Promise Keeping

The Rev. Sandy Selby – St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Akron Ohio

2^nd Sunday in Lent, Year C – March 4, 2007

Texts: Genesis 15:1-12, 15-17; and Luke 13:31-35

This time last year our former Rector was five weeks into his retirement, and our parish had begun a process of self-study aimed at developing a “parish profile” for use in our search for a new rector. The process involved surveys and meetings and lots of conversation. In October we published our Parish Profile, which the Search Committee that was commissioned last summer has made available to candidates, one of whom will become our 26^th Rector.

The process of writing the profile was one of discernment in which we asked ourselves three vital questions: Who are we? What is God calling us to do and to be? What kind of rector will help us fulfill God’s calling?

If you have not read the profile I encourage you to do so. It says a lot about who we are and about our hope for the future. Copies are available in the Commons and on our website.

The first page of the profile is called, appropriately, “forward.” The word “forward” is not unusual at the beginning of a book as an introductory statement about the work that will follow. But the “forward” of our Parish Profile, in just one page, says things that are quite profound about our life together as the people of God. I want to reflect on that with you, this morning.

The “forward” describes our search for new leadership as a “process of learning and listening,” a time of “self-discovery” and “transition,” a “discernment process.” Elsewhere, the search for a new rector is called a “journey.” A journey, indeed.

Much has happened here in the thirteen months since Richard McCandless retired. We have grieved the departure of Jim Beebe and Richard, who worked so closely together here for nearly fourteen years and left within four months of each other. We called a part-time associate rector in May and an interim priest in June. We have carried on our ministries of education for children, youth and adults. We have gone on mission trips in the U.S. and abroad, and have continued our strong ministry of music. Our clergy and lay visitors are calling on more people in homes, hospitals, and nursing facilities than we have in many years. In thirteen months we have had eighteen baptisms, twenty confirmations, thirteen weddings, and thirty-nine funerals. We have tried some new things in our liturgy—some people have liked the changes, and some have not.

We have been on a journey together here at St. Paul’s, and it has not always been easy. Times of transition offer opportunity for growth and new life and in that sense can be exciting. But transition can also be a perplexing and unsettling wilderness.

My seminary homiletics professor said that the task of a preacher is to discern and convey, through the work of the Holy Spirit, “the good news for this people, in this place, on this day.”

The “forward” of our Parish Profile includes a verse from Scripture that frames the good news for this parish: For he was looking forward to the city which has fixed and firm foundations, whose architect and builder was God. The “he” in this passage from the 11^th chapter of Hebrews is Abraham.

You know the story of Abraham. In the 12^th chapter of Genesis God calls Abraham to leave his home in Haran, in modern-day Iraq, to go to the land that God will show him. God promises to make of Abraham a great nation, to bless him and make his name great. With his wife Sarah and assorted relatives Abraham sets forth on the long journey to the land of Canaan. Having been met there by a terrible famine, they travel on to Egypt, encountering danger on the way.

Eventually they return again to Canaan. But Abraham is called into military battle to rescue his nephew Lot from the eastern kings. Having been triumphant in battle, he returns to the oaks of Mamre in Canaan, where we pick up the story in today’s lesson from the 15^th chapter of Genesis.

God comes to Abraham in a vision and makes a covenant with him containing two promises. The first is the promise of an heir. When Abraham expresses his doubts (he being in his 80s and his wife Sarah being barren), God expresses the promise even more extravagantly: Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them…So shall your descendents be. And Abraham believes him.

Then God makes a second promise to possess the land. When Abraham demurs, God seals the covenant and promises Abraham more land than he can imagine.

In time Sarah bears Isaac, and Abraham demonstrates his obedience to God by being willing to sacrifice his heir and lose the dream of a great nation in the process. Isaac is spared. While Abraham is declared “righteous” because of his obedience, the everlasting covenant between God and Abraham is based not on obligation or obedience, but on the graciousness of God.

The story of journey and deliverance that we see in the life of Abraham foreshadows the story of journey and deliverance by which Moses led the people of God out of slavery in Egypt, through the wilderness and to the Promised Land. Our spiritual ancestors, it seems, were people of the journey.

The 11^th chapter of Hebrews that our Parish Profile quotes is a story of the exemplars of our faith. We hear first of Abel and Enoch and Noah, and then Abraham is introduced: By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.

The writer of Hebrews defines faith as the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Another translation says, Faith gives substance to our hopes and convinces us of realities we do not see (Revised English Bible).

Faith means trusting profoundly in the fundamental reality that undergirds our lives and joins us together on life’s journey: we are children of a personal God who is intimately involved in our lives and works always within and among us for wholeness and love.

Hebrews says that Abraham was looking forward to the city which has fixed and firm foundations, whose architect and builder was God. The city that he envisions is the New Jerusalem, where all people will be gathered unto God in a new heaven and a new earth.

It is a vision that is echoed by Jesus in today’s gospel reading. Jesus is lamenting Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets…Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wing.

Jesus himself is on a journey. Luke tells us that after the Transfiguration on the mountaintop Jesus descended the mountain and set his face toward Jerusalem (9:53). As he walks along the way to Jerusalem, we see Jesus trying to gather the Jews, the people of Jerusalem, under his wings: the lawyer who wonders who his neighbor is; Martha, who is jealous of Mary; the dubious crowds who see Jesus casting out demons; a woman who proclaims her faith above the din of the crowd; a brother seeking his share of the family’s inheritance; the disciples who can’t seem to understand what is happening to them and to Jesus.

Jesus wants nothing more than to gather his people to him, and to shield them as a hen gathers and guards her chicks. Jesus tells us of the God who is nearer to us than we can even know, the God who loves us more than we can imagine.

The Bible tells us over and over again that God’s people are on a journey—often a journey through the wilderness. We people of God are a restless, at times a faithless, people. In the Exodus story we demanded that Moses take us back to Egypt where, at least, things were familiar. But God provided for us, and ultimately we reached the Promised Land—although our leader Moses did not. This is, perhaps, the point. Our leaders will come and go. We are called to trust that God will lead us through the wilderness and bring us to our journey’s end in the New Jerusalem. That is God’s promise to us, the people of the New Covenant.