Readings: Genesis 17:1-7,15-16, Mark 8:31-38
Let us pray: May we hear your word for us today O God and
may we respond in generous faith to all you require of us in Jesus name. Amen.
Has anyone entered
into any negotiations recently – it might be a about division of labour at
work, a bit of haggling at the Farmer’s Market, a placement of a bit of
furniture in a new house, or an employment contract – what ever it is there is
usually a suggestion of a bit of toing and froing – a touch of conditional (If
I do this how about you do that?), a holding back from what you are eventually
prepared to agree to and a sense of achievement if you get what you want for
less. When I first travelled through
Asia and India – it took me some time to feel comfortable with negotiating
prices for goods, even a taxi ride. I
was used to someone offering straight up what they wanted or had to give
without this negotiating aspect to it – cultural bias of course but still
unsettling.
In the reading
from Genesis we hear Jahweh offering Abram a Covenant – in today’s dictionary
defined as a binding agreement or contract – but do you know what – there was not an ounce of haggling going on
here – it was a take it or leave it contract with no wriggle room. So, the world would say cynically, all the power was in the hands
of one side (Jahweh’s) and therefore no need for generosity, abundance.
Nuhuh – wrong –
Jahweh held nothing back - this offer of covenant was nothing less than the
gifting of divine reconciliation with no need for any reciprocity from the
other party. Unconditionally gifted
divine love and the promise of faithfulness through all generations. Abram and Sarai must have been pinching
themselves.
A commentator points out that this covenant
was totally initiated by God - ‘I will be their God’ - and it is not until the
writings of Jeremiah that we first hear the response ‘and they shall be my
people’. Essentially God is for us
without any response from us – grace indeed.
Unbelievable
really – as were the promises of the covenant – aged parenthood, a line of
descendents that would include kings and nations and forever.
Unbelievable too
was the concept that this God who was all powerful, God Almighty, One God,
giver of grace and reconciling love could bring that grace again to us in the
form of a bound and suffering Servant, destined not for ruling in power and
might but to be mocked, crucified, rejected by friends and foe alike.
Peter certainly
had trouble with this – so much so that he didn’t even hear the words of grace
and reconciliation that Jesus offered – ‘and after three days would rise
again...’ He got stuck on the
‘crucified’ part – and I am guessing that this didn’t fit his hope for the
coming of the Messiah – the long awaited one who would rule in power and might
and deliver the people from the invaders and oppressors. You can almost see Peter taking Jesus aside,
gently chiding him for being so pessimistic and suggesting he try the scenario
again – his way.
Joseph Small calls
this the difference between the theology of glory and the theology of the
cross. The theology of Glory he says is built on what appears to be self
evident about life and on assumptions on our part about the way God is expected
to act in the world. The theology of the
cross on the other hand is grounded in God’s self revelation in the weakness of
suffering and death.
These two windows into
the nature of God , that of Jahweh who offers grace abundantly and
unconditionally and of Christ who brings the same grace through a path of
suffering and death, they show a God who will not be shaped to our
expectations, our idea of hope and power and belonging.
God’s church is
not a place of privilege and prosperity but of ordinariness and humility, faith
doesn’t mean certainty, hope is not optimism, love is not painless.
Yet we mustn’t sit
back and be in anyway patronising of Peter’s response – to think we wouldn’t
have done as Peter did. It is all too easy to fit God to our expectations and
not listen to the radical and often astonishing way that Jesus offers because
our minds simply won’t grasp the possibilities, cannot come to grips with the unbelievable
perhaps.
And in three days
the Son of Man will rise again. That is
the unbelievable for Peter and so he shuts off from those words and runs
instead with challenging the unacceptable premise that Jesus, friend,
counsellor, hope for the world is going to die.
He wasn’t listening was he? He was allowing his ideas to drown out the
voice of hope and radical grace that was the journey beyond the cross.
This for me links
in very closely with what we are exploring in our Wednesday Worship this time –
in how we give ourselves time, space, intentional opportunity to hear the
radical and the unexpected and the unbelievable that is God in us and in the
world. Learning how to listen to God –
in prayer, in hospitality, in reading and silence and in community with each
other helps us to hear God’s voice and to truly listen to the hope and grace
offered to us.
Do we believe in a
God, have a faith that is confined to our way of thinking or are we willing to
listen to the unbelievable? There is a
question for Lent!
And as we come
together around the table today, how do we see that? Is it a ritual subdued to our needs of
reward, worthiness, membership, tradition or is it a place of absolute and open
vulnerability and welcome to all people where, for a moment, we encounter the
hospitality of the living Christ, the Jesus who took that walk to the cross and
beyond and hear, truly hear the unbelievable grace that is our God. Amen.
Margaret Garland
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