Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Lent 2 – Year B

 

 

Abram falls on his face (is this awe? fear?).

Abraham falls on his face, laughing.

To be able to laugh at G*D is alright. What else can one really do when the promises and past relationships have been so strange. A line from a hymnwriter talks about “laughter's healing art.” I have no explanation for what was ailing Abram and Sarai that a reasonable promise took so long in coming. Was it really G*D delaying things or was there always a fair amount of attempted control that needed to be dealt with before a promise could really be a promise and not an earned reward?

Perhaps the laughter was the breakthrough moment to allow promise to be promise. Abra(ha)m finally got it when it involved Sara(h)i.

May we do more laughing at and with G*D. May we do more hearing of G*D laughing at and with us. After all, what kind of relationship is it without laughter? It will be interesting to see what other promise will come to pass through this healing art.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/march2003.html

 

 

Anytime we get into conditional covenants (the proof of the covenant is in some improbable future) we find ourselves conflicted. How long do we stay with hope? How soon do we fall on our face laughing that we ever considered being a party to this farce?

Of course we can always fall back on the equally difficult to prove issues of testing (we are just being tested, so never think twice) and plans (God has a plan in mind that will come to pass simply because it is God's plan and God is all powerful and unchanging). Of the two testing is the easier concept, but neither is very satisfactory and require an inordinate amount of denial of experience.

Abram and Sarai did pretty well, all things considered, with hanging in well past any reasonable time frame to see a promised result. There was a little side-track through Hagar to the side (but how can we honestly dismiss Hagar and Ishmael so – only if we are so captured by some storyline that what happens to people doesn’t matter as long as G*D comes out of it smelling like a rose).

Here then is the covenantal conflict - between our love of G*D and our love of neighbor.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/march2006.html

 

 

Do remember when a Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness where he was tempted by a Satan. Halfway through Mark’s Gospel, Jesus again recognizes the presence of another Satan in his own inner circle. In the wilderness or at home there is a temptation. Does the Spirit only lead to wilderness temptation without also leading to homeland temptation?

Most starkly put, the temptation is to be what you are not, to be ashamed of what you are not. We can put that off on G*D by claiming G*D is not what G*D ought to be. Again we are ashamed to be in the company of a G*D that doesn’t get it.

It doesn’t matter what the promise – of enough descendants to fill a starry, starry night, a heart that lives forever, being reckoned “in” by an alternative standard – there are those moments when we agree to get a descendant by any means, when we relinquish the responsibility of feeding the poor, or stumble over hope. Somewhere along the way we do not keep our eye on a prize and we are shamed or we shift that to shaming someone else.

Perhaps a key for us is the openness of Jesus’ understanding of himself. It is this open affirmation that keeps shame at bay when it is being misused and turned into blame rather than reformation or transformation.

Sociopaths and saviors seem to not be ashamed. For the rest of us it is a marker that needs to be noted in order for us to join Jesus in living and speaking openly.

- - - - - - -

All
Shame
Has
A
Mercy
Ending
Denial

Openness
Penetrates
Entire
Need
Networks
Energizing
Sacred
Seasons

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html

 

 

I'm intrigued with the difference in tone between the English translations of verse 1c.

"I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless." (NRSV)

"I am The Strong God, live entirely before me, live to the hilt!" (The Message)

In the first case we are to be blameless, either as a result of walking before God who’s got an eye on you and so the result will be blameless living, straight-and-narrow living, or simply being in the presence of God will be transformative and blamelessness becomes ingrained and you automatically get your wings.

In the second we are to live life to the hilt. Martin Luther’s dictum to “sin boldly” might fit here. Also applicable is John Wesley’s, “go on to perfection” (where perfection is not a static perfected-ness, but dynamic, holistic, integrated living). Basically we are mates of Wonderful Life Clarence, Angel Second-class, still working in the messes of life and adding our own.

The one thing this covenant is missing is that of being blessed to be a blessing, from the covenant in Chapter 12. That wider view has here been limited to simple biology of passing on a gene pool that will have authorities in it (huzzah). Oh, yes, there is also the matter of getting circumcision and land along with the covenant. (Read the elided material.)

What has changed the dynamic of blessing to be a blessing, living life to the hilt, into a property transaction, a being blameless? To investigate this change will be helpful Lenten reflection material and also give some insight into the greed (at all levels leading to our current economic mess) that desires more and more while claiming we are uniquely blameless and so are entitled, covenantally, to get more and more.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html

 

 

Who do people say I am, Abram or Abraham? This is a moment of identity change. This is a moment of beng the same.

With or without a formal covenant, Abram received a direction to his life that he was willing to follow through fear of kings, drought, and a challenging nephew. It seems that Abraham was no more or less willing than was Abram to trust he had experienced a new call and had received the gifts to deal with it.

Whether Abram or Abraham, whether by your diminutive or formal name, we are who we are - called and gifted, blessed, anointed. It can take all our past experience to be ready for a shift. Hooray for who we have been. A new direction can help us see more in who we were than we could tell at the time. Hooray for who we are becoming.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/02/genesis-171-7-15-16.html