Stepping into the Future –– 2nd Sunday in Lent, Year A –– 12 March 2017

When God calls Abram to a new land, it is for Abram and Sarai to let go of the past and present. We may keep in mind, with regard to Abram’s faith, that he is also called later to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, and in that act, to let go of the future. God calls Abram and Sarai, in other words, to step outside of all expectation and hope, memory and familiarity, in order to listen to the voice that comes from eternity. 

How easy it is to look back on any of these faithful responses and assume that each person knew what he or she was doing and, more importantly, knew what God was doing. I suspect they knew neither of these, but they did know something about God that enabled their response. They knew our God is a God of impossibility. Our God is not rational or predictable, not limited by what is heard and seen. Our God is a God of hope and calls us to enter faithfully into these hopeful experiences. Living with hope rejects the fatalism of the situation by recognizing that we humans don't have the right to make that assessment. In other words, just because we can't find any possibility amidst impossibility doesn't mean possibility is absent. –– Jennifer Copeland

John 3:1-17

In this episode, Nicodemus' understanding of Jesus is inadequate. However, Nicodemus continues to appear in John's gospel. He challenges the chief priests and Pharisees. . . joins Joseph of Arimathea in removing Jesus from the cross and tending to his burial. . . ; ultimately, he became a true follower.

In this passage, we find remembrances of the Jesus of history and the challenges to the early church when it was expelled by the synagogue. Christians are called to identify with Nicodemus and are challenged to consider how to hear the Gospel anew and “to enter ever more fully into the mystery of divine revelation and thus to appropriate anew our identity as disciples” (Sandra M. Schneiders, Written That You May Believe [Herder & Herder, 2003], 125). –– Regina Boisclair

Genesis 12:1-4a

The story of God's call of Abram marks the beginning of the story of God's relationship with the family who will come to be identified as the people of Israel. God's call to Abram to move away from homeland and family is accompanied with promises of posterity, prominence, as provenance of blessings to all nations. . . This story conveys the idea that Lent is God's call to leave aside the familiar and to seek where and how God leads.

God's promises to Abram are God's assurance that blessings come to those who do what they sense to be God's call. . . –– Regina Boisclair

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

This passage. . . presents a central feature of Paul's theology: through faith in God's gospel of Jesus Christ, one enters into a right relationship with God. This reading links with the first reading from Genesis and explains Abraham's relationship to Christians.

The selection likens Christian faith to Abraham's trust in God's promises. Paul claims that those who have faith are the true descendants of Abram and heirs to the promises. . . By stressing that the promises to Abraham and his descendants were based on faith, Paul identifies Abraham as the father of those who have faith in Christ, God's Gospel. –– Regina Boisclair

Jennifer Copeland, a United Methodist ordained minister, served for 16 years as chaplain at Duke University and as director of the Duke Wesley Fellowship. She is currently executive director at North Carolina Council of Churches in Raleigh-Durham.

Regina Boisclair, a Roman Catholic biblical scholar, teaches at Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage, Alaska.

Homily Service 41, no. 2 (2007): 30-41.

The Future is. . . What?! – 7 August 2016 – 11th Sunday after Pentecost/ Lectionary 19/ Proper 14

How often we look around us and long for a path toward faith and hope in the midst of much anxiety! Our world is replete with seemingly intractable violence in many lands and uncertainties about who shall lead us. Today is no exception.

In the face of impossible hopes, as with Abram, God takes us by the hand and shows us the stars – a heaven filled with mysterious and distant lights that cannot be counted. They reveal the limitlessness of God’s promises which hold out hope for peace in the way Julian of Norwich insisted, writing: “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

How are we to grasp this?

Luke 12:32-40

The Gospel story shows us a stance to take, an approach to the things of this world, a measurement for what we value, and a caution about the dangers.

Today's gospel reading. . . collects a number of Jesus' teachings regarding how his followers are to ready themselves for God's impending future, that is, what living faithfully is to look like in terms of our behavior. First he underlines the gift-character of salvation with the encouragement: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (v 32, emphasis added).

Secondly, he recommends a series of actions consistent with last week's readings' emphasis on not investing oneself in the pursuit of transient earthly wealth, culminating in the assurance that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (See the commentary on last week's texts.)

And thirdly, with a greatly abbreviated reference to the much more elaborate end-time parable of the ten virgins we find in Matthew 25, he recommends an active and alert stance toward the impending future, a stance of ready waiting “for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” One might call this attitude of urgent anticipation “faith-filled hope.” – John Rollefson

Genesis 15:1-6

While the Gospel gives us the prospect of readiness to hope, the Genesis story gives us companionship with God in the night, even at the moment of despair.

In the poignant image of God pointing Abram to the stars (I picture a clear, cold, windless midnight hour with the lights of the heavens twinkling, thick and sharp) we see with Abram the abundance of God’s promised future. We are incredulous, because when we look around us at the world’s disappointments in our individual lives and that of the nations, a future of such brightness and vastness seems impossible. The moment for Abraham appears to be like ours: Where is the least inkling that hope is not futile? Where is Abram’s first heir?

[T]here is as . . . yet no sign of the offspring needed to get the promise started toward fulfillment, and the clock is ticking. It's not until the next chapter that Sarai will try to jump-start the promise by offering her slave-girl Hagar as a surrogate. As soon will become evident, this only complicates matters, and such human improvisation in trying to help the promise along isn't what Yahweh has in mind.

But most significant for today's theme is the story's conclusion: “And he (Abram) believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

From St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans, chapter 4, through the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification officially ratified by the 1999 Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation, this passage has been key in the church's efforts to understand the mystery of how it is that God justifies (reckons righteous), by grace through faith, us fallen descendants of Adam and Eve. – John Rollefson

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Finally, we receive a summation of the truth about faith: It is not logical. What we hope for is not visible.

The author's succinct definition of faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (v 1) is borne out in the conclusion drawn from the history of the faithful, all of whom “died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them” (v 13a). This throws faith into its appropriate attitude of leaning into the future to which a promise always leads where its fulfillment is awaited in what both Paul (Romans 8:24–25, e.g.) and the Psalmist (33:22) call “hope.”

. . . The author's description of the faithful as “strangers and foreigners (sojourners) on the earth…seeking a homeland” is an apt description of the pilgrim character of the church, bringing us full circle back to father Abraham whose first recorded act of faith was to respond to God's call to “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you” in trusting obedience, “not knowing where he was going” (v 8b). . .

We cannot prove that we are justified to have faith and hope. Rather, faith and hope feed each other and we come by them most possibly with our eyes (see the stars!) and ears (hear the word of God!) open to what is impossible… and yet true.

John Rollefson is a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He has served congregations in Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, Milwaukee, and San Francisco.

Homily Service 40, no. 9 (2007): 13-22.

Ask and Receive – 24 July 2016 – 10th Sunday after Pentecost/ Lectionary 17/ Proper 12

We pray persistently. . . not to open God's heart, for it is always opened to us, but to build up a relationship with God. . . . Prayer gives us not only a way for dialogue, but a reason to have it, for in and through prayer we come to know God as our friend, our protector, our provider.– Judy Buck-Glenn

Luke 11:1-13

In The Hidden Gospel: Decoding the Spiritual Message of the Aramaic Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1999) Douglas-Klotz briefly considers portions of this Lukan lesson, writing: “All three words that ask us to exert ourselves—‘ask,’ ‘seek,’ and ‘knock’—in Aramaic reflect the sense of creating space with sincere intensity” (63). We cannot overemphasize the importance of naming aloud what we seek, need, fear, cannot accept, long for, and so on, which serves to remind us of what is most important to us, and what we are willing to work for. The quote above, coupled with. . . “The inner shrine by which God's name is hallowed can be developed only through letting go, releasing some of the clutter inside” – both calls us to listen to ourselves as we pray in order to fully comprehend, and make room for what we are seeking. – Carol J. Noren

“Lord, teach us how to pray.” Preachers preach extended series on the Lord's Prayer. Teachers teach semesters on the elements of prayer. Books are written on just this prayer. We spend a lifetime trying to understand the power of prayer. This is an impossible passage to preach, especially on a Sunday in late July when many are gone on vacation, often including the preacher, and those who remain stick to the warm pews and dream about the lake or an air-conditioned restaurant. . . .

If this is a Sunday to delve into the depths of prayer, a more academic approach could be taken. Expound on the different kinds of prayer found in a worship service, and in the Lord's Prayer (adoration, petition, confession, intercession, etc.). Or pick one petition with which your people struggle; forgiveness perhaps, or our worry about daily bread. 

Whatever you preach, pray this prayer together, reminding the congregation of the millions of other believers who join with you this day. – Hilda A. Parks

Genesis 18:20-23

The story of Abraham and YAHWEH discussing the fate of Sodom. . . explores the complicated and often confusing relationship between God's justice and mercy. At first it seems like Abraham is bargaining with YAHWEH over the fate of the city. But if bargaining it is, YAHWEH does not seem to be very good at it, since he easily concedes to Abraham. Abraham is not so good at it either since he gives up after reaching ten innocents. Rather, as has been pointed out by Walter Brueggemann, this dialogue is an exploration of “God's righteousness and its power and authority in the face of wickedness” (Genesis [Atlanta: John Knox, 1982] 170). . . . “Does God's justice leave room for mercy?” The answer in this dialogue: “Yes.” ­– Jeffrey Galbraith

Colossians 2:6-15 [16-19]

In Colossians, Paul reminds his readers that Christ lives within us. . . . which grows as we spend time in prayer and meditation. – Carol J. Noren

 Judith M. M. Buck-Glenn is associate rector at Christ Church Episcopal, in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania.

Jeffrey Galbraith is pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Greenfield, MA, and a professor of business administration at Greenfield Community College.

Carol J. Noren, a United Methodist pastor, is the Wesley W. Nelson professor of homiletics at North Park Theological Seminary. She served churches as pastor in Minnesota for twenty years.

Hilda A. Parks, ordained in the United Methodist Church, also holds a PhD in Liturgical Studies from Drew University, Madison, New Jersey.

Homily Service 40, no. 8 (2007): 39-47.