Covenant Faithfulness
Genesis 17:1-7; 15-21, Mark 8:31-38
March 12, 2006
Rev. Marcia J. Hauer


There’s something about names. They give us identity. They have power. We give names to our children, of course, but we also give them to our good friends, sweethearts, pets, cars, boats, houses and lots of other things. I’d bet most of us have been called by a nickname or have called someone else by one. Using such special names often brings an increased sense of closeness. On the other hand, nicknames can cause hurt. Naming is a two edged sword. My father used to tell a story about the man he worked for during the Depression. Times were hard and people did whatever they could to make ends meet. This man, my father’s boss, raised a pig with the idea that when it was large enough, they would butcher it and have meat for a long while. When the time came, and the first meal was served—pork roast, if memory serves—this man began to carve the roast and asked, “Anybody want a piece of Toby?� And, even though the pig hadn’t been given a name and hadn’t been a pet, no one could eat dinner that night nor could they eat any of the rest of the meat. There is power in naming things.

In the ancient Middle East, naming someone gave the namer power over that person. Have you ever noticed that in the second creation story in Genesis 2-3, Adam names all the animals but doesn’t name the woman? God takes that privilege because God claims the woman as much as the man and wants them to have an equal relationship. So it is in our story from Genesis this morning. Abram and Sarai have been told to leave their home and family and to go out into the world without knowing where they are going or what awaits them. All they know is that God has told them that if they go, God will give them a “good and broad land, flowing with milk and honey,� and that their descendents will be more numerous than all the grains of sand on the sea shore. These are grand promises. In this morning’s reading, however, these people have been gone from Ur, their homeland a long time. They’ve sojourned all the way from the north to the south of what is now Israel/Palestine. They have been into Egypt. Sarai’s slave, Hagar, has borne Abram’s only child. Now, both Abram and Sarai are old, well past the age of producing children. Then, God came to Abram, gave him and Sarai new names and told them that they would be parents within the year. Abram’s response? He laughed. “How can a man as old as I am with a wife as old as Sarai is, possibly become a father?� he asked.

The story of Abraham and Sarah begins in Genesis 12 and goes into Genesis 25. It’s told from several different sources and woven together. You’ll find numerous discrepancies, places where the story seems to go back on itself only to be told from a different angle, places where the timing simply won’t work if the story is historic fact. The truth of the story isn’t to be found in those details. Its truth is simply, that God does keep promises. When God seeks to be in covenant with people—that’s all of us—God does what God has promised. Our response to these promises is to remain faithful.

Abraham and Sarah went out into the world not knowing what to expect except that God had promised them descendents and a good land. God expected that they would leave their old gods behind and worship only the One who sent them out. They kept their end of the bargain, imperfectly, but they kept it. They were people of covenant faithfulness.

Jesus is another who lives in covenant faithfulness. He goes out not knowing what to expect. He knows that he has a message to spread and that there is urgency. When he begins his ministry, he doesn’t know that what he has to say is so subversive that it will lead to his death. By the time we come in on the story today, Jesus has traveled all around Galilee, has taken numerous boat trips across the lake and he has gone to Caesarea Philippi where he confronted the Syro-Phoenician woman. We come into the story today after they have gone back into their own country. The picture Mark paints of Jesus is one of a man who has an urgent message to impart to all who will hear it. It is a message that his disciples don’t understand. They are interested in repeating each triumphant meeting with the crowds. They imagine that their travels with Jesus will go on for a long time and they will be increase their power and esteem among the people as a result. So, it must have come as a surprise to hear Jesus say that he had to go to Jerusalem and be tortured and killed. It’s no surprise that Peter would take Jesus aside and give him a piece of his mind. I can almost imagine the scene:

Peter: Jesus, get a grip. You know that you don’t have to go to Jerusalem. We’ve got a nice life here. People flock to hear what you have to say. So, the Pharisees don’t like it much, but we can cope with that.
Jesus: Simon, you just don’t understand what this has been about. I admit, I didn’t know at the beginning either, but now I know. And I must go to Jerusalem and let the chief priest and his cronies know that they have to change and quit working for the Romans.
Peter: But what about everything we have here? Our families are here. Our connections are here. We’ve never lived anywhere else. This is our place our lives depend on staying here.
Jesus: Get behind me Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things. It’s perfectly normal to want the ease of familiar things, of family and of friends, but our call is different than that. Our call includes suffering and dying not because God wants that for us, but because the message the God has asked us to spread upsets the power structure and those in power will seek our lives.

It would be hard to hear words like these. Particularly for someone who doesn’t quite understand what Jesus is all about. I really like Peter. He reminds me of myself. I suspect that he reminds most of us of ourselves. We’re good people. We’re kind to one another. We help others. We do what we believe we ought to be doing. The problem with that is that we’re comfortable. We are called to do what Abram and Sarai were called to do. We are called to do what Jesus and his disciples were called to do. We are called to go out into the world not knowing what kind of reception we will find there. We are called to spread the good news that God loves each and every person, animal, plant and bit of land on this planet and that we should too. We are called to love God, love ourselves and love our neighbors—all of our neighbors, not just the ones who love us. Maybe we are especially called to love those who don’t love us. We are called to travel a difficult road, doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with God. We are called to follow Jesus, to bring life into the world and to redeem it from the evils that surround us.

We are called to live as Jesus did and, perhaps dying as he did. What he did won no popularity contests. His message was so subversive that it led to his death. That message is just as subversive today as it was then. Our world is as corrupt as his was. We have a choice, just like Peter said. We can live our comfortable lives being good people or we can follow the Jerusalem road with Jesus. We can leave our home and family and everything that nurtures and sustains us and go to the land that God will show us with the hope that God will keep God’s promises or we can stay where we are, clinging to the familiar and the comfortable. Jesus calls us to take up our individual crosses and follow him. He says that those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for Jesus’ sake will find it and that the good things we enjoy in our lives are just things and not what we should strive for. It’s all backwards. If we believe the advertisers, we need the best and shiniest new stuff. We have to have a wide screen digital television, a luxury car, designer clothing and a high-powered job to be among the best and the brightest in our country. Our identity is to be found in the stuff we have. God says that our identity is to be found in the fact that God has named us and claimed us with a love that is beyond anything we can fathom. Like Peter, we don’t quite understand, but also like Peter, we have to be willing to follow the Jerusalem road no matter what it brings, no matter how uncomfortable it is. You see, God keeps God’s promises and we will find life in the end, even when the road is hard, lonely, dangerous and frightening.

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