16.03.03 Colin The Covenant Relationship: Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 and Mark 8: 31-38
One of my vivid memories of starting to teach almost 30 years ago was entering the foyer of St Augustine’s Roman Catholic school, for my first teaching post, where there was a large stained glass panel declaring the words of St Augustine that ‘The heart of man shall not find its rest until it finds it in God’. I always found that a very challenging message - the idea that we were created to be in relationship with God, and that we would not find ‘rest’ until we established that relationship with God. So, it was with interest that I realized that our home group was reading a book called ‘Flame in the Mind’ which was about the journey of St Augustine. The book declares that St Augustine ‘saw the need to undertake the longest journey in the world - the journey of faith. For some people the journey originates in the mind, but for everybody it must also pass via the heart, until ultimately our wills are fired for a life of witness and service’. Here then is the message for us in the readings today. Our journey must be one to establish a right relationship with God, in order that we can have right relationships with other people, and be fit for God’s service here on earth.
Abram’s relationship with God
The reading
from Genesis today is the amazing story of Abram’s journey and faithfulness
in his relationship with God. Earlier in Genesis in chapter 12, God
tells Abram to ‘go from your country and your kindred and your father’s
house to the land that I will show you. And I will make a great nation
of you.’ So Abram goes. The story does not record any hesitation,
or argument, just obedience to what God asks. At the time, Abram was
a mere 75 years of age, and yet here he is, in Chapter 12 of Genesis, on
God’s command, leaving family, father and country to go to another land.
Despite his age, he gets up and follows the command of God. By
chapter 15 the Lord is telling Abram that ‘your reward shall be very great’,
but Abram by this time must have been wondering when his reward will be
realised, for many years have passed and he is still childless and there
is no sign that his children will ever become a great nation. By chapter
17, Abram is 99 and Sarah is 90. Finally, after 24 years of obedience
to God’s command, God appears to Abram and says ‘I am God Almighty, walk
before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant with you,
and you will multiply exceedingly’. Now is the time, after 24 years
of patient and faithful waiting, in difficult circumstances, that Abram
and Sarah are to have a child. It’s hard to imagine what they must
have felt - 99 years old when your wife has her first child!
But for Abram and Sarah, the promise from 24 years before is now to be fulfilled. The very hard times that he has experienced, including famine, and childlessness long past the time when he thought it would be possible to have a child, have brought in Abram the right attitude of heart which now makes it possible for him to have his name changed to Abraham, the covenant with God renewed and God’s promises repeated. God promises again that Abraham and Sarah would be the parents of nations. The new name of Abraham emphasizes his mission as God’s representative to the people of the world.
A covenant is just an agreement with conditions between two people, but for Abram, the covenant relationship is not one of equality with God. It is one where God gives the conditions for the relationship. So, Abraham is faithful and waits for God to honour His promise, but he waits patiently, trusting in the promise of God, and seeking to walk blamelessly before the sight of God. Abram, like all of us, must have had plans for his own life. But he lays these aside, gives them up, and follows the command of God to leave his homeland. It is not till 24 years later that the promises of the covenant relationship between God and Abram are realised.
The relationship of the disciples with Jesus
The
relationship of the disciples to Jesus had been a much shorter one compared
to Abram’s relationship with God. Over a year or two, Jesus had called
them to follow him. He had taught them in parables. They had
seen Jesus carry out miracles of healing. They had experienced his
great authority as a teacher. They had learned about forgiveness.
Often it seems they were slow to understand the meaning of the parables.
But now, in Mark 8, Jesus teaches them very openly, and not in parables,
what the cost of obedience to a relationship with God is. This teaching
follows on immediately on from Peter’s wonderful confession of Jesus as
the Messiah (8.29), and as soon as Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah,
Jesus begins to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer.
Peter is not someone however who is just obedient to what Jesus is telling him. He does not like what Jesus is teaching them and he begins to rebuke Jesus. He does not like the idea of the suffering that Jesus talks about. He wants to define his relationship with Jesus in his own terms - a relationship without suffering. Jesus at this point rebukes Peter and equates what Peter says with temptation from Satan. Jesus himself is absolutely committed and obedient to the role that has be en agreed with God. The journey that Jesus is about to undertake will bring him great suffering, rejection by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and death, and resurrection. Peter is willing to embrace Jesus as Messiah, but the relationship he wants in is one that is without suffering.
The message from Jesus to Peter is plain: those who follow him must be willing to take up His suffering in order to offer to the world His forgiveness so that relationships can be restored. The relationship offered is not that of equals, but that that of God Almighty sacrificing the life of Jesus in order that we might be in a right relationship to God and to others. Peter has yet to learn the obedience and patience of Abraham, and the sacrifice that involves of taking up his cross and following Jesus.
Life Today
Commitment to a life of sacrifice
is not too common in our modern world. Mostly our desire is to gain
a comfortable and enjoyable life for our selves. One of the barriers
it seems to those who want to follow Christ, perhaps the major barrier,
is this preoccupation with self. What do I want? What pleases
me? Will I enjoy it? Will it satisfy me? One of the modern
pre-occupations, at least in the rich western world, is for individual self-fulfillment:
Ø Individuals searching for what will truly satisfy them
Ø Individual needs and desires are often seen as more important than community needs
Ø Individual relationships which become difficult to sustain can just be left behind and replaced with another relationship with someone else
In the world today, commitment that is about giving to others or working for others is in relatively short supply. It is the norm to accept that everyone is entitled to his or her own viewpoint and that there are few right or wrong viewpoints. Commitments can be changed easily if they become too difficult. Most people seem to be passionately committed to a life of personal enjoyment rather than committed to creating a world of justice and peace. Perhaps one of the few good things to come out of the current political turmoil over Iraq is the willingness of millions to commit themselves to actively campaigning for a cause which is about how the world community manages itself. Lets pray that this interest in promoting the common good might become a permanent part of the culture of the peoples of our world.
Give Thanks and be challenged!
So:
Ø We
give thanks today for the incredible faithfulness of God in relationships,
as evidenced in his long relationship with Abraham.
Ø We give thanks that it seems clear from the story of Abraham that no matter how young or how old we are God has a plan for our life!
Ø We give thanks for the example of Abraham in his obedient and patient relationship with God
Ø We give thanks that God acted through the death of Jesus to enable people to re-establish a relationship with God.
Ø We give thanks that as Christians, as servants of Christ, we have the opportunity to work for Him to bring about the kingdom of Christ here one earth
There is real challenge for us today of faithfulness to God’s command. That challenge is to take up our cross of sacrifice and obedience. God has given us through Christ the opportunity to establish with him the most intimate relationship possible for human being. In so doing, he has given us the opportunity to establish the most intimate relationships in Christ with other people.
Let us today give thanks for the example of Abraham, and pray that as we undertake that longest journey in the world, the journey of faith, that what originated in our mind will pass via our heart and into our willpower so that we are fired for a life of witness and service and that our obedience to God above, spreads into our service to each other and the world in which we live.