Lectionary Readings
O God, in your abundant grace you sent your Son to be the light of the world: Grant that we may come and see the difference that Christ makes in each of us as we seek to become your beloved community; and as we gather in intentional worship, may we ever be reminded of your transformative love which is the foundation of our faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
O God, in your abundant grace you sent your Son to be the light of the world: Grant that we may come and see the difference that Christ makes in each of us as we seek to become your beloved community; and as we gather in intentional worship, may we ever be reminded of your transformative love which is the foundation of our faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
What are those events that have made a difference in your life? The birth of a child, the death of a spouse, your parents’ divorce, a heart attack, the day someone took a chance on you and gave you a job, marrying the love of your life – these are all difference-making events, as they not only mark a change of status, but they also fundamentally change how we live and move in the world.
Last Sunday, we introduced a new identity statement for us as Christians who gather at St. Luke’s: Come and See the difference Christ makes through beloved community, intentional worship, and abundant grace. Today, as we consider the covenant that God makes with Abram, I want to think about the difference that Christ makes in all of our lives. That list of difference-making events in our lives ought to also include our Baptism into the Death and Resurrection of Jesus.
Now, I realize that for some, the difference that Christ makes might not be clear. After all, there are plenty of non-Christians who seem to be doing fairly well, and plenty of Christians who seem to be as far from Christ as you can be. When it comes to the difference that Christ makes, it’s not about degree – so we can’t measure the difference that Christ makes based on happiness, or net worth, or even church attendance. Instead, the difference that Christ makes is a difference of kind. Christ is about the New Creation, where the categories that we use to divide and classify no longer matter. The difference that Christ makes isn’t even about us, it’s about naming grace as the operative force in the world.
Consider Abraham, who hasn’t yet had his name changed from Abram. God had previously promised him that he would become the father of a great nation. There was only one problem from Abram’s perspective, he was childless. He was fearful of dying without any heirs. He was becoming doubtful of whether or not God was going to make any difference in his life.
God speaks to him and tells him, though he’s made legal arrangements for a servant to be his inheritor, that he will indeed be the biological father of a great nation. And then God does a curious thing, telling Abram to look up and count the stars, because that’s how numerous his descendants shall be. And Abram believed in God and the promise.
Now, if it were me, I’d be looking for more than a quick astronomy lesson. I’d say “This is lovely, God, but I was hoping for something more like a baby in my wife’s womb.” It is God’s word that changes everything for Abram; it is God’s word manifest in the grandeur of Creation that makes all the difference.
When Abram came to know God not as an abstract idea, not as a detached Olympian god, not as something within himself, but as active, relational, personal, and responsive, it made all the difference for him, and this difference was “reckoned to him as righteousness,” which is another way of saying that he was made different by the difference of God. Once he heard the word of grace, the covenant of grace became operative in his life.
We then heard about a rather interesting ritual. God tells Abram to get a heifer, goat, ram, turtledove, and pigeon and is instructed to cut them in half. Then a fire pot and flaming torch, both symbolizing God, passed through the carcasses. This is what was known as a suzerain-vassal treaty. In that culture, when a king entered into a treaty with someone, this was how you enacted the agreement. The person making the pledge to the king would walk through the carcasses, as if to say “May I be like these animals if I go back on my word.” What is noteworthy about this particular ritual is that it is not Abram who walks through the carcasses, as would be expected, rather it is God who does that.
This covenant is all about God’s grace. Abram doesn’t contribute much of anything to the promise, just having marital relations with his wife. And God does the rest – God has promised descendants and land and takes on the burden and responsibility for keeping the covenant alive. I hope that this is a theme that you’ve picked up on – it’s always about God’s grace towards us, not what we bring to the equation.
Of course, when this same God who made this promise to Abram took on flesh and came to us in Jesus, we see the terms of the covenant being fulfilled on the Cross. That’s why at the center of our identity statement at St. Luke’s there is a cross. The difference that Christ makes rests on the Cross and beloved community, abundant grace, and intentional worship all revolve around the Cross. The particular cross that you see is known as a Canterbury Cross, so not only does it represent our Anglican heritage, but it also reminds us that it is the Cross of Christ that makes all the difference in lives.
This is the difference that Christ makes – showing us that reality is cross-shaped. The Cross is something like a microscope that brings into vision the deeper realities which give life to the world. The Cross shows us that God is deeply invested in Creation, that God is willing to go as far as it takes to show us love, that God’s winning looks an awful lot like what we might call “losing.”
In the same way that Abram came to trust God when he was shown the starry night, the Cross is to do the same thing for us. For Abram, that vast array of stars and the Milky Way was not only a promise, but it showed him the expansive, beautiful, and shining nature of God. The same source which created all things, the very same God who created all things and yet has chosen him to flourish is what Abram encounters in this night vision. He doesn’t need to feel the baby kick in his wife’s womb to trust that all shall be well, because he came to trust what the great spiritual taught us as children – “God’s got the whole world in his hands.” And if the whole world is in God’s hands, then, indeed, the promise will be fulfilled.
In a very different way, the Cross also shows us the beauty, depth, wideness, and grandeur of God’s gracious love. And it is that love which is seen through the Cross that makes all the difference. The Cross shows us that love is the most powerful force in the world, that forgiveness is the holiest relationship in the world, that humility and self-giving is the most natural way of being in the world. Another way of saying this is that Cross shows us the grain of the universe.
One theologian has said that the relationship between our faith and God’s triumph is not a relationship of cause and effect, but rather one of Cross and Resurrection. In other words, God gives us not what we deserve, but rather God gives us grace, mercy, and peace, which God has abundantly, but we are sorely lacking. He goes on to say that the way that we share in this victory, the way in which we work with the grain of the universe instead of against it is by singing about the Resurrection of the crucified Lamb of God. And that’s a very different thing. We do not worship a God who is the unmoved mover, we do not worship a God who is the undefeated champion, we do not worship a God who blesses us in exchange for worship. Instead, we worship a different sort of God, a God who blesses abundantly, who loves lavishly, who died and rose again. And that makes all the difference.
The difference the Cross makes is that it shifts our vision around priorities, it gives us hope that unless we’ve gotten to the Good News of God that the story isn’t over, it teaches us that we were made from love, redeemed by love, saved by love, and are destined for love. Because the Cross is the grain of the universe, we are therefore able to encounter the abundant life that God intends and desires for us.
I met recently with another member of the Salisbury clergy, someone who is often on the leading edge of conversations in our community that make people uncomfortable. And for his work, he has been rejected by some, dismissed by others, some have made death threats against him. And he says that the thing that people have trouble understanding about him is why he continues doing his work in the face of such hatred and opposition. His answer is simple, he says “Because I believe that Jesus is risen from the dead.” He has looked at the Cross and seen the grain the universe. And so for one, his fear is tempered by hope. But more than that, if we trust that Jesus is risen from the dead, then the question becomes “how do we keep from singing” those songs of victory about the Lamb of God? Because of Christ, we sing with joy in the New Creation.
This is the difference that Christ makes. His song of victory becomes the tune by which we know God to be loving, liberating, and life-giving. Christ’s song of victory is the music which stirs our souls to trust in faith, hope, and love. Christ’s song of victory is the harmony in which we can join the Spirit’s work of proclaiming the Good News. Christ’s song is the melody of transformative love that makes us different. That’s the difference that Christ makes, his song is the one that gives us a reason to dance.
