February 23, 2013
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God’s promises and human performance
Second Sunday in Lent 2/24/13
Genesis12:1-12, 17-18
Philippians3:17-4:1
Luke13:31-35
God promised Abram descendants more numerous than the starsin the sky and a land. The passage fromGenesis tells us Abram believed God’s promise of descendants but asked forproof they would have a promised land. That is pretty interesting in itself, but it becomes even moreinteresting when we consider the rest of the story. Abram is said to believe God would providehim in descendants but he then sets about to produce descendants through hisown plan. He does not make his own planto occupy the Promised Land despite having doubts about this promise. I find Abram or Abraham to be a clear exampleof how we live as people of faith; Abraham is clearly our parent when it comesto how we live as children of the promise when it comes to the future whileacting as if achieving the promise is dependent upon us in the immediate. The challenge for people of faith is in knowingwhen we are required to act to achieve the promise of God and when we are totrust God to bring about the promise. Ifind this much easier to do in retrospect. It is easy enough for us to read the Genesis story and criticize Abrahamand Sarah for taking the matter of an heir into their own hands and using humanwisdom to solve the problem for God. Butwe are not so good at looking at the problems in our own lives and discerningwhat God is doing and knowing what God is calling us to do. Perhaps we can learn something from lookingat the behavior of Abraham and Sarah.
Abraham and Sarah were told by God that they would havedescendants beyond numbering. Abraham believedand Sarah laughed. When the promise didn’tcome about quickly, they set their own plan in motion. God did not fail to deliver the promise butthe actions of Abraham and Sarah complicated the situation and have continuedto be a source of conflict in our world to this day. God did not ask Abraham to do anything. When you look at the promise of a land forthe descendants of Abraham, Abraham tests God and God asks for sacrifice. If we consider the sacrifice of the animalsto be symbolic, then it is reasonable to conclude the promise of a landrequired sacrifice. God did ask Abrahamto do something.
God’s promises can be put into two basic categories; theunconditional promises and those that require action on our part. God’s promise to love us, to always be withus, to be our God all fall in the unconditional category. There is nothing we can do to make God loveus, or to be with us, or even to make God be our God. And yet, we put so much work into decidingwhat we must do, and even more what others must do to earn God’s love. We make rules for others and for ourselves todemonstrate our worthiness of God’s love. We also speak as though we have to be in certain places, engaged incertain activities for God to be present with us. People will assert they avoided somecatastrophe because God was with them. The implication being that there are times when God isn’t with them orthat God isn’t with the other person who experienced the catastrophe. I read the promise that God will be with us tothe end of the age as being universal. God doesn’t say I will be with you when you are in the sanctuary, orwhen you are doing good works, or when you call on me. God’s promise to be with us isuniversal. God said, I will be your Godand you will be my people. God doesn’tsay I will be your God if you get the rituals right, or have the right dogma,or even if you claim my name. God is ourGod regardless of our position on God. Iread a statement that said it doesn’t matter if you believe in God, Godbelieves in you. God is God regardlessof how we choose to relate to God. Westill use speech that suggests there are competing gods. The Christian God, the Islamic God, the HinduGod’s, and so it goes. There is one Godand we have varied ways of understanding and approaching God but there is oneGod whether we behave like it or not. Foundational to being people of faith is our acceptance of theseunconditional promises of God.
There are other promises that clearly imply action on ourpart. The promised land of milk andhoney is one where I believe God could provide the land but it was up to thepeople to make it a paradise. God knewthey would fail and they would be driven out of the land but God also wasfaithful to draw them back to the promise of a paradise on earth. The promise requires sacrifice on the part ofthe people. We cannot sit back and waitfor God to produce paradise, we have to be willing to work for it, to changethe way we live, the way we treat each other and ourselves if we want ourpromised land. We like to claim thepromise of God to work all things around to our good but we drop off thecondition, for those who love God and who live as called into God’sservice. We cannot do anything we pleaseand expect God to fix it. God will takeour honest efforts to live in God’s will and, when we fall short of the mark,God will work it around to our good, and I believe that is our collective goodnot just my personal good. Anotherexample of conditional promise is in the prayer Jesus taught the disciples. God’s promise of God’s dominion on earth isdependent upon our willingness to forgive others. We cannot expect to have our daily bread andto be kept from temptation to be disobedient if we cannot even show forgivenessand love to those around us. We do haveagency in God’s promises being realized in this world because God has given usdominion and the freedom to choose good or evil.
Simply put, we are to surrender our plans to God’s plan andtrust God to bring them to fruition in God’s time. And we are to open ourselves up to theleading of the Holy Spirit as to what is ours to accomplish. Jesus did not go into the wilderness becausehe thought it would be a good idea. Jesus was driven there by the Holy Spirit and while there he was guidedby the Word of God as to what he was to do and say. Jesus made the right choices, did what wasexpected of him, and spoke from his knowledge of God. He trusted in the promises of God andperformed based on his understanding of God’s will. God leads us to our promised land but wechoose how we will live there and whether we will make it paradise or hell onearth. Jerusalem, the holy city of God,was also the place where God’s prophets were persecuted and martyred. In this season of lent, we are called to takestock of our lives, to identify those things that have gained too muchimportance in our lives, those things that distance us from God, those thingsthat are our plans and let them go. Weare also called to seek to know God’s will for the ways we are to bring aboutGod’s dominion here on the earth.
Personally, the challenge of this message comes to me whileI am struggling with why I am not called to serve a congregation. I too must let go of my plans and my ideas ofwhat I ought to be doing. I need to seekto understand what my role in this is and let the plan unfold in God’s time andGod’s way. I suppose I should begrateful when a message speaks to me but sometimes I would prefer a moreobjective message. Amen.
