A short sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent

Set readings: (Genesis 17.1-7 & 15-16), Romans 4.13-end, Mark 8.31-end :-

In the collect prayer set for today we find this plea to God: “As you know our weakness, so may we know your power to save.” This prayer has always resonated with me. In it, we are told that Jesus was “tempted as we are, yet without sin.” We, on the other hand, are tempted and we fall, and that’s why we need to ask for God’s “power to save”.

Last week, I spent some time in interview with a fellow priest who, while taking a sabbatical from his parish, was working on a project examining part-time roles among the clergy. I confess that I’d offered myself, somewhat tongue in cheek, mostly as an example of how not to do it. But it was interesting to examine the whys and wherefores of what I’m doing here, as I completed a short questionnaire in preparation for the interview. And I found myself led to consider the two sorts of relationship which both have a bearing on what I do - contract and friendship.

Contract and friendship. Somewhere between the two of those things we find the relationship that gets mentioned a lot in scripture: covenant. In the Old Testament, we find God making covenant relationships with his people, via certain individuals - Noah, for example, and Moses of course, and King David; most importantly, he makes a covenant with Abraham. Abraham connects the three great faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All of them look back to Abraham as in some sense a father figure, all of them look back to the promise God made to Abraham and to Sarah his wife.

“I will make you the father of many nations,” said God to Abraham. We find this in chapter 17 of the Book of Genesis. And God goes on to say that Abraham and his descendents must themselves keep the covenant, by living according to his laws. A good Jew like Paul, who was brought up and schooled as a Pharisee, would have been taught to see Abraham as the worthy recipient of God’s blessing; and so therefore was Paul himself, so long as he carefully and scrupulously kept every bit of the Law.

But that was a misreading of the story, Paul now writes in his letter to the Romans, our first reading today. That interpretation makes the covenant a contract, so that God is bound to do as promised, just as an employer is bound to pay the promised wage, so long as the worker turns up as required and completes the allotted tasks. But, says Paul, Abraham’s faith was “counted to him as righteousness” - in other words, it’s the relationship that counts here, not the work rate. What God offers to Abraham, and therefore to all of us, isn’t a contract, it’s the hand of friendship; we’re not given a series of jobs to be completed, but a gracious welcome. So the true children of Abraham aren’t any one particular tribe or race or people; anyone who lives by faith, and trusts in God’s love, is a child of Abraham.

Now Paul had been brought up to love the Law, and to keep the Law, the Law of Moses. As a Pharisee, he knew that the way - the only way - to deserve God’s favour was to keep every bit of the Law. But now Jesus had challenged and overturned that way of thinking, and exposed it for what it was - in the end something joyless and loveless and self-seeking. In Jesus we - like Paul - can see the complete opposite of self-seeking; Jesus is the one often called “The Man for Others”, who gives all of himself for us.

And in our reading from Mark, we find Jesus trying to explain to his disciples what is going to take place in Jerusalem, including that he’s going to die there. Not surprisingly, they can’t get their heads round this at all, and Peter rounds on Jesus and says, “No, Lord! This can’t happen to you.” Mark doesn’t give us those words, but we can read them in the other Gospels. And, of course, it didn’t have to happen to Jesus. At any point along the Way of the Cross Jesus could have turned aside from the path. That’s why he speaks to Peter as he does. For Satan, the voice of temptation if you like, is speaking through Peter. “You don’t have to do it this way” was one of the temptations Jesus needed to face up to in his forty days in the wilderness.

“What a friend we have in Jesus,” as I remember singing in Sunday school. Friendship isn’t a contract relationship. Friendship is something we choose to do when we don’t have to. Because of that, there’s a built in fragility to even the deepest friendships - because no friendship can ever be required or enforced. But then again, that very fragility is fundamental to what makes a friendship real, and strong, and vital: for it speaks of an underlying love, and the fact that friends value one another just for who they are, not for what they do. And that’s perhaps why you only discover who your true friends are when things start to go wrong, or the rest of the world turns against you. 

What I find in Jesus is sure testimony that God values me - and you - just for who we are. He valued Abraham that way too. Which is why I can pray from my brokenness and my need of repair and healing, “may we know your power to save,” and know that my prayer is heard. Vicars, even part-time ones, have jobs, and therefore a contract relationship - but with the HR department of the Diocese, not with God. Ultimately I’m here not to earn a crust, but because God’s love continues to draw me, as I trust it draws you too, to kneel before a cross, and know we have a friend.