Sermon: Cutting Across the Wake

CUTTING ACROSS THE WAKE

Preached by Robert D Thomas

March 4, 2012 at Pasadena Presbyterian Church.

I think it’s pretty neat that my Mother was the lector for today’s Gospel Lesson. Not many preachers of my age get to have their mother read scripture when they are preaching. It’s a special moment for me.

I love today’s Lesson from the Torah. However, it’s obvious to me that those who created the Revised Common Lectionary have no sense of humor because they ended the reading at verse 16, thus ignoring the punch line. I have added in that serse. So, let us listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to us through this passage from the book of Genesis, chapter 17, beginning at verse 1.

¹ 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. ²And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.’ ³Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, ⁴‘As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. ⁵No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. ⁶I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. ⁷I 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. 15 God [also] said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. ¹⁶I 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.’ ¹⁷Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed.

There’s much to love about the story of Abraham. I could preach a long series about him and some day I may get that chance — just not today. Instead, let’s focus on one aspect of this story: the counter-intuitive nature of God’s covenant with us .

The first thing to note is that this is at least the third time that God has appeared to Abram (as he was originally called). In chapter 12, God says to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” ¹

Doesn’t that seem like an astounding story? Why would God choose someone who was 75 years old and living in a desert, and tell him to leave his family — essentially all of his support group — and strike out for an unknown place? And what did all that ultimately get him? There was such famine Canaan that Abram and Sarai had to flee to Egypt; that’s another story — there’s a lot packed into three chapters of Genesis! Nonetheless, Abram didn’t question God. He just followed God’s commands, again and again and again.

Years later they all make it back to Canaan. In chapter 17, God appears to Abram for a third time. Abram is now age 99, but God says, “Your name shall now be Abraham for I have made you be ancestor of a multitude of nations” ² — note that the singular “nation” has become the plural “nations.” For good measure, God changes Sarai’s name to Sarah and says, “I will bless her and moreover I will give you a son by her.” ³

By this point, Abraham has had it — so much so that he falls on his face and laughs! Moreover in chapter 18, when Sarah hears all of this, SHE laughs. What a wonderful exchange: God asks Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh?” Sarah says, “Oh, I didn’t laugh,” and God says, “Oh yes, you did laugh!” ⁴

Does any of this make sense? What a bizarre way to establish a covenant. It’s like a surfer cutting across his wake or — to use a sporting metaphor closer to my heart — like Phil Mickelson hitting a flop shot back over his head — totally counter-intuitive to our human understanding. That’s surely how Abraham viewed this latest encounter with God. However, Abraham again did what God asked, even if he didn’t completely understand, even it was so mystifying as to make him fall on his face and laugh.

Now consider today’s lesson from the Gospel of Mark. Jesus says to his disciples, “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 shall lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the Gospel will save it.” ⁵

Could that have made any sense to the disciples? Talk about counter-intuitive! Losing your life to save it? Taking up your cross? Dietrich Bonhoeffer called it The Cost of Discipleship — and the cost to him was, in fact, his life. What a bizarre way to establish a new covenant! However — even though it took some time, even if they didn’t completely fathom the full impact of what Jesus was asking, even when it ultimately losing their lives for Jesus’ sake, in at least one case — the disciples answered the call.

So what does all this have to do with us here at PPC in the Year of our Lord 2012? Consider who we are. Like many Americans, we live purposeful lives. We seek personal satisfaction in our jobs. We live in neighborhoods with people are who appear to be just like us — even to the point of living behind gates and walls. We join clubs and associate with people who seem to share the same values we do. Some drive many miles to find a church whose members share their values, worship styles and beliefs.

And yet … and yet, here we are at Pasadena Presbyterian Church, where many of us drive many miles to church because we believe that God is calling us again into a new covenant, to live with and shape a community of many races and languages, with different perspectives but a singular belief: that God is doing a great thing among us, here and now, to spread God’s word of justice and inclusive love to a disbelieving community and world.

For many of us that may mean rethinking many aspects of our faith, even at the risk of losing what we’ve always held to be true. At times, the whole venture seems so counter-intuitive that we want to fall down our knees and laugh … or curse … or cry. It’s not easy. Nobody should pretend that what God asks is easy, any more than it was for Abraham or the disciples. But God is, indeed, calling us to live out this new covenant.

Finally, consider this table around which we will gather. We say we are celebrating the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, but isn’t that a little odd? Although only Jesus understood it, what he and his disciples were eating was, in effect, a condemned man’s final meal before being executed. How counter-intuitive is that? And yet as Christians, we do celebrate because through this Sacrament we are united with our Savior in a truly unique way — God’s way.

Listen to how a 20^th century prophet, Daj Hammarskjöld, relates the story:

A young man, adamant in his committed life. The one who was nearest to him relates how, on the last evening, he arose from supper, laid aside his garments and washed the feet of his friend and disciples — an adamant young man, alone as he confronted his final destiny.

He had observed their mean little play for his — his! — friendship. He knew that not one of them had the slightest conception of why he had to act in the way that he must. He knew how frightened and shaken they would all be. And one of them had informed on him, and would probably soon give a signal to the police.

He had assented to a possibility in his being, of which he had had his first inkling when he returned from the desert. If God required anything of him, he would not fail. Only recently, he thought, had he begun to see more clearly, and to realize that the road of possibility might lead to the Cross. He knew, though, that he had to follow it, still uncertain as to whether he was indeed “the one who shall bring it to pass”, but certain that the answer could only be learned by following the road to the end. The end might be a death without significance — as well as being the end of the road of possibility.

Well, then, the last evening. An adamant young man: Know ye what I have done to you? … And now I have told you before it comes to pass … One of you shall betray me … Whither I go, you cannot come ... Will’st thou lay down thy life for my sake? … Verily I say unto thee, the cock shall not crow … My peace I give unto you … That the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do … Arise, let us go hence.

Is the hero of this immortal, brutally simple drama in truth “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world”? Absolutely faithful to a divined possibility — in that sense the Son of God, in that sense the sacrificial Lamb, in that sense the Redeemer. A young man, adamant in his commitment, who walks the road of possibility to the end without self-pity or demand for sympathy, fulfilling the destiny he has chosen — even sacrificing affection and fellowship when others are unready to follow him — into a new fellowship. ⁶

May we continue to embrace this new fellowship, even when the message seems counter-intuitive to us. Amen.

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¹ Genesis 12: 1-2, NRSV

² Genesis 17: 5, NRSV

³ Genesis 17: 16, NRSV

⁴ based on Genesis 18: 12-15, NRSV

⁵ Mark 8: 34b-35, NRSV

⁶ Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, (Alfred Knopf Inc. and Faber and Faber, Ltd. 1964), Pgs. 72-73.