The year was 2002. In Peterborough, Ontario, Helen McCarthy was teaching World Religions at St. Peter’s High School. Helen had invited Elizabeth Rahman, a Muslim woman who worshipped at the Masjid alSalaam, the Peace Mosque, to speak to her class. When Elizabeth arrived at the class, there were no students there. Elizabeth hadn’t realized that it was a “snow day.” However, Helen was there, so she and Elizabeth spent the class time talking with each other. They discovered that, despite the differences in their respective faith traditions, there was much that they shared. Some weeks later, Heather Pollock, a member of Beth Israel synagogue, came to the class. As she spoke, Helen realized that Jews, Christians, and Muslims all worship the same God and recognize Abraham as their common ancestor. She set up a meeting for the three of them. With great hope, Elizabeth, Heather, and Helen began to plan an Abraham Festival that would honor Abraham as a prophet in all three of their faith communities.1 It took a year of negotiating with St. Alphonsus Roman Catholic church, Helen’s parish, Beth Israel synagogue, and the Masjid al-Salaam. Finally, the first festival was held in 2003, and there has been one every year since. In addition to speakers, the festivals include authentic worship services at Jewish, Christian, and Muslim houses of worship. This year’s festival, to be held in late April, will showcase the Millennium Development goals. Eight different speakers will talk about the goals, why each one was developed, and how different faith communities can work together to achieve the goals, in the world and in the local community.
Are you surprised that Jews, Christians, and Muslims can work together? Certainly the church has a long history of anti-Semitism, and political events of the last decade have heightened fear and mistrust of Muslims in this country. As we look at the second of God’s many promises to the ancient Hebrews, perhaps we might gain, as people of faith, a new understanding of the relationship among our various faith communities. The covenant that God initiated with Abraham and Sarah takes us a step beyond the covenant that God made with Noah. You remember that in the ancient world, covenants were binding promises between two parties, with firm agreement about who was to do what, and about the consequences if one party failed to live up to the agreement. In the covenant with Noah, the agreement was essentially one-sided. God promised to “remember” Noah and to renounce forever God’s ability to destroy creation.
Now we come to the story of Abraham and Sarah. This story is from the same source and time-frame as that of Noah, i.e., it was put together by the returnees from Exile sometime in the fourth century B.C. I want to begin by focusing on two elements of this story: name and covenant. In the Hebrew Bible, names are important. One’s name is a decisive marker of identity, and a change of name, as for example, when the renamed Jacob became Israel, always marks a fundamental change within the person and in that person’s relationship with God. In today’s story, everyone receives a new name. Although the English obscures it, when God announces Godself, when God says, “I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless,” the Hebrew word for God Almighty, el Shaddai, occurs in the Bible here for the first time. The meaning is uncertain – it may mean “God of the mountains” – but the intent is clear. God is declaring in a new way God’s oneness and God’s new expectation that Abraham and Sarah will give their loyalty only to el Shaddai, to God Almighty, and not to any of the gods of the other ancient peoples. What is more important, God gives Abraham and Sarah new names. Notice that God doesn’t ask them if they want new names. God simply renames them. In so doing, God declares God’s sovereignty over them, and God’s power to change their destinies.
The changes in Abraham’s and Sarah’s names are part of the covenant that God establishes with them. Even though both of them are well past the time when they could expect any further descendants – Abraham had had a son by Hagar, Ishmael, but Sarah had been barren -- God takes the initiative and makes an extraordinary covenant with them. Notice that, like Noah, Abraham does not ask for anything. But God promises an “everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.” In effect, God promises to be God to Abraham, through Abraham to all Israel, through Israel to the church, and through the church to all of us. What is more important, God extends God’s covenant even beyond Israel and the church. God promises Abraham that he will be the “ancestor of a multitude of nations.” Sarah too is a full partner in this covenant. Not only will God bless her, but “she shall give rise to nations, kings of peoples shall come from her.” God has promised to be bound ultimately to all peoples, all who find their ancestry in Abraham, either by birth or by adoption.
You remember that when God promised Noah that God would never again destroy the earth, God made all the promises and asked virtually nothing of Noah. All Noah and his family had to do was to have children, not eat blood, and not murder each other. However, in the covenant with Abraham and Sarah, God raises the ante. There is a piece of the story that is missing in our lection. In those verses we hear what else God asks of Abraham besides just loyalty – hard as even that proved for the ancient Hebrews. In the verses in between the two parts of our lection, God requires Abraham, to undergo circumcision. God further requires that, on the eighth day, all the males in his family, and all the males in the generations after him, will be circumcised. In effect, God marks God’s covenant in Abraham’s flesh, binding him body and soul to his relationship with God. To be faithful to God, Abraham will now have to do more than just trust God’s promise and answer to a new name. He will have to put his own body on the line. On his face in front of el Shaddai, Abraham knows that his life has changed forever.
Abraham will have to put his own body on the line. On this second Sunday in Lent, the church bids us reflect on how our use of our own bodies reflects our relationship with God. As Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us, “We do not head straight to Easter from the spa or the shopping mall. Instead, we are invited to spend forty days examining the nature of our own covenant with God.”2 As we join the retreat of the church, we might begin by considering our own names and identities. Just like the ancient Hebrews, we know that names are important. Although we may not realize it, much of our identity is bound up with our names, and names reveal much to others about who we are and where we have come from. As baptized Christians, we have a particular identity, one given to us in baptism. We may not have received new names at the font, but as we died and rose again with Christ, as we were sealed with the chrism, we were made “Christ’s own forever.” And so we might ask ourselves what about our lives reflects our identity as one of Christ’s own.
What is more important, we are bid to consider the nature of our covenant with God. What is important in our relationship with God? On what does it depend? What do we expect of God, and what do we think God expects of us? Do we trust our relationship with God to be life giving, or do we still fear God’s anger and condemnation? The Anglican expression of Christianity emphasizes the incarnation, i.e., we believe that what we do, either in liturgy or ministry, is ultimately more important than what we think about God. So we might also ponder how we act out in our own bodies our covenant with God. In what ways might God expect us to put our bodies on the line by taking up our own cross? Finally, we might ponder our relationship with those of other faith communities, most especially with other children of Abraham. Do we grant the inclusive nature of God’s covenant? Without discounting the differences among our faith communities – and they are significant – are we willing to see what we hold in common with Jews and Muslims? Can we respect our brothers and sisters of other faiths? Can we put our own bodies on the line in partnership with them, to help advance the Kingdom of God?
According to tradition, Abraham kept his tent open in all four directions, the more easily to share his food and water with travelers from anywhere. In that spirit, may we join hands with all those who thirst and hunger for justice, peace, and dignity.
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1. The story of the Abraham Festival is found at http://abrahamfestival.org/index.php , accessed March 2, 2012.
2. “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 55.
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