March 16, 2025

Lent 2, Year C

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35

Epiphany, Winnipeg

It occurred to me a few weeks ago that right now and these past few months I’ve been feeling an awful lot like I felt five years ago, as COVID took over our daily lives and our thoughts. Back then we started out wondering if this whole virus thing would really amount to anything, and then it came to our place, and anxiety and fear just filled the air that we breathe. The lives we knew were put on hold, and we wondered together what on earth might happen…

These days.… We started out kind of shaking our heads in wonder at how life in the U.S. seemed too be taking shape as a new political era began. It was a spectator sport for so many of us, especially those of us without close ties to our neighbours. But now it’s not a spectator sport anymore, and the air we breathe is filled with talk of annexation and fifty-first states, and there are those tariffs and a world order turning upside down.

If you’re feeling a bit like you’re losing your mind, remember that you’re not the only one. Remember to talk to one another, but don’t just say, “Can you believe the latest dumb or frightening thing that happened?” Talk about how you’re feeling about it all, and listen to someone else talk about that.

And don’t make it worse. My very last words in my very first COVID sermon were, “And go easy on the toilet paper and the hand sanitizer.” This time around I’ll say “And go easy on the news and the social media.”

We have three readings this morning that were written long long ago in a place far far away, but they still speak something for these days in this place, and in so many places.

The first is that story of Abram and Sarai, who would become Abraham and Sarah. Years and years ago God had promised them that they would come into a new land that they and their children and grandchildren and all their generations to come would call home. God said, “I will bless you, and you will be a blessing.” The weird catch in the whole story is that Abram and Sarai are way beyond the years for making children. They started collecting OAS years ago, and having any descendants is impossible, so Abram says, “There’s no way this can happen. What are you going to do about it, God?” Then God takes Abram outside at night and says, “Look up at those stars. Can you count them? No? That’s how many descendants you’re going to have. I promise.” A few minutes later God says, “And that land I promised to give you? I’ll take you there. I promise.”

Then there’s the weird part, about cutting animals in half and passing between the halves. Apparently that was some kind of ritual that happened in that part of the world then, when two parties were making a covenant with each other. It was as if they each said “Let it be for me as it is for these animals if I don’t keep my promises.” So God and Abram make this covenant, and it’s like God says, “I’ll stake my life on this promise I’m making,” and Abram says, “I’ll trust that promise. And we’ll be your people.”

The land they’re talking about is, of course, Israel. Israel has a super-complicated history, and over three or more thousand years sometimes it’s seemed like God’s promises are coming true, and sometimes it seems like God has abandoned the people, and sometimes the people are faithful and are a blessing to everyone around them, and sometimes the nation seems to be cruel to the people around them. It’s a really messy history, and we see it today in a really messy time in Israel and Palestine and the area. It’s not all worked out and simple and easy.

But today we hear again this ancient story about an impossible promise that God makes and keeps making and will not abandon. God makes a promise and holds to that promise even when we pesky people seem to want make it impossible. From long long ago God has made a promise to get mixed up in a messy and troubled and beloved world. And God won’t abandon that world or the promises that God has made.

It’s an old story but we can hear it echo among us today. We’ve got this messy world with the things we worry about and the things that nations and people – even we - do to other nations and people; this is the world where God has promised to be and that God will not abandon. And God’s promise will keep on being spoken, and we keep trying to trust the promise even when it seems far off, and the promise gives us the hope we need to keep living and working towards a world where nations and peoples are not threats and enemies but are a blessing to each other.

Step ahead a millennium and a half or more and we find Jesus. Jesus is one of those descendants of Abram and Sarai; one of those billions of stars God took Abram outside to see. Jesus has lived all his days in that complicated and messy history of Israel, that place and people, blessed to be a blessing. He looks over Jerusalem and sheds tears of anger about the way that people have been treated in Jerusalem. He probably knows that he’ll soon be one of those who suffers and dies in the city.

But he also weeps tears of grief and of love for the city; that city that he’s longed to gather under his wings, like a mother hen; just pull the city together in a loving embrace so that it will be a place of love and peace and promises fulfilled. And right there we see how Jesus, who we call God in the flesh, is so caught up in that messy and troubled and beloved city, and he won’t abandon it, even if it costs him his life.

It’s an old story but it echoes among us today: In the ongoing messy history of Jerusalem, and in the ongoing messy history of Canada and Ottawa and Washington and Mar-a-Lago, in the ongoing messy history of a world that is so interconnected that you can’t sneeze in one place without bringing tragedy or wonder to another place, next door or far away.

We can hear the story echo among us today as Jesus looks out even over Winnipeg and sees how much we can love each other but also how much hate their can be, and he sees wonders and Forks and Human Rights Museums and great restaurants where wonders are worked with the wonders of creation, and he sees landfills and tent settlements and people who make good things happen and people who just struggle to survive. All our messy history. And Jesus says, “Oh Winnipeg, I love you and you make me crazy with the things that happen in you. I long to gather you together under my wings and make you a city of kindness and peace and promise.”

And we’re waiting for that promise. God’s promise is still here, and we keep on, and we keep trying to trust the promise even when it seems far off, and the promise gives us the hope we need to keep living and working towards a city or nation or neighbourhood where nations and peoples are not threats and enemies but are a blessing to each other.

Then there’s that little piece we heard, a piece of a letter written by a travelling preacher named Paul to the small Christian community in a Greek city called Philippi. Paul is writing from prison, which is a humiliating and suffering kind of place for him to be. He’s writing to a small church who are themselves facing threats of persecution and they’re feeling all that fear. They are caught up, of course, in a messy and troubled world, that messy and troubled world that God has committed to being a part of, even if it takes forever. They’re caught up in that messy and troubled world that Jesus, who they now call saviour, could not ever stop loving, even though it cost him his life.

And Paul says two small things for them, and for us too. One is that their citizenship is in heaven. Our citizenship is in heaven. Now Paul doesn’t mean, “Don’t worry about your troubles because you’ll go to heaven when you die.” What he means is that, as Barbara Lundblad says (she’s a great Lutheran scholar and preacher), “We travel on a different passport.” Although we’re citizens of Canada or the U.S. or Germany or Australia or Ghana or Tanzania or whatever our passports say, the citizenship we hold that trumps all of those others is our citizenship with the one who will never give up hope for the world. We travel on a passport that doesn’t call us to look for power or wealth or party leadership, but that always calls us to live as people guided but things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control: things that Paul called the fruits of the Spirit. We travel on a passport that says that we’ll live as though God still has this promise going on, and we’ll keep trusting the promise even when it seems far off, and the promise will keep giving us the hope we need to keep living and working towards a city or nation or neighbourhood or world where nations and peoples are not threats and enemies but are a blessing to each other. Just as God promises.

And God is keeping on making us, even we humble people, into people who carry that kind of passport; making us into the Body of Christ that we are.

That’s who we’re reminded to return to in Lent. To the God who keeps on making that promise. It’s like we sang a few minutes ago, and we can sing it for the whole world that’s always made its life messy and troubled and has always been, always will be, dearly loved. Remember how it goes?

Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.

Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.

Save us as you promised; we will trust your word.

Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.