12th Sunday in
Pentecost – Year C – Lectionary 19
Genesis
15:1-6; Luke 12:32-40
Have
No Fear – Little Flock
A few years ago the students and
I adopted a Lenten discipline of memorizing a verse of scripture every
day. Let me confess it didn’t go as well
as we had hoped it would. Not their
failings; mine. It isn’t easy to
memorize 40 verses within the span of 46 days.
The other mistake was not selecting the verses in advance. So, when the memorization got behind, we (I)
became lapse in picking the verses for the week to come.
If we were to reintroduce that
practice, there are two verses in today’s readings which I would put on that
list – one each from our Old Testament and Gospel lessons.
Let’s start with the last. Luke 12:32.
If you have your bibles go ahead a mark it. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is
your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” I would really like for the
memorization process to begin now. So
repeat it with me - “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s
good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Say it one more time - “Do not be afraid,
little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Luke
12:32.
In my sermons I keep referring to
these new, upstart theologians with whom I am so impressed. Practically all of them begin their
theological work from the perspective of Luke 12:32. (Can you repeat that verse?) They ask why we fail to BEGIN our talk of God
with an affirmation of what it is that God intends to do. God’s intention is to “give us the
kingdom”. His goal is to assure us
that we don’t have any reason to be afraid.
We have no reason to fear.
That is a difficult message to
get through. It runs counter to what has
been so carefully taught by those who saw the change coming and in preparation
started shoring up their defenses.
Latinized Christianity took its stand in 1868, when Pope Pius IX
convened Vatican I primarily as a means of instituting Papal Infallibility. Same mindset when to work in the independent protestant
side. The “Niagara Bible Conferences”
got started in 1878 and over the course of a few years the participants developed
what came to be known as the “Five Fundamental Principals.” These were asserted as the five irrefutable truths of Christian faith. Without the authority figure of a Pope, Protestants
wanted to assert the ultimate authority of dogma. This
group of folks wanted their own means by which one could be judged as correct
or in error.
This mindset of fundamental, infallible
pronouncements grew and grew and grew from the early 1900’s – grew through the
age when “Rapture” and “Spiritual warfare” were added to the historical annals. It is not a way of thinking which leaves much
room for a “Father” whose “good pleasure” it is to “give you the kingdom.” It gives rise to the image of sinners in the
hands of an angry God.
That mindset reached it pinnacle
around the 1960’s which is just about the time that the house of cards came
tumbling down and the Church began to fade into the background of cultural
significance.
Many of you, in this room, came
to maturity during those years. And most
of you were well schooled in the language of “You had better listen, or
else.” Too few were greeted at the door
of their house of worship with the simple, undeniable Truth of Luke 12:32.
Repeat it with me - “Do not be
afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the
kingdom.”
That is the first verse worth
remembering. The second is the
concluding verse of our Old Testament reading.
It is important, as a way of shoring up the first. But I want to warn you ahead of time that I
am going to ask you to keep an open mind about the interpretation of that
verse.
It is the last verse – Genesis 15:6. Look at it in your bibles or on the back
cover of the bulletin.
This verse gives Abraham and
Sarah the confidence they needed as they set forth on their journey with
God. And remember it isn’t a smooth
journey. Sodom and Gomorrah are part of
the story. As is the taking of Sarah to
be a wife of a dessert King. But they did it.
They made it. And this verse
figures into their ability to do so.
Look at it with me. I really didn’t ask Donna to do this, but if
you notice the bulletin has an asterisk in the last line. Donna cuts and pastes this from the web, so
what you see is the asterisk, but not the footnote to which it refers. Anyone have their own bible, with the
footnote in tack? If you do, there is an
alternative reading for this verse. It
may read as printed here, “And he believed the LORD; and the LORD* reckoned
it to him as righteousness.” Or it
might read, “And he believed the LORD; and HE (as in Abraham) reckoned it to
him (the LORD) as righteousness.”
This alternative translation
suggests that what happens here is that Abraham sees God’s righteousness; that the
exchange has less to do with God’s confidence in Abraham and more about Abraham’s
ability to trust God.
Time to practice this verse. But say it the way the footnote
suggests. “And he believed the LORD;
and HE reckoned it to him as righteousness.”
Abraham had no reason to
fear. He has seen and experienced God’s righteousness. Abraham had come to understand God’s
intentions toward him and those intentions were beyond measure.
I hope there is at least one of
you, if not several dozen of you, who are searching your memory (maybe even
your bible) for those verses in the New Testament in which Genesis 15:6 is
clearly interpreted as a statement of God seeing righteousness in Abraham. They are in Romans, Chapter 4. Clearly, in those paragraphs, Paul interprets
Genesis 15:6 as God gaining confidence in Abraham. That is one of the reasons (if not the main
reason) that translators of Bibles make the results of years of study a
footnote without touching the sacred interpretation of the verse.
When I look at my own attempts at
righteousness, I am filled with fear. I
haven’t sold my possessions, given the money to the poor, and followed
Jesus. There are no skeletons in my
closet which would result in defrocking, but there are a bunch which would
disappoint you and give you reason to shake your heads.
When I turn my gauze toward God,
and God’s righteousness, those self-centered evaluations fall to the
wayside. I see in each new day the
opportunity to step forward as if from the baptismal waters for the first
time. I know that regardless of how others
might see me or how I might judge myself that when God sees me he sees one to
whom it is his good pleasure to give me the kingdom. And thus, I will have no fear.
Join me, will you? Let’s say it one more time:
“Do not be afraid, little flock,
for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Amen.
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