Land of Promise

A sermon for Lent 2
March 13, 2022

What do you seek? This question comes from the historic Catechumenate process in the Church. The Catechumenate was the three-year method for preparing candidates for holy baptism and confirmation. And y’all think my 6-week course is bad! As the priest is enrolling people in the program, the priest asks this very simple question: What do you seek? 

What do you seek, Abraham? Abraham, that wandering Aramean, would respond, I am seeking that land of promise, that country that God swore to show me. We first hear this promise in Genesis 12, when God calls Abram from his home in a place called Ur. 

‘Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.’ (Genesis 12:1-4a) 

The rest of Abraham’s life (and his son’s life, and his grandson’s life, and countless other lives all the way through Egypt and the wilderness) would be spent seeking after that land of promise. 

But in today’s reading, Abraham is having a little doubt. Can we really blame him? Here God has promised to bring him to a new land and to make a great nation. But there’s a problem with that. Not only is Abraham an alien in a foreign land, but God has not yet given Abraham children. You have to have some of those if you hope to be a great and vast nation. So, naturally, Abraham is doubting. He’s thinking, maybe I didn’t hear God quite right? Maybe God meant something a little different than I was thinking? Or, maybe God has forgotten me? 

Have you been there? When I was visiting seminaries, I visited Virginia Theological Seminary, in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside D.C. I flew into Reagan Airport, as I had been instructed. I grabbed my luggage and I went outside. My ride was supposed to be there. No ride. He had forgotten. Sometimes our life of faith can be like that. We’re going on this journey, we’re in a new and strange place, and we can feel as if God has forgotten to pull the car around to get us. We can feel like we have been left alone, stranded. 

I saw a news story from Ukraine this week. A man and woman, in love, engaged, had planned to be married later on. They no doubt wanted to be married in one of those beautiful Ukrainian Orthodox churches, with the priest chanting, incense billowing everywhere, candles and loved ones surrounding them. Instead they got married on a battlefield. They put down their weapons for just a moment, still dressed in their camo, although the bride had donned a veil. They made vows before God. They promised everything and forever, though they knew, more than ever, that they were not guaranteed tomorrow. They asked God to watch over them. The priest blessed them and placed the cross over their joined hands. And then it was back to war. I couldn’t blame them–I don’t think any of us could blame them for lamenting, God it wasn’t supposed to be this way. We were supposed to be headed for a very different land, and we thought our lives would look much different. This battlefield isn’t what we were expecting or hoping for. Have you abandoned us? Have you forgotten us? Did we hear your call right? 

If we listen, we will hear God respond: even though your life looks different than you may have expected or hoped for, I haven’t forgotten you. Abraham hears God say that today. In fact, Abraham hears God double down on the promise. God says, 

“Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great. Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them. So shall your descendants be.” (Genesis 15) 

Maybe Abraham does look around at this point. He looks to his left and sees he is a foreigner in a strange land, with no country to call his own. He looks to his right and he sees he has no children, no descendants to make a nation. But then he chooses to believe God anyway. Against everything that is obviously true, he bets it all on God. Despite all the evidence he can see, he hopes for something unseen. He believes in God’s word, and he keeps looking for that land of promise. 

This is why we call Abraham the father of faith. Faith is not some magic bean that grows a beanstalk; faith is not some magic coin we put into the vending machine to get out something we want. No, faith is believing that God is trustworthy. Faith is trusting in God. Faith is continuing to walk with God, continuing to look out for that land of promise, even when everything we can see is telling us something different. That’s what Abraham does, and that’s what we’re called to do, too. 

Like father Abraham, you and I are called to look for that land of promise, and to journey with God until we get there. St. Paul tells us today what that land of promise is. He writes, “our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” We do not put our trust in the things of this world; we keep our eyes on heaven, for that’s where we belong. That’s the land of promise, a land flowing with milk and honey. 

But sometimes, like father Abraham, it is hard to believe. Sometimes the things of this world take us over. The things of this world are hard to carry: we see images of refugees; we see children who are suffering; we see veterans stuck on the streets; we see our own suffering, our sickness, our pain, our grief; we see our lives and how they look very different than we expected or hoped for. And we wonder, like I did at the airport, did God forget to pull around and pick us up? Has God forgotten about us? Has God already driven off with someone else, leaving us behind? 

When we are assailed by such doubts and worry, like ole Abraham, we can rest assured that God’s response to us will be the same as it was to Abraham. God doubles down. God shows all his cards. 

God restates the promise. We hear it every time we baptize someone or renew our baptismal vows: We are claimed by God, marked as Christ’s own forever, sealed by the Holy Spirit. We hear it every time we celebrate the Holy Eucharist: This is my Body given for you, this is my Blood shed for you. Take and eat in remembrance that Christ died for you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I in them. 

We have to be like Abraham. We look around and see what we did not expect or hope for. We see suffering and pain and heartache; we see loneliness and fear and violence; we see a world that seems so unredeemable; we see ourselves, our sin, our unworthiness, and who are we that God Almighty should care for us? But we believe anyway. We have faith anyway. We trust anyway. 

What do you seek? I began with that historic question from the early Church. There is an answer provided for us in the liturgy. The candidate, standing in front of the priest and the whole congregation of the faithful, responds, “I seek life in Christ.” 

That’s where we belong–in Christ. That’s the land of promise we are looking for–life in Christ forever that begins even today. And it’s been promised to us. In fact, our citizenship papers are already on file. Our part is to keep trusting, keep believing, keep having faith, and keep holding on to our loving God, knowing we are going to get there by grace through faith. 

God has promised us everything, and God cannot lie. So like Abraham, we believe.