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HELD IN COVENANT

2/25/2018

Genesis 17:1-7 (Contemporary English Version)

Abram was ninety-nine years old when the Lord appeared to him again and said, “I am God All-Powerful. If you obey me and always do right, I will keep my solemn promise to you and give you more descendants than can be counted.” Abram bowed with his face to the ground, and God said:

I promise that you will be the father of many nations. That’s why I now change your name from Abram to Abraham. I will give you a lot of descendants, and in the future they will become great nations. Some of them will even be kings.

I will always keep the promise I have made to you and your descendants, because I am your God and their God.

Covenant is word, a concept, we find over and over in scripture. It is a legal, as well as a religious act. In both uses a covenant is a binding promise to do something --- one that comes with heavy, serious penalties – usually involving curses -- if the covenant is broken. In its legal usage the penalties might vary according to the promises invoked. Biblical covenants most always involve blood sacrifice, to signify the life or death importance of the promises given.

In the religious sense, which is the one we hear in today’s reading and the one referred to most often in scripture, the covenant is between God and a person, such as Abraham in today’s story. The most common form of covenant found in scripture is between God and a people – generally, the Israelites. The only covenant found in scripture that goes beyond just a single tribe or nation is the Rainbow covenant given by God after the Noahic flood:

God said to Noah and his sons: I am going to make a solemn promise to you and to everyone who will live after you. This includes the birds and the animals that came out of the boat. I promise every living creature that the earth and those living on it will never again be destroyed by a flood.
The rainbow that I have put in the sky will be my sign to you and to every living creature on earth. It will remind you that I will keep this promise forever.

When God is a party to a covenant, God is the one bound to take the curse upon God’s self if he fails to maintain the promised obligation – this is why God’s covenants are considered unbreakable.

The covenant in today’s reading is foundational for the Hebrew people – all the others that followed: the Mosaic Covenant, the Davidic, etc. derive from this one, by which the Hebrews were, in time, transformed from a loose family grouping into a people, and eventually, a nation.

God bound Godself to Abram in a covenantal bond that God would be their God and Abram and his descendants would be faithful only to God. From that point on Abram’s name became Abraham rather than Abram [Abraham being something of a play on words, because it sounds like the Hebrew word or phrase which translates as ancestor of multitudes.]

God promised Abraham and Sarah children even though Abraham was already 75 years old and Sarah was 65, long past normal childbearing age. The promise was believed, in spite of its impossibility in any normal terms. Abraham held to his trust in God even as time passed and no child appeared – for 20 years – as the possibility that it could happen appeared more and more remote – more and more ridiculous -- and in the fullness of God’s time – when Abraham was 99 and Sarah 89 -- the promise was kept and Isaac was born – Isaac, who would father Jacob, who would become Israel, who in turn would father 12 sons who would become the 12 tribes of Israel and Judea.

Even the New Covenant in Jesus derives from this first binding promise. As Christians, we believe that Jesus is the last covenant – sealed in Jesus’ own blood – the covenant so powerful, so unbreakable that no other will ever be needed. By his refusal to bend to worldly powers, to mute his words, to teach anything but God’s deepest truth, Jesus sealed this covenant anew, binding us irrevocably to God’s love and care.

This is the covenant we recall each week at this table: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” There is no magic power in this bread and cup. What is here is the constant reminder that we are held in an unbreakable covenantal promise and that we are loved.

This covenant is the one that gives us the confidence to affirm that we can never lose God’s love. We can do our worst – and surely, down through the ages we humans have tried – but we can never force God to hold back God’s love for us. We can turn our backs -- God never will.

Does it often seem that God has abandoned us? Well, yes. We are short-lived creatures and we tend to want what we want when we want it. But God’s time is not our time, and even when it seems we are losing everything, if we have learned to trust in God’s promise, we can know that we are still held within that long-ago covenant.

As our Lenten meditation for today reminds us: "God is the love that never leaves us alone. Even when we would be content to settle for that which is more reasonable. God is the love that wakes us from our slumbers of disillusionment ... and lets us know that we are still wanted."

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IN THE WILDERNESS

2/18/2018

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Mark 1: 9-15

At this time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. The moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open and God’s Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him. Along with the Spirit, a voice: “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”

At once, this same Spirit pushed Jesus out into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by Satan. Wild animals were his companions, and angels took care of him.

After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee preaching the Message of God: “Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message.”

Today marks the first Sunday in Lent for this year – the entrance into those 40 days in the wilderness, where Jesus thought hard and prayed hard about what was happening in his life. A time when he looked into an uncertain future, dealt with his doubts and fears, and, presumably, came out ready to act – with no guarantees – except that he was loved by God.

Traditionally, it has been the time when we too look into the wildernesses of our own lives and confront our fears and failures and uncertainties.

There are times when life seems to come at us too hard and too fast and we no sooner deal with one crisis before there are three more demanding our attention. Mark’s “hurry, hurry” style of writing shows us that Jesus was not exempt from this pressure.
It’s a very short reading today – just six verses – and in those six verses Jesus is baptized, called God’s own beloved son, wrestles with the demons of doubt, is cared for by angels, comes out of the wilderness, and immediately begins traveling the region and proclaiming the Kingdom of God – which is HERE! Which is NOW!

Six verses.

At the beginning of those six verses Jesus is a nobody. By the 6th verse, he is the Chosen Messenger of God.

For two thousand years both theologians and ordinary pew-sitters have wondered what actually went on during those forty days in the wilderness. Mark’s version here tells us almost nothing aside from being tested by satan. Mark is in his usual hurry to get Jesus out there, preaching the Kingdom of God.

Matthew’s version (and Luke’s, which appears to have been lifted pretty well straight out of Matthew) does give us more story details, but those of us who are unwilling to accept that version as literal fact are still left wishing for actual details of just what the process of being “tested by satan” really entailed. My own suspicion is that it was all pretty similar to what we all go through, at times, with “I can’t do that,” or “I hate that idea,” or “I never asked for this,” or “why are you dumping all this on me?” Or all the dozens of variations we find to wrestle with in our dark nights.

Jesus’ demons were just specific to who Jesus was and what he was being called to do.

It’s important to remind ourselves here that Mark’s is the first written gospel. The one closest in time to the living Jesus. Is Mark’s version without a lot of detail just because that was how Mark chose to write it – or because nothing else was really known about those first few weeks? The only one who would have known the truth would have been Jesus. Was he truly likely to have decided to reveal such an intimate story about that time spent in deep communion with his Father?

Matthew’s version was written fifteen or twenty years later. The story – or the mythology that always grows around the lives of heroes -- had grown considerably in those intervening years.

We seem to be living through a nationwide dark night of wrestling with the demonic.

Children are shot down and left lying in their blood
The survivors are traumatized for the rest of their lives – don’t try telling me they “get over it”
And the so-called “responsible people” do nothing – and everyone knows why – all for money
Families are being torn apart on a regular basis
Peaceful, contributing members of society are brutally torn away from right in front of their children – and disappear – with no recourse – all because one crazy old man is afraid of strangers
That same old man is doing his best to start a war, anywhere in the world, so he can feel like a hero – and again, we appear to be helpless to stop him
The poor are routinely punished for being poor, with the meager assistance we grudgingly give them being chopped down to almost nothing
The disabled, the homeless, the sick and the poor are stripped of governmental help
More and more cities are making it a crime to feed the hungry
People fleeing from murderous regimes in their old country are refused sanctuary – turned away to go back and be killed

It appears that kindness and compassion have, in many parts of our country, disappeared. These are dark nights indeed. Jesus faced them, too. None of the things I’ve listed here are new – they have existed in every century in greater or lesser degree.

And Jesus came away triumphant – not in his own power and wisdom, but in his faith in a Father-God who loved him and in his heart-knowledge that staying faithful to this God, no matter what the world might offer or threaten, would mean that God’s goodness would eventually triumph.

Jesus defeated the ugliness and heartlessness of this world by simply knowing the difference between right and wrong – and refusing to give in to “wrong” – and by standing up to it. And by showing the world – by his life – the ultimate powerlessness of evil.

We are called to do the same. As followers of Jesus, we are called to recognize evil – however much it may come disguised as “normal,’ or “for the greater good.” And we are called to stand against it until it can stand to longer ... with no guarantees except that we are loved by God.

May God give us strength and wisdom -- and courage.

Thanks be to God.

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ORDINARY PEOPLE - EXTRAORDINARY LOVE

2/4/2018

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NOTE: This is the sermon I wrote for last Sunday, the one I inadvertently left at home. The sermon I actually gave was similar to this, but not actually the same. Since I can't replicate the one I gave extemporaneously, here is this version.

Mark 1:29-39 The Message (MSG)

Directly on leaving the meeting place, they came to Simon and Andrew’s house, accompanied by James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed, burning up with fever. They told Jesus. He went to her, took her hand, and raised her up. No sooner had the fever left than she was up fixing dinner for them.

That evening, after the sun was down, they brought sick and evil-afflicted people to him, the whole city lined up at his door! He cured their sick bodies and tormented spirits. Because the demons knew his true identity, he didn’t let them say a word.
While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed. Simon and those with him went looking for him. They found him and said, “Everybody’s looking for you.”

Jesus said, “Let’s go to the rest of the villages so I can preach there also. This is why I’ve come.” He went to their meeting places all through Galilee, preaching and throwing out the demons.

Last week’s gospel reading, if you’ll recall, was the story of Jesus, at the very beginning of his public ministry, making a splash, setting everyone talking about him, by talking and acting with an unexpected authority, and then as we see in today’s reading, disappearing.

In true Marcan fashion the author of Mark’s gospel tells us, “Yeah, that happened, now move along, no time to waste on fancy descriptions, there’s work to do – move along.”

After setting the village a-twitter (I love the irony of that word in today’s social media context) Jesus “disappears” by the simple expedient of stepping into Simon Peter’s house, which was right next door. Inside, things were a little awry, because Peter’s mother-in-law, who lived there too – the person who was in charge of hospitality in that home -- was sick and confined to bed and could not perform her usual duties of welcoming visitors – an important role in a Jewish household.

Again, in typical Marcan fashion, Jesus doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about what he is going to do – he simply walks in, takes the woman by the hand, and raises her up – well again. By evening the townsfolk will have found him again, and the whole town is lined up at the door, so Jesus comes out and spends the evening doing what he does – he heals them – sick bodies and sick spirits. Again, no descriptions, no wordy explanations, from our writer – just “sick people came -- Jesus healed them.”

In the morning, well before dawn, Jesus rose and went off by himself to pray. Even there, Simon Peter tracks him down and urges him back into the town where people are waiting. Peter wants him to basically set up shop there in Capernaum – teaching and healing and making a name for himself. But that’s not Jesus’ plan. He knows he is here to deliver a message to everyone who will hear it, and he can’t do that by sitting in one place and letting the world come to him. He needs to go out to them – to tell them the good news.
.....
I have already – in this extremely brief recounting of today’s story that I’ve just given here – used twice as many words as Mark used in the original telling. Mark’s narrative style is the very definition of the phrase “bare bones.” At times, his gospel reads more like a shopping list than a narrative. And yet, every sparse sentence is full.

It can be hard to pick-up when we read it in dibs and dabs as we do on Sunday mornings. Mark really benefits but being read all in one sitting so you get the flow of the whole thing. This morning’s reading is short, and yet, I could take two or three days just taking one sentence at a time and finding all that each one has to say.

One sentence today spoke to me most directly today: He went to her, took her hand, and raised her up.

I was stuck by the fact that Mark does not say that Jesus prayed any elaborate prayer. In fact, he didn’t say anything. He simply went to her and took her hand. No ritual, no special words – just the most human thing we can do for each other. Sharing the humanity of a simple touch. Acknowledging another as real and then sharing a part of ourselves with them. By taking her hand Jesus restored her to her family, her role in her home and community, and to herself. This is incarnation – God – in the person of Jesus -- made present in human flesh.

And, since we are called to live our lives in imitation of Jesus, it is our calling to incarnate God in our world. There is a saying we toss around quite casually: “You may be the only Jesus some people ever see.”

How often do we think this when we encounter someone new – or even someone not so new but in a new setting? Touch can be inappropriate, certainly, the news is full of that right now, but that is not what we are talking about here.

I’m talking about the touch that says to someone lost and hurting, “I see you – I recognize you as a child of God – a fellow traveler on this road of life.”

We may say that when Jesus healed by a touch it was because he held some divine secret ingredient, some magic word. I believe that the “magic” Jesus held was simply love. He loved so completely that people were healed.

When we take someone’s hand, we are offering God’s love – and we are offering our love, as well.

Can we do that? Are we willing to do that? Instead of overlooking those who are down, who are ill, who are lonely, can we offer them God’s love and raise them up, by simply acknowledging their humanness? Can we allow God’s love to shine through us – as Jesus did – and let God’s healing (not ours – we can’t do this – we can’t manufacture healing on our own) -- can we let God’s healing and love work through us and touch those who so desperately need it, whether they know it or not?

It doesn’t take training or cleverness from us. All it takes is a willingness and a desire to say “Yes.”

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HELD IN COVENANT

IN THE WILDERNESS

ORDINARY PEOPLE - EXTRAORDINARY LOVE

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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