Second Week in Lent- 28th February 2021

Genesis 17: 1–7, 15–16  

 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, ‘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.’ Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, ‘As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.  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.’   

Romans 4: 13–25 

 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’)—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become ‘the father of many nations’, according to what was said, ‘So numerous shall your descendants be.’ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.  No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore his faith ‘was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ Now the words, ‘it was reckoned to him’, were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.       

Mark 8: 31–38

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’ He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’ 

Reflection:

I’m sure that we all know that the ways of God are different from the ways of the world. Isaiah 55 says “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts”. And yet we often hold onto the sense that God will act or respond to us in a way that fits within the constraints of human understanding. Nonetheless and thankfully, God is God and his ways are not our ways. 

The gospel today, reveals that the disciples however are learning this in what must have been for them a confusing and shocking thing as Jesus told them that he was going to have to suffer and die. Perhaps for us, we are so used to hearing the message of Jesus’ crucifixion that we might become a little blasé as to how disturbing that prospect would have been for the disciples. The great hope of the Israelite people at that time was freedom and they believed strongly that the Messiah was going to bring this. Having seen Jesus’ miracles, heard God affirm him as his own Son, having experienced his compelling teaching as they followed him, and watched him draw enthusiastic crowds, it would have been totally natural for them to assume that Jesus would somehow challenge the rulers they lived under and lead them to freedom- what they didn’t realise was that the freedom that Jesus would bring was beyond anything of this world.

Human nature is generally to want to be prosperous, resilient, successful and influential. Jesus has other priorities. He came to serve, not to be served. His ways are not our ways, and he invites us to follow him and his ways.

The ‘theology of the cross’ or ‘to deny oneself’ does not mean a manufactured kind of humility that is unnatural and contrived. We do not follow Jesus by demeaning ourselves. We are called upon to do the very best we can with the talents and abilities God has given us. Thus, to deny oneself means to keep one’s priorities in harmony with what Jesus told us in the two “great commandments” — love God and love your neighbour. For me it’s about laying down what I want and looking to discern and accept what God is doing.

Jesus gives us hope for the future, although in the gospel, it reminds us that we are called upon to follow him not just for this future, but in this life. We are called to die to self and pick up our cross. It all seems a little contradictory. Jesus says those who try to hold onto their life, will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. Furthermore, to follow him now means to have an abundant life. A life- not abundant with worldly pleasures but abundant in the gifts of God.

There is a claim at the heart of Christianity that the way of Jesus is different from the way of the world. The world’s way is about what you can get, earn, claim as your own and establish through your own efforts. The way of Jesus is about what you can give, lose, share, and receive from the grace and goodness of another in gratitude. 

Each promises life. But it is a different kind of life. And so, Jesus says here, which will you choose?

Today we as the parish of the Bellinger will be holding our AGM. Each year we seem to head into the same old, same old. Of cause every year we have hope of something different, something new and potentially promising. The reality for the church and not just our church- for the church generally- something’s got to change. We all know that. Patterns of congregational attendance and membership have declined for decades.

For the last 12months, I have been reading, speaking, and writing a lot about our need to discern who God is calling us to be and do. Holding the word of God firmly before us we seek to become the people God is forming in this place and in this time. In particular, to try to take note of the changes in our culture that demand changes in how we worship, preach, and organize ourselves as the church. 

This has been more emphasised in the last 12 months than ever with the pandemic and the restrictions that we have faced and still face. How do we reach new members, while recognising that people’s lives are much busier, with more commitments, than a generation or two ago? We have so many time saving devices now days- most of us don’t do all our washing by hand, kneed our bread or pluck our chickens and so on. Yet our generation is time poor. I’m sure some of you reading/listening to these words would say that ‘time-saving’ innovations like email and social media have all but eliminated any sense of Sabbath, and work, as a result, knows no bounds. For younger people particularly and even I can get caught up in coming home from ‘work’ to then proceed to reply to emails and continue to look at what needs to be done- paying bills on line, checking bank statements and the like. So then, where is the boundary for work and rest? And where is the time for worship?

Young families have sport, music lessons, swimming lessons, birthday parties etc- all which cut into family and leisure time. Added to this, sports and other activities, even shopping that used to treat Sundays as sacred, or at least family time, have now claimed that part of the week as prime for additional practice or competitions.

The culture of duty — doing things, including going to church, simply because we’re supposed to — has eroded into a culture of choice — where, given all the options, individuals are able to exercise discretion to determine what activities are most rewarding. Perhaps it all comes down to freedom of choice? Unfortunately, the culture no longer has a vested interest in supporting church participation. 

As Christian education and importance is eroded, we have found that Scripture classes in schools now are not compulsory and seen as a choice only- the opt in rather than opt out option has been incredibly detrimental and in some places unfortunately because of lack of demand that SRE classes have been removed- its seen as unviable to be put onto the yearly timetable. As a result, not only do the emerging generation not learn about Jesus, they do not and will not go to church simply because their parents did. And attending church weekly and their faith is not something that people see as an integral part of life. I question that even if that hour on Sunday (or whichever day it is) meaningfully connects to the other 167 hours of the week will younger ones/ people attend?

I don’t say all this to make us feel downcast or depressed, but this is the reality of the world we live in. Consumerism and other priorities have taken precedence.

All of this has led me to suggest that we need transformation from traditional ministry that has great emphasis on performance — where the Priest is responsible for doing the central tasks of the Christian life like interpreting Scripture, connecting faith and life, and sharing our faith — to more ‘formative’ ministry — where the job of the pastor is to help people get better at doing these things themselves. 

We each are sustained by God’s powerful Spirit who will blow us places we’d never imagined. The Spirit of God blows like a wind, inspiring and leading us. The Spirit of God can speak to our hearts and motivate us to new ways of being.

Most people I speak with are grateful for a framework that helps them to feel secure while they make sense of this new world in which we find ourselves. Concrete suggestions about what we can do are helpful but it will mean we must to step out over the edge -into the unknown…. In the film the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones comes to the edge of a giant chasm. There's no way he could ever come close to jumping across, and he eventually realizes that it's a leap of faith. Indiana takes a giant step off the edge and Boom! As he steps out to what seems like thin air, there's an invisible bridge. He slowly walks across, and before he moves on, he throws some sand across the bridge so he can find his way back more easily. He is wise in what he does but he has to take a risk to find out that what he feared was not actually so.

All the changes we face not only as a church but also in everyday life can be overwhelming. How then can we engage in a new way of thinking, being and doing? Moreover, when we are asked to consider a different way, we may feel anxious about our ability, or that we’re switching from skills and practices, we’ve practiced over the years to others that are less familiar and with which we have less familiarity or confidence. How used we had become to turning to page 119 in our green prayer books- most who attend services regularly could say many of the prayers by heart. And now we find that this repetition week after week is not significant to a younger generation who are used to fast changing and variety of stimulation to connect with. Not only that, but with Covid, we cannot do some things we had become so used to doing. I wonder who misses being able to kneel at the alter together and take the common cup? Traditions that we have held precious are not necessarily going to be precious to someone who is unchurched and hasn’t had the formation in church as perhaps we had.

Now I make it clear that I am not saying let’s do away with all these beautiful traditions- these are what make the Anglian church what it is and are incredibly meaningful. So how do we draw together both, the traditions and the need to be able to reach out in applicable ways?

Many of us worry about the future of the church and about their children and grandchildren’s relationship to the church in particular. Concerns about attendance, aging congregations, coupled with others about paying the bills, keeping up the building and grounds, non-existent Sunday Schools and more, all take their toll. Such concerns can be paralysing and, can bring apprehension for what the future might bring.

Which is why this familiar passage from Genesis that we read today is so important! In it we find Abram- who becomes Abraham, now 99 years old still walking by faith and believing God’s promise to bless him and his future descendants. 

Likewise, Paul in his letter to the Romans says, ‘For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the supporters of the law but also to those who share the faith’. 

Part of what is so anxiety provoking about living in this time is that it feels like there are no road maps. Worship that lasted an hour. Communion weekly. The three-point sermon. The stewardship campaign. These weren’t just useful practices, they were reliable patterns by which to organize our life and provide a clear road map, and at times even recipe, about what it meant to be the church. When we give these up, however, we feel like we are sailing in uncharted waters or driving down a foreign and forbidding road.

Except that we are not alone! The Spirit — which Jesus will later define as his own Spirit — accompanies and empowers us to face a future that we may feel is uncertain but has been secured by the death and resurrection of Jesus. From this perspective, the anxiety that many of us feel — there is no roadmap! — can be transformed into excitement — there is no roadmap! 🙂 Which means that we are free — we don’t have to do things the way they’ve always been done. We can experiment, risk, fail (you can’t try new things without sometimes failing). We can learn, and grow in ways we’d never imagined. Because the Spirit of Christ will blow us in directions, we hadn’t imagined….

God intends good for us, both here in our life together and ultimately in our eternal life with God. For this reason, whatever setbacks or even failures we may experience are always temporary, because God has promised to redeem the world in and through Jesus. Thankfully redemption is God’s responsibility, not ours. 

So we are free to walk by faith, to step out into unknown territory knowing that we are aided by God’s powerful Spirit who will blow us places we’d never imagined. God loves this whole world — including us and our little corners of it — If our ministry and parish is truly his then he will bless us and will equip and lead us. Thankfully, God’s ways are not our ways so let us commit our ways to him and let the future unfold before us like that invisible bridge that Indiana discovered was there all the time- he just could not see it.

Prayer: Dear God, knowing our weakness and vulnerability, let us look to you the sustainer of all our days, the provider of all our needs and the giver of life and the future. Strengthen us to walk by faith into the future knowing that you are already there.  In Jesus name, Amen.