Lent 2B Sermon, "The Everlasting Story"

Lent 2B

March 4, 2012

“The Everlasting Story”

Genesis 17.1-7, 15-16

This past year or so I’ve had the ability to watch a bit more TV than I have in the past. I find myself drawn to shows like NCIS and CSI, mostly because they are mystery or detective shows. I love a good problem-solving story. But I also find show such as these compelling. What’s fascinating is, though I’ve literally come in the middle of them, the shows have a way of drawing me in. They give me enough to know what’s going on and of what has come before. The really good ones also give a hint of where the story is going. The better shows are the ones that believable characters who though interesting, are far from perfect. They have a story that somehow rings true and touches on the questions that are present and important in my life.

It seems to me that the preceding description could just as easily apply to the biblical narrative. The difference, other than solving problems in 60 minutes or less is that we are a part of the biblical story. One of the great things about Christianity, aside from the good news that God has given us new life through Jesus Christ, is that we are part of story larger than we are. This larger story is one that gives us meaning and purpose. The story we find ourselves in, to quote a book title of Brian McLaren’s, is a powerful if not baffling one. Because of the biblical story, we know that God is working in the world and in our lives, though we can’t always understand it.

That’s why the stories of people like Abraham and Sarah are so important for us. Imagine for a moment what it would have been like for them to be in the middle of that particular story. Abraham and Sarah are an older couple to whom God has been promising for at least 13 years that they’d have a child. Not only have a child, but also that they’d have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. They don’t always get it, as when they took the story into their own hands through Hagar. They thought that perhaps they didn’t understand properly, that maybe the promise was for Abraham and not Sarah. In our lesson today, God stresses that the promise is to both of them. Furthermore, Abraham and don’t see the total unfolding of God’s promise, but God does gives them glimpses it and asks for their trust in bringing it to fruition.

Two thousand years later, there was another group of folk who found themselves caught up in God’s story. They were following a wandering teacher, preachers, and healer who did some amazing things and said some crazy other things. They knew the Abraham and Sarah story plus many more. They knew that God had made promises to them and the world, but Jesus rocked their world in way they didn’t expect. They couldn’t see how one could save their life by losing it, how there could be life in death. But, as Abraham, Sarah, and those who came between, they trusted in God’s presence and promises.

Two thousand more years, we are also in the midst of God’s unfolding story. Incredible as it may seem, we are active characters in God’s story just as much as Abraham, Sarah, and the disciples. Like Abraham, Sarah, and the disciples, we also trust that God is calling us to a future of God’s making. We know something of the beginning and the middle, and we have a hint about the ending. We trust that God is working powerfully if not crazily in our lives, inviting us to join in the story as it unfolds. As Barbara Brown Taylor says, “What better way to live than in the grip of a promise, and a divine one at that?” God gripped each of us in a divine promise in our baptisms and guarantees we are a part of the unfolding story. The story isn’t always an easy one, and we can’t always see what our part is. Even so, we trust that God has a mission to love and bless the world, for which gave his Son, and God invites us to follow. I can’t think of a better story to live in or a better story to live into. Thanks be to God, Amen.