“Divine Relationship, Part 1: God Calls Us” by the Rev. Don Wahlig, February 25, Lent 2 Year B - Genesis 17:1-7, 15-17 • Psalm 22:23-31 • Romans 4:13-25 • Mark 8:31-38 or Mark 9:2-9

THEME:  Say yes to God’s call to share his covenantal love.

Today we begin a 4-part sermon series that gets to the very heart of our relationship with God. Over these next four weeks, you and I will take a walk together. We will walk with Abraham and Sarah, Moses and the Israelites, and the exiles in Babylon as they each learn to trust God’s call and God’s providence. And along the way, we will shed light on our walk with Christ on the road to Holy Week. The road we call Lent.

We start with Abraham and Sarah. Abraham is now an old man, almost 100 years old. Where we pick up his story, he has followed God’s command to leave his home in present day Turkey.  He has relocated Sarah and their entire household 600 miles south to a new land, the land of Canaan. If you have ever had to move, you know that the saying is true: next to the death of a loved one and the loss of a job, moving is one of life’s three most stressful events. Now just imagine having to move 600 miles by camel and you get a sense of what Abraham had to do in order to follow God’s command. Can you just imagine the conversation he had with Sarah? But he did it anyway. Abraham obeyed God.  When he did, God saw that Abraham was someone he could trust, someone who would be obedient and faithful, someone who could be a covenant partner. So, now, 25 years later, God chooses to deepen the relationship. He gives Abraham a new command. “Walk before me, and be blameless, and I will make my covenant between me and you.”

God promises Abraham land, a multitude of ancestors and blessings. And the blessings are not just for Abraham. God’s relationship with this one man becomes a blessing for many. “I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, an everlasting covenant.” And that brings us to Sarah. Sarah is very much part of this covenant. In fact, God’s promise to her may be the most surprising thing of all. She will give birth to Abraham’s son from whom nations and kings will rise.  When he hears that, Abraham falls flat on his face, laughing. Can you blame him? Can a 100-year old man and a 90-year old woman actually conceive? Let’s be honest. Wouldn’t you laugh, too?  God makes some outrageous promises, doesn’t he? We are so used to this story that we risk missing the most important point. That is because we don’t stop to ask the most fundamental question: why? Why would God choose to make a covenant with sinful, flawed, rebellious humankind – let alone an everlasting covenant? That’s like doubling down on a long-shot bet on a lame horse.

Just look at Abraham.  His faithfulness is far from perfect. And the generations that follow are no better. The heirs of God’s covenant routinely break it. And yet, time and again, God goes to the most extraordinary lengths to reestablish his covenant with them, from one flawed generation to the next. God does not need to do that – he is after all El Shaddei, God Almighty. He does not need us.  In fact, it’s just the opposite. We need God, not vice versa. So then why does he insist on reaching out to his chosen people, even when they turn their back on him?

That is what I have been wondering this week. And then it hit me. The covenant is not just a transaction – ‘you do this, and I’ll do that.’ The Covenant is all about love.  Not just any love, but a particular kind of love. In the Hebrew the word for it is ‘hesed.’ It’s used hundreds of times in the Old Testament, from Genesis to the psalms to the prophets. It means a rock steady, unfailing, lavish, relentless love. A divine love that never gives up, and never gives in. A love that never falters and never fails. It is God’s essence and God’s nature. It is the reason that God constantly pursues us and continually draws us close, no matter how far away we may wander.

No wonder Abraham laughed.  The only gods he knew of were those little carved idols back in his homeland of Ur. None of them even talked, let alone behaved with such gratuitous, gracious love as this God does.  That’s how Abraham realized that there is no other God like this one.  And, in fact, there is no other God but this one. Friends, that realization is the whole point of Lent. In our fallen and flawed humanity, we insist on following other gods. They go by various names - money, success, influence, fame, self-importance, power – and the list goes on.  And these false gods pull us in different directions. They tempt us to follow them, instead of God.  But God simply will not have it. That is because God has a mission, and his mission is our mission. That mission is to share his covenantal love with everyone. Our vision statement puts it very well: sharing Christ’s love with all.  And Lent is the time to make sure that you and I are taking our part in God’s mission.

God is probably not calling you or me to pick up sticks and move to some far-off land like he did with Abraham and Sarah. But I guarantee he is calling us to go somewhere, and do something, for someone who needs his love. I say this because it is true in general, and it is also true of our church family. I know this because the doctoral research I did this past fall proves it.  The subject of my research was a small group that I led in October and November. The topic was Faith and Work. Based on the experience of the 12 participants in that small group, three things became abundantly clear.

First, when God calls us, he does not take no for an answer.  Remember the story of Jonah?  Remember what happened when he tried to run away from God’s call? It didn’t work out too well. God is relentless. We can try to avoid his call, but we will not be happy campers until we say yes. Second, not only does God call us, but God has also given each and every one of us the gifts to do the work he calls us to do. In fact, identifying our talents and interests is a pretty good indicator of what God is calling us to do with our lives. God prepares us for that work by giving us the talent, the skill, and the passion to do it.

Third, it is highly likely that God has already led us to the very place where he wants us to use our gifts to further his mission. That may be in our homes or at our work or wherever we spend our days. And when we take up his work there, it does not only change the lives of others. It changes our lives, too. This was one of the most powerful findings of the research I did. Of the 12 participants in the Faith and Work small group, almost all had at least one poignant story about realizing that God had placed them in a specific situation at work, a situation in which they were uniquely qualified to intervene in someone else’s life in a way that none of their colleagues could have done, and in a way that served God’s purposes. 

This is one of the main reasons why they view their work as holy and sacred – every bit as sacred as the work that Lisa and I do. God is working through them and they know it.  They helped make a difference in someone else’s life, and their lives were changed in the process. They had the transformative experience of being Christ’s disciple at work, a vessel for God’s Covenantal love.  They are called, gifted, and placed where God wants them.  How about you? What is God calling you to do for his mission? What are the gifts, the talents and the skills and interests that God has given you to do it? And where has God placed you - at work, at home?  Wherever you spend your days?

Finally, in that place, who is it that needs God’s covenantal love? Whatever, wherever and whoever that is, remember this. You are Christ’s disciple, walking with him on the road to Calvary. When you say yes to God’s call on your life as Jesus did, you can bet that others will never be the same.  Nor will you. 

May it be so.