The Common Roots of Faith

PROPERS:         2 LENT, YEAR C         

TEXT:                 GENESIS 15:1-12, 17-18

PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON SUNDAY, MARCH 17, 2019.

ONE SENTENCE:        Trust, as in the gift of faith, provides the assurance of transformation.

                                    

            Thirty-four years ago today I preached my first sermon – as I described it, “with live ammunition.”  I was invited to preach at St. Paul’s Church, in my hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, as a first-year seminarian.

            To say I was nervous is a monumental understatement. Nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, might describe it.

            But preach, I did.

            The gospel was from the old Episcopal lectionary.  It was the Fourth Sunday in Lent – also St. Patrick’s Day, but that didn’t matter – and the gospel lesson was John 6:4-15.

            That passage is one of the versions of a very familiar story – the feeding of the multitude.  The unique twist in John’s version is that it was a young boy who offered all that he had – five barley loaves and two fish.  That meager offering was used by Jesus to feed the 5,000 Galileans who had gathered on the grassy hillside.

            One boy. Two fish.  Five barley loaves.  And a whole lot of faith.

            The message I saw in that passage was that the young boy’s offering served as the catalyst for the feeding of thousands, and a story which is handed down through the ages.

            It is extraordinary what faith – that is, trust– can do.

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            In the first lesson today, from the Book of Genesis, we have the continuing story of Abram – even before he has become known as Abraham, the patriarch.

            Our lesson is from the 15^thChapter of Genesis.  Abram had received God’s call three chapters earlier – Chapter 12. He has moved from modern-day Turkey, to modern-day Iraq, all the way to Egypt.  And he did this as a faithful response to God’s call.

            Biblical scholars, both Jewish and Christian, will tell you that there are as many ways to interpret a story as there are to peel an onion.  That is certainly true with the Abraham saga. What I am sharing with you is barely scratching the surface of what sages have seen over 3,000 years.

            Abram and his wife Sarai were elderly – he was 75-years-old at the start of his journey.  They were childless – without an heir.  Yet, God promised him that his “descendants would number as the stars” and that in him“all the nations of the earth would be blessed.”

            This was a pretty tall promise by a God of the desert night to an elderly man and his barren wife.

            But despite all the fruitless, seemingly-pointless wandering he had already done, and even though he had not yet been given an heir, Abram trusted the voice of the night wind.  Scripture acknowledges his trust, and we are told, “the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

            The verses which follow are mysterious to us.  Animals are sacrificed and halved.  A deep sleep falls over Abram.  And in the darkness a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch pass between the animal carcasses.  It was an ancient covenant rite – cementing the relationship between God and Abram.

            Fast forward from that moment.  Fast forward beyond a childless couple wandering, meandering through a barren part of the world.

            Today, the three monotheistic faiths – Judaism, Islam, and Christianity – trace their early roots to that wandering Aramean, Abram.  Billions of people – in all corners of the earth – see him as a patriarch of faith.

            Those faithful Jews walking to the Wailing Wallin Jerusalem, acknowledge they descend from his faith.  Those Muslims, who enter the El Aksa Mosque only a few steps away from the Wailing Wall, see him in a similar way.    And Christians of all types – Ethiopian, Coptic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Roman – walk into the sacred precincts of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher give thanks for his lineage, as well.

            Those of us – all of us – who call upon Jesus, Yahweh, or Allah, should have special reverences for Abram’s faith.

            Abram, of course, went on to be the father of Ishmael, whom the Arabs claim as their ancestor.  And he and Sarai – who became Sarah – were the parents of Isaac, who became the father of Jacob, who became the father of the 12 tribes of Israel.

            All from inauspicious, seemingly-hopeless beginnings.  In the solitude and darkness of a desert night.

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            What does this story of Abram and Sarai have to say to us?  And what does the story of the young boy’s five barley loaves and two fish say?

            It is not about magical thinking.  It does not mean that you will get rich if you just believe hard enough.  It does not mean that a better job or material blessings are on the way.

            Here is what I think it says:  If we have faith – that is, trust – God’s spirit can move through our lives and transform us in ways we cannot begin to imagine.  We can find hope where there seems to be none.  We can find peace where there is only turmoil.  We can find meaning where we only see pointless existence.  We can find God’s presence in the midst of a seeming void.

            Scripture tells us again and again – where there is faith, there is hope for transformation.  Be patient. Be still. Have faith.  Trust.