From the Book of Genesis: “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.’”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
It seems almost hard to believe, doesn’t it, that we’re pretty much two full months through this “new year,” 2024? It’s been eight weeks or so since people were talking and thinking about their new year’s resolutions—and if it’s been eight week since we made them, it’s probably been seven weeks since many of us forgot all about those very resolutions.
For a lot of folks, the beginning of Lent can take on a little bit of the character of new year’s resolutions, right? These 40 days give us the opportunity to take on new disciplines, to try to make some new habits or to shed some old ones. Like we do on January 1, we might approach Ash Wednesday with no small amount of ambitions. Today we’re about ten days into Lent—already a quarter of the way through!—and if our Lenten disciplines have any resemblance to our new year’s resolutions, I wonder how we’re doing.
In the Sunday Forum over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about the Book of Common Prayer, and the resources it offers us for prayer and for deepening our relationships with God. The question has come up of what we are supposed to do if we miss praying when we meant to, or if we miss coming to church on a Sunday. This is an important question—it gets at an anxiety many of us have about our obligations to God and whether or not we are good enough to approach God—whether, for example, a God to whom one hasn’t prayed in a very long time is prepared to accept prayers that come suddenly in a moment of crisis.
And the answer, of course, is to move forward from where you are—to pray when and where you can; if you miss one Sunday, to come the next. Ash Wednesday is certainly a convenient starting point for renewed focus on prayer or acts of charity, just like New Years Day is a convenient starting point for making some changes in our personal or professional lives. But really, it’s never a bad time to do a good thing. And when it comes to God, it’s never too late.
I think we see something of this at work in this story of Abraham and Sarah—or, as they are known at the beginning of his story, Abram and Sarai. Our reading today is not the first time God appears to Abram—that happens several chapters earlier in Genesis, when Abram is 75 years old. In today’s passage he’s 99, and God comes to him with an invitation and a promise. “Walk before me and be blameless,” God says, “and I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” Abram and Sarai have not been able to have a child—and by now in their advanced age they have given up hope—and yet God says “As for Sarai your wife, I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her, and she shall give rise to nations.” This is quite a call—and quite a promise.
I’m not sure if we are supposed to understand Abram’s age—99—as literally true. Yes, such an age underscores the miraculous dimensions of God’s promise to Abram and Sarai. Abram will be an even 100 years old when Isaac is finally born—an age that is not only biologically unlikely but also conveniently round. At the very least, we can say that Abram and Sarai have already lived a lifetime—they have grown up and married, they have migrated, they have faced challenges and built wealth. All along, God has promised to make Abram the father of many nations, and all along Abram and Sarai have remained childless.
In the chapter before today’s encounter, Abram and Sarai try to bring this promise to fruition through their own devices—Abram fathers a child by Hagar, an enslaved woman who works for Sarai. That child is Ishmael, and his and Hagar’s place in Abraham and Sarah’s household is full of complications—God will, in the end, keep them safe and grant them their own blessings. But God’s plan for Abraham and Sarah is not yet complete.
God’s invitation to Abram, and God’s promise to him, do not work on human time scales, and they will not be fulfilled through human devices. At the age of 99—literally or figuratively—Abram has lived a whole life already, and even though he has been faithful to God in some ways, he has doubted and erred in others—and yet here is God, again coming to him, again calling him into righteousness, again making a covenant with him. The new names God gives them—Abraham and Sarah—underscore the new life they gain as they live into that invitation that God extends to them. As they keep faith with God’s covenant, their old selves fall away and they live more and more fully into who God created them to be all along.
When it comes to God, it’s never too late to do a good thing. It’s never too late to walk before God and be blameless, never too late to respond to God’s invitation, never to late to approach God in prayer or worship.
The disciplines and austerities of Lent are not about setting out ambitious schemes of things to do and things to refrain from in the hopes of whipping ourselves into shape spiritually. Lent isn’t a checklist where we tick off our daily ascetic achievements or flagellate ourselves for where we slip up in our disciplines. Lent is about slowing down, catching our breaths, stripping things away—not so that we make ourselves feel somber or guilty—but so that we can more easily hear and respond to God’s invitation in our lives.
The story of Abraham and Sarah shows us just how faithful God is in reaching out to us, in always inviting us into relationship with God—even after a whole lifetime, even after our mistakes, even if we lose our faith, or neglect it, even if we take God for granted—God is faithful to us, God meets us where we are. Friends, each one of us who is here this morning, and all who are joining in worship with us through the livestream, have been invited by God into this place, into this gathering of prayer. God is here to meet us, to be with us in the Body and Blood of God’s own Son at this altar. Wherever we are on our journeys, wherever we find ourselves during this season of Lent, may God bring us again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace the unchangeable truth of God’s Word, the holy one who loved us even unto death on a cross, Jesus Christ our Lord.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.