The Second Sunday in Lent (B), February 25, 2018 - Romans 4:13-25; Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Rembrandt: God Reveals his Covenant to Abraham (ca. 1655)

Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kupferstichkabinett

(Please page down for the poem on the Genesis text alone.)

Romans 4:13-25

I Reckon This Is True

I'm not sure Paul has it exactly right

About that part, "No distrust made him waver;"

For many incidents in later years

Reveal his faith had more a mixed bag flavor -

Like, passing off Sarah as his sister,

Which served to save this great believer's skin;

(And which later, Isaac also pulled off -

Like father, like son, we say with a grin!)

Like, on Moriah, there, with his only son

(Carrying the wood and sacrifice-bound)

It's as if he's playing a game of chicken

With this God, daring him to stand his ground.

But at one moment, Paul has it just right,

For Abraham, flat on his face, believed,

And at that moment, all his righteousness

Was not what he did, but what he received.

Scott L. Barton

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. 

For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

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Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Stained glass panel, (c.1485) 

from the south clerestory (window K) 

of the Great Malvern Priory, 

Worcestershire, United Kingdom

The Promise is the Thing

When Abram, old at ninety-nine,

A time when most feel past their prime,

Heard God Almighty cov'nant make,

Did he then say, "It's my big break?"

Or, had he such an attitude,

That, in a word, was gratitude

For all the things that yet would be?

The kings, foretold, he'd never see,

(The son, how could that come to be???)

And yet... and yet, his life was changed.

Perhaps, you, too, will sense arranged

By God far more than you can make,

And simply trust, through pain and aches,

That gifts which you can hardly guess

Will make new generations blessed.

Scott L. Barton

(Slightly revised from 3/1/15)

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him,

“As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.

I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

...God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”