God Has a Better Idea
Lent 2B (Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:23-31; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38)
God said to Abraham, “I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.”
So last Sunday, on the first Sunday of Lent, we heard the story of Noah and the flood. The promise of God that God would never again use violence to get human beings to behave themselves. Now, for God to save us from ourselves, God will come to us with grace and with an invitation, to change our hearts, to change our minds, and believe the good news that God’s kingdom is close at hand.
And so God decides – and this takes us to today’s readings – to begin with one family, with one people that God will have a special relationship with, so be their God and for them to be God’s people. This is the promise that God makes to them so that they can be a blessing for the whole world.
And whom does God choose to be the couple who will start this family? If this were a Hollywood movie, you’d probably get a strong and wholesome young man, with a good cut of the jaw, with a strong and virtuous wife who can bear lots of children. But instead, who does God choose? God chooses a man who is 100 years old, with a wife who is 90 years old, and they have no children. And God says: To start the family that will bring salvation to the whole world, I’ve chosen you.
You would think, with a whole world full of human beings to choose from, God could find two people who were better prepared and more qualified to start a family.
And it’s not just that. We know that we have some members of this congregation who are 90 years old, plus or minus a few years. Maybe that fits you this morning, and if not you know folks who are with us this morning who fit that description. Can you imagine God saying to someone you know who is around 90 years old: I have a special gift for you, a promise: You’re going to have a baby! I imagine the polite reaction would be: Thank you Lord, that’s quite an honor, but perhaps there’s something else I could do that would be helpful. Even if, when Sarah was younger, she had desperately wanted to be a mother, there comes a time in life when we all have to reconcile ourselves to the realization that some things are just never going to happen. And as difficult as it may have been for Sarah, the time in her life when she had come to terms with not having a child, it was probably quite a few years before she turned 90.
So why does God choose Abraham and Sarah, of all people, for this covenant? It’s absurd, really, by any rational measure. In fact, the book of Genesis tells us that Abraham and Sarah, when God separately told them of this promise, had exactly the same reaction: They laughted. And they said, That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, Lord. So why does it make sense to God? What’s God up to in making this choice?
Abraham and Sarah were not unintelligent people. If God had asked them for ideas about how to start a new people for a new covenant, I’m sure they could have given God good and sensible advice about who to choose. But God didn’t ask. Because that’s not how a relationship with God works. For a couple of reasons; I’ll just mention two.
One is that God is love, and the way of God is to love God and to love our neighbor. And if we love our neighbor, we don’t get to choose what our neighbor needs from us. We don’t get to choose what God asks of us. Parents all know this very well. Every child is different. You don’t choose their personality. You don’t choose what their needs are. You don’t choose how you have to love them, and what that love is going to call upon you to do at different stages of life. You just have to accept it and to respond.
Or another example – we are all born into a society that has a legacy of various kinds of discrimination. Some of us are people who get discriminated against, others of us are people who aren’t discriminated against, and that gives us a special responsibility. We didn’t choose to be born into this society, we didn’t ask for it, and yet, we have this responsibility, and here we are.
But even more than that, we are created in the image and likeness of God. And God knows, we have the tendency to make God in our image. And so, think of it as a teaching method. God is constantly looking for ways to surprise us, to remind us that we are not in control, that the kingdom of God comes to us in ways that we do not expect and would not choose for ourselves – and that’s good, because that’s how we know it’s the kingdom of God.
And since we’re not actually in control (although we like to think that we are), invitations to recognize the kingdom of God breaking into our everyday lives are everywhere, everyday. Even if you’re stuck at home in quarantine. Multiple times a day, God is tapping us on the shoulder, and calling us to notice the kingdom of God becoming present, if only we have the eyes to see it.
This is what the Paul in the second reading today calls faith. Paul calls Abraham the ancestor of all people of faith. Because Abraham is simply asked to believe the promise of God. It’s a discipline – to learn to say: Lord, I don’t know what you’re doing. Lord, I don’t know what this means. But I trust that you are leading me and I trust that you are good.
Which brings us to the gospel reading today. After Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus begins to teach the disciples what that’s going to mean, and it’s the complete opposite of what everything they expected. As Robert Capon said, deep down we don’t want a savior who gets killed and then rises from the dead, we’d rather have a savior who’s smart enough not to get crucified in the first place.
And Peter believes that Jesus is the Messiah – and so he is confused. How can Jesus say that he will be rejected and killed, how can Jesus say that he will be humiliated and abandoned, how can Jesus say that he will die a failure? Surely the kingdom of God can’t be found in failure and humiliation – can it? That doesn’t make sense to Peter. It may not make sense to us.
But what Jesus tells the crowd is: It is necessary. Which doesn’t mean, this is what God wants and so it has to be, but that it’s inevitable. It’s inevitable in this world that living a life of complete faithfulness to God is going to end in rejection and humiliation and failure. And it’s also inevitable, because – as Paul says – God is a God who creates whole universes out of nothing and gives life to those who the dead – that living a life of faithfulness to this God opens the door to resurrection and new life.
If you want to be my disciple, Jesus says, you have to get over your ideas about where God ought to be found. You have to be willing to accept the absurd, even failure and rejection, even the things that scare you the most. But don’t be afraid; I’ll do it with you. Just take up the cross, come after me, and follow me.
If you trust God and are willing to let yourself be shaped by that trust, all things can become possible. God’s will for Jesus and God’s will for us is not the cross and suffering. That’s the inevitable result of living a life of love and faith in this world. But if we can do that, we can find even in the midst of cross and suffering, all sorts of things that God can do. All sorts of things that are wonderful and life-giving and transformative and fulfilling and characterized by deep love –that we’d never even imagine were possible if God hadn’t told us to look for it.
Sometimes I wonder: How many couples did God approach who simply laughed at God’s offer of a covenant, before Abraham and Sarah finally stopped laughing and started trusting? I wonder how many young women the Angel Gabriel might have visited who never got past the “How is this possible?” moment? And more to the point, how many times have you and I missed God’s presence in the world because it was inconvenient to us, because it didn’t fit our expectations or desires, because I didn’t think I had anything to offer, because I didn’t want to admit that I was wrong, because I didn’t want to be thought of as a failure. I know I’ve done it a lot. Maybe you have too.
Well, if the story of Abraham and Sarah tells us anything, it’s never too late. It’s never too late to learn from Jesus about how to find God’s kingdom breaking into our world everywhere, even in the things that we fear the most. He walked that way for us, he invites us to follow him, to walk the way along with him. He promises us that if we change our minds and trust the good news, the kingdom of the God who raises the dead and makes all things new is already right here.