No longer shall you be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a host of nations. I will render you exceedingly fertile; I will make nations of you; kings shall stem from you. I will maintain my covenant with you and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. Genesis 17:5-7
Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing; but it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’” John 8:54
Piety
Let us pray: God, we thank you for your everlasting covenant. As descendent in faith of Abraham, our inheritance is the covenant you made with your obedient servant. Continue to bless us with the gifts carried by your Holy Spirit – gifts that will empower us to surrender our identity, our lives and our very selves to make a leap of faith with you. Amen.
Study
Jesus the storyteller has two sides.
First, we encounter the parable-teller. Jesus reaches down creatively many times to come up with parables that illustrate some of the difficult lessons that he wants to teach His followers. Today, we do not encounter the parable-teller. Instead, Jesus is preaching a lesson which the Jews are taking literally. We see how the literal-trap works in today’s Gospel from John.
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death." (So) the Jews said to him, "Now we are sure that you are possessed. Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, 'Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.' Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? Or the prophets, who died? Who do you make yourself out to be?" John 8:51-53
The literal trap first surfaced back in John 3 when Jesus told Nicodemus that Jesus’ followers had to be born again.
Jesus answered and said to him, "Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can a person once grown old be born again? Surely he cannot reenter his mother's womb and be born again, can he?" Jesus answered, "Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. John 3:3-5
How can this happen? Jesus is stretching the minds and spirituality of his followers. He does not want them to be comfortable with human understanding. He wants us to work on trying to understand things as God understands them.
Throughout Lent, many readings have focused on how God can know what is in our hearts. God is not limited to the boundaries of human learning. He goes beyond that. Jesus wants his followers to go beyond human understanding as well. But why? Why not bring out the parable-teller so we can better understand?
Maybe God wants us to start to stretch our mind. If we start to try to stretch our minds, then maybe we can fathom the enormous scope of the covenant that God made with Abraham…the same pact that Jesus recalls in today’s encounter.
That contract has two sides…God proposes an everlasting pact. It appears that God has made a pretty substantial first, best offer. Despite our constant betrayals, God wants to restore his relationship with us and our relationship with him. He does not wait for us to act. He takes the initiative.
“I am making you the father of a host of nations.
I will render you exceedingly fertile;
I will make nations of you;
Kings shall stem from you.
I will maintain my covenant with you and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now staying, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and
I will be their God.”
For our part, we are asked to do one thing:
“On your part, you and your descendants after you must keep my covenant throughout the ages.”
How in the world can we comprehend something that goes so far beyond our ability? How in the world can we hope to live up to that covenant? Without God, our efforts are nought. God knows that and we have to learn that. We can not stand on the crutch of parables forever.
In this story told by Simone Weil in Waiting for God, we get a down to earth example of God’s power overcoming our limitations if we just let God take over. “There are people who try to raise their souls like a man continually taking standing jumps in the hopes that, if he jumps higher every day, a time may come when he will no longer fall back but will go right up to the sky. Thus occupied, he cannot look at the sky. We cannot take a single step toward heaven. It is not in our power to travel in a vertical direction. If however, we look heavenward for a long time, God comes and takes us up. He raises us easily.”
Action
Do you remember the deadline that you missed in the office last week? Or when your homework was late? Or when you worked overtime and missed that lacrosse game or marching band performance? Now, imagine keeping a covenant throughout the ages. However, that was not a condition of the covenant. God said that no matter what we do, his pact to bless us would be everlasting. Yet it would be preferred if we were obedient. Abraham gave up his former identity and his former homeland. He was asked to be obedient, to follow through on what God asked of him.
Go throughout this week and keep every commitment that you make to those you love and others around you. Write down every commitment so that you will not forget them. Imagine the scroll needed if God wrote down every commitment he has made to us through the ages.
Go throughout this week and keep every commitment that you make to those you love and others around you. Write down every commitment so that you will not forget them. Imagine the scroll needed if God wrote down every commitment he has made to us through the ages.
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