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.

Being Truly Born – 31 May 2015 – Holy Trinity

Commenting on Holy Trinity Sunday in Homily Service (2006), Stephen Crippen shared a colleague’s caution about the substance of the sermon:

Melissa Skelton, priest of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Seattle, offered these warnings in her sermon on Trinity Sunday last year: “Preaching on Trinity Sunday is a daunting task fraught with three dangers: the danger of getting lost in church history, the danger of getting lost in abstract concepts of God, and the danger of getting lost in only talking about God and forgetting what God cares about—us, our lives, this world. And so let’s resist the temptation to talk much about the Council of Nicaea and the heresies of the early church; let’s abandon the abstract symbolism of triangles or intersecting circles; and let’s turn our backs on discussions of homoousia and perichoresis, both arcane terms used to describe the inner life of the Trinity.” – Stephen Crippen

We do not have to abandon theological talk or historical context altogether on this Sunday. But all words need to lead toward the main point which is the hope we have because of God’s power to renew all things.

John 3:1-17

The mission of God is not a human project, capable of being accomplished by “flesh.” Rather, it requires the intervention of God and a new life in the Spirit. Contrary to the manner in which human power and will are exercised, life in the Spirit is received by trusting in the Son of Man who is “lifted up.” Although at this point in the story Nicodemus is unable to understand this allusion to the cross, the reader understands that Jesus speaks of the mystery through which God gives life to the world. – Aaron Couch

This renewal transcends all time and all places. It is not always polite and comfortable. For Nicodemus, it involved stealthy sneaking through the dark. For Isaiah, it was fear-inducing.

Isaiah 6:1-8

Isaiah recounts his experience of being called to serve the LORD. It involved a terrifying glimpse of God’s transcendent holiness, attended by strange heavenly beings. The greatness of God reveals the smallness and insubstantiality of the created order. The holiness of God reveals Isaiah’s sinfulness. Yet the prophet recounts how God removes his guilt, making it possible for Isaiah to offer himself for the sake of God’s mission. – Aaron Couch

Romans 8:12-17

Paul writes about suffering with Christ, the pull of the desires of the flesh, and of being adopted to live as children of God. The church struggles with these realities all the time, but we are accompanied by the power beyond ourselves.

The Spirit, like rain, moves not in a celestial sphere, but right here in our messy, conflicted and hard-to-control communities. We find ourselves in parishes and neighborhoods with plenty of problems and challenges. We’re sometimes delighted to work alongside others in the activities and challenges of the group, but we’re also confronted by—no, irritated and annoyed by—the sometimes cranky and often troublesome people who surround us. The Spirit finds its way in and around communities that aren’t exactly winsome and attractive. Yet it is here, in our ordinary sanctuaries and parish halls, committee rooms and kitchens, that the work of ministry is begun and sent outward, like rain, in all directions, to all places. Dreary work? Sometimes. But delightful, too. So, if we imagine Spirit as Rain, let us by doing so bring life to a parched world. – Stephen Crippen

Aaron Couch is co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon. 

Stephen Crippen is a psychotherapist and a deacon in the episcopal Diocese of Olympia, Washington.

Homily Service 39, no. 7 (2006): 20-30.