Lent 2—Wednesday: First Reading: Genesis 17, 1-7, 15 & 16
There are two important ideas in this passage, those of covenant and the significance of names. A covenant is an agreement between two parties in which both are guaranteed certain benefits and in which both undertake certain obligations. The covenant with Abraham is preceded by the covenants with Adam and Noah and will be followed by the covenant with Moses and the people of Israel. All of these Old Covenants look forward to the New Covenant which God will make with the whole human race in Jesus Christ, which the Church is called to bear witness to and live out. The outward sign of the covenant with Abraham is circumcision. Circumcision was not unique to the descendants of Abraham
What was unique was that it would be given at birth instead of at puberty as in most other cultures. This underscores the fact that the covenant is a life long, everlasting covenant, made by an eternal God. For Christians, baptism replaces circumcision as the sign of the covenant. During Lent we reflect on our baptism and prepare to renew our baptismal promises, making a fresh commitment to faithfully keeping those promises as our part of the Covenant.
The promises to Abraham and Sarah are unilaterally declared by God, with no prior conditions stipulated. This does not, however, mean that our response is irrelevant. In verse 1 God tells Abram “walk before me and be blameless” The word translated as “blameless” should be understood to refer to maturity, wholesomeness or faithfulness, rather than being without sin. In the same way we as Christians are to strive to be faithful to our Baptismal promises, even though we often fail to do so and therefore need to confess our sins. The act of acknowledging and confessing our sins is in itself an act of faithfulness.
This brings us to the names. The name by which God is called in this passage is El Shaddai, literally God of the mountains, or God who is everlasting. A mountain represents permanence and majestic glory. Lent is a good time to contemplate the grandeur and glory of the eternal God we worship and before whom we are to walk in a mature, wholesome and faithful relationship. Abram and Sarai both have their names changed. A change of name suggests a new relationship and again reminds us of our baptism, where we receive Christ’s name as we become Christians. Abraham’s new name means father of amultitude, a name of which he was to prove worthy. Are we worthy of the name of Christian which we bear?
Lent 2—Day 2 : Second Reading: Romans 4: 13-25
In Romans 4, St Paul describes Abraham as the example of a human being living in a right relationship with God. Abraham trusts (or believes) that God will fulfil His promise (4:1-5). In fact Abraham is not merely the example but the forefather for all, both circumcised and uncircumcised, who live in right relationships with God, since the key to such a relationship is faith (4:9-12). The principle themes in this reading are God’s promises and Abraham’s faith or faithfulness, themes to which we were introduced in the first reading.
The letter to the Romans is unique among St Paul’s letters in that it was written to a Christian community that Paul had not yet visited. One of the issues faced by the Church in Rome, as by many of the early Christian communities at the time, was conflict between Christians of Jewish origin and those of pagan birth. Abraham for Paul is important in this in that while he was the ancestor of the people of Israel, he was also the father of a multitude of nations, of the circumcised and the uncircumcised. Paul is at pains to point out that the relationship between God and Abraham’s descendants is based not on observance of the Law, but on faith. Any relationship based on the Law is going to lead to divine judgement and retribution (verse 15). A right relationship with God cannot be based on legal claims and guarantees but on God’s faithful to His promises and on Abraham and Abraham’s descendants putting their trust in this faithful God. Christians of both Jewish and Pagan birth therefore stand in the same relationship to God and therefore there should be able to live, worship and work together for the Kingdom. Abraham could also be a unifying figure for us today when we consider our relationships with people of other faiths. Christians, Jews and Muslims all look to Abraham as our founding father, Christianity, Judaism and Islam being described as the Abrahamic faiths.
Lent might be a time to ask ourselves how much we know about those other great faiths and to challenge our attitudes towards them. Do we look down on them out of ignorance and prejudice, or do we seek to reach out to them in the love of Christ? This does not mean compromising on our own believes, especially our beliefs about Jesus as the Son of God, but rather understanding the beliefs of others and how those beliefs could enable us to present Christ to them in an attractive way. Paul is saying to all of us that God invites us into an intimate relationship with Himself. We need to respond with trust and faith to what God did, does, and will do for us through Jesus Christ. Even when human sin and death make it appear that it can’t happen, we , like Abraham, trust that “God will.”
Lent 2—Day 3 : Gospel: Mark 8:31-38
The Gospel for the Second Sunday in Lent is part of a longer section in St Mark’s Gospel beginning at chapter 8 verse 22 and ending at chapter 10 verse 52. These chapters could be described as the heart of St Mark’s gospel, and they begin and end with stories of the
healing of blind men. In 8:22-26 Jesus privately heals a man’s blindness, though it requires two steps to complete the process. In 10:46-52, Jesus publicly and instantly heals the blindness of Bartimaeus. In between these stories Jesus speaks three times about his approaching suffering and death. Our reading for today is the first of these “predictions ofthe passion.”
Each of these is followed by a story showing that the disciples have not understand what the Lord has said to them. The immediate background to this story is Peter’s great confession of faith about who Jesus is: “You are the Christ”. Peter does not define what he means by “the Christ” or “the Messiah” in Hebrew. Jesus does this himself in the passage we are considering; the Christ is the one who will suffer, be rejected, and put to death and rise again. Peter, however,cannot except this and wishes to correct it. We should perhaps here him saying to Jesus with great love and concern, “Lord, don’t even go there!” This earns him a stinging rebuke. The word translated as “rebuke” is the same word that Jesus uses when addressing demons. Indeed, he addresses Peter as Satan. If this seems unusually harsh we need to be clear about what Peter is doing. He is trying to redefine Jesus and his mission as the Christ in purely human terms. To try and limit God in His dealings with the world according to our human way of thinking is the very work of the devil. This might be a profitable line for our self-examination during the season of Lent:
Have we tried to get God to fit into our plans and our way of doing things, have we tried to make God in our own image? Accepting the kind of Messiah that Jesus defines himself to be has profound and costly implications for us, as we see in verse 35. As the Son of Man will suffer and die to fulfil God’s plans for the salvation of the world, so must those who follow him be willing to loose their lives for his sake and for the sake of the Gospel.
Lent 2—Day 4 : Reflections
Today’s Gospel comes, as we have seen from a section of St Mark’s Gospel which begins and ends with accounts of blind men who receive their sight again. Physical blindness is often used by the Gospel writers as a metaphor for spiritual blindness. In St Matthew’s Gospel Jesus described the Pharisees and scribes as blind guides, warning his disciples:
Leave the Pharisees alone. They are blind people who are guides to blind people. But if a blind person leads another blind person, they will both fall into a ditch. (Matthew 15.14)
Whilst the physically blind may have their sight restored, the Pharisees wilfully refuse the allow the Lord to heal them of their spiritual and moral blindness. The physically blind know that they are blind and came to Jesus to have their sight restored, while the Pharisees’ blindness extended to their own condition. They were so complacent, so sure of their own moral and spiritual superiority over everyone else that they do not recognise their blindness.
This spiritual blindness is not limited to the Pharisees. The Church in Laodicea is rebuked for its complacency in the Revelation of St John the Divine:
After all, you say, ‘I’m rich, and I’ve grown wealthy, and I don’t need a thing.’ You don’t realize that you are miserable, pathetic, poor, blind, and naked. (Revelation 3.17)
The same could be said, to some, extent of St Peter in today’s Gospel. On the one hand he has the great, God-given insight into the true nature of Jesus, recognising and publicly proclaiming him to be the Messiah, but then displaying woeful blindness about the true nature of the Messiah he has recognised. In the first reading, Abram is also shown to have blind spots. God had promised him that he would be the Father of a great nation in spite of the fact that his wife was past the age of child bearing. Abram tried to take matters into his own hands by fathering a child by his slave girl Hagar. Today’s Reading comes thirteen years after the birth of Hagar and Abram’s child Ishmael. Even when God promises Abraham again that he will have a son by Sarai, Abraham does not believe Him, but laughs in disbelief, so much so that he falls over. Abraham finds it hard to take God at his word , focusing more on his and Sarah’s age and Sarah’s barrenness. This second Sunday of Lent is a time to acknowledge our own spiritual blindness, our unwillingness, like Peter and Abraham, to see things as God sees them, but also to receive the good news that God in Christ is able to redeem our spiritual blindness as he did that of Abraham and Peter.
Lent 2—Day 5 : Genesis 17. 1-2
In the opening verses of Genesis 17 we hear God instructing Abram. In a homily, St Clement of Alexander points out that this instruction forms Abram into a faithful child. God does not instruct in a harsh or dictatorial manner but with warmth, love and friendship. Having illustrated the importance of instruction, As therefore the general directs the phalanx, consulting the safety of his soldiers, and the pilot steers the vessel, desiring to save the passengers; so also the Instructor guides the children to a saving course of conduct, through solicitude for us; (Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, chapter VII),
Clement stresses that if instruction is to be effective the person being instructed must have faith in the one who instructs him. Abram is formed into Abraham because he has faith in the God who is instructing him. St Clement contrasts the instruction that God gives with that given by the instructors of classical antiquity such as the womanising Phoenix, instructor of Achilles and Leonides, the ineffectual tutor of Alexander the Great. They pass onto their charges their own faults and failings, whereas God guides those who embrace his instruction into the ways of truth and peace.
Lent is a time for instruction, for deepening our knowledge and love of God by prayer and study. If we will willingly set aside time for this, God will teach us as he taught Abraham, not simply increasing our store a facts but teaching us how to live a blameless life, in other words, empowering us with true wisdom. This is perhaps more important than ever in these days when the digital revolution has made such a vast amount of information so readily available. We need to learn to use these vast stores of knowledge and facts in such a way that it will draw us closer to the Lord and enable us to reach out to others in His name. It might be helpful to ponder this reflection on the thought of Marshall McLuhan, who coined the phrase “The medium is the message” and has been described as the philosopher of technology:every innovation is an amputation. For example, when you invent the wheel, your legs become weaker. When you invent the television, your ability to become present becomes weaker. When you invent the amplifier, your voice becomes weaker. We need to reflect on this powerful insight and ask, In what ways is technology subtracting or amputating just at the moment we think it’s adding and empowering? We should always use it with care, remembering that Jesus modelled personal incarnation, not projection and amplification. (Shane Hipps: Flashing Pixels – How technology shapes your faith)
Lent 2—Day 6 : Reflections on Romans 4: 19 & 20
Paul tells us that Abraham’s faith in God was the source of his righteousness and that this faith was in a God who could do the impossible.
He (that is, Abraham) did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because 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 (Romans 4: 19-20)
This of course reminds us of the Annunciation to Our Lady, where Gabriel says to Mary For with God nothing will be impossible. (Luke 1:37)
Just as Abraham does not weaken in faith when he considers his own impotence and his wife’s barren womb, Mary does not weaken in faith as she considers her virginity. This leads us as Catholic Christians to speak of Mary as our Mother in the faith just as Abraham is our Father in the faith. (Romans 4:16)
This faith in God doing the impossible is a key to our understanding of the Gospel and St Paul’s teaching on justification by faith, which abolishes the distinction between Jew and Gentile. For Gentiles God can do the impossible and make those who were not Israelites part of the people of God without being circumcised and adopting the Jewish law. It is also based on creation and resurrection. God is able to do the impossible in creating out of nothing and bringing the dead back to life. Ultimately, faith in a God who does the impossible is faith in the love of God who does the impossible by loving the seemingly unlovely and unlovable; sinners such as ourselves.
This faith in God who is able to do the impossible, who is able to bring life of out of the apparently lifeless bodies of Abraham and Sarah, the virgin womb of the Blessed Virgin or the very place of death, the sepulchre of Christ, is the source of our Christian hope. There is much today to tempt us to despair; the financial crises at home and abroad, ongoing violence and injustice in places such as Syria, the advance of militant atheism and secularism and even attempts within the Church to water down the historic faith. In the face of these, we take our stand with Abraham, Our Lady and St Paul; we refuse to compromise and refuse to despair, renewing this Lent our faith in the God who does the impossible and brings life out of death.
Lent 2—Day 7 : Mark 8: 35
In verse 31 Jesus had told his disciples that he will be handed over to his enemies, will suffer and die and on the third day will rise again. It seems that Peter and probably the other disciples hear only the part about suffering and dying but fail to hear the promise of resurrection on the third day.
In verse 35 Jesus says that what happens to him will also befall those who follow him faithfully; rejection, suffering, death and also resurrection. The implication of verse 35, however is that those who are willing to follow Jesus along this road of suffering, death and resurrection are going to be the real winners in life, whereas those who seek to avoid suffering are going to ultimately loose out.
We understand today all to easily what Jesus means by loosing the life that we have been building. The person who is successful in his career and then suddenly finds himself redundant, the busy professional who experiences mid-life burn out and breakdown, the couple whose marriage fails after twenty years or more, the successful and happy person who is suddenly diagnosed with an incurable disease. In all these we can see what loosing our life is, sometimes literally, but how do we turn this around so that we loose our life in such as way as to gain it again? Where does the resurrection come in? Possibly the key words in this passage are for my sake and the gospel’s. It is only when we experience disaster and loss because we are living for the sake of Christ and the Gospel, that that we experience resurrection. How do we ensure that we are living our lives and experiencing all for the sake of Christ and the Gospel? It takes a lifetime to answer that question, but the answer begins by accepting that there is no pain free way to live the Gospel. There must always be, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, a cost of discipleship. To loose our lives in such a way as to find it means learning to say no to false offers of happiness.
The Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama was deeply impressed by the wrinkled faces and rough hands of a group of Russian peasant women he saw on a visit to Moscow. He wrote:
In their wrinkled faces and rough hands I saw trouble that produced endurance. How hard they must have worked all through their lives with those hands. Merciful hands must show themselves as hard, worn hands, not as beautiful, attractive hands. How eloquent are those rough, tired hands. They fended off despair by working, working on through intolerable situations. Endurance brings God’s approval. In endurance life is taken seriously. Trouble is not cheated or avoided. It is faced. (Kosuke Koyama, Three mile an hour God).
