Notes from a Sojourn
June 14, 2020
Is Anything Too Hard For God?
A Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 18.1-15 and Matthew 9.35 - 10.15
Two questions.
How can Jesus speak of a harvest when the work hasn’t even begun?
How can the Lord say to Abraham and Sarah, “You will conceive a son”?
Two questions. But beneath both of them is, really, one question:
Is anything too hard for God? (Or, as we hear it delightfully inverted in the translation we read of Genesis, “Is anything too wonderful” for God?)
That underlying question lies at the heart of being a disciple, I think. It hovers always - implicitly or explicitly - at the centre of our vocation as self-declared followers of Jesus Christ. And, like the two questions I began with, it can surface in many forms:
Is this way of life possible to live?
Can I trust God with my whole life?
Can this community we’re striving to be ever be?
I think we’d agree that these are tough questions. And, I think, if we examine them closely we can see why they’re tough: because they’re questions of faith. And faith questions beg, no, demand a response, a decision really, from you, and me, and us.
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It’s no accident to me that these faith questions confront us today for two reasons.
The first is liturgical.
Together, we have arrived at the threshold of “Ordinary Time.” Since December, we have journeyed from the announcement of Christ’s birth through the gift of his life: his works, his words, his passion, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, and the gift of his Spirit. Last Sunday we responded to the mystery revealed to us in this life by giving it a name. We called it “Trinity” – God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Creator, Redeemer, and Giver of Life.
Having recalled the mystery of our salvation revealed in that story, we are now, at the threshold of the ongoing story of our lives, individually and collectively. And we’re being asked, through today’s Gospel and Genesis story to answer that faith question for ourselves: is anything too hard for God? Is any of this too wonderful for you to believe? Ordinary Time is a season of discipleship, a season of daily asking and deciding our answer to that question. And how we respond daily will shape the texture of our experience as we move into the future of our lives.
The second reason why the timing of this ‘faith question’ is not accidental to me is right here and right now.
Together we are at the threshold, yet again, of a new future in this parish. Since November 2018 we have journeyed from the birth announcement of The Area Parish of the St. Lawrence through some very interesting times. Some of them wonderful and joyful. Others routine and laborious. Some painful.
At this threshold we should make time to reflect on everything that has happened so far in our story and to ask these tough but necessary faith questions:
Is it possible for us to live Christ’s way of life in this place? If yes, what does that demand of our behaviour to each other as we move forward?
Can we trust our whole future to God? If yes, how is God approaching us in our neighbours to guide and help us (be they neighbouring congregants within our parish or neighbours outside of it)?
Can the community we are striving to become – a parish sharing Christ’s ministry together in this area – ever be? If yes, what do we need to let go of and what do we need to hold on to?
These are our faith questions. We can answer “no.” We can answer “yes.” We can decline to ask or answer them all together. But however we answer them will shape the texture of our experience as we we live into our future as a parish.
A lot depends on our answer to these questions. But not everything.
By way of conclusion, I want to offer what I think is a sobering observation of the Genesis story we heard to frame our consideration of these ‘faith questions’.
The Genesis story we heard today is pivotal to the entire story of human salvation. The birth promised - the birth of the promised Isaac (who will beget Jacob, who begets Joseph, whose lineage then begets Moses and Elijah, Elizabeth and John the Baptist, Mary and eventually Jesus Christ himself) does not begin with Abraham and Sarah “embracing the call” from God. It actually begins in their resistance and the mockery of laughter. The Lord’s question “Is anything too wonderful for God?” is left unanswered; the Lord asks why Sarah laughed; she denies she did and is afraid of the future God plans through her and Abraham. The story ends with the Lord reminding her, “Oh yes, you did laugh.” It’s tense.
Walter Brueggemann, an Old Testament scholar and theologian says of this pivotal story: “The resolve of God to open a future by a new heir does not depend on the readiness of Abraham and Sarah to accept it. God keeps his own counsel and will work his own will. It will happen, if not in a context of ready faith (which is here denied), then in a context of fearful, resistant laughter.” [1]
For Abraham and Sarah, a lot depends on their answer, but not everything. The future God is bringing into being through them seems to be coming whether they have faith in it or not! What depends on their answer will be the way they experience it.
The same goes for us. Our answers to the challenging faith questions before us in this time will change how we experience the future God is giving us. So, will God’s future break into our lives like “a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5.2) or will it break upon us like “the dawn from on high” (Lk 1.78)?
Will we experience the gestation of God’s promised future with faith in the joyful laughter that follows the necessary labour?
Will we undertake our call to minister God’s healing touch and words of life with the worry-free joy of farmers gathering their crops at the end of season?
Or maybe we will resist God’s inbreaking all the way down to the bottom, cursing the growing pains of newness and the riskiness of Christ’s ministry as the source of our grief, resentments, and strife?
As I said, not everything depends on our answer, but a lot does.
As I see it, there’s good news and there’s bad news, depending on our point of view: God’s future is breaking in upon us whether we have faith in it or not. The question that might make all the difference for us is this: do we believe it?
Colin+
[1] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis from the series Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Westminster John Knox Press: 2010, p. 160.