Sermon by the Rev. Bernadette Hartsough
February 28, 2021
We are two weeks into Lent. Easter is still a long way off. We have many more days to slow down and to reflect on our Lenten journey. We are in the muck of it. Abram and Sarai in today’s reading from Genesis were in the muck of daily life. They were older. It had been some time since YHWH first spoke to them. They were living obediently and faithfully going where YHWH led them.
At a time when Abram and Sarai thought that their life was slowing down, YHWH makes an everlasting covenant with them. YHWH choose them. It was not a mutually agreed upon covenant. God initiated it and decreed it. Covenants were like contracts. Each person or deity of a covenant had responsibilities. They had to uphold their part. Abram was to put YHWH first and keep YHWH’s commandments. Abram and his offspring were to be obedient and faithful. YHWH’s part was to bless Abram and his descendants. Through this relationship -this covenant- ALL creation would be restored to God first through Israel and then through Jesus and the church.
Part of this process-this covenant included naming. We name people and pets based on popularity, nostalgia, and sometimes based on ancestry. Names have history. They conjure up images to us based on our experiences with persons of particular names. We give names to a child hoping the child will take on the characteristics of someone with that name. I think of a name such as Beulah. It was a popular name in the past. For me it conjures up the image of a strong country woman. My images come from my aunt named Beulah. She was a mountain woman. While her siblings left the Blue Ridge Mountains to settle in larger towns, Beulah stayed in the mountains. She chewed tobacco, ate turtle, and lived to be 99. Her name was a part of her heritage.
Sometimes we choose names. I remember being confirmed in the Episcopal Church. We were asked to take another middle name preferably the name of a saint. We chose it with the idea that we would look up to and emulate that saint.
Sometimes people in our culture change their names later in life. They choose a new name. They have a major shift in their life. Their birth name no longer reflects who they want to be or their birth name never reflected who they are.
In other cultures, people are named later in childhood based on their character, their personality, and their destiny. In many ancient cultures such as in the time of Abram and Sarai, name changing later in life was quite popular. Name changes were conferred on people by pharaohs, kings, and God. When you named something or someone, you were speaking a blessing or a curse on it. In today’s Genesis passage, names are significant and renaming was part of YHWH’s covenant.
The name for God in this passage is significant. We lose a lot of the meaning when the Hebrew is translated to English. In English we translate God as: God, YHWH, and LORD. In Hebrew God is given many titles based on God’s attributes. These names are not the true name of YHWH. The true name of YHWH was handed down by oral tradition which has been lost. In English YHWH or LORD with all capital letters is used to denote the true name of God. In today’s reading, in this 17th chapter of Genesis in verse 1, YHWH names the Godself by the name El Shaddai which could be translated God of the mountains or God Almighty. This symbolizes that El Shaddai is the God of all creation, mountains, seas, valleys, and all people. This name symbolized power and that the covenant would affect all creation and all people.
Abram and Sarai needed new names because they had a divine destiny. Abram meant exalted ancestor. Abram changed to Abraham meant ancestor of a multitude. Sarai also was be blessed. She will be known as Sarah meaning woman of high rank-princess. These name changes gave Abraham and Sarah the gift of hope. They became the source of their identity and of their descendants’ identity. Abraham and Sarah will have numerous descendants. This story of Abraham and Sarah will be a part of the oral tradition of the people of Israel. The story was written down when they were in exile from the land that YHWH promised them. It was written at a time when God’s people needed to remember their identity and their destiny. This naming story reinforces their identity and who they are as a people. It reminds them of their covenant with YHWH. They and their descendants belong to YHWH.
This covenant is a promise of blessing and life that is culminated in the life and death of Jesus Christ. Jesus emulated the example of Abraham his ancestor. Jesus trusted and walked with God. At Jesus’s baptism, God named him, “You are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus calls himself the “Son of Man.” “Son of Man” is a term that Jesus used to describe himself. It means human being. According to the New Interpreter’s Commentary, in first century Judaism, the term came to mean deliver and one who will judge at the end times. This name would have sounded strange to Jesus’s audience. He is naming himself as a human deliver that will suffer, die, and be resurrected. After Jesus names himself, then he gives the crowd the choice to be named among his disciples by picking up their own cross and following him.
Lent is a time to reflect on our life with God, our destiny-our naming as followers of Jesus. As I reflected this week, I remember as young as five years old knowing that church was a second home. I knew that I could go into any Episcopal or Catholic church or any Christian church and belong. As a young child, I couldn’t put it into words, but I knew that I was part of the covenant. WE are part of that covenant. You and I, we are descendants of Abraham and Sarah.
This lent, turn back to God. reflect on your walk with God. Reflect on the times you have lived into your destiny as a follower of Jesus and picked up your cross. Reflect on those times you may have turned away from your destiny. Turn back to God and know the reconciling act of forgiveness through Jesus. Know that you and you and you belong to the covenant. Lent is a reminder of who we are. We are a people who belong to God. We are a people who follow God to a crucifixion. Because we know our destiny.