single persons, people
of all races and families
of every kind.
Sunday
Service:
Holy Eucharist
at 9:30 am
Child care is available
Church of Our
Saviour
191 Flanagan Way (Rt 153) Secaucus, NJ 07094
Tel: 201-863-1449
Fax: 201-863-1474
Mark A. Lewis,
Vicar
MLewis@secaucus.org
Dorothy Fowlkes
Pastoral Associate
This page revised 12
Mar 01
http://www.secaucus.org/
oursaviour
The Church of
Our Saviour
in the Town of Secaucus, New Jersey
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Let's make a
deal
Reflections on the
lessons for the Second Sunday of Lent
11 March 2001
By The Rev. Mark A. Lewis, Vicar
Genesis15:1-12, 17-18 / Psalm
27:10-18
Philippians 3:17 - 4:1 / Luke 13:31-35
In case you hadn't noticed, the readings today are about people on their way to someplace better. They're about Abram going into the Promised Land. Paul toward the transformed Kingdom of God. Jesus inexorably on to Jerusalem and his destiny. And of course they're about all of us, who wouldn't be here today except that on some level or another we know that going somewhere is what we're born to do.
The people of God are always on the move; the rock on which Christ built the church is a rolling stone. It has to be, or it gathers moss. That's one of my weak points when it comes to being in the church. I tend to burrow in. So I'm glad that there are plenty of you here to keep reminding me that Christians are called always to be heading out the door and into the wind.
It's been so from the time of Abram (Later in the Bible called Abraham). God called him to pack up his people, living in a perfectly nice neighborhood, and get moving toward an unimaginable place that faith alone made Abrham believe that it could be better. God brought him outside on the first leg of the journey and said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you can."
But Abram didn't spend all the time contemplating, or we'd still be waiting for him to move. Looking towards the heavens puts the future in perspective. In the story God promises to form the future, to form a People.
Abram, old and childless, is in a bad way for future prospects, in a culture built squarely on progeny as the only future. So he had, according to common legal practice in the ancient Middle East, adopted a servant, who would take care of him in his old age and benefit as his heir -- somebody remembered here as Eliezer of Damascus.
But God intervened and said to Abram, "Get up, we're on the move. This isn't the end of the line". And instead of giving a detailed itinerary of the trip they're going to take, God makes a deal with Abram, the foundation covenant of all our faith. And not only our Christian faith, but for all the great western faiths. Abram is the founder of the faith for Jews and Muslims as well.
Here in this ancient tale, we hear how this happened. For both God and Abram, this had to be a pilgrimage of trust. Abram is ancient. In this myth God is frequently styled by the title "Ancient of Days", implying that it might have been high time for God to make a new start, too. And so the God in a rut and the broken down old believer commit themselves to each other in old age. Their mutual hope is new birth.
To fix the plan in their memories they make a sacrifice. It's a very primitive one to us who are accustomed to symbolic sacramental or bloodless financial sacrifices. The scene is traditionally called "the pact of the pieces". It's the origin of the phrase "to cut a deal". Partners to an agreement would swear fidelity, dramatizing this by invoking the fate of the sliced animals on themselves if the covenant would be broken. Animals were killed and laid out on the ground as irrefutable evidence that a life and death commitment was made.
It's a frightful risk that Abram takes, because he puts himself in the hands of God. But God is taking a big risk, too. For progeny, for a new future. "To your descendants I give the land, from the river of Egypt to the great river," from the Nile to the Euphrates. God promises to be Abram's backup, his deliverer.
And Abram's role is to take that journey to a better land. And there the rewards, for God and Abram alike, will be great. Something new. Something big. Something to put the past behind.
In the epistle, Paul also speaks of another land: "Our homeland is in heaven," he writes, "and from it we await a liberator." Paul is writing to his first European church, a little one in Philippi (Macedonia). He's writing because he's worried about some of the Christians there.
When he speaks of the "enemies of the cross of Christ," in contrast to the friends of the cross, he is not speaking of pagans, of those outside the new religion. He couldn't care less about their doings. He's upset because these "enemies of the cross of Christ" are also his fellow church members. He warns them about those who live in an earthly-minded way instead of a heavenly-minded way. He warns about those whose "god is their belly."
And we often think that this means those who don't watch their cholesterol or get enough exercise of or fall off the Lenten discipline wagon. Well, the scholars don't give us such an easy out. Linguistically, those "whose God is their belly" are those who live life solely on the level of the senses, as if that were all that mattered. As if our purpose in life is to satisfy every craving we can identify. As if TV commercials held the key to a fulfilled life.
Here, Paul reminds folks again that the earth with all its beauty and wonder, its capacity to please and inspire and delight, is not the ultimate goal of human destiny. It's a great place to be, but - like Ur of the Chaldees - it's far from good enough to tie down God's travelling people. As good as this world might seem, in the end it's not good enough
The biological equipment -- the flesh -- we presently have is limited. No one can deny that. And as we get older we all learn more than we ever wanted to know about those limits. The equipment breaks down, needs repair, and eventually quits. Our bodies die. To live as if the flesh is all there is forgets that our journey never ends until we leave this world behind.
Stopping too soon is making a fool's bargain. For God's people to decide to make "right here" as comfortable as possible and settle down to stay forgets the covenant with God that Abram started -- that we signed on with at our baptisms.
When they cut the big deal, they split the flesh in two and laid it down. Then God walked through it and Abram right behind on their way to the next big thing. That's what we are here taking up space for. That's how we do our part for the fulfillment of God's dreams and our own.
In Luke's gospel, Jesus weeps when people seem to choose the ease of the flesh over the promise of the journey. "How often would I have gathered you together as a hen gathers her brood, but you would not." "Let's stick together and remember who we are, remember the goals we share with God," he says.
Jesus is famously reluctant in the Bible to say that he is the "Son of God", but he is glad to call himself the Hen of God. And to call Herod a worldly fox whose days are numbered. Herod has cast his lot with what the Book of Common Prayer used to call "the world, the flesh, and the devil". And however glamorous that might look at the moment, in a moment they will all be gone.
Lent is of all seasons the season we focus on the deal we made with God to be pilgrims. Our duty not to settle down with the gods of this age. We are built to be going somewhere, to be moving. Supposing Abram had settled down in Ur because he just felt too old for anything new? And Jesus gave in and took over the carpentry shop in Nazareth? Or if Paul decided that his job in Tarsus was just too secure to leave and go off preaching? Those would be deal breakers.
It's not only God's people who are always going somewhere. God is on the move, too. And when the covenant to be on our way together breaks down, then God is as much the loser as we are. Because then none of us are making progress toward the dream of a new heaven and a new earth for everyone.
In liturgy, we try to act out the concepts of our faith. And, in one way of looking at it, the liturgical expression of the covenant we share with God is the procession. If we had a bigger church we'd have a bigger procession every Sunday. But even here we never take the shortest way in, and we take an even longer way out. It's a physical symbol that we're on our way and that there isn't any quick way to the Kingdom of God.
A good procession is an intentional and self-assured stroll with a place for everyone on the path. It's the way the people of God live, on the move, on their way. Sometimes -- often -- the longest way round is the best way home. "Like a mighty army moves the Church of God," the hymn says. But also, like a pilgrim people. For "here we have no continuing city, but seek one to come," says St. Paul.
And to people on the move, God
comes every morning and walks like a smoking firepot and a
flaming torch right through the flesh of this world and on
to where our mutual dreams lead. And the deal we cut with
God is this: We both lay out our lives for each other, and
we both promise to accept whatever the other offers.
ve for all.
-- Mark Lewis
Your comments or questions are welcome MLewis@secaucus.org.
Links to additional "Reflections on Lessons" may be found at the bottom of the Sunday web page.
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