The Power of God's Love

The Power of God’s Love

Psalm 8, Matthew 28:16-20[1]

We have a complicated relationship with power. On the one hand, we seem to be fascinated with those whom we consider to be the most “powerful” people. Even to the point that our admiration can at times approach a kind of “worship.” There are many powerful people in this world who have an almost “cult” like following among their fans. On the other hand, we seem to be inherently distrusting of power. Especially when we believe someone is abusing their power. Anytime someone in power “bullies” those who are more vulnerable, we think of it as an abuse of power. And in our world we may see that kind of thing so often that we become distrusting of all power, regardless of how it’s used.

Our Scripture lessons for today speak to us about God’s power. The creation story in Genesis portrays God’s power to simply “speak” all things into existence. That’s a kind of power that most of us may want, but I dare say none of us would use well. But God most certainly used it well. That’s the point of the refrain that occurs throughout the creation story: “and God saw that it was good.” God used his extraordinary power to create a world and all the living things in it that was not only “good,” but indeed “very good,” as God observes at the end of the process (Gen 1:31). It may be hard for some people to imagine even God using that magnitude of power for good, but that’s precisely what the Bible teaches us! God always uses his power for good!

In our reading from the Psalms, we find this perspective on God’s power confirmed. Like many of us, the Psalmsinger found himself confronted by the majestic power of the God who created all the heavens and the earth simply with a word. I would say that the more we understand about how vast this cosmos really is, the more we are confronted by God’s majesty and power in creation. Even in ancient times, a simple glance at the night sky led the Psalmsinger to wonder, “what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:4). And yet, despite the fact that he frames his faith in the form of a question, we shouldn’t overlook the affirmation that lies behind it: God is mindful of us all; God does care for us, both deeply and continually. That is also the nature of God’s power!

The Psalmsinger had good reason to believe this. It’s the heart of what Hebrew Bible affirms about God: “I am the Lord God. I am merciful and very patient with my people. I show great love, and I can be trusted” (Exodus 34:6, CEV). It is the revelation God gave to Moses in the “cleft of the rock” when he asked to see God’s glory. And it echoes like a refrain throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, because it is the truth that serves as the foundation for biblical faith. The message of the Scriptures is that God’s power points us to the fact that God loves us with a love that will never let us go. It may be difficult for us to grasp, but the truth of our Scripture lesson is that we are constantly surrounded by the love of the God who is powerful enough to create all things simply by speaking the word. As one of our affirmations of faith puts it, the Bible leads us to believe in a God whose love for us is “powerful beyond measure.”

We see this theme of power reflected a little differently in our Gospel reading for today. It’s the story of Jesus’ final appearance to his disciples according to Matthew. When he appeared to them on a mountain in Galilee, he said something that would have been startling for them. And it should still catch our attention today: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Mt 28:18). We’re used to hearing that language because it’s part of the “Great Commission.” But in that day, “all authority” belonged to God. Any human being claiming “all authority in heaven and on earth” would have been viewed as directly contradicting God’s authority. In fact, there are many in our world to this day who struggle with the image Jesus as having “all authority in heaven and on earth.”

I think what made the difference is that it was the risen and living Jesus who made this startling claim. They had seen him die, and they had seen him alive more than once after he rose from the dead. It was the resurrection that confirmed that this authority had come from God. I think we could say that Jesus received this authority in response to the fact that he had “fulfilled all righteousness” as Matthew’s Gospel puts it (Mt 3:15), or in other words that he had carried out God’s plan to “set right” all things and all people by his death and resurrection. Because of that, God himself gave this authority to Jesus. So it is that, in the New Testament, there is no contradiction whatsoever between the affirmation that all authority belongs to God, and that God has given that authority to Jesus Christ.

One reason for that is because Jesus uses that authority to carry out God’s purpose in the world. That’s not something we expect these days. It goes against the norm in our day. In our world, “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”[2] That’s the way we view power. Many of those who have the most power in our day use it to benefit themselves. But Jesus used the authority given to him by God not for his own benefit, but to extend the peace, justice, and freedom of God’s kingdom to all people. And he continues to use that authority to fulfill God’s work of “making all things new” (Rev 21:5). And at the end of it all, Paul said that Jesus would surrender all authority back to God, so that God “will be utterly supreme over everything everywhere” (1 Cor 15:28, NLT), bringing the new life of God’s kingdom to everyone and everything!

I think the point of all this was to inspire confidence in those of us who follow Jesus in a world that is set against God’s authority and power, in a world that remains set against the peace, justice, and freedom of God’s kingdom to this day. We see that opposition almost daily. Part of the assurance that God’s love triumphs in this world through Jesus lies in the promise that “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20). Yes, we live in a world where the work of God’s kingdom isn’t complete. Yes, we live in a world where people continue to abuse power for their own benefit, and they hurt innocent people in the process. But rather than letting that cause us to doubt God’s purpose, or cause us to question Jesus’ power and authority, we can be confident because Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord is the one to whom God has entrusted “authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world” (Dan 7:13, NLT). And with that authority, Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord rules right now over “everything in heaven and on earth, everything seen and unseen” (Col 1:16, NLT). And the promise is that “His rule is eternal—it will never end” (Dan 7:14, NLT).

When we get caught up in what’s happening around us in this world, we can easily lose sight of all this. We can wonder where God’s rule, God’s power, and God’s authority are in this world. It’s still there! Jesus the Christ and our Savior and Lord is reigning with “all authority” at the right hand of God, right now! And he promised that he would be with us until the end of the age, continuing to fulfill the promise of God’s kingdom with the authority and power that God has given him. And part of the promise is that the power of God’s love will never fade. The promise is that the rule of love that Jesus carries out in our lives now will never end. One day, the power of God’s love, the rule of love that Jesus carries out in our lives now will extend to all people and encompass everything. On that day, then the whole creation will return to where it was in the beginning, when God “spoke” it into being, and everything was “very good.”

---

[1] © 2026 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 5/31/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Famously penned by Lord John Dalberg-Acton, Letter to Mandell Creighton (5 April 1887), referring to the declaration by Pope Pius IX of the Roman Catholic dogma of papal infallibility. He said, “I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. … Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. … There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which … the end learns to justify the means.” Cf. Historical Essays and Studies, by John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton (1907), edited by John Neville Figgis and Reginald Vere Laurence, Appendix, p. 504. Accessed at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lord_Acton.

Made for Relationships

Made for Relationships

Genesis 1:26; Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18[1]

One of the challenges of this time of separation from others is that we don’t have nearly as many face-to-face contacts with people. Of course, we do get to see each other on the screen with our Zoom gatherings, but it’s just not the same as being together. Believe it or not, I’m actually an introvert. I love being around people, but I need “alone” time to re-charge. Even those of us who are introverts need to see the people in our lives. I think part of the stress we’re all feeling is that we don’t have the same level of personal interaction with co-workers, friends, family, and the church family.

One of the main motivations for being a part of a church like ours is the relationships we form. As we heard earlier in our service, many times the church becomes an extended family for those whose are away from their family members. I don’t know about you, but that’s one of the things I miss most about being able to gather together in person. At the same time, I have a deep concern for your safety, and I don’t want to leave anybody out of our worship. For now, it seems that the best course is to continue to gather on Zoom, and to have regular opportunities for us to “meet and greet” one another in safe ways.

The fact that relationships are so important to us is, I think, something that is true by design. In the creation story in Genesis, God says, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). This passage is the basis for the idea that we as human beings are created in the image of God. Throughout the ages, theologians and scholars have debated precisely what that means. Some have said that it is our capacity for reason, others that it is our ability to “have dominion” over the rest of creation, and others have even said it is the fact that we walk upright!

I would say that the Scriptures point us in a different direction. Understanding God is in some ways straightforward, and in other ways it is complicated. Especially in the New Testament, as in our Gospel reading, the language for God is the language of “Trinity.” This is one of the most complicated aspects of our faith. As I understand it, Trinity means that God does not exist in a solitary condition. Rather, God is “God in three persons” who are bound together by love. God is “God in relationship,” “God in community.” The very statement that “God is love” implies that at the heart of who God is, there is relationship. For there to be love, there has to be an “other” to love. That love starts with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who are bound together by the love they share for one another. And so it is that I think we are meant to read the creation of humankind in the image of God in part as a statement about who God is: God is “love overflowing” to all of us, and the whole creation.  

“God’s love overflowing”[2] reaches out to all created things, and especially to the human family. As I mentioned, that we are created in God’s image means that we are made for relationships. We are designed to respond to the love that God has poured out in our hearts. The primary way in which we do this is in our relationship with God our Creator. We are to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5). That means seeking God, following God’s ways, honoring God with our lives, and serving God by serving others.

That last part points us to the other essential way in which we respond to the love God has poured into our lives. Just as God exists in the community of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so we are made to love others. We are created to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). We love God by loving others through the relationships we build with them. Just as God exists in a fellowship of love, so also we who are created in his image are made for relationships.

We’ve been given an amazing gift: we’ve been designed to relate to God and one another with love. And we’ve been given an amazing task: we’ve been created to share God’s love with one another and with those around us. To be this kind of people, people who are fundamentally shaped by God's love, people who share God’s love with all those we encounter, is more than we can do by ourselves. Fortunately, we have an example of what that looks like in human terms in the person of Jesus Christ. And we have a “helper” to guide us and empower us in the person of the Holy Spirit. We who are made for relationships can look to God our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sustainer to live out the love we have been given by sharing it with all our fellow members of the human family.

---

[1] © Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D., on 6/7/2020 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] See the PCUSA statement on the Trinity entitled “The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing” at https://www.presbyterianmission.org/resource/trinity-gods-love-overflowing/.

The Lord is With Us

The Lord is With Us

Genesis 50:15-21[1]

I find that “God’s purpose” for my life is incredibly difficult to discern. I also know that my ability to discern what God may be doing in my life at any particular time isn’t very accurate. You may be able to identify with that. It seems, beyond the obvious truth that God wants us all to love him and to love each other, that it’s next to impossible for us to know with any certainty what God may be doing in our lives. I think that’s especially the case when life hurts. We believe in a God who loves us, who is kind and good to us, and who is all-powerful. And for most of us that all adds up to the idea that God must intend to bring into our lives the good things that we desire. Surely it must be God’s purpose to make us happy! And, at least from the outside looking in, that seems to be true for some people. But I would have to say that I doubt that most of us fall in that category.

I would say that the vast majority of people we encounter in our everyday lives are dealing with some kind of significant loss or another—whether it’s a career, or health, or a relationship, or simply the loss of vitality you had when you were younger. Since that’s the case, I personally don’t find it helpful to peddle the promise that if you have enough faith you’ll get the life you’ve always wanted. If that’s God’s purpose for us, then it seems like he hasn’t done a very good job of it! But I would have to say that I don’t believe “making us happy” is God’s purpose for us at all. In fact, I would point to St. Paul who says that God’s purpose for us is to “conform us to the image of Christ” (Rom. 8:29). That happens in a variety of ways, but in my experience it “sticks” most frequently in times of hardship and suffering. It’s in those times that we truly learn the faith that trusts in God in all the circumstances of our lives.

That’s not the answer most of us want to hear. We enter our lives with the youthful enthusiasm that leads us to believe we can do anything. But life has a way of reminding us that we are mere mortals with limitations. Joseph seemed to have some of that youthful enthusiasm. Although his dreams of success and great achievement did actually come true. I doubt that as a young man he could ever have imagined the path that it would take for him to get there. It was a path through slavery and a long imprisonment that led him to become the second most powerful man in the world of his day.

But that wasn’t the primary purpose of God in this seemingly tragic story. God had something more important in mind. And it would take Joseph a lifetime to understand it—a lifetime that I think must have turned out very differently from the one he may have wanted. His journey started with his family. Joseph’s own brothers hated him so much that plotted to kill him. Instead, they wound up selling him into slavery. It must have been quite a fall for Joseph going from being the favored son of a rich man to a slave in a foreign country.

And yet, in slavery, “the Lord was with” Joseph (Gen. 39:3), and he was put in charge of the master’s household. After repeated attempts by his master’s wife tried to seduce him, one day Joseph fled leaving his garment in her hands.  Of course, she accused him of taking liberties with her, and Joseph wound up in jail. Now, what we have to understand is that “jail” in those days was more like a death sentence than confinement. You were thrown into a dungeon and no one really cared if you lived or died. But even in the dungeon, “the Lord was with” Joseph (Gen. 39:21), and he wound up running the place.

After years, two of Pharaoh’s closest servants happened to land in jail. Joseph helped them by interpreting some troubling dreams, and in return he asked them to help him when they got out. Pharaoh eventually had his own disturbing dreams, and one of them remembered Joseph. After interpreting Pharaoh’s dream as a reference to a coming famine, and proposing a plan for dealing with it, Joseph became what was essentially the “Prime Minister” of Egypt! He became the second most powerful man in the most powerful empire in the world of that day!

As a result of the famine, Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt looking for grain. After testing them, he revealed his true identity to them, and Joseph was reunited with his family. Years later, Joseph’s brothers were afraid that he would take revenge on them. But Joseph said, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today” (Gen. 50:20). Years of hardship, suffering, and brokenness led him to understand that God used all his experiences to shape him into the man who could save his family, as well as many others.

Like many of us, Joseph’s life turned out quite differently than he could have imagined. I think the reason for all that he went through was that something bigger was at stake than his own personal “happiness.” And I think it was this realization that enabled him to find peace by trusting that God’s purposes were for good, even though it may have been hard to see it in the process. I think that’s a lesson we all have to learn if we’re going to learn to trust God to be loving and good, come what may. I think that’s where the water hits the wheel for many of us when it comes down to really learning faith. It may take pain and loss to learn that kind of faith, but we can trust God to be with us every step of the way.

---

[1] ©2017 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 9/17/2017 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE. 

The "Voice" is a Liar

The “Voice” is a Liar

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Matthew 4:1-11[1]

  Among the many voices that compete for our attention in this world, some of the most difficult ones are the voices inside us.  We all have those inner voices.  You know them as well as I do.  There is the voice of fear that says, “There’s no place I can feel really safe.”  Or the voice of condemnation that says, “No matter what I do, it will never be good enough.”  Or the voice of shame that says, “I’ll never be worthy of love.”  Those voices are drilled into us by our culture, and they’re incredibly hard to ignore, let alone unlearn.  But those voices are all lying to us.  Because the truth is that we are already safe in God’s hands; everything we do is good enough for the God who loves us without our having to do anything to be “worthy.”

  There’s another voice that we all have faced from time to time.  It’s the voice of temptation.  It’s the voice that says, “You know you want it, so go for it.”  It’s a voice that comes to us in situations that can be mundane as well as  those that have life-long consequences.  Essentially, it’s the same voice our original parents heard in the Garden.  When the tempter came to them, he lied to them.  But he did so in ways that made it really hard to recognize that he was lying to them.  Notice how cunning the tempter was.  First, he distorted God’s original instruction to them.[2]  God’s voice said “you may freely eat of every tree of the garden” (Gen. 2:16), except for one.[3]  But the tempter made it sound as if any restriction was unfair: “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (3:1).

  Next the tempter made God out to be a liar.  God had warned Adam that if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would die (2:17).  But the tempter flatly contradicted that: “You will not die” (3:4).  And, in fact they didn’t die the moment they ate.  But they did bring death into that beautiful garden.[4]  As if that were not enough, the tempter proceeded to call God’s motives into question, implying that God was trying to keep something great and wonderful from them: “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (3:5).[5]  The truth of the matter is that they were already “like God” in all the ways that mattered, because they had been created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26-27).  But the voice of temptation always makes it hard to recognize that it’s lying. Just like the other voices that can trouble us, the voice of temptation is a liar.  It’s always a liar.[6]

  In our other temptation story for today, Jesus seems to handle the tempter’s voice with great ease, as if the temptations presented to him were no real challenge at all.  And yet, if we were to think that, we would miss an important truth about this temptation story.  As the writer to the Hebrews puts it, Jesus is “one who in every respect has been tested as we are” (Heb. 4:15).[7]  If we think that he didn’t want to turn those stones to bread after fasting for forty days and nights, it’s only because we’ve never fasted that long. 

  Interestingly, the tempter’s strategy was the same with Jesus as it had been in garden.  First, he planted a seed of doubt about whether Jesus could trust the voice at his Baptism: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt. 3:17).[8]  The tempter tried to get Jesus to doubt that declaration by talking him into indulging his hunger: “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread” (Mt. 4:3).  But Jesus responded with the voice of truth from the Torah: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (4:4, quoting Dt. 8:3).[9] 

  Next, the tempter shifts to the strategy of distorting God’s voice.  He took Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple and quoted from the Psalms: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone’” (4:6, quoting Ps. 91:11-12).  But despite the fact that Jesus had the need for validation just like every other human being, he also knew that this wasn’t the way to get it.  And so he turned again to the voice of truth in the Torah: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test” (4:7, quoting Dt. 6:16).[10]

  Finally, the tempter goes all out and challenges not only God’s motives but also Jesus’ intentions.  Jesus had come to transform the “Kingdom of this world into the Kingdom of our Lord” (Rev. 11:15) by stripping the power from evil on the cross.  He knew this was the reason God had sent him in the first place.  So the tempter offered Jesus an “easier” path: showing him all the kingdoms of the world he said, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me” (4:9).[11]  As if they were his to give!  And as if it was not Jesus’ destiny to become the one at whose name “every knee shall bow” as a result of his death on the cross.[12]  But Jesus saw through the tempter’s ruse and again answered with the voice of truth from the Torah: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him” (4:10, quoting Dt. 6:13).  As in the story of the temptation in the Garden, so here the tempter was a liar.  In every scheme, every pretense, every aspect of the sham he tried to perpetrate, the voice of the tempter was lying.

  That is true for us as well.  As we enter the season of Lent, I think it would be helpful to take a look at how well we tell the difference between the voices that are lying to us and the those that speak truth.  It’s never easy, because the lying voices play on our doubts and our weaknesses and our failures in an attempt to convince us they’re telling us the real truth.  But in the end, those voices are always lying to us.  The voice that speaks truth is the one that tells us we’re accepted and loved.  The voice that speaks truth is the one that reminds us that we are precious and of inestimable worth in God’s sight.[13]  The voice that speaks truth is the one that points us toward what is good for us, and right, and life-giving.  That’s the voice we need to be listening for.  That’s the voice that will help us recognize that the other voice is a liar.

---

[1] © 2014 Alan Brehm.  A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 3/9/2014 at First Presbyterian Church of Dickinson, TX.

[2] Cf. Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, 47, where he points out that the interplay in this passage “serves to invert the realities ordained by God."  He also says (p. 48), that in the tempter’s approach, “there’s just enough of a twist to miss the point” of God’s original voice.

[3] Cf. Terence E. Fretheim, “The Book of Genesis,” New Interpreters Bible I:351: “To be truly a creature entails limits; to honor limits becomes necessary if creation will develop as God intends.  Yet, while the language takes the form of command, the issue involves trust in the word of God.” At the same time, the freedom to disobey was also a part of the creation (p. 365): “The temptation to reach beyond the limits of creatureliness belongs to created existence for the sake of human integrity and freedom.” Cf. similarly, Brueggemann, 48: the matter of death in the original prohibition “was not a threat but a candid acknowledgement of a boundary of life.”

[4] Cf. Fretheim, “Genesis” NIB I:352, where he points out that they were already mortal beings, so “It may be that death (and life) has a comprehensive meaning in this story ..., associated with the breakdown of relationships to God, to each other, and to the created order.”  Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 3.2.607, is more direct when he says at the conclusion of a long exposition that “the finitude of human life stands in fact in the shadow of its guilt. What else can death be for sinful man but the sign of God’s judgment, and therefore—if man is indeed not created to be a sinner or to suffer God’s judgment—not a divinely willed and created determination natural to his being, but an alien intrusion?”  To be sure, Barth’s conclusions are heavily influenced by Pauline theology, and especially by Barth’s understanding of Jesus’ death on the cross.

[5] Cf. Fretheim, “Genesis” NIB I:361: “The serpent engages in no coercion here, no arm-twisting, no enticement through presentation of fruit from the tree; everything happens through words.  The word of the serpent ends up putting the word of God in question.”  And he points out that the question is whether they can trust that God has their best interests at heart in restricting them from this particular tree.

[6] Cf. Brueggemann, 52, who points out that the crux of this temptation was about trust in God.  He says, “the God announced in this story is not a petty god who jealously guards holy secrets and who eagerly punishes the disobedient.”  Rather the point is that “there is something to life which remains hidden and inscrutable, and which will not be trampled upon by human power or knowledge.”

[7] Cf. Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew, 26, where he says that the “basic underlying temptation” that Jesus shared with all the ones we face is “the temptation to treat God as less than God.” Cf. also M. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew,” New Interpreters Bible VIII:165: here Matthew depicts Jesus as “one who fully shares the weakness of our human situation (cf. Phil 2:5-11; Heb. 2:5-18).  The picture of Jesus as the obedient Son of God does not abolish or compromise the image of Jesus as truly human.”

[8] Cf. W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew 1-7, 367: the question at issue in the temptation is “How should Jesus exercise his power as Son of God?  The answer is, In obedience to God.” Cf.  also Hare, Matthew, 23; Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 92-93.

[9] Cf. Hare, Matthew, 24: unlike Israel in the wilderness, this “Son of God” “refuses to give way to mistrust.”  Cf. also Davies and Allison, Matthew 1-7, 362.

[10] Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1-7, 367: “The Father in heaven is not to be compelled; rather should every deed be an obedient reaction to what he has willed, a submissive response to divine initiative.” Cf. also Hare, Matthew, 25

[11] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1, 260-63, where he points out that all the temptations were intended to persuade Jesus to violate God’s purpose.  Cf. similarly, Moltmann, Way of Jesus, 93: “Filled with the Spirit, Jesus becomes the messianic Son of God; but through the temptations into which this same Spirit leads him, he is denied the economic, political and religious means for a ‘seizure of power’. Here, that is to say, his passion in helplessness is prefigured: his victory comes through suffering and death.”

[12] Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1-7, 369-70: Jesus rejects this temptation because “Only after the passion, and then only from the Father in heaven, can Jesus accept all authority.”
[13] Cf. Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 187: "Human life has eternal value because it is loved and accepted by God."

Learning Faith

Learning Faith

Gen 15:1-18[1]

  Most of us can say that at some point in our lives we have been shaped in a significant way by special people.  If we’re fortunate, we can say that there have been many special people who have shaped our lives.  They may have been parents or grandparents, teachers or pastors, friends or colleagues.  We tend to call them “mentors.”  They teach us something important about how to live and work and be better people.  I’ve had many mentors in my lifetime, from family to pastors to professors to colleagues to friends.  I’ve learned most of what I know about life and love and faith from them.  Some of these people we look to as mentors in faith.  We call them prophets, sages, and saint.  Whether we’re talking about Billy Graham, or Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mother Teresa, they are people who seem to have a kind faith that transcends what the rest of us seem to be able to attain.

  That’s why we look to them as mentors and role models.  We call them saints because we recognize that they seem to have a higher level of faith in their interactions with God. It’s tempting to put them “on a pedestal” to separate them from the rest of us.  That can be just a convenient way to let ourselves off the hook so that we don’t have to try to rise to a higher level. But a better approach would be to respect their faith in a way that challenges us to grow in our own faith.  We recognize them as special people so that we may follow their example in an attempt to attain at least a small degree of their faith. 

  I think Abraham and Sarah were people like that.  At an age when most people should be enjoying their twilight years in the safe and comfortable surroundings of home and family, they set out on what must have seemed like an improbable journey.  They left everything behind because God called them to go to a place yet to be determined!  And they did so based on a promise--that God would bless them and would make of them a great nation (Gen. 12:1-3).  That must have seemed a strange promise, given the fact that they were childless and both of them were in their seventies!  And yet, despite all the odds, Abraham and Sarah had a kind of faith that enabled them to look past all that.

  Over the years, God continued to interact with Abraham and Sarah, repeating and confirming the promise to bless them.  In our lesson for today, it would seem that Abraham has been doing some thinking about the promise.  In fact, in response to God’s reaffirmation of the promise of blessing, Abraham responds with a strange kind of faith: he asks a fairly direct question that might seem to contradict the whole notion that he had any faith!  God appears to Abraham in a vision and says, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great” (Gen. 15:1).  In reply, Abraham asks what God could possibly give him since he and Sarah were still childless.  As the Good News Version puts it, ““Sovereign Lord, what good will your reward do me, since I have no children? (Genesis 15:2, TEV).[2] 

  That may seem like a strange way to express faith.  In fact, in many traditions, questioning God is considered to be the opposite of faith.  And yet it is through his questioning that Abraham rises to a higher level of faith.  Because of his question, God reinforces the promise using a means of “signing a contract” that was common in that day.  That’s what the ritual involving the animal carcasses is about.  In essence, if you wanted to make a contract with someone, you would use this ritual as a way of saying, “May the same thing happen to me if I break my promise.”[3]  And I think Abraham walked away with a faith that was stronger for having questioned.

  It seems to me that one way to learn faith is to pursue our questions.  I think that ignoring them or suppressing them actually deprives us of the opportunity to grow.  It’s understandable that we may not want to face our questions about God head on.  Some of them can be frightening.  Especially the ones that deal with the mystery of human suffering.  It can be incredibly difficult to face the question of why bad things happen to good people--especially when you’re the one bad things are happening to![4]  But like Abraham, when we face our questions, or perhaps even better, when we voice our questions to God, we give ourselves at least the chance of growing in our faith.  It provides an opportunity for us to deepen our trust in God’s promise based on the “awareness that God really is God.”[5]  It creates an opening for us to affirm with the Psalmist that “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living” (Ps. 27:13).[6]

  As we examine our faith during this year’s season of Lent, I think it’s important for us to realize that at least one way of developing the heart of trust and the eyes of faith is to give full voice to our questions about God.  We may never get an answer to all our questions, but when we allow our questions to come out into the open, we open our hearts to experience the awareness that God really is God, and that we can entrust our lives into God’s loving care.[7]  It seems to me that’s how people who have the kind of special faith Abraham and Sarah had develop that special kind of faith.  It’s a way for the “rest of us” to learn faith.  It’s a way for us to imitate the faith of the saints who have gone before us (cf. Phil. 3:17), and so learn a higher and deeper faith ourselves.

---

[1] © 2013 Alan Brehm.  A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/24/2013.

[2] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, 141: “Clearly, the faith to which Abraham is called is not a peaceful, pious acceptance.  It is a hard-fought and deeply argued conviction.”  Cf. also C. Westermann, Genesis 12–36, 219

[3] Cf. Gerhard Von Rad, Genesis, 181.

[4] Cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 133: “Trust is active and real precisely when one is aware of one’s vulnerability, of one’s ultimate helplessness before the threats of life.”

[5] Brueggemann, Genesis, 143. He defines faith as “a certitude that is based not on human reason but on a primal awareness that God is God.” With reference to Abraham, he continues, “The same God who gives the promise is the one who makes it believable” through “the new awareness that God really is God.” Cf. also Terence E. Fretheim, “The Book of Genesis,” New Interpreters Bible I:445, where he says that Abraham’s response to God’s reassurance is that he “trusts in the one to whom his faith clings.”

[6] Cf H.-J. Kraus, Psalms 1-59, 337, where he says that the psalmist trusts God despite the afflictions he faces because he “has anchored his life entirely in Yahweh.”

[7] Cf. J. Clinton McCann, Jr., “The Book of Psalms,” 787, where he says that for the Psalmist anxiety is not a failure of never, but a “failure of trust.”  He says, “Left to depend on ourselves instead of on God, we fail to experience joy (v. 6) and life in all its fullness (v. 13).”