PREACHING THE LECTIONARY: THE McGREGOR PAGE
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Lent 2
March 16, 2003
Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16
Ps. 22: 23-31
Romans 4: 13-25
Mark 8: 31-38
Paul takes the faith of Abraham as the paradigm for the faith of those who believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Note that what he points to is the faith that Abraham had in God's promise when there was as yet not a shred of evidence that God would do anything. All he had was the experience of hearing God speak. With Sarah ninety years of age and Abraham one hundred, they were certainly tempted to think talk was all they were going to get from God.
Jesus undertakes to disabuse the disciples of any notion of triumph as the world and they know that term, no index finger thrust skyward proclaiming, "We're number one" for them. If their faith were one seeking a material return on investment, they were out of luck. Their faith would have to be like that of Abraham if they were to have a faith at all. It would have to be faith based on what they had heard from the lips of Jesus, the promise that lacked a shred of material evidence. "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it." Here is a promise coming from one who has said that he will "undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be
killed, and after three days rise again." Did they even hear "rise again"? How can he deliver on his promise if he isn't going to stay in the game?! When he dies, he takes his leave of history, but the disciples remain squarely in it. How can he deliver on his promise where they are, in history, when he is above history? Like Abraham, they have their experience of God's Word but no evidence within history, nothing which they could take into court and convince a jury.
My point is this: We can't know the faith Paul preaches unless we can accept the same lack of historical evidence he experienced. We grow anxious when we sense Western Civilization slipping out of it's Christian clothing. The United States is becoming postChristian. How can we believe if the church isn't triumphant? How can God's promises be true if the church doesn't grow? How can Christ be risen if he can't even prevail over the Supreme Court and Congress?
It does us good to contemplate the faith of Abraham and Paul who didn't have a triumphant church as material evidence of the truth of what they had experienced of God's Word. They were not tempted as we, to substitute the authority of religion for the authority of God's promise. "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)
Therefore, I would devote much sermon time to Jesus promise: "... those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it."
Roland McGregor, Pastor
Asbury United Methodist Church, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
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