Lectionary citations

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 with Psalm 22:23-31 AND
Romans 4:13-25 AND
Mark 8:31-38 OR Mark 9:2-9

Focus Scripture:
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Weekly Theme:
Trusting God's Promise

Focus Statement:
“’I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.”

Questions:
First Noah, now, this week, Abram. Another story of covenant, but not a universal one with all humankind and all of creation. In this second week of Lent we hear about God’s initiative with Abram and his family. God once again makes promises about what God is going to do, and once again the promises are marvelous. Abram and Sarai are old, and Sarai is childless. And yet God lays out a vision not only of many descendants but of kings and nations that will trace themselves back to this elderly couple. How could Abram do anything but fall on his face in awe? But there is more to this “narrower” covenant, for Abraham and Sarah and their many descendants are called to grow hearts undivided in loyalty and faithfulness. This is a family story, and it is poignant that the families descended from Abraham have struggled for centuries with each other, like so many family stories today. How does the story of Abraham and Sarah inspire hope in your congregation, no matter what may appear before you now? What are the unseen possibilities that God can use to produce marvelous and amazing results, a multitude of blessings for the human family? There are tensions within this passage, or in what has been omitted, for this covenant requires something, this time. The lectionary has included the promise to Sarah, an important part of the story, but it has omitted the requirement of circumcision: “Any uncircumcised male…shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” Given the enormously significant issue in the early Christian community of whether or not to require circumcision of Gentile converts, this is an interesting omission today. How do you reconcile the competing claims of grace and the requirements of covenant? If Abraham and Sarah were to be “blameless,” that is, completely loyal to God, how does that remind us of Jesus’ own words about being “pure of heart”? Like the words of Micah, so simple and clear, about what the Lord requires (“Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God”), these requirements of Abraham by God sound simple: “Walk before me, and be blameless.” What does it mean to you to “walk with God”? How do you and your congregation experience yourselves as included in this covenant? Who else is included, perhaps in spite of our own expectations and desires? In what ways is the Stillspeaking God acting and initiating wonderful things, including surprising and seemingly impossible ones, in the life of your church today?

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

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.”

and

Psalm 22:23-31

Refrain:
O God, do not be far away; O God, do not be far away.

You who fear God, praise God!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify God;
stand in awe of God,
all you offspring of Israel!

For God did not despise or abhor
the affliction of the afflicted;
God did not hide God's face from
me, but heard when I cried to God.

From you comes my praise in the
great congregation;
my vows I will pay before those
who fear God.

The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek God shall praise
God. May your hearts live forever!

All the ends of the earth shall
remember and turn to God;
and all families of the nations
shall worship before God.

For dominion belongs to God,
and God rules over the nations.

To God, indeed, shall all who sleep in
the earth bow down;
before God shall bow all who go
down to the dust, and I shall live
for God.

Posterity will serve God;
future generations will be told
about God,

and proclaim God's deliverance to a
people yet unborn,
saying that God has done it.

and

Romans 4:13-25

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.

and

or

Mark 9:2-9

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Mark 8:31-38

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 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. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Second Sunday in Lent
March 12, 2006
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

PRAISE GOD FOR THE AMISTAD EVENT

Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ in St. Louis, Missouri, had not yet been founded in 1839, when fifty-three West Africans bound for slavery in the Caribbean mutinied aboard a Spanish schooner. But the Amistad event, which we remember today, gave birth to the American Missionary Association, and inspired a dedication to racial freedom and justice in our church that eventually moved a majority of the members of Pilgrim in 1953 to declare that “no one be denied membership because of race or color.”

It had not been an easy decision for an all-white congregation in a segregated city to make. As African Americans became a majority in Pilgrim church’s neighborhood, other white churches sold their buildings to black congregations and moved to the suburbs. What would Pilgrim do? Most church members realized that if they decided to remain on Union Avenue they could not maintain a segregated membership. On the warm evening of June 15, 1953, over 260 members gathered in the downstairs dining room and voted, first, to stay in their present location, and then (146 to 113), to be racially inclusive. It was a costly decision. Thirty-five members, including the chair and vice-chair of the Board of Trustees, left the church as a result.

Some of those who had spearheaded the movement to integrate Pilgrim Congregational Church had naively assumed, as one of them later put it, that African Americans “would be clamoring for the privilege” of joining. In fact, no African American even showed up for worship for many months, and then only in response to a personal invitation. It was not until Palm Sunday 1955 that Pilgrim welcomed its first black member. But Velma Hunt, who is still active at Pilgrim, was only the first of many.

Today Pilgrim has approximately the same number of black as white members, a ratio that is also reflected in the church’s leadership. “Three officers are African Americans and two are European Americans,” says Rev. Cindy Bumb.

Years after the momentous vote, Allen Hackett, the pastor of Pilgrim at the time of the decision, wrote, “When the pioneers of the American Missionary Association insisted on teaching...ex-slaves, they had no way of knowing that they were easing the path to integration in Pilgrim Congregational Church a century later.” Praise God for the Amistad Event.

In ecumenical liturgical practice, there are normally three readings and one psalm at each Sunday service, in this order:

First Reading: Hebrew Scripture
Response: Psalm (or Canticle) from the Bible
Second Reading: Epistle (or Acts or Revelation)
Third Reading: Gospel

The first two lessons are normally read by laypeople, the Gospel by a Minister of the Word or a layperson. In Roman Catholic, Anglican and liturgical Protestant churches, it is uncommon for an ordained minister to read all of the lessons.

The psalm is not a reading but a congregational response following the lesson from Hebrew Scripture: it is normally sung with a refrain or recited by the congregation as poetry. Occasionally, a canticle is appointed in place of a psalm; it is sung or recited in the same way. The New Century Hymnal provides a complete liturgical psalter with refrains and music.

A hymn may be sung as an introduction to the proclamation of the Gospel.

During Ordinary Time (seasons after Epiphany and Pentecost) two alternative sets of OT readings with responsorial psalms are provided. The first option is a semi-continuous reading through a book of Hebrew Scripture; the second is thematically related to the other readings.