A Sacred Family Relationship

In the Book of Genesis there is a little story about our ancestors, Abraham and Sarah: “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.’ Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, ‘As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations.’”

Think about this.  Here was Abram, just about 100 years old when God said to him, “I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.”  Abram fell on his face, he was doubled over with laughter.  Imagine being a hundred years old and told you would become the father of many nations.  It’s laughable, ridiculous.  But what did God do?  He made a covenant with Abram.  He blessed Abram’s elderly wife, Sarai, and they had a son.  His name was Isaac; the rest is history.

The covenant with Abraham was the first.  Later on, when the Israelites were freed from bondage in Egypt, God made a new covenant with the people.  In the book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, the author says, “A good case can be made that the making of the first covenant is one of the most important moments in the exodus from Egypt.  The event took place when the twelve tribes of Israel arrived at the foot of Mount Sinai.  It was there that they entered into a new relationship with God and began receiving divine instructions for how they would worship him.  Indeed, according to Scripture, the primary reason for the exodus from Egypt was precisely so that Israel might freely worship God.  As God commanded Moses to tell Pharaoah, ‘Israel is my first-born son…. Let my son go that he may worship me.’… The exodus…was about establishing a sacred family relationship between God and the people by means of a covenant.”

God’s covenant connects Abraham, Sarah, the Israelites, and all descendants across the lines of geography, race, and culture.  In this spiritual heritage, congregations through the ages have responded to the God’s covenant with praise.  As the Psalmist said, “I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied, and those who seek the Lord shall praise him (Psalm 22:24-25). The covenant between God and people of every generation sets the standard by which God acts to organize a just and compassionate society.  When God’s covenant is followed, society and the nations are transformed and a sacred family relationship is established.

Problems occur when the people do not adhere to God’s covenant.  In the Gospel of Mark we are told that Jesus taught his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected, killed, and three days later rise again.  Jesus’ friend, Peter, could not accept this, and he took Jesus aside to rebuke him.  Jesus then told Peter that he was “setting his mind not on divine things but on human things.”

The point is that as good as the covenant with Abraham and his descendants was, Jesus invited his followers to a transformed covenant.  It was a covenant of life available to those with courage to face death.  As the Rev. Whitney Rice, from the Diocese of Indianapolis, has written, “Jesus promises that if we give our lives wholeheartedly to him and… to serving our neighbors, we will have rich and abundant life flowing through us, welling up to eternal life.”

We need to remember that during the time of Jesus, the Roman Empire was occupying and ruling the Israelites.  The Jewish community was under attack; Jesus and his followers were being watched.  So Jesus said to his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake…will save it.”

Physical death is inevitable, but there are other deaths as well.  As Whitney Rice states, “We will face the death of our pride, the death of our comfortable ideas about what God is calling us to do and be, … and the death of our ambition and slavery to success. The covenant to which we are invited has very high stakes.”

The high stakes of keeping the covenant, of maintaining our sacred family relationship with God, depend on faith.  St. Paul, in his letter to the early Christian community in Rome said, “It depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed.” 

Faith that moves through death to a new resurrected life carries with it a risk: it is the risk of living a transformed life.  It is what Jesus taught through his life and ministry.  It comes with a commitment to abide by God’s covenant.

Remember what happened to Abram and Sarai.  Following their initial disbelief they committed themselves so thoroughly to God that he blessed them as parents to the generations that followed.  They were so transformed that even their names were changed: “your name shall be Abraham,…you shall call her Sarah…. You shall be the ancestors of a multitude of nations.”

How we understand our covenant relationship with God is the focus of our journey through this Lenten season.  Jesus taught that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, be rejected, killed and after three days rise again.  What a remarkable transformation.  Our transformation happens in accepting that God is with all who suffer in this earthly life.  God’s promise through the death and resurrection of Jesus is that new life is possible, a life of justice, compassion, and love.  It is about our sacred family relationship with God and one another.  It is about taking up our crosses and following Jesus. “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for Jesus’ sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”  Amen.