Genesis 17.1-7, 15-16 Mark 8.31-38
A recent Radio 4 piece about tests and exams set me thinking. I recollected the various exams and tests I had sat. From the eleven plus, which because of the system worked in Wiltshire I sat at 10+, through GCSEs and A Levels to University level on which my qualification to be ordained depended.
My thoughts moved on to the kinds of questions one had been asked. There had been the factual ones, like in maths where there was a definitive answer to find – I liked those! There were discursive essay questions along the lines of “describe your favourite toy, or journey, etc”. And then there were the compare and contrast questions. About persons or events of history. In biblical terms about the comparison and contrast of events seen through the eyes of the writers. The classic is about the differing but similar roles of Nehemiah and Ezra. Or how the spread of Christianity is seen through the writings of Paul and Luke (in the Acts).
Why start the sermon here, you may well be saying! Simply because we can do a compare and contrast analysis on today’s readings. Both are about expressions of faith. Both are about the nature of faith at key stages of life. Both are about the interaction between human beings and God – the one involving the hope of new life which offers the hope for generations to come– the other about the giving up of life for the sake of all humanity as Jesus talks with the disciples about the nature of his dying.
The passage from Genesis 17 is about the second covenant between God and Abram. There was a previous one in Genesis 15 involving a sacrifice and Abram going to sleep. On waking he feels assured that centuries later his descendants would inherit the land, as he sees a cauldron of fire pass between the pieces of the sacrifice.
The covenant which our reading described was very different. It begins with a demand from God; ‘Walk before me, and be blameless’. It involves changing Abram’s name to Abraham, and Sarai’s to Sarah and the introduction of the rite of circumcision as a mark of belonging to the covenant people. In the passage following our reading they are described respectively as ‘Father of a multitude’ and ‘Princess’. An affirmation that Isaac would be born and Abraham would be known as the father of nations.
If the Genesis passage is about the hope of a future on a human level then the Gospel passage is about the foreboding of a future death. The passage we read takes up the story immediately after Peter’s blurted out acclamation of faith, “you are the Messiah”. Messiah was the term for the anointed one – the one called out for a special purpose. Jesus tells the disciples to keep quiet about this and goes on to teach them about the suffering servant. The one who will be rejected by the religious leadership of the day. The one who will be killed and rise again. Peter gets roundly rebuked by Jesus for trying to say Jesus should not talk like that. Despite Peter’s intervention Jesus is attempting to teach them about the nature of his going. It is also about preparing them for how they will feel about events yet to unfold.
At this point the wider circle of disciples is drawn in. Jesus warns them that if they want to be his followers they too will have to take up their cross and follow him. As history shows this was a reality for many. But for all it was, and should be, a metaphorical walking in the footsteps of Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ.
Jesus says that those who want to save their lives will lose them. The non-Christian poet-scholar, A. E. Houseman, called these words “the most important truth ever uttered, the greatest discovery ever made in the moral world”. Jesus goes on to prompt the question; “For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”
How is Lent going for you? We are a quarter of the way through the forty days of Lent. Have you looked at the Bible and the stories it tells of the covenant relationship with God more than any other time of the year? Have you moved from grabbing an extra minute of prayer time each day to that prayerful state of continuous communication with the divine? Have you been able to walk in the footsteps of Jesus by caring for others? Have you been signposts to reconciliation in your family or neighbourhood? Have you managed to increase your gifting to charities despite the hardness of the times we live in?
If not, don’t despair. There are still thirty days to Holy Week. Even more to Good Friday and Easter day. Plenty of time to do a self-audit of who we are and what is important to us.
Abraham was seen as faithful and the father of nations. Could that be said of us by future generations? Jesus called on his disciples to take up their cross and follow him. Can we do the same in our generation? The best we can hope for is to do what we can – God give us your Spirit to use the remaining days of Lent to deepen our faith and let it be seen in acts of uncommon kindness to those around us.
Revd Graham Earney