Lent 2 (2013)
Year C RCL Principal
Honesty
and Trust
If someone came to the Rectory telling me that they hear the voice of
God, I must admit that I would think the worst.
Just as if someone approached you telling you that they had
conversations with the almighty then we might feel a little disturbed. This is not the kind of person we want to
sit next to on the bus….
BUT Imagine what it would be
like if we could talk to God freely and hear his voice! If we shared such an intimate relationship
with God that we were able to sit and chat and be chatted to in return.
That’s the kind of relationship that we are told Abram (he’s not yet
Abraham in the passage we heard this morning, his change of name by divine deed
poll comes later on) had wit God. It’s almost
chatty, and at times is quite forthright and perhaps even a little bit
cheeky. If we know the story of Sodom
and Gomorra we would know that Abram negotiated with God that the Lord would
spare the city if a certain number of righteous people could be found – and
Abraham pushes his luck – and he knocks God down, we can imagine with a bit of
a glint in his eye, and with God responding with a kind of humourous
exasperation – to one righteous man.
That is not to say that Abraham forgets his place: when God
seems to ask for the sacrifice of Isaac, on whom all the fulfilment of God’s
promises hangs, Abraham prepares the altar. But the ability to whinge at God,
or even to question God, is one that Christian piety has rather bred out of us. And this is the relationship that Abram had
with God – a freedom, and openness, a relaxed attitude. It didn’t distract from the worship, the awe
and the respect he showed to God, but there was an ease about it that is
inspiring and wonderful.
And this relationship is made possible by Abram’s honesty, by the fact
that when God promises a reward to Abram in a vision Abram doesn’t grovel, he
doesn’t worship, he doesn’t fall down – he responds to God with complete
candour. “O Lord God, what will you give
me, for I continue to be childless…”
Abram tells God what really matters – he doesn’t beat around the bush
(that doesn’t come until Moses!). Abram
let’s God know his deepest longing – no fluff, no diversions, straight to the
point. I don’t know about you but when I
pray I sometimes fall into the trap of ‘O Lord you are so great and wonderful,
and if you could just do this or this…’ Worship becomes a way of twisting God’s
arm. Sometimes prayer becomes a shopping
list, or a bargaining session – well Lord if you’ll just do this then I promise
I will do this, and if you’ll just do this then I will etc etc’;
And God responds to Abram’s honesty by making a promise, that if Abram
will trust then this deepest desire will be fulfilled – more than that, Abram’s
descendents will be as numerous as the stars in the sky… And Abrams’ response – this is perhaps the
most amazing part of the story – verse 6 of Chapter 15 of Genesis ‘…he believed
the Lord: and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.’. The enormous compassion of God in responding to what Abram
desperately wants is matched only by Abram’s trust that God will deliver it.
God sees his trust and “reckons it to him as righteousness”
This relationship is one of mutual trust, one of giving, of listening,
of responding. And to show just how
solemn this trust is we have a ritual that was considered one of the most
binding and important symbols of a contract that was possible in those
days. By cutting animals in half and
walking between them a person was saying that they would keep their half of a
contract, they would be bound to their promise, or allow themselves to be
slaughtered like the animals they walked between.
And God passes through these carcasses in the form of a flaming torch
and a smoking fire pot. God is the one
who makes this binding agreement, to give Abram the land which was to become
Israel. God responds to Abram’s trust
and to his faith and to his honesty by piling on love, by graciously giving to
Abram all he could long for.
And this theme of trust carries on in the passage from St Paul’s letter
to the Phillipians that was our other reading for this week. Philippians picks
up the theme of trust in God’s promises. Just as Abram trusts that God will
give him a son and a land and an inheritance as incalculable as the stars in
the sky, so, Paul urges his readers, we too have to trust in the bigger
promise.
Paul offers harsh criticism too those whose trust is not in God, but whose ‘minds are set on earthly things’, as he says. He actually calls these people ‘enemies of the cross’. It’s a difficult thing to hear, particularly if we are trying to be as honest as Abram – for if we are honest we will probably all say that perhaps we are a little to focussed on the things of the world, and not really as open to God’s ways as we should be.
But that honesty is the basis for a relationship of trust with
God. If we trust God enough to confess
our own lack of faith God will respond to that trust. Apparently, this willingness on the part of
God to accept our trust in him as the equivalent of actual goodness is an
abiding characteristic of God. We see it over and over again, not least in
Jesus’s response to the penitent thief on the cross.
So we have these two themes of trust and of honesty. In our relationship with God one begets the
other. If we will be open with God then
God can be open with us. God will not
turn his back on us, he will always give us the benefit of the doubt, no matter
how inadequate our trust feels.
And God will respond – we may not hear his voice, or see visions, or
feel led to cut up animals – but our faith will grow, our closeness to God and
to other Christians will grow. And if we
learn to listen we will hear the voice of God – through the Bible, in the
traditions of the Church, through the teaching and words of fellow Christians,
and sometimes in the blinding insight that seems to come from out of
nowhere. God will speak to us in so many
little ways – and as we grow in faith we will learn to hear him more and more.
And so let’s begin by being honest with God about what we long for, and
by being honest about our lack of faith and our need for God’s help. Just as God does not laugh at Abram’s longing
for an heir, so he does not laugh at our needs and desires. But their
fulfilment will be his doing, not ours. Abram has the extraordinary and
terrifying privilege of seeing the signs of God as he commits himself to his
promise.
Now if we ask if God is still willing to keep his promises to us, we
only have to remember that we have seen the Son of God allow himself to be
slaughtered like Abram’s animals to fulfil that promise. May we all learn to
trust in that promise more and more.
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