25th February 2024
Reflection – readings follow on below
Stories of covenants feature large in the lectionary during these first weeks of Lent. Last week we heard of the covenant between God and people that was illuminated by the presence of a rainbow. This week we have a story from Genesis about a covenant between God and Abram. It is a covenant that relates not just to Abram but to his descendants too. This covenant is made visible in the promise of a son for Abraham and Sarah.
Last week we also had the story of Jesus’s baptism, when the heavens were torn open and God’s Spirit engulfs Jesus (imaged by a dove) and God’s voice declares ‘This is my Son!’ This is the Son that completes the covenant made with Abraham. God is God to his people in the most unique way possible!
Covenants establish relationships. The superabundance of covenants in the Bible witnesses to God’s overwhelming desire to build relationships with his people, and with all that he has created. These are relationships about flourishing and fruitfulness. From the beginning when God sees the bare earth and desires that it be green and filled with trees and plants, we can see God’s vision for the world. When God creates all manner of creatures to inhabit and till and nurture the earth, we see God’s vision for the world as a place in which all living things – plants and creatures – live and work in harmony with, and dependent on, each other. These are the relationships that God wishes to reinforce through the various covenants.
In today’s Psalm we hear of God’s love for the poor, of God’s alertness in hearing their cry. The Psalmist goes on to laud the fact that God is worshipped, and the poor are fed. The grammar is ambiguous: is God feeding the poor directly or is it that, because God is worshipped, those who worship are inspired to feed the poor? The Psalmist notes both that we worship God as King, and take on the role of God’s servants.
To follow on with the teaching that Paul is presenting, our worship of God and service to God as King, comes not through obeying laws but through faith – and I would want to add – through love.
And that faith and worship is expressed not just in feeding the poor but also in healing the sick, comforting the sad, freeing the imprisoned, caring for creation, restoring justice etc.
However as we know from the experiences of the saints and prophets, expressing our faith and worship in that way may not be easy, nor painless nor free of suffering. We sadly live in an a world where many of us are imperfect, and where such activities may be thwarted or penalised or countered because they impinge on someone else’s profits, or someone else’s wealth or on positions of power. As Jesus explains in the gospel reading, we may have to ‘deny ourselves and take up the cross if we are to follow him’.
For those who want to play it safe, and conform to the way of this world, may find their have lost their lives – or at least lost their life’s integrity. Whilst those who are willing to sacrifice their lives – or to sacrifice the lifestyle that the world says is desirable and even essential – and follow the ways of Jesus, will find their life has immeasurable value.
Lent is the time when we focus on realigning our lives so that we can and do worship and serve the living, loving, God, following the ways of Jesus.
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.”
Psalm 22:22-30
22 Praise the Lord, you that fear him; *
stand in awe of him, O offspring of Israel;
all you of Jacob’s line, give glory.
23 For he does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty;
neither does he hide his face from them; *
but when they cry to him he hears them.
24 My praise is of him in the great assembly; *
I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him.
25 The poor shall eat and be satisfied,
and those who seek the Lord shall praise him: *
“May your heart live for ever!”
26 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, *
and all the families of the nations shall bow before him.
27 For kingship belongs to the Lord; *
he rules over the nations.
28 To him alone all who sleep in the earth bow down in worship; *
all who go down to the dust fall before him.
29 My soul shall live for him;
my descendants shall serve him; *
they shall be known as the Lord’s for ever.
30 They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn *
the saving deeds that he has done.
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
Jesus began to teach his disciples 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.”
The Green Tau 