Johnny Cash - Wayfaring Stranger

"A New Covenant" (given 3/22/15)

            I  learned a new word while I was preparing this sermon. I thought I pretty well knew my way around the English language, but this is a new one on me--"Jeremiad".   Jere- ah- my- add

            Have you ever heard it? It means a doleful or thunderous denunciation. If you've ever read the book of the Prophet Jeremiah, the origin of the word is crystal clear. If you've never read Jeremiah, then perhaps you saw the cartoon that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, portraying a latter day prophet carrying a sign which read:

            Repent! (If you have already repented, please disregard this notice.)

            That’s Jeremiah! The role of a-prophet is to denounce sin and wrong-doing. There was literally nothing in Judah or in Israel that needed denouncing, that the Prophet Jeremiah didn't denounce. 

            He denounced the clergy for being phonies. He denounced the people for following them. He denounced the rich for exploiting the poor. He denounced the poor for deserving no better. He denounced extra-marital affairs and marriages without love. He denounced the political alliances and machinations of the king. He denounced Israel and he denounced Judah. He denounced the way the people would go traipsing off after every new fertility cult that came down the pike.

            Right on the steps of Solomon's Temple, Jeremiah denounced the empty and automatic way that people made sacrifices to God--all show and no respect. When some of the faithless people took to indulging in human sacrifice, Jeremiah had the courage to show up at one of their secret ceremonies with a clay pot, which he smashed to show them what the Holy God of Israel had in mind for them in repayment for this terrible sin. 

            Jeremiah even went so far as to denounce God for saddling him with such a pack of idiots and degenerate hyenas to preach to.

            You have deceived me!" He screamed shaking his fist at the heavens.

But it was okay. God took it. God will after all, always take our anger.

            Jeremiah's problems began when people got to the point where they wouldn't take it anymore.  When Jeremiah told them that the Babylonians were about to invade their land and destroy the nation for its sins, a mob worked him over and tossed him in jail.  

            Sure enough, the Babylonians did show up in 587 BCE. And the invaders did in fact, destroy the Temple and carry off all the golden ornaments and furnishings. At that point, Jeremiah had the sheer chutzpah to denounce the people once again! He told them that since the invasion was God's judgment, the wisest thing they could do was to meekly submit to the conqueror.

            Nobody likes the kind of prophet who crows, "I told you so." So this time the mob tossed Jeremiah down the nearest cistern. Lucky for him it was dry. But he sank into the muck up to his armpits and remained there until a passing Ethiopian threw down a rope and hauled Jeremiah up out of the well.

            The sad truth is that’s pretty much always the way we human beings treat our prophets—from Jeremiah in the pit to Dr. King in Birmingham Jail. The really crazy thing about Jeremiah though, was that somehow or other, he would always bounce back. At his lowest point, he went beyond poor old Job, and cursed the day of his birth. But Jeremiah never ultimately abandoned hope. After he was fished out of that muddy well, he preached that the people should not abandon the land, but should remain there, waiting for God to return the captives and restore the nation.

            In the depths of his rejection, sitting in jail waiting for the invading Babylonian army, he purchased some real estate as a sign of his faith in the future.  In that prison cell, he composed a series of prophecies of hope and faith in God's restoration that have come to be known as the little book of comfort--chapters 30 through 32 of the Book of Jeremiah.

            This morning's First Reading comes from that book of comfort. Among the things that the Babylonians carried off in their invasion was the original Ark of the Covenant. Many in Israel believed that the Ark still housed the actual stone tablets on which God had carved the Ten Commandments, carried down the side of Mt. Sinai by Moses.

            The people despaired. If the land was lost and Temple of Solomon destroyed, wasn't it a sure sign that God had abandoned Israel for her sins? If the actual, physical, carved-in- stone commandments were lost, wasn't it a sign that the Covenant between God, and God's people was to be no more?

            Perhaps anticipating this, Jeremiah points in his prophecy, to a time to come when the laws of God should no longer be carved in stone, but rather, lived out in the lives of the people, the will of the nation. Jeremiah points to a new covenant, which will not have to be taught. Jeremiah points to a time to come when no one will have to police anyone or urge anyone else to obey the law—a time when no one person needs to stand as an intermediary between human beings and their Maker.

            Jeremiah points to a new covenant-- not only between God and Israel, not only between God and priests, or ministers on behalf of the people. Jeremiah points to a new and eternal covenant between God and all men and women.

            I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another or say to one another 'Know the Holy One' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says our God. For I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.

            Centuries later, the early Christian who authored the Letter to the Hebrews read those words and realized that old thundering Jeremiah was not only pointing to the restoration of the Temple and of Israel that would come some seventy years later. Neither was Jeremiah only pointing to some future apocalyptic or utopian theocracy that would come into being in the last days.

            The author of the Letter to the Hebrews realized that in this prophecy of a new covenant, Jeremiah had been pointing to a specific moment, a once and forever final act of mediation for the sins of the world. God had already intervened in history through the life and ministry of a specific man-- Jesus Christ.  Through His sacrifice for the world on the cross, the new covenant has now been written upon the hearts of men and women.

            "..and having been made perfect, (Jesus) became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him, having been designated by God a high priest."

            Christians  down through the ages have read these words and known that both Jeremiah and the author of Hebrews are pointing to the Living Covenant of Jesus Christ, the only mediator, the only high priest between God and humanity.  Christians understand Him to be the living covenant of love between God and all of humankind.  This reading is an unqualified announcement of universal salvation.  It is the only explicit reference in the Old Testament to the New Testament, which of course is the record of that New Covenant.

            At the center of every human life is the place where we make our decisions, direct our living and being in the world. There reside our deepest emotions, our noblest thoughts and highest ideals, our feelings, our drives, our loves, our loyalties, our commitments. At this innermost place in each one of us, all of the traits and roles and experiences—both positive and negative-- that go to make us each into who we uniquely are-- connect. At this center, we organize and direct our lives. Within this center, seeds of change and growth are planted and grow and blossom. The Bible sometimes locates this command and control center, in he bowels, or gut. But most of the time, the Bible refers to this center of who we are as the heart.

            The human heart is where the new covenant that Jeremiah pointed to has been written. In the deepest hearts of the people of God.  This new covenant doesn’t reside on stone tablets, nor in the holy of holies in the Temple. But here-- at each one’s personal holy of holies-- the very core of our being. 

            The newness was-- and is a special gift.  The people Israel understood the human heart to be much more than just the organ that pumps blood. For them, the heart is the seat of the will, the center of the individual human life. So the gift from God to us is a will with the ability to remain faithful.

            We may talk about letting our conscience be our guide, or trusting our guts, or following our intuition, or living the life of the mind. But the truth is, it is the will that decides and the human heart that rules the will. In order for you and me to live abundantly, fully, happily--we need that balancing, organizing, guiding center.  Otherwise all those competing forces with our lives would literally tear us apart.  Like the sun surrounded by planets, all the other parts of our life must orbit that directing center we call the heart.

            But if the heart directs the will, who directs the heart? How shall the heart decide? Each heart, each individual human life was created to be a distinct and unique self, as well as a self in relationship. The human heart was created for communion with its own kind, and for communion with God. Thou has made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless, until they find their rest in thee." wrote Augustine some 1600 years ago.

            I will put my covenant within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

            In this new covenant, once you and I have given ourselves to our Maker, we can act in communion with God without having to lose the struggle with our old sinful natures. The struggles will still be there—but the power we so desperately need to conquer them will be available through God’s own Holy Spirit.  When the Spriit of the Living God is truly known in our hearts, that relationship affects and transforms everything else about us. When our hearts are made new, there is a natural and spontaneous obedience to our Maker's will. 

            The message of hope that Jeremiah brings to us is that there can be a transformed world, when everyday men and women can come at last to know and respond to their God through transformed hearts. Helen Keller wrote that         "...the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."

            What are the laws then, that our Maker has written upon our hearts? What is the nature of the covenant it that you and I can feel only with our hearts? All of the commentaries and laws of Moses?  Just the Ten Commandments? The Gospels?  The answer is all of them, and none.  Just these words suffice. "I am yours, and you are mine." That is the language of love and faithfulness. That is what God’s Spirit will carve within our hearts.

            The heart is the center of our life—our very being. At the center of each heart, there is a place for God and for God alone--who loves us and cherishes us and cares for us--more than we can love one another, or ourselves, or even imagine. Sisters and brothers, our God is calling each of us to open our lives and our innmost hearts to that new covenant of love. We need only ask.

            Let us pray.

            Write your law of love upon our hearts, Creator. We pray that all we do and all we are, might be reflections of the love we have received through our great High Priest Jesus, and of the gifts with which you have graced us.  Amen.

Jimmy Carter

God's Covenants; Israel in the Desert given 3-15-15

Even the most skeptical of modern Bible Scholars now grant that there was indeed an Exodus. Most will tell you that  this folk migration lasted over a generation, with many parties and groups of refugees fleeing Egypt for Canaan. That could be. On the other hand maybe the Exodus account is more accurate, and at least most of them were indeed all traveling together in one large party wandering the desert for a whole generation..   

In either case. reading the Scriptural accounts makes one thing perfectly clear. It was one complaint after another. They kept on moaning and complaining all the way. Gripe, gripe, gripe. No wonder that some Bible scholars refer to this morning's first reading as part of the "murmuring cycle".

"We're scared!" they murmured.  "The Egyptians are gonna come and get us!" And then God sent them through the Sea of Reeds and trapped Pharaoh's host behind them. "We're hungry!" they complained. And then God showed them plants that would yield edible starch at the morning dew. "We need meat, not just bread!" they murmured. And then God taught  those city-bred tenderfoots to capture birds they could cook and eat.

Their God had given freedom from the yoke of the slave-masters, a spokesman and leader in Moses, commandments to live by, sustenance in the desert wilderness, the promise of a land to live in, and had forged them into a nation during their desert trek.             God had promised-- made covenant in fact, to be their God and that they should be God's people. According to Scriptural accounts, The Almighty even accompanied them in the form of a cloud to guide them by day and a pillar of fire by night. And still-- gripe, gripe, gripe.

Let's face it. Some people aren't satisfied no matter what you do for them.  So, year in, year out, they tramped up and down the wilderness, kvetching all the way.  This morning's reading takes place at a relatively late point in that great, generation-long pilgrimage.  And of course, a new outbreak of murmuring had erupted. This time it was a complaint the reader has heard before.

"We're sick of manna! We want real bread to eat." Either this was a separate bunch of late starters, or Moses had gotten lost and the whole group ended up doubling back to the Sea of Reeds.  In either case, it was there that they encountered a plague of poisonous snakes.  The story makes the point that these were not ordinary snakes, however.  According to Scripture, these snakes were purposely sent by God to punish the Hebrew children for all their bellyaching.

Personally, I've never believed that illness or troubles of this world are a punishment from God. Well, except for that one time my car broke down on one the hottest days of the year right in the middle of a busy intersection at rush hour.

"Why me, Lord!" "What did I do to deserve this?" "What'ya want from me?" "Did you want to send me a message? Western Union would've worked!" "If you wanted to tell me something, you could have given me a vision.  This really wasn't necessary." Sometimes  it does feel as if God does have to hit us upside the head with a two by four, just to get our attention.

But aside from administering shock treatment for those, hopefully few and far between episodes of temporary theological insanity, I don't really think that our God is in the earthly punishment business. If you and I stray, or fall into behaviors we ought to be avoiding, I believe that we’ll most likely get our comeuppance through the simple, earthly, built-in process we call facing the consequences.

Smoke too much and you've got a good chance of lung cancer.  Live promiscuously--  and you run the risk of any number of horrible afflictions--  or of getting caught-- or both.  Drink or gamble too much and you can  end up losing home, job, family.  Lie, cheat, try to slip by on nothing more than empty charm and deception and people will know it--you won't fool anybody. 

God doesn't have to punish us in this world-- we usually punish ourselves, sooner or later.  If not through consequences, then through the burden of our own sense of guilt. The problem is, that when those things happen,  we usually also manage to punish some innocent by-standers-- like family members-- as well.

But there are also times, as the wisdom of contemporary bumper stickers continue to remind us, when stuff happens-- bad stuff simply happens.  Bad things do indeed happen to good people as Rabbi Kushner's book tells us. A child is born with Down's syndrome. A tumor proves to be malignant.  Granny is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The old car throws a rod.  The other car will cost $ 1300 to fix and State Farm says they'll only cover $ 100 of it.  The stock market throws up The rain doesn't let up all spring long and the River floods. We get laid off. The stock market throws up again. Our best milk cow gets sick. The whole bloomin’ economy throws up. One best friend is diagnosed with AIDS.  A plague of snakes invades the camp and their bite is like fire.

"Moses, you pray for us. You know God, God likes you. God'll listen to your prayers." And so, the story goes, Moses prays. And God tells Moses.

"Go make a bronze statue of a serpent and put it on a tall pole. Lift that brass snake up over the heads of the people and let them look upon it."  And so Moses does. And those snakebite victims who look upon it are healed.

Historical analysis aside, this is a troubling text.  Isn't this snake some sort of graven image? Didn't God specifically tell the people Israel in the commandments that they were not to make idols? Yet they did it.  

Maybe the text is in the wrong place in the narrative and these events pre-date what happened at Sinai. Maybe this particular group of nomads hadn’t quite gotten the hang of this monotheism business and the brass snake was a pagan idol that they hadn’t had the heart to leave behind in Egypt.  Maybe they didn’t understand about the snake on a stick any more than you or I would. 

But they decided to put their theological analysis on hold and just follow orders. God commanded it.  Good enough. Just do it and don’t ask any questions. When you’re up to your tuchis in cobras, leisurely, thoughtful hermeneutical reflection isn’t always at the top of your “to-do” list.

Centuries later, the rabbis did have the luxury of time enough  to carefully unpack this whole snake business-- or at least to  justify it. It was not the bronze snake that was being worshipped, they argued. It was not an idol. Rather it was God that was being worshipped through the symbol of the snake. God was not present in the snake-- the statue was no more than a devotional aid--a visual reminder of something God's invisible, healing mercy had already done. 

It was not the brass snake that healed—the snake was not God.  And, it's important to realize, the rabbis added, it was not all who were afflicted who were healed--it was only those who looked upon the bronze serpent in faith.

This episode of the bronze serpent actually ends that "murmuring cycle" of stories of Israel in the wilderness I referred to a moment ago.  There's a reason that this particular episode closes this cycle. This experience was the first thing God did for Israel after the Passover that really required any kind of active response out of them.

Everything that God had done up to that point--sending Moses to lead them, the plagues, the Passover, Pharaoh freeing them, the escape at the Sea of Reeds, the journey through the wilderness, the manna, the giving of the commandments-- all of it had been up until then, grace—unmerited favor-- a Divine gift.

God had acted to save them-- and they had received. Maybe that's why they felt free to be such ingrates. I'm afraid that it says something about humanity in general that all that the children of Israel had to do was shut up, receive and follow. And yet they still managed to almost blow the whole deal by making whoopee around the Golden Calf the minute Moses' back was turned. And how many of us would have done the same thing?

This time however, almost a generation later, something was required of Israel.  Now for the first time in the long Exodus cycle they had to do something.  Here, for the first time, human faith was connected with God's saving actions. Here for the first time, it was not Moses' piety or personal friendship with God that saved. This time, it was the individual response of each suffering person. Each one of them had to believe enough to be willing to look upon the statue and believe in order to be healed.

Given what God had said in the commandments at Sinai, that wasn't necessarily as easy as it might have seemed. To look upon that snake on a stick was a straightforward  act of faith. In order to look upon the bronze serpent with true faith and discernment, they had to make a pretty sophisticated theological connection. No, they were not breaking a commandment. This was not an idol-- there was and is no such thing as a snake god. And the God of Israel was not contained within this statue.

To look upon the bronze serpent with true faith, they would also have to overcome their horror of the plague of snakes that had just afflicted them. In addition, in order to look upon the bronze serpent with true faith and discernment, they would have had to overcome the almost instinctive disgust and fear many of us feel toward snakes.

Apparently the children of Israel schlepped that bronze serpent statue along with them all through the wilderness, right into the promised land. We know from historical accounts. People burned incense in front of it in Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem for 1300 years. It wasn't until the reforms of King Hezekiah, some seven hundred years before the time of Christ, that the serpent statue was finally removed and broken up.

Small wonder, though. Just like we're all secretly looking for a golden calf to dance around, aren't we all looking for our own bronze statue? Or, more to the point, aren't we all looking for some kind of magic potion or silver bullet? Aren't we all looking for some kind of immunity or invisible shield, or guarantee that bad things won't happen to good people like us? 

How many of us carry around a lucky coin, or rabbit's foot, or shamrock in our pocket?  How many of us knock on wood? Or don’t walk under a ladder? How many of us wear a cross, or religious medal-- not totally as an affirmation, but also as a kind of a token, a charm?  How many of us wore copper bracelets to ward away arthritis a few years ago?  How many of us kind of secretly look upon our religion as a charm, a placating of God against a plague of snakes, as a sort of celestial fire insurance?

The fact is our faith is not an invisible shield against the slings and arrows of everyday life. As M. Scott Peck reminds us “Life is difficult.”  Well Duuuh! You already knew that, didn’t you?  Life is precarious. Good people-- even Christians inevitably do suffer troubles and trials in their lives. Illness, disease, bad luck, bad choices, senseless tragedies-- economic down turns-- all of them outside of our control-- can strike us as easily as anyone else. "The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike" Job said.

Our faith tells us that unmerited suffering is redemptive, but when suffering and challenge comes, how many of us have the courage to simply pray “thy Will be done” rather than “Why me, O God?”

You and I don't have a bronze serpent to burn incense in front of. And I daresay, it wouldn't do us any good if we did.  But we do have something to look up to.  And like the Hebrew children out  in the wilderness, our looking upon it must also be an act of faith. We must overcome our antipathy, we must overcome our horror, we must understand what it means.  Jesus said it that night when Nicodemus snuck over to meet Him.

"And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Humanity be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life. For God so loved the world that God gave God's only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him, shall not perish, but have eternal life."

And that's the covenant. It wasn't only something God said to them. It wasn't only something God gave them. It was and is also something that God expected of them. And expects of us. In the wilderness of our world, in the desert times of our lives, we do not need a bronze serpent to look up to and believe in. We have something better--Jesus Christ, the Son of Humanity--lifted up for our sakes on the cross.

He won't necessarily cure snakebite--but he can cure a heart that's been bitten by pain and despair. He won't necessarily snatch us from the jaws of physical death-- but he does bring us the promise of eternal and abundant life.  He won't necessarily heal our broken bodies--but He Himself  is healing and wholeness for our broken minds and spirits. He won't make the bad stuff that happens to us go away--but He will walk beside us through the bad stuff. He will accompany us—even carry us—like in the poem, through all the consequences and mistakes and tough choices we must face

The serpent, a symbol of pain and suffering, was transformed through the healing presence of the Holy Spirit into a sign of healing and preservation. In the same way the cross, also a symbol of pain and suffering, was transformed by Christ’s redemptive suffering  into a sign of salvation and spiritual wholeness.

Look up!  The cross is empty. Believe!  Jesus is not there. Know this: He is with us, and He is within us, and He is in our midst.  The empty cross is the ultimate sign of what God in Jesus Christ has done for us. The empty cross symbolizes the Divine covenant of love that saves and makes us whole.

The covenant promise is that when you and I look up upon the cross, and understand, and believe, and live to the best of our ability with charity and humility and hope--we shall not perish, but have  abundant and ever-lasting life—not just in whatever lies beyond this plane of existence—but now in this present moment, here at His Table.

Amen.

God's Covenants--Abram & Sarai given 3-8-15

I don’t know about you, but the Sunday School education that I received never really said too much about humor or laughter in the Bible. That’s understandable. Most of us like to think of ourselves as taking our religion seriously. Levity in our faith, much less outright laughter in the Bible somehow seems rather suspiciously out of place. We assume that there’s no room in religion for humor--aside from the occasional joke or sermon illustration of course.

But these chapters of the Book of Genesis that tell of God's covenant with Abraham and Sarah fairly crackle with humor. Abraham laughs, Sarah laughs. Certainly the ancient Hebrew storytellers laughed and made puns and rude jokes, as they told and retold these stories again and again down through the centuries, until they were finally written down during the time of King David. 

It takes, if you think about it, a ridiculous amount of nerve to promise descendants to a ninety-nine year old man who is childless--except for one son born on the wrong side of the blanket. But it takes even more chutzpah to promise the old boy that he'll be the father of nations. Literally the father of both Jews and goyim, since the word for gentiles and nations is the same in Hebrew.

And this unlikely inheritance is not, mind you, to come through the illegitimate Ishmael--the son of Abram's concubine Hagar.  No, God the Eternal announces that it'll be the barren Sarai who shall be the mother of uncounted generations to come.

Can you imagine how that conversation must have gone?

"Ah, excuse me, Holy One. I just want to make sure I understand what you're telling me."

"Just call me El Shaddai."

"Right, El Shaddai. Anyway, are we talking about the same woman. Sarai?"

"Right, Sarai."

"My Sarai? The woman I'm married to? Little tiny woman about so high? Her?”

"Yes, Abram. You'll be the father of many gentile peoples and nations. And in fact I think we'll just change your name right now while we're thinking about it, to Abraham.  That's much more dignified don't you think? And like I said, your wife Sarai will be the mother of many gentile nations.  Sarai."

"I don't want to be a nag here, El. I just want to be clear. You mean my wife Sarai-- not Hagar my concubine. Sarai has white hair. Hagar is the younger one with the attitude. Come to think about it, they both have an attitude. We're talking about Sarai, right?"

"That's who I’m talking about--Sarai."

"Almighty One, I just want to be sure that I understand exactly what you're saying here. If I continue to follow your word in faith, you'll bless my line and make me the father of many nations, and my name-- my new name-- will be remembered for all generations."

"Don't forget the part about the pork."

"Oh, right, you mentioned that before. Don't eat pork. Okay. But I do enjoy an occasional ham sandwich...

“Can you say Pastrami, Abraham?

“ So if I continue to follow your word in faith, don’t eat pork…..”

"Don't forget the part about the circumcision."

"That part I was trying to forget. Okay. I follow you in faith all my life, circumcise all my male descendants and servants, and don't eat pork. And you'll bless my line and make me the father of many nations, and my new name--Abraham did you say?  My new name will be remembered for all generations.  Is that what you're telling me?"

"That's pretty much the gist of it."

"And all of this will happen through my wife Sarai. The woman I left Ur with."

"Right. Sarai shall be the mother of nations. Hey, and come to think of it, as names go Sarai doesn't have much of a ring to it, either. Let's change her name to Sarah"

"Ageless and Eternal One, I don't want to quibble, but... uh... Sarai, excuse me, Sarah is over ninety years old, for heavens sake!"

And at that point the sheer ludicrous-ness of the whole conversation must have hit Abraham. In the parallel version of the story found in the previous chapter--Genesis 17-- Abram literally falls down on his face to the ground. Not as an act of awe and worship.  No-- Abram was trying to hold in hysterical laughter.  Here in Genesis 18, we read that at that very same point in the conversation the eavesdropping Sarai lost her composure and actually laughed out loud. And I would venture a guess that Yahweh God must have been working to keep a straight face about then, as well.

It wasn't so much disbelief that made Abraham and Sarah laugh. It wasn't a denial of faith so much as an affirmation. Who here hasn't ever laughed for the sheer unexpected joy of a moment? Who here hasn't ever grinned in relief, or even surprise, at a much-desired, long-awaited gift finally received?  Who here has ever laughed, or at least smiled in pleasure at a half-forgotten promise suddenly remembered and honored?

After all, if anybody could pull off such a seemingly incredible, impossibly silly promise, it would have to be God.  The phrase "you've got to be kidding" can mean "no way", but it just as easily can mean "isn't that something".  God must have read old Abe's laughter that way as well. Anyway after everybody had wiped the tears out of their eyes, God moved right past, or right through Abraham's laughter to speak once more of the covenant.

"No. Seriously though, your wife Sarah shall indeed bear you a son. And you shall name him Isaac-- Laughter."  That very well might have started them all off again.

In his letter to the Roman church, the Apostle Paul took Abraham's laughter that way, too. Paul wrote that Abraham's faith wasn't weakened by the seeming ludicrous-ness of God's promise.  Despite the decrepitude of his good-as-dead, hundred year old body Abraham believed. Not even the barren-ness of Sarah's ninety year old womb was enough to put Abraham off his faith. In spite of the sheer, laughable implausibility of God's promise, Abraham believed.

It was preposterous of God to make such a promise, but God went right ahead and made it. It was preposterous for Abraham and Sarah to take the money they'd put aside for their retirement and go out and buy a baby carriage, but they went right ahead and did it. It was preposterous of Sarah and Abraham after so many years of waiting, hoping, praying, trying for an heir to believe God and keep on hoping against hope, but they did.

And God took their joyous laughter, their faith, their love, their hope, and reckoned it righteous, according to Paul. It was in the final analysis, the right way, the only possible way of responding to such a preposterously, ridiculously gracious Divine promise.

And that righteous belief was the real heart of Abraham and Sarah's covenant relationship with their Maker.  All of God's other promises pale before it. All of God's other promises to Abraham and Sarah were to be fulfilled, of course. The spiritual descendants of those two old people and their sons Ishmael and Isaac are indeed  considered to be the founding ancestors of Monotheism-- three great religions of humanity--Islam, Judaism and Christianity. The physical descendants of Abraham and Sarah did indeed find their promised land.  But their squabbles over it down through the centuries have made that last one a somewhat dubious gift.

The real gift was not the promise of heirs, or land, or even fame. The real gift was and is the covenant relationship of mutual love between us and our God. Here is humanity’s ultimate guarantee that life can worth living.  We can rejoice. Our faith can be real and deep and fruitful. Our existence can have meaning and purpose.

This profound understanding knows well the limits and failures of humankind. Yet it has been gripped by the amazing faith that we human beings--in all our sin and weakness--are never-the-less under-girded and supported by the infinite love of our God. 

And so we can live our lives joyfully and confidently.

Not confident in ourselves. (It’s not like we have so much to be confident in.) An amazingly high amount of the work of modern counselors is around the issue of self-esteem—confidence in ourselves.  That’s because you and I know that one way or another, we are all at bottom, fallible. Sooner or later  humanity will drop the ball, bail out, flop, goof up. 

But we can be completely and utterly confident in God. In fact, the good news is that you and I can’t afford not to be confident about our place in this life. Not when we exist in loving relationship with the Source of life, the One who is greater than all that is. Our ultimate confidence is in God.

It's a relationship—a confidence that we see again and again throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. It only begins with Abraham and Sarah. Down through the ages, the Biblical mind and heart has reached up, out, inwardly-- to transcendent, immanent, ultimate Reality. The faith of Israel and of Jesus, instinctively knows that the deepest springs of life are not buried in the shallow grave of our finite human existence, but in the utter unlimited nature of God.

God is. God enters into relationship with human souls. All that is worthwhile and inspiring and good comes to humanity as a gift from God. That inheritance is the very essence of Biblical religion.  That is our inheritance of faith as well.

Notice that the relationship between God and humanity was not initiated by Sarah and Abraham, but by Yahweh God. Religion is not a human notion. Religion is not a matter of us pathetic mortals wishing for the Ultimate-- and maybe receiving an answer.

On the contrary, Religion is God moving toward humanity. The bond between us and our Maker is the eternal assurance of God's own Divine Purpose. Great religious experience is always under-girded by the certainty that our spirits will not go out of this life into an empty cosmos. The heart of our faith is that the Maker and Ruler of the Universes has entered into our world, entered into our spirits, and spoken words of love and assurance to us. How can we not believe even the most unlikely promises—when they come to us from God?

And as that gracious gift of faith comes to us from our God, we need to recall that it also God-- and God alone, to whom we must look for its implementation.  We haman beings are always ready to pontificate what God thinks, or what God wants, or what God does. But how ready we are to stop and simply listen for what God is trying to say to us? How ready are we to actually stop talking, and honestly ask , honestly listen, and simply wait to hear God's Will in prayer?

There's a story that tells of the time Abraham Lincoln was approached by a self-confident delegation that wanted something or other from him. There was no need to hesitate or worry about the decision, they assured the President.  They had prayed about it and they knew that God was on their side.

"I am not so much concerned to ask whether God is on my side," replied Lincoln. "What I am concerned with is to try to be sure that I am on God's side."

On God’s side, conventional wisdom is turned upside down.  Old women bear babies, young boys slay giants with slingshots, dry bones dance, empires rise and fall, the enslaved are freed, women vote, peoples and nations are liberated by non-violence, and men walk on the moon. On God’s side our nation has been so transformed that a Mormon is competing with a radical evangelical, a libertarian senior citizen and a twice divorced lobbyist  to run against an African-American for our nation’s highest office. Who’d have even believed that to be possible-- even ten years ago?

The Presence and power of God makes the laughable possible.  “In a world where carpenters get resurrected, everything is possible.”   says Eleanor in James Goldman’s play, The Lion in Winter.

So why should you and I think it ludicrous that an unexpectedly decimated church can be revitalized by the work of the Spirit in our hearts?  That’s God’s side, too.

God’s side--the covenant of faith that God offered to Abraham and Sarah, and offers to you and to me makes all other covenants subordinate and some other covenants unthinkable.

In ancient Israel, just as in our world today, there have always been those who thought that the latest shifting political alliances, that the most expensive high tech weapon systems, that the neatest toys would help them to survive, help them to get through life, help them to prevail over their neighbor.

There have never been enough people who sought to be on God’s side. There have never been enough who understood that the secret to successful, joyous living is not "I got mine and the hell with you, Jack." There have never been enough Christians committed to listen for God’s call and follow it—no matter how laughable or unlikely that call seemed to be. .

There have never been enough of God’s children who understood that the truest path of life and faith and peace of mind is to hold on tight to integrity, to commit to peace-making, to open our hearts to compassion for the brother or sister in need, to open our minds to God’s Will,  and to open our spirits to laughter, and  to joy and awe before our Creator.

. "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength", said the prophet Isaiah. In every age, there have been those who have dared to hope against hope and believe even in the preposterous. In every time and every age, there have been those who kept faith with the best that they believed, and have found in return, that God would not fail them.

And in fact, they have found that in ways they never could have predicted or expected, that God would be their strength, and the Source of blessings that were literally laughable in their sheer, preposterous extravagance. So can we.                 Amen

Wesley