Three Lenten words from God (Mother Beth)

The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you… so that you will be a blessing.”
 
This command of God in Genesis 12, our first reading, marks the moment in long-ago history when God starts to create a family for himself, this great nation of children of Abraham. In our second reading from Romans, Paul, over 1000 years later, is still reflecting on that moment -- how did Abraham get access to God’s family? Was it having a special ethnic heritage, or did his behavior reach some threshold that entitled him to be selected? No. It was God’s choice, pure and simple, and Abraham’s yes to that choice, pure and simple.
 
In the Gospel today, Jesus expands on the same principle as he speaks with Nicodemus: The image Jesus uses is that God offers people who have been born in the ordinary way a second, different kind of birth, a birth into God’s kingdom (Jesus doesn’t employ the idea of family much). This kingdom does not depend on your heritage, where you come from, what religion your parents belong to, or whether you are a kind or respectable person. None of that has any effect. The only way to even perceive God’s Kingdom, Jesus says, much less be born into it, is by responding to God in trust. All three readings are getting at the same thing: God makes an offer of incorporation, and if we take God up on it, God will do what he promises.

All three readings expand and explain this in one way or another, but even in that short and ancient passage from Genesis, so much of the Christian life, and of what we experience together this Lent in our shared practices, is already there implicit.
The Lord said: Go from your country and your kindred.
The Lord said: Go to the land that I will show you.
The Lord said: I will bless you so that you will be a blessing.
 
The Lord said: Go from your country and your kindred. The kingdom of God is almost never found in being satisfied with where we are. It transcends our existing family ties and the people we already know. Once you are born of God, God sends you out, to strange environments, to challenging encounters with difference, away from family and home. We need in one sense to be startled out of complacency – which is part of what Lenten practices do for us – and in another sense to practice recognizing God however God may look, rather than just in people and places that are already familiar. The Lord said: Go from your country and your kindred.
 
The Lord said: Go to the land that I will show you. The kingdom of God is almost never a matter of things we could design for ourselves, or outcomes we have selected. If we want to grow in Christ, we have to learn how to depend concretely on God to show us what to do and where to go, and to take the first steps in trust without expecting to get to control our path or to know for sure where it will lead. Parishes often struggle with this just as much as people do: will God really show us how to move ahead step by step? Yes, if we are born of God and practice listening and letting go. No, if we demand control. The Lord said: Go to the land that I will show you.
 
The Lord said: I will bless you so that you will be a blessing. The Kingdom of God is almost never found in simply receiving blessing and enjoying what we’ve already got. God blesses those who have been born into the kingdom extravagantly, but if it’s really God blessing you, that energy and love will inevitably flow outward. Outward is the direction of the Gospel, as I have said many times. I would never de-emphasize the unspeakable preciousness and joy of a living connection with Jesus, but again -- if it’s truly a living connection with Jesus, it just will move out to bless your city and your environment and your network of relationships. The Lord said: I will bless you so that you will be a blessing.
 
The Lord said: Go from your country and your kindred.
The Lord said: Go to the land that I will show you.
The Lord said: I will bless you so that you will be a blessing.
 
Let me point out as well that these three words of God to Abraham, and through Abraham to us,  resonate well with the outreach focus Emmanuel’s vestry chose for Lent, which is the Gitimaini Anglican Church in Kenya. Now you may wonder why not Tabora Tanzania, which is our companion diocese and which we helped last year with health insurance. Well, Gitimaini has a strong connection with the Diocese of Springfield too, through Father James Muriuki at the Church of the Redeemer in Cairo, IL. Father Muriuki’s mother-in-law is a parishioner at Gitimaini, where they have spent the past 19 years gradually building a church to meet in. (You thought our rectory project was taking a long time!) 
 
Before that church was completed, most people would walk 5-6 miles each way to Mass each Sunday. (And you thought having to park in the next block sometimes was a hardship.) So the building is done at last, but they have no furniture or decoration inside. That’s where Emmanuel, along with others in our diocese, hopes to make a difference. We want to collaborate with Fr. Muriuki’s mother in law and all her fellow parishioners as they move on towards being able to sit in church, look at a crucifix, have an altar for the priest to say Mass on, and so forth.
 
Sara Burrus made a model of the church for the Great Hall, an empty building with model furnishings at the ready, and as we collect donations we’ll go down the price list Fr. Muriuki gave us, see what we can pay for, and move those models in. For example, if we hit $748, that’s enough for the altar to go in. As usual you can donate for this outreach via your Breeze app, on our website, or by check – for any of those just put Kenya in the memo. If you’re newer and not signed up for Breeze, be in touch with Mary in the office; she’ll help you.
 
Financial help to people in difficult economic circumstances is an important way to respond to God’s call to be a blessing to others, as is, by the way, acting and voting in ways that you believe will systemically reduce the number of people who are in difficult economic circumstances. But today I want make sure we remember that first word of God we were looking at: Go from your country and your kindred. Encounter people and situations you’re not used to and discover that God is there. I know, because I’ve ministered in Africa, what a tremendous amount each of us would gain from witnessing the faith and the love of the folks in Gitimaini Anglican Church. I wish you could all experience receiving from them, and discover how inspiring and challenging that would be to your own relationship with Jesus.
 
But since you can’t, we’re going to do something else: we’re going to write notes today to the parishioners of Gitimaini. There are cards and a mailbox out in the Great Hall, and we invite you today to take one and write a note to your fellow Anglican Christians in Kenya. You could say all kinds of things. Thank them for their faith and perseverance. Tell them you admire their commitment of walking to church. Share with them a fact or two about the life of our parish, or about your own practice as a disciple of Jesus in your own circumstances.  Offer praise to God for the gift of his Son, for the Gospel, for the ability to be joined together in Christ across the globe. Quote the scriptures. If you write a secular note to an Anglican in Kenya, I promise you, they will be baffled. They believe in God over there. Tell them you are praying for their witness, and then actually pray. Drop your notes in the mailbox and when Easter comes they will be read by a distant community of your fellow Christians, people who have been born of the Spirit, people who are part of the family of Abraham by grace, people who have received the same call we received in the Scriptures this morning:
 
The Lord said: Go from your country and your kindred.
The Lord said: Go to the land that I will show you.
The Lord said: I will bless you so that you will be a blessing.
 

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