already practically dead ... Sarah [ninety years old herself] could not have children ..." (Good News Bible). The New Revised Standard Version translates this verse: "... when he considered his body, which was already as good as dead ..."
They must have thought that God had given up on them, that they were finished. What could even God do with an old, childless couple? A lot, as we shall see, and a lot with us, too, no matter how old or giftless we may feel. God's not finished with us.
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Today's lesson continues a theme from last Sunday -- covenant. The Bible from beginning to end is about the God who seeks fellowship with us, even though we often turn away or do things that break that fellowship. God just keeps on trying to connect with us. God reaches out again in Abram. Many centuries later, as we believe, God would reach out as never before through a child of Abraham and make a whole new covenant.
Just who is this who seeks to make a covenant with us? "I am God Almighty," literally "El Shaddai." The all-powerful Creator is the one who wishes to be with us, to commune with us. Why? Only because God loves us.
God demands something of Abram, however. He is to "walk before" God and "be blameless." A holy God requires a holy people, a people who reflect God's own character.
Four promises over all are made to Abram: he would be the father of many, they would be given a land of their own, his name would be great, and other nations would be blessed through him and his lineage.
Here the first promise is emphasized. Abram, with no heir, no child of his own is told that he will be the "father of a multitude of nations." Elsewhere his descendants are described as being as many as the sands on a beach. This must have been hard for him to believe, and we know from the accounts in Genesis that it made him laugh, as it did Sarai. But Isaac is born and his name means "he laughs," which I take to mean not only Isaac laughs but God has the last laugh. For, after all, Abram was 99 and Sarai was almost that old. They had no children in their prime so there was no hope of ever having their own now. Sarai, in fact, in chapter 16, acts to give Abram a child through her servant Hagar. That caused all kinds of problems. Abram and Sarai felt like withered up fruit trees. God says they will blossom and bear more fruit than they can imagine. God had not finished with them.
In fact, this wondrous thing God was going to do meant they needed new names. Abram would now be Abraham and Sarai would now be Sarah. They are given new names because they are new persons with new destinies. "Abram" and "Abraham" mean almost the same thing, though here it's intended to say that "Abram" means "exalted father" and "Abraham" means the "exalted father of multitudes." "Sarai" and "Sarah" probably mean "princess." Some scholars believe the name "Sarah" is related to the name "Israel," thus making a clearer connection to the nation.
It's also important to note here that this relationship with God involves others. His name change implies responsibility to others, to those who will follow him. As the New Interpreter's Bible says, "He must now live up to his new name, which focuses not on his personal relationship with God but on his relationship to the nations. The name looks outward, centered on the lives of others. Abraham's election involves mission" (Vol. 1, p. 459).
Over and over again it is emphasized that this special relationship, this covenant with Abraham and Sarah, is not just with them but with their descendants (v. 7). God wishes to have the same kind of relationship with the children of Abraham, with each new generation. God's relationships do not wear out. Time does not end them. This relationship also extends to us, as Paul is about to say.
Romans 4:13-25
Paul had been preaching that our response to what God has done in Christ is faith. That we are "justified" or made right with God because of the grace of God that we accept in faith, not by works of the Law. To further prove this, Paul goes back to Father Abraham himself. His point is that Abraham was not justified or made right with God because of his actions, but because of the promises of God to which he responded in faith (see Genesis 15:6). What was true for Abraham, Paul is saying, is also true for us, except we are justified by what God has done for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus and our acceptance of it in faith. Indeed, Paul seems to see God's promise to bless all nations through Abraham as now being fulfilled in the coming of Christ and in those, both Jews and Gentiles, who respond in faith.
Paul goes on to describe the nature of Abraham's faith. It was such that he believed God when God said that Abraham would have many descendants, despite their being past childbearing years. Such was a great faith! Now another great faith is called forth to believe that all God has promised to have done in Christ is true. In Christ, God was offering a covenant, an acceptance of all persons back into a loving relationship with God based solely on grace. Faith is trusting the God who makes such promises. It is the opening of the mind to believe it and the opening of the heart to experience this unconditional acceptance, even if it seems too good to be true. But, then again, God's promise to Abraham and Sarah seemed beyond belief, too. But that promise was kept because of the One who made it. Likewise, what God has promised in Christ is also true and can be wholly accepted by faith.
The gist of this, in light of all the readings, is that God really does love us. God wishes more than anything to be in covenant with us and has gone to great lengths to show that. Faith is accepting this. It is saying, "Yes," to God's invitation. It is opening one's heart to a God whose love was displayed for all time atop a cross on a hill outside Jerusalem.
Mark 8:31-38
Up to this point in the Gospel of Mark, the theme has been the power and authority of Jesus. But opposition to Jesus has been growing. Now the theme changes. Jesus begins to "teach" his disciples that he would be rejected and killed, and what it means to then be his disciple. So you might say this is really about who Jesus is and who we are called to be as his followers.
Just before this passage Jesus has asked them. "Who are people calling me?" The answer is that they seem to think he is one of the prophets or even Elijah who was expected to return before the Messiah. Then Jesus asks them, "But who do you say I am?" Peter, who is the spokesman for them all, says, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." And Jesus affirms Peter for this answer. But, as we will see in this passage, Peter understands how Jesus would be the Christ in a very different way than Jesus does.
The way Jesus prefers to refer to himself in Mark is "Son of Man." Although it does have some messianic associations, it is a telling bit of evidence for how Jesus saw himself and his mission. It is certainly a much more humble, lowly title than he could have chosen and that, in fact, Peter had just bestowed on him. He chose it because it fit so well with his understanding that he came to be a servant, a suffering servant to give his life, not to claim special status for himself, not to be the grand and glorious military Messiah that everyone expected, even Peter. God's will was otherwise. Somehow, through his death, God's redemptive purpose would be carried out. This mystery is something Peter could not understand then. He could not see how the cross could lead to a crown, how humiliation would lead to exaltation. (The story of the Transfiguration, which follows this, confirms what Jesus is saying here as Peter is given a glimpse of the Christ beyond the cross in all his resurrected glory.) In time he would understand. In time he would find himself on a cross, willing to literally follow his Lord.
Now, however, Peter rebukes Jesus for talking this way. This is not at all the kind of Messiah he wanted or expected. It was just unthinkable to him and most everyone else that "Suffering" and "Messiah" would be used together. Peter was most likely speaking for the other disciples as well. Having just complimented Peter, Jesus now refers to him as Satan (though notice that Jesus turns and looks at all the disciples).
It is helpful here to recall the temptation of Jesus. There, in the wilderness, Jesus was tempted by Satan to abandon his understanding of suffering as the way God had chosen for him -- to be, in other words, the kind of Messiah everyone expected. He rejected that then. Now, in the words of Peter, Jesus hears the voice of Satan again tempting him to take the easy path, to live up to the expectations of everyone else. Once again Jesus rejects it.
Jesus had looked ahead and saw the route for him led to a cross. He also saw what was coming for his disciples and tells them so. If they didn't like what he said about his coming suffering, you can imagine how they felt when he started to talk about what was awaiting them as well.
Jesus does not pull any punches. He does not make false promises. His way is not an easy way. It involves self-denial, taking up a cross and following him. What Jesus is saying is that he is going to give up his life in complete obedience to God. Anyone who truly follows him will be called upon to do the same thing.
To take up a cross is an interesting and meaningful phrase. It does not mean to bear things -- burdens -- over which we have no control, that's "a cross I have to bear." No. Jesus, I think, is talking about a metaphor for discipleship, a way of living that willingly suffers and sacrifices in obedience to God and for love of neighbor. To take up a cross also means to take on ministries and tasks that will be costly to us, make us sacrifice and perhaps even suffer, in order to be of service to God and others.
Application
Abram and Sarai may well have felt washed up, of no use to anyone anymore. Our society seems to feel the same way about the elderly. They are washed up ... have nothing else of value to contribute. They are just in the way, so let's put them away. They are "as good as dead."
I fear that many of our older citizens believe that. They see themselves the same way. Like Sarah, they feel barren and of an age and health that they no longer have any reason to live.
Someone has said that the difference between an elderly person and someone who is just old is a sense of purpose. You do not get "old" until give up on yourself, until you think you're finished and believe that you can no longer grow, that you no longer have a purpose.
But I know lots of people who will never be "old" because they have a purpose. Just like Abraham and Sarah, they live in the faith that God's not finished with them! They still have a part in God's plan. Such people are eternally young, for they are always growing, always opening themselves to the new things God wants to do in them.
An admirer of Longfellow asked him how he continued to write so beautifully and remain so vigorous in his old age. Longfellow responded by pointing to an apple tree that was in full bloom and saying: "That is a very old apple tree but the blossoms this year seem more beautiful than ever before. That old tree grows a little new wood each year, and I suppose it is out of the new wood that these blossoms come. Like that apple tree, I try to grow a little new wood each year."
In our text today, we see that God wants Abraham and Sarah to grow a little new wood, for there's more fruit God wants those aged limbs to bear. God had not finished with them.
Genesis 17:1 reads: "When Abraham was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said...."
God came to this old man and old woman, washed up in their own eyes and the eyes of many, and spoke to them, and in essence said, "I'm not finished with you! You will have a son! You will become the parents of more descendants than sand on the ocean shore, than stars in the sky! You will be the mother and father of kings! Through you all the nations of the world will be blessed!"
Finished? Hardly!
I have often wondered, though, just how they took this, I mean, really felt about it. Other verses, not in our reading for today, tell us that at first they both fell on the ground and roared with laughter. Who could blame them? But, of course, we know who had the last laugh, don't we?
Surely on one level this was good news. All their lives they had longed for a child. But that wasn't possible now at their age. But God said it was! Dare they believe? They had had their hopes up too many times before.
But there was a downside to it. "A child? At our age? That's going to require more of us than we have to give!"
Think about it: Who is really ever up to parenthood?
Maybe there was a part of Abraham and Sarah that secretly hoped God was finished with them, at least in the sense of asking so much from them.
And here is the heart of the matter: not that God is ever finished with us, but us having the faith and the courage to be open to all the new things God wants to give birth to through us in spite of our age, our handicaps, our health, even our past. It is very tempting to just say, "God, I'm finished. I'm retired. Let me rest and let the younger folks take over."
But God wants to bring to birth new things through us. Yes, it will require a lot of us -- just like parenthood. But God's not going to let us retire, to let you get old because God still has a purpose for you and me -- just as he did for Abraham and Sarah. God's not finished with you!
An Alternative Application
Mark 8:31-38. Taking Up Crosses: My wife has a favorite picture of me taken in the 1970s at college. I was wearing a blue leisure suit and around my neck was a necklace with a large wooden cross. I guess I thought I was really bearing the cross, as did a lot of my friends back then, for such crosses were the things to wear. Whenever my wife needs a laugh, she gets out that picture.
I heard this on a morning news show not long ago, "Stay tuned; later we will look at the hottest fashion item for summer -- crosses."
Cross? A piece of jewelry for most of us or a bright shiny ornament on the Communion table or hanging on the wall. How very strange this would be to people in the days of Jesus to wear a cross as jewelry. It would be like wearing a miniature electric chair around your neck today. No one would do that. Not even Romans. For when people heard "cross" in the days of Jesus, it sent shivers up their spine. The people of Jerusalem had seen too many times what it meant to bear a cross, as persons were forced to carry one through their streets and outside the city where crucifixion poles constantly stood to remind people of what awaited anyone who messed around with Rome.
No wonder Jesus did not attract a lot of followers. He talked about bearing a cross. No one in their right mind would wish to do that. What did he mean?
Some people speak of a grouchy boss or some affliction or situation they cannot avoid as being "a cross I have to bear." But this is not what Jesus means. The crosses he asks us to bear are not ones we have to bear, they are tasks, burdens, and ministries we choose to bear for Christ's sake. "Take up your cross ..." that's a free choice, a decision. Our crosses, I think, are the difficult, costly, even distasteful tasks we willingly accept in love of God and neighbor.
The late Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest, said, "If you want to follow Jesus, you had better look good on wood."
First Lesson Focus
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
When God called Abraham in the 18th century B.C. to leave his homeland and family in Mesopotamia and to journey to a land that God would show him, the Lord made Abraham four promises. He promised to make Abraham the forebear of many descendants (to become a "great nation"), to give his descendants a land to call their own, to make a covenant with those descendants, and through them to bring blessing on all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:1-3; 17:7-8). In other words, God set out through Abraham in the history of salvation to reverse the effects of human sin that brought curse and death upon the earth (cf. Genesis 3-11).
We do not know how long a time expired between the time of God's promise to Abraham and the time that is stated in our text for the morning. In Genesis 17:1, Abraham is 99 years old, an aged man without offspring and much of a future. But now, says our text, God begins to fulfill his word to Abraham. He promises to enter into a covenant with Abraham and his descendants and, most important, he promises Abraham that Sarah his wife will bear him a son.
So important is the divine word in this text, that there are three versions of the promise of a son to Abraham in the book of Genesis. The first is found in Genesis 15:1-6 and probably comes from the author we call the Elohist. Another is located in Genesis 18:1-14 and bears the vivid and earthy characteristics of the Yahwist's writings, telling the engaging story of the three strangers who suddenly appear at the door of Abraham's tent in the heat of the day. But the version in our text of Genesis 17 is from the priestly writers, who assembled the traditions of Israel into a document for the Israelite exiles in Babylonia in the 6th century B.C. Each version has its own theological emphases and serves to round out the fullness of the revelation.
But each version is also careful to reveal that Abraham did not deserve the promise given to him. It was not because he -- or his wife Sarah -- were persons of such great faith and piety, constantly worshiping and serving the Lord. In all three versions, Abraham and/or Sarah do not believe the promise of a son. After all, they were well past the age of childbearing! In Genesis 15, Abraham flatly contradicts the Lord when he hears that he will have a heir (v. 3). In Genesis 18, Sarah stands behind the tent door and laughs in disbelief when she hears the promise (v. 12), while in Genesis 17, Abraham just falls on his face and he-haws when he hears the promise (v. 17) and then contradicts God by saying, "O that Ishmael (the son of his slave woman) might live in thy sight" (v. 18).
These forebears of ours in the faith were not made the recipients of God's promise because they were such religious people. No, God simply chose them out of his free grace to be the bearers of his promise, in order that he might use them in his salvation of the world. Surely that is a hopeful note for us, who also are not people of great faith and obedience, but whom God may nevertheless choose to carry on this work of saving the world. That salvation-history began a long time ago, with these Semitic ancestors of ours, but God kept all of his promises in that history, and he is still at work today, transforming his sinful world into his realm and bringing upon his creation his blessing instead of curse.
God promises in our text to enter into an eternal covenant with Abraham and his descendants, thus binding himself to Abraham and his people forever. God will be God to Israel, and Israel will be his people to all generations. To be sure, in the centuries that follow, in the writings of the prophets, we find God withdrawing from his people and leaving them to their own devices because of their continual unfaithfulness toward him (cf. Hosea 1:8-9; Amos 8:11-12; Ezekiel 11:22-25). And yet, God never does permanently give up his people in the Old Testament, and beyond every judgment, we find God weeping and forgiving and taking back his people, despite their perfidy toward him (cf. Hosea 11:8-9, for just one example among many).
As the rainbow was the sign of the covenant with Noah in Genesis 9, so circumcision becomes the covenant mark in Genesis 17:9-14, and for the first time, a command is attached to the covenant sign. Every male in Israel, whether native or foreign born, is to be circumcised, and those who refuse the sign are to be banished from the community. Indeed, Abraham is bidden by God to walk before him and to be blameless, an admonition to probably carefully observe the sign of the covenant. Circumcision was especially emphasized among the exiles in Babylonia who were living among foreigners.
Abraham is promised not only a son in this text, but is told that he will become the father of a multitude of nations, and that kings will come forth from him. Surely a long line of kings descends from Abraham, most notably among them King David in whose line then our Lord Jesus Christ is born.
The fact that both Abram and Sarai are given the new names of Abraham and Sarah in our text is indicative of the fact that they now are new persons called to a new role in the purpose of God. We might loosely compare the naming to that which is done to a child in baptism in our time. A Christian baptismal name is assigned to the baptized, signifying that the child now has a new status as a child of God and has become an adopted member of God's household.
For Abraham and Sarah do indeed have a new life granted to them by this covenant with the Lord. Not only now are they claimed by God forever as his chosen folk, but with that claiming they are given the new role of cooperating in God's work of salvation. God now works through their faithfulness and their obedience to further his plan for all humankind. Surely that must have been a hope-filled revelation for the Babylonian exiles, for whom this tradition was assembled. After all, they languished in captivity, with no hope whatsoever for their future. But this text pointed out a future for an aged man and his wife, who thought they had no future and enlisted them in God's enterprise.
Is it too much to say that the same is true of you and me? We Christians too have entered into covenant with our Lord, and that covenant is renewed for us every time we sit at the Lord's table and hear our Lord say to us, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." So with that bond you and I too are enlisted in God's work, as were Abraham and Sarah. And by our obedience and faithfulness to our Lord, we can hinder God's work or prosper it. There is no doubt that God will accomplish his purpose of salvation for his creation. The only question is whether we will further that loving work or not.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 22:23-31
We will meet Psalm 22 in its entirety on Good Friday, but here, the lectionary designates just verses 23-31. The rationale of the lectionary psalms is that the selected portions are for a meditation on the week's First Lesson, which in this case, is about the covenant initiated by God with Abraham and Sarah, in Genesis 17. The nine verses from this psalm, while not inappropriate, nonetheless leave us looking for an obvious connection with the First Lesson.
Structurally, the entire psalm falls into two parts. Verses 1-21a are a prayer for help and verses 21b-31 are a song of praise for help given. In this second part, the one who has been delivered comes to offer praise for the deliverance and to arrange to pay whatever vows had been made (v. 25) during the plea for help.
Perhaps a connection with the First Lesson text can be draw between vow-keeping and covenant-keeping, though in biblical practice, vows tend to be made in connection with specific events whereas covenants tend to describe a whole way of living. Nonetheless, it can be useful to talk of vows today.
One reason to do so is that some people think of vows in terms of "bargains" with God. "Just let my wife get better, O Lord, and I will give up smoking," or "Help me out of this one jam, O God, and I promise never to lie again." While the Old Testament does give an example of that kind of vow making (Genesis 28:20-22), more often the talk of vowing has to do with freely made promises that are not necessarily quid pro quo (though once made, they are considered binding). In the New Testament, Jesus condemns the abuse of vowing (Matthew 15:4-6; Mark 7:10-13).
In any case, it is worth challenging people on this matter of attempting a bargain with the Almighty. While it is certainly an understandable reaction when faced with the serious illness of oneself or a loved one or when contemplating the unpleasant consequences of one's misdeeds, it is also a way of making God too small.
Recently, a man told me of how he prayed during his young son's struggle for life following a freak accident. The man, though a professing Christian, also viewed pornography from time to time, but in the face of his son's hospitalization, vowed to God to give up the pornography if only God would spare his son. A few weeks later, but before his son's outcome was certain, it came to the man while in prayer that he had no business treating God as someone to be bargained with. And so, while he continued to pray for his son's recovery, the man turned his son's well-being over to God and changed his vow to be that no matter whether his son recovered or not, he would give up the pornography. He would do that out his devotion to God. As it happened, the son made a full recovery, and the man kept his promise, but he told me that he was prepared to do so in any eventuality. The vow had been made.
