Year C

Luke 13:31-35

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Bound to Love’s Covenant

Sacrificial love in the scriptures means selflessly giving oneself for the well-being of others, putting their needs over one’s own, and acting with compassion and grace. Sacrificial love is not just a feeling, but a way of life that requires action. The sacrificial love of God and what it means to live in a faithful covenant relationship with God are the focus of today’s texts. The first reading from Genesis portrays God entering into a covenant with Abram in a way that involves what strikes us as bizarre animal sacrifices. God essentially pledges to become like these animals, if need be, to fulfill the covenant. This pledge comes even closer to fulfillment in the Gospel text today from Luke when Jesus speaks of his impending fate and uses another startling image of animals to describe his sacrificial love for the people of Jerusalem. Finally, Paul responds to this sacrifice by telling us the implications of the cross for his life and ministry and for our lives.

We begin with the foundational Genesis reading which presents us with Abram’s vision in which God initiates a covenant with him, promising twin blessings: land and descendants. Abram had left his country and his fathers house in response to God’s command, “Go” and God’s promise of blessing and prosperity, he went without asking any questions and settled in Egypt. After becoming rich in Egypt, he journeyed back to Bethel. Again God commanded and promised, telling Abram, “Walk through the land and I will give it to you.” Abram responded obediently. And we see a pattern emerge of their relationship which is pretty straightforward, God speaks; Abram listens, God promises, Abram believes, God commands; Abram obeys. Abram appears to be bold, courageous, obedient, humble, and faithful in all he does and yet there comes a point when he finally says, Wait, I have a question.”

After God reiterates the wonderful promise God made to Abram, Abram responds, how can this be, since I do not have a child?” What he and Sarai want more than wealth and land is a son to be their heir. The enormous compassion of God in responding to what they desperately want is matched only by their trust that God will deliver it. God sees their trust and ‘reckoned it to Abram as righteousness’. God declares Abram’s willingness to live based on God’s promise as “righteous,” being right with God.  He believes that the life God promises to give him is the way he should try to follow even if he doesn’t totally understand how God will fulfill what God has promised. Lent offers us a time to think about our response to God’s call and commands. We also have questions and like Abram we can question God as part of our faithfulness and trust.

Always knowing that through the life and character of Jesus Christ, we can live expectantly that God’s promises of life, hope, and future are extended to us as well, as we follow Jesus. God’s willingness to accept our trust despite our failings as actual goodness shows God’s steadfast, sacrificial love for us. We see this sacrificial love as God binds God’s self to God’s promises in one of the most extraordinary OT ceremonies that can make your hair stand on end by passing between the animal pieces as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. God and Abram are now partners in the covenant.  The cost to God to keep God’s promises to his people is spelled out in today’s reading from the gospel of Luke. We see in Jesus both the human trust in God and God’s own commitment to what God has promised.

Nothing will deter God from what God has bound God’s self to on our behalf and nothing will deter Jesus from the necessary path toward Jerusalem and the cross. He is committed to his journey and nothing will stop him from completing his work. Our text today takes place at the midpoint of the gospel of Luke. Jesus has been preaching, teaching, and healing on his journey to Jerusalem when some seemingly friendly Pharisees come to warn him that Herod sought to kill him. Jesus knowing that a prophet must perish in Jerusalem and nowhere else, acknowledges them but shows no fear of Herod and refers to him as “that fox.” In our day, the word “fox” can have various meanings. In Jesus’ day, more than likely, he is referring to Herod as someone who is sly or cunning, a madman and blood thirsty. Herod had previously beheaded John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin and gave no reason for doing it.

Jesus tells the Pharisees to tell Herod that his work of healing and casting out demons was not yet completed. Then Jesus laments over the city he loves because she has not lived up to what she was designed to be-a city set upon a hill, a light to the peoples. Instead the people reject the care and love God gives them. How heartbreaking for any parent when a child rejects the love that is offered to them. The result of this response will lead to Jesus’ crucifixion where he will spread his arms wide upon a cross, paralleling the image of him wanting to spread his wings wide enough like a mother hen to gather all children together in God’s love. Yet, for a little while longer his ministry must continue, for it is not complete until it is completed on the cross and then Herod can have his way.

Philippians picks up the theme today of trusting in God’s promises, God’s steadfast love, as Paul focuses on some of the characteristics of life in the church, the community of the children of God. He set’s out a choice for followers of Christ: live as citizens of Christ or continue to worship earthly things. We have the choice to reject God’s love and care. Do our actions, our hopes, and our deepest desires show our commitment? God, who made a covenant with Abraham and now with us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who brought in a new Jerusalem, calls us to make the Christ of the new Jerusalem the center of our lives.

As we move deeper into the Lenten season, Jesus asks us to renew our commitment of faith and trust in God’s promises, and to the vital role of proclaiming him as the one whose presence is a sign of God’s love with us and all creation. We are to proclaim this good news and live it out in our daily lives, as people who become like a mini-ad for God’s sacrificial love for all. Christ calls us to be Jerusalem, the people of God who are bound to loves covenant.