Sunday Reflection - Living by Faith - 2nd Sunday of Lent (Year C)

Genesis 15.1-12, 17-18   Psalm 27  Philippians 3.17 - 4.1  Luke 13.31-35

I told the story recently of my last day at school before A Levels. A group of us in the 6th Form kidnapped our English Teacher and left him on a River promenade about a one-mike walk away from the school. The kidnappers delivered a ransom note to the Staff-room, only to be told that they would be paid double if they kept him!

I’m pleased to say that the very same teacher rang me up this week – and we had a good chat.

What if one of your old teachers rang you up this week? Or your driving instructor?

The relationship between teacher and pupil is one of trust, of faith – you believe in the teacher as you learn and discover new things.

The word for that sort of faith/belief/trust in Hebrew is Emunah. Belief in – not belief about. Where the word Amen comes from. And that’s the faith/belief/trust that’s at work in our readings.

Trust/belief isn't a feeling, nor simply an aspect of a person's character, not something that is solely dependent on which side of bed you get out of this morning. Like many other aspects of love, it's an act of will. It's a choice. It's a decision. And it's a decision that lies behind the four readings that we have just heard.

Abram believed, trusted, had faith in God – and God reckoned or credited it to him as righteousness.

This is the trust that Paul says is so important for Christian faith:

Romans 4.2-3: “If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness”

Galatians 3.5-6 “So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Abram's experience, before God renames him Abraham, encourages him to choose to trust the Lord who has called him to leave his father's home. The Lord has promised him a future - a family and a home that will grow and endure. But here he is in his late seventies without a child he can call his own.

The vision that he has in his sleep is hard for us to understand. What meaning does it have for Abram to see in the deep darkness a blazing torch and a firepot walking among the animal sacrifice that he has prepared? It's a reference to the agreement that two parties would make, invoking a blessing if they kept it, and a curse if they didn't - mentioned on Jeremiah 34.19. What's unusual here is that only one person is making the agreement instead of two. And that person is the Lord, who is walking alone among the animal sacrifices with the fire and the torch. He is promising by himself to be faithful - and invoking a curse on himself if he is not. It's another way of his saying, as he says to Moses in the burning bush, I Am Who I Am, or I Will Be Who I Will Be. Inspired by this vision of God's faithfulness and patience, Abram exercises faith/belief/trust a little longer. He has 25 years to wait before Isaac's birth - and there are many twists and turns in the story before then. But the message is clear. God's faithfulness will rule the day. And Abram is encouraged not simply to believe in his head that God exists, but to believe and trust in his heart that God will act.

Jesus approaches Jerusalem. In the reading, we see how he deals with two forms of opposition to who he is and what he says and lives. The first is from those who seek to unsettle him with King Herod's death threats. They won't divert Jesus from his goal. He makes the decision with faith/trust/belief to keep going. The second opposition is more subtle but more upsetting. It's the indifference of the people he seeks to reach. He describes his longing for them as like that of a mother hen keeping her offspring safe - as a mother hen would, for example, when a fire is raging. With faithfulness and with long-suffering, he chooses to keep loving them.

Paul encounters different forms of opposition and indifference in the early Christian community. He sees people he describes as enemies of the cross of Christ - whose lives are focused entirely on satisfying their own material appetites, and caring nothing for the life they are called to live as Christians, citizens of the kingdom of heaven - the love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control that is the fruit of a life lived in love of God and their fellow human beings. His response is to admit his feelings - he weeps. Then it is to encourage his readers to remember their heavenly citizenship, and to live in obedience to God's call. He chooses to trust God - and he calls them to trust God too - " Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends!"

David, the author of Psalm 27, has been stripped of everything and everyone who encourages and supports him, who gives him validation. See how he writes of his enemies. He feels keenly the loss of his parents. It only makes sense to say, "The Lord is my light and salvation", when you are in darkness. The prophet Micah says, "Though I sit in darkness, the Lord is my light." (Micah 7.8).

David responds by choosing to believe, to trust, to have faith. The last verse of the Psalm says: " Wait for the Lord; be strong and he shall comfort your heart; wait patiently for the Lord"

How, then. may I exercise trust? It's a choice. It's a choice of being open to the faithfulness of God, even in the midst of intense provocation. This is the God who in his Son experiences the loneliness of Gethsemane, the desertion of his disciples, the agony and humiliation of the Cross. But this is the God who wins the ultimate victory.

The God in whom we believe – and in whom we place our trust in saying the Creed.

We believe….  

Steve