Preached at the Bishop James Hannington Memorial Cathedral in Mumias, Kenya
In the name of God ☩ Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Psalm 133 begins with: “O how good and pleasant it is when siblings dwell together in unity.” Indeed, it is so very good to be here. On behalf of Dora, Amy, and Tory, we are so delighted to be here, and we are overwhelmed with the beauty of your country and people. We are so very appreciative of the hospitality that you have shown us.
I bring you greetings from St. Luke’s Episcopal Parish and Foundation in Salisbury, North Carolina. St. Luke’s is a wonderful congregation that was established in 1753, and I have been blessed to serve as their priest for the past 10 years. Our congregation has a strong music program and is known for our historic building that was built in 1828 and our work around racial truth telling and reconciliation. We are all so very excited to be in a relationship with the Bishop James Hannington Memorial Cathedral and we thank God for bringing us together.
I also bring you greetings from the Diocese of North Carolina and our Bishop Sam Rodman, who asked me to convey his blessings to you. Bishop Rodman first connected us to Bishop Wandera and we are so very grateful for our relationship.
We had the distinct pleasure of welcoming Bishop Wandera to Salisbury in January. His grace, wisdom, and deep spirituality is something that so many of our members noticed and appreciated and it is a joy to be with him again here in Mumias. Our hosts, Canon Kistos and Josephine have been so very gracious and kind. And the whole staff and members of the Cathedral and diocese have blessed us with the love of Christ. We think you and thank God for you. The only thing Fuller than our bellies are our hearts. We hope that in the future, we will have the joy to welcome some representatives of the Cathedral to visit us in Salisbury.
On this second Sunday in Lent, I want to begin by reflecting with you on the passage we heard from Genesis in which the Lord makes a covenant with Abram. Up to this point, Abram, who has not yet had his named changed to more familiar Abraham, has been told by God to “Go from your country and your father’s hose to the land that I will show you.” That is a frightening proposition, to leave the known world. Especially in a culture where familial connections mattered so much and were so important to one’s thriving, leaving all of that familiarity required a lot of trust. Abram is promised a great name, a great nation, and a great blessing. And so Abram went, along with his wife, Sarai, and his nephew, Lot, went towards the land of Canaan. Abram was 75 years old when he left his homeland to follow the promise of God. That all happened in chapter 12 of Genesis.
But this morning we heard from Genesis 15, and it’s been years since God made that promise three chapters ago. At least a decade has passed between the issuing of that promise and when the reading we heard this morning began. Abram has not gotten any younger and the promise of children seems to be forgotten. God had certainly blessed Abram – he has amassed great wealth and reputation. But he and Sarai had no children.
Why it is that sometimes God’s promises require us to tarry and linger, I don’t know. I’d like there to be a cure for cancer today, an end to war right now, a resurgence of the Holy Spirit throughout the Church. The prophet Habakkuk writes, “If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come.” Sometimes God’s promises require the right ingredients, the right timing, the right conditions. But don’t confuse a delay for a denial.
In this sense of delay and disappointment is where we find Abram in the text as he says to God, “What will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” Eliezer was something like the chief steward of Abram’s property, and so, upon Abram’s death, it would all become Eliezer’s. Yes, he had wealth and fame, but not a name, a people, or a future. This isn’t quite the promise Abram put his trust in.
But God reminds him that God’s promises are grander than our assumptions and even our hopes. God’s promises are like the stars – abundant and shimmering. Yes, those stars are far away, and yet their light brightens our path and assures us that God’s will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven.
And what secures these promises is God’s grace, not our work. This covenantal promise 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 found throughout Scripture – it’s always about God’s grace towards us, not what we bring to the equation.
This is what the ritual with the carcasses of the heifer, goat, ram, turtledove, and pigeon are all about. The way a treaty or covenant was enacted in Abram’s culture is that these animals would be split open and the person making the covenant would walk between them. It was to say, “If I break this covenant, my fate will be like that of these animals.” And, given the power differential between Abram and God, we would expect Abram to be the one doing the walking. But it’s not. No, the smoking fire pot and flaming torch, which represent God, passed through those animals. This covenant is all about God’s grace to do amazing things. The promises of God are secure not because of our strength, wisdom, or ability, but because of God’s steadfast love.
When we read from the Old Testament, we are seeing how the people of Israel understood their relationship with God. The promises and salvation that God gives to Noah, Abram, Moses, David, Hagar, Ruth, and Daniel remind us that God is constant in love, slow to anger, and generous in blessing. What we also find in the Old Testament is a pattern that anticipates and is perfected in Jesus Christ. And so, in the same way that God took on this covenant and walked through those animals, so too does Jesus.
At St. Luke’s, one of the things we say is important to our sense of identity and mission is that we are called to be a Parish where all people can come and see the difference Christ makes. And this gracious difference is before us this morning. 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, as it was not animals, but his very body that was given up for us and for our salvation.
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.” The Cross is also something like a telescope that allows us to more clearly see those star like promises of God, bringing things like peace and mercy into focus in our lives.
In the same way that Abram came to trust God when he was shown the starry night, the Cross does 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 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 song 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. This theologian 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 obedience or 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.
This difference that Jesus Christ makes helps us to imagine and dream of more blessed world. As chapter 15 of Genesis opens, “The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision,” or we might say that it came in a dream. And I wonder, what it is that you dream about? What do you hope and pray for?
There is a poem by Mary Oliver entitled “The World I Live In” has struck me as being quite profound:
I have refused to live locked in the orderly house of reasons and proofs.
The world I live in and believe in is wider than that. And anyways, what’s wrong with maybe?
You wouldn’t believe what once or twice I have seen. I’ll just tell you this:
Only if there are angels in your head will you ever, possibly, see one.
In one of his letters, St. Paul writes that God’s power working in us will do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Only if the dream of God is implanted within us will we ever see it in the world, and trust it to remain there in the future. If we do not take the time to focus on the present, to pray, to reflect, to slow down, to be still and know that God is God, then it will be a real struggle for us to see the peace and presence of God in the future. So pay attention to your dreams. Pay attention to those moments that seem to demand your attention that you might otherwise overlook. They very well may be God’s angels speaking to you, whispering through the noise of your mind and the world that God will always be with you.
When it comes to this relationship between this Cathedral and St. Luke’s Parish, I invite us to consider what we hope for. What do we dream that this relationship might enable? When we first met with Bishop Wandera online, he said that we need to be in relationship because we do not agree on everything. Right now, our country, the United States, is not very united. We are being torn apart by political fighting and many of us are worried about the future of our nation. In our country, disagreements are excuses for estrangement and not caring about each other.
This is why Bishop Wandera’s words connected so deeply with us. We have so much to learn from that wisdom. We long for unity without insisting on uniformity, for we know there is holiness and beauty in diversity. The growth of the Gospel in your country is something we need to learn from. The Holy Spirit is moving in this Cathedral in a way that I so wish we could capture and take home with us. The vision of being united despite differences is one we need to hold onto, remembering that sharing in the Communion of Christ’s Body and Blood is so much stronger than our differences about other things. As we know from our Baptismal liturgy and the book of Ephesians: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”
That is a sketch of our dream for this partnership – mutually learning with and from one another, supporting one another in mission, praying for one another, reading Scripture together, helping each other to remember that we are a part of a Pentecost church in which all peoples are united in the love and power of the Holy Spirit. This is why we are so grateful to be here, because it a promise of God come true – that we are growing in beloved community with one another.
Pursing and trusting the promises of God though can be hard work because of the challenges of life and the idols that distract us from God. Afterall, Christ might make a difference in our lives, but difference is not always comfortable or easy. This is why the first word that God often speaks is what we heard in the start of this encounter, “Do not be afraid.” Not being afraid is about trusting in God’s promise to always be God with us and God for us. Abram believed this, and Genesis says that “the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.”
The question this puts to us is “where do we put our trust?” To be clear, trusting in God doesn’t mean sitting on our hands and waiting for God to take care of everything. To trust God doesn’t mean that we don’t plant food, or save for retirement, or have insurance policies. Trusting God means knowing that, in the end, “all shall be well,” as St. Julian of Norwich put it. Trusting God means living as if death, or poverty, or mistakes, or embarrassment isn’t the worst thing that can happen to us. Trusting God is about remembering that we live in a world in which Resurrection not only is possible, but is happening all around us. Trusting God means choosing love at every step of our lives and not being paralyzed by the fear of what might happen if we dare to love.
Our Gospel text from Luke puts this fear in different terms, that of the fox versus the hen. The Pharisees come to Jesus to warn him that if he doesn’t stop his ministry, that Herod is coming for him. It’s likely that the Pharisees, who would also prefer that Jesus stop, are trying to frighten him into ceasing his ministry. Jesus responds, “You go and tell that fox that I’ll be finished when I’m finished.” Jesus refuses to let fear stop his work. He’s going to keep on fighting evil, healing, and preaching. Jesus also knows that he will be killed for these actions, but he knows that it would be far worse than death to not accomplish this work.
Contrasting himself to the fox, Jesus then says, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” A hen has no fangs, no claws, no rippling muscles. Instead, the mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings. Her body becomes a shield, with open arms and an exposed breast. This is the vulnerable position that Jesus takes with his outstretched arms of love on the Cross, and it’s the promise God made to Abram: “I am your shield.”
Security is an illusion and safety is an idol, and so Jesus doesn’t use other Biblical images for himself that might have been more comforting. Jesus could have drawn from Scripture and said that he was an eagle or a lion who would stand against the foxes of this world. But he doesn’t.
To be sure, we know how this story ends for Jesus. The fox does indeed come for the hen. The chicks who are gathered under the wings scatter when the hen cries out in pain. But the fox does not harm them. The hen knows that being rejected by its own chicks isn’t the worst thing that could happen. The hen knows that her death isn’t the worst thing that could happen. The hen knows that the fox does not get the final say. The hen knows that the world will be saved, not through power, or might, or cunning, but by vulnerable and open love. The hen knows that, by God’s mercy, all shall be well. That is the difference Christ makes.
So do not be afraid. There are certainly foxes out there, but just as Abram was protected under the wings of God, so are we. Fear can make us forget the promises and steadfast presence of God, and so sometimes God comes to us through our dreams and still small voices to slip past the fears and uncertainties of our rationalities. The objects of our fears are not the worst things that can happen to us, but being prevented from living the abundant live given to us in the Gospel because we are paralyzed by fear is. Thanks be to God that our fears are put to rest because our Messiah is a mother hen, making all things well and gathering us in his blessedly different and abundant love.
May the blessing of the God of Abraham and Sarah, and of Jesus Christ born of our sister Mary, and of the Holy Spirit, who broods over the world as a mother over her children ☩ be upon you and remain with you always. Amen.
