The Adventurous Lectionary – The Second Sunday in Lent – March 9, 2025
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35
Today’s readings join hope, fear, and faith. They mirror our time of struggle and anxiety as the nation seems to be ruled by whim and bullying rather than policy and partnership. Many congregants have seen the nation they loved disintegrate over the past two months, and now see our nation’s leadership as the “bad guys” on the world stage, with no hope in sight that they will change and fear that everything we thought was best about our nation is dying before our eyes.
In the Genesis reading, Abram is afraid that he will die without an heir. He is afraid that his line, and the memory of his life, will end at his death. Robert Jay Lifton asserts that we live by several images of immortality – forms of symbolic immortality – biological, creative, natural, theological, and experiential or mystical. Lifton asserts that the most primal image of immortality is biological. We want to leave an heir, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, to carry on our legacy, achievements, and blood line. Abram’s hope for immortality is biological and despite the fact that he has a male child by Hagar only a male child conceived with Sarah will do. He must have a child from his marriage to Sarah or his name will be lost in the sands of time.
He is spiritually lost, realizing with his death, everything he loves will perish. In that moment of despair, God tells him to look at the heavens and count the stars. God counsels him to look beyond himself and his self-interest and survival to see the deeper realities of life. He is star stuff. His origins are beyond his imagination and long after he is gone, God’s world will continue. He is counseled to trust the Creative Wisdom of the Universe, rather than his own fears and mortality. God’s path is everlasting and infinite, and his life is part of this incredible journey. God promises that a child is coming to Abram and Sarah, and prepare for it. But, Abram must first recognize the wonder of God’s universe within which this child will be born. The same applies to our own anxieties about the future. We need a sense of divine grandeur to help us deal with the challenges of our time; infinite hope to help us, as Martin Luther King asserts, to respond to finite failure.
Abram believes and God responds. In the spirit of William James’ “Will to Believe,” our trust in God opens up new possibilities and energies. A way will be made where we see no way. New life emerges amid death and hope amid failure. This is not some easy “prosperity gospel,” but living faith born of facing the complexities of life and discovering that within our limitations new possibilities are born. The lively, reckless confidence in the grace of God, as Martin Luther says.
Psalm 27 emerges from the battlefield of life. This is no psalm for the faint-hearted. “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” Fear and threat are real for the Psalmist as they are fornus: evil doers abound. They are nipping at our heels and denying our God and our way of life. Yet, God lives and will have the final word. We can trust God because God will outlast every enemy. In the valley of the shadow, God is our companion.
The results are not always clear. There are no guarantees that we will be successful, or that our side will triumph in the challenges of everyday life and responding to the machinations of the US president and his minions, and the mortality rate remains 100% or in our social context. Tempted to give up hope and focus on the micro alone, trust in God places our efforts in the context of a larger story, God’s vision of Shalom. Trusting God, we know that “deep in my heart, I do believe, that we shall overcome some day.” In that spirit, we can proclaim, “we are not afraid,” despite the words of fear mongers, the obliviousness of governmental leaders to climate change, and our own personal crises.
Paul counsels the Philippians to “stand firm” in the faith. We are citizens of two worlds, and the divine permeates everyday life. We live in the embodied world, but we also have a heavenly perspective. If God is omnipresent and omniactive, then we are already in heaven, regardless of what is going on today. We have everlasting life is the passing moment. We must face “necessary losses” (Judith Viorst) and threats to our safety and well-being. But we can stand firm because this world is filled with divine wisdom and glory. Our heavenly home shapes our earthly commitments. We trust in the future and focus on today. Our times are in God’s hand, and when we trust God, even in adversity, we can experience God’s realm on earth as it is in heaven. To believe that “all shall be well” takes great faith, but it is the faith that allows us to move mountains and share with God our vocation as pathfinders making a way where we thought there was no way. As children of heavenly purpose, we realize that God is God, and we aren’t, and God is God, and Trump and Musk aren’t! They are creatures of the moment, who will be borne away by the ever-flowing stream of life in the blink of an eye.
In the gospel reading, Jesus is warned that his life is in danger. This is no news to him. Like Martin Luther King in Memphis, he has been to the mountaintop and is aware of the dangers ahead of him. Herod is out to get him. Despite the threat, Jesus continues to teach. He must follow his vocation and in following his vocation to seek salvation for humankind, he finds his strength. His life gains perspective. It is part of God’s story of salvation. In his book born of the Nazi concentration camps, Viktor Frankl notes Friedrich Nietzsche’s affirmation, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how’.” Jesus’ sense of purpose, his vocational sense, enabled him to face his fear of suffering and abandonment, trusting that his life had meaning and that God’s purposes for him were more enduring that Herod’s hatred.
Further, the God that inspires Jesus – the God that sends Jesus – is filled with empathy for the human condition, feeling our pain as well as our joy, and willing to suffer for our personal and social healing. God is the Great Empath, touched by the world, changed by the world, and active in responding to the world.
Facing the desperate and apparently unsolvable crises of our time, let us not give up heart. Let us not be afraid. But let us respond with hope and courage to the struggles of day to day life, global uncertainty, our fears for our nation’s survival. changing demographics and their impact on the church, shrinking congregational budgets, climate change and the rise of racism, and our own personal dramas. Let us count the stars in the sky, knowing that we are part of God’s story and that by our lives, we help heal the world.
Giving birth to a new future isn’t easy. The birth pangs of new creation are painful and turn everything upside down. But, the God of the Galaxies is with us, companioning us and challenging us to be God’s companions in healing the world.
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Bruce Epperly is Theologian in Residence at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ, Bethesda, MD (https://www.westmorelanducc.org/) and a professor in theology and spirituality at Wesley Theological Seminary. He is the author of over 80 books including: “Homegrown Mystics: Restoring the Soul of Our Nation through the Healing Wisdom of America’s Mystics” (Amazon.com: Homegrown Mystics: Restoring Our Nation with the Healing Wisdom of America’s Visionaries: 9781625249142: Epperly, Bruce: Books) “Jesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet “(Jesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet: Epperly, Bruce: 9781625248732: Amazon.com: Books), Saving Progressive Christianity to Save the Planet”( Saving Progressive Christianity to Save the Planet: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999215: Amazon.com: Books), and his most recent book, “God of the Growing Edge: Whitehead and Thurman on Theology, Spirituality and Social Change.” (The God of the Growing Edge: Whitehead and Thurman on Theology, Spirituality, and Social Change: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999291: Amazon.com: Books The God of the Growing Edge: Whitehead and Thurman on Theology, Spirituality, and Social Change: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999291: Amazon.com: Books)
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