This sermon was preached at Glebe-St. James United Church on Sun., March 4, 2012
Covenant Two Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16
by Rev. Dr. Christine Johnson
There’s a delicious irony in this reading.
Why would God tell a childless couple they would be the ancestors of a multitude of nations?
Yes, Abraham had children with Hagar, but this is not what God is saying.
The covenant is not against Hagar, nor has it anything to do with this Plan B relationship.
The covenant is about possibility where possibility doesn’t exist.
He is saying that Abraham and Sarah will conceive and will be grandparents to the world.
This is what one a commentator had to say about this:
When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God said to him, "You're going to have a big family, Abraham!"
Wow, wouldn’t that be an amazing way to live –
grounded not on the basis of what we saw we couldn’t do
but on what God says we will do.
Have you ever felt like you have something in you just bursting to get out?
But you make all kinds of excuses why you can’t do it,
instead of just doing it.
I have a friend who was always a musical person when he was a teenager.
But life happened and he let it go.
But recently he felt that he needed to play an instrument,
to get back that sense of creating music.
Instead of saying he was too old,
he went and bought a banjo and is practicing so hard his fingers hurt.
Is there a book you haven’t written?
Is there a song you haven’t sung?
Is there a place you haven’t gone?
Is there a house you haven’t built?
Do you feel the spirit saying something to you but you’re so sure you can’t do it,
that you just ignore it?
Ever since I’ve been a teenager,
God has been trying to tell me that I’m an artist.
As a journalist, I reported on the arts.
As an administrator, I supported the arts.
As an artistic director, I curated the arts.
As a preacher and scholar, I researched the relationship between preaching and the arts.
I’ve always loved the arts, but never saw myself as an artist.
I loved making quilts, but oh no, that’s not artistic.
When I was 11 years old, I wanted to be a poet.
Then, in Grade 13, my English teacher told me my poems were okay, not great.
I was devastated.
I told myself I could not be a poet.
But God didn’t give up, and today I’m coming out to the whole world.
I am an artist.
Yes, I’m a minister and a preacher and all those things,
but at the core of who I am there’s an artist.
This is not just the power of positive thinking.
This is what happens when we embrace and believe the One
whose spirit blows through our mind, body and spirit.
We believe in a God who parts the Red Sea,
or the Jordan River,
who raises a young girl from the dead,
who in the face of all hopelessness, shows us that the tomb is empty.
Our God is the spirit that helps us to find a way when there is no way.
So when a church community is more interested
in telling me what it can’t do,
rather than what it can do,
I get worried.
For if we believe in God, truly believe in this power beyond all powers,
God will work with us to use all of our God-given talents to find a way.
Our job is to proclaim the gospel,
that God loves and cares for all,
that God names us as precious.
Our job is to heal the world and to speak out against injustice.
Our job is to be creative and to enjoy the earth.
Please, don’t tell me what we can’t do.
When you do, I get frustrated and cranky.
We have to be prudent and careful,
but it doesn’t mean that we give up before we’ve even started.
We need this story about a childless couple
who God says will be grandparents to the world.
This is so ridiculous they gave birth to Isaac,
whose name means laughter.
And we’ve been laughing ever since.
Covenant Two: The story of Abraham and Sarah teaches us that hopelessness is no reason for a lack of hope in the future.
