There
are times when it seems that the future is so far off, that we need not think
about it. Abram has been told before that he will have descendants, but Abram
can’t see how. He is old, Sarai his wife is old, and has not had any children. In
the time of Abram and Sarai, children were the future. If there are no
children, there was no future?
More
than once Abram tries to take the future into his own hands; he doubts God's
promise; he has a child by Hagar.
In
this passage God is telling Abraham that there is a future, there will be a
future and Abram is part of that future. We think of Abram is the father of
faith, but most of what we hear is very, very normal.
The
passage we heard this morning also tells of the covenant of the Lord made with
Abram, the covenant that his descendants will have this land between the River
Nile and the Euphrates.
For
someone who does not have children, being told their descendants will be more
than the stars seems absurd. But while initially it says Abram believed the
Lord, he then asks for proof. Abram does as God tells him and prepares the animals.
Then in the darkness of the night something amazing happened. Something
mysterious. You see these particular close encounters with God happen rarely,
even in the Bible. There are a few such instances reported, this one, the
burning bush that Moses stood before, Transfiguration, a few others. But such
occasions are rarely recorded in the Scriptures.
I
wonder how much we think about the future, not just to our next holiday, birth
of the next grandchild, retirement for those of us a little younger. How much,
how often, do we think about the future in terms of the life that our
grandchildren's grandchildren will lead. Many in our society will see their
grandchildren born, some will even see their great grandchildren born, what
kind of world will they live in.
It
is much easier for us to look to the past, to what we know, what has been. We
can know the past, we can learn from the past, but we cannot change the past. We
cannot know the future, but we affect the future every day.
[PPT image of hen] [i]
Turning
briefly to the gospel reading, and the image of Jesus like a mother hen
gathering chicks under his protective wings. The power of the temple, the power
of empire, was used to rule and dominate. Jesus also had power, he used his power
to heal, to cast out demons. The ruling elite then, just as now, do not want to
give up their power. We see people hold on to the power they have, we see greed,
oppression, destruction. This is not the way that Jesus showed us to leave. His
life show compassion, inclusion, generosity.
Abraham
is told to not be afraid, yet fear is a common reaction in our world. We fear
people who are different, we fear change, yet in many places in the Bible we
are told not to be afraid for God is always with us.
Abram
was having a hard time believing that he and Sarai had a future. Without
children they were not part of the future. While that is how Abram and Sarai
would have understood their world, it is also how many congregations understand
their world. How can we imagine a future with so few children around us?
We
can respond in different ways to our sense of not having a future. We can think
it all revolves around us, and try harder and harder, thinking the only way
that we will have the future of God tells us is that we do it ourselves.
Other
people try harder and harder to hold on to what is, the familiar, the known;
because we are all doomed, because there will be no future.
It
is easy to become despondent, without hope, to become cynical and self-centred.
It's easy to live for today, and leave tomorrow for future generations.
It's
easy to be anxious, to be overwhelmed by the enormity of what is happening in
the world, of war and rape, of poverty, environmental destruction. The Bible
records for us stories of God's interaction with people over many centuries.
The vision that God has is not hopeless, overwhelming or unrealistic.
As
I mentioned earlier, we can know the past, but cannot effect it; we cannot know
the future but we do effect the future.
The
future is not up to us, we are not that powerful; but we are powerful enough to
squander that which God gives us. this week I watched a YouTube clip of a 12
year old Severn Suzuki speaking to the UN Earth Summit in Rio, Brazil in 1992.
She spoke of no longer being able to fish in the local river, and the pollution
in the air, etc. then she said:
“All
this is happening before our eyes and yet we act as if we have all the time we
want and all the solutions. I’m only a child and I don’t have all the
solutions, but I want you to realise, neither do you!
• You don’t know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer.
• You don’t know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream.
• You don’t know how to bring back an animal now extinct.
• And you can’t bring back forests that once grew where there is now desert.
If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!” [ii]
• You don’t know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer.
• You don’t know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream.
• You don’t know how to bring back an animal now extinct.
• And you can’t bring back forests that once grew where there is now desert.
If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!” [ii]
[image
of no light for Lent] [iii]
I
saw this and wondered if this is how we deal with fear, anxiety and lack of
hope for the future. We close our eyes to that which we don’t want to see. We don’t
trust God with the present or the future, so we close our eyes, we ignore
greed, poverty and destruction. We don’t acknowledge the interdependence of all
of God’s creation, so we take matters into our own hands, overusing some
resources, holding tightly to what we consider ‘ours’ : doesn’t look much like
the generosity and compassion that Jesus showed, or the image of Jesus as a
mother hen wanting to protect her wayward, rebellious chicks.
The
challenge for this week of Lent is to think beyond our own generation, to think
beyond our children and their children. The challenge is to live trusting God
with today and tomorrow.
[i]http://revgalblogpals.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/11th-hour-preacher-party-gathered.html#comment-form
