The Reverend Ronald J. Kolanowski
March 8, 2009
The Second Sunday in Lent, Year B

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25

Last Sunday, Frank Kirkpatrick reminded us of the role of covenant in scripture.  He recounted the story of Noah and God’s covenant with all creation.  He also spoke of privilege and how all of us are heirs of the social conditions created by those who have gone ahead of us.  This Sunday we are again reminded of God’s covenant, this time in the story of Abraham.  Today’s reading, the psalm and the letter to the Romans all have one thing in common:  they speak about people that according to the standards of the world have no future. 

Abraham and Sarah are old people, and God makes a covenant that promises offspring and fathering many nations.  God changes the old man’s name from Abram, which in Hebrew is a joining of two words “Abh” (father) and “ram,” meaning high or exalted.  Abram high-father is given a new name, Abraham:  two words (Abh), father, and Hebrew raham or Arabic ruham, which means "multitude."  No longer high-father, but father of a multitude.  This new name establishes the Abrahamic covenant claimed by three great monotheistic religions:  Judaism, Christianity and Islam….the multitude of nations – God’s promise fulfilled.

We prayed a portion of Psalm 22 that expresses God’s promise for the poor, whom the world often sees as having no future.

In Romans we are reminded that the Abrahamic covenant was entered into through the righteousness of faith.  It is a message that extends the promise of Abraham to the Gentile communities which stood outside of the bounds of the original covenant, thereby extending a future to all.  The promise of the Abrahamic covenant extended to people of faith is central to Paul’s theology of justification by faith.  Our claim as spiritual heirs is in direct succession to Abraham, the man who entered into covenant with God because of faith, not law.  As Christians we are spiritual heirs of Abraham because of a promise built on faith, not by rules or injunctions.  A people who had no future are given a future.

Throughout salvation history God secures a future for those who do not have one.  In Christian social theology this is known as the preferential option.  God exercises a preferential option for the poor.  Coming from Catholic social teaching, the preferential option expresses a special concern in distributive justice for poor and vulnerable persons.  The “poor” include not only those who are economically deprived.  The principle is rooted in the biblical notion of justice, where God calls us to be advocates for the voiceless and the powerless among us (e.g., “the widows and the orphans”), and where right relationships are restored.

In his Lenten book A Season for the Spirit, Brother Martin Smith expresses it through the idea of God’s hospitality.  “Jesus proclaims the hospitality of God that beckons all the excluded and disabled and powerless out of the shadows into the full light of day.  God’s sovereignty is a community in which all have an equal place in the light, a full share of life.  At first these words seem welcome to Jesus’ neighbors, but with sickening rapidity it grows cold again….In no time at all the congregation turns into a lynch mob.” 

This is why Jesus was killed.  His message of universal acceptance and love necessitates a deconstruction of the social order.  Smith continues, “The resistance to the Hospitality of God is ingrained in the heart…The Spirit’s work in the heart is not a matter of a few adjustments here and there, a little polishing and refining.  There has to be a breaking-up of the present order.  Jesus proclaims to each the acceptable year of the Lord in which all the banished and excluded sides of ourselves (and everyone) can be welcomed for healing and empowerment.”

On November 6, 2003, I attended the consecration of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire with a group from my parish in Storrs.  The sermon was given by retiring Bishop Doug Theuner.  He said that in preparation for the sermon he reread all four gospels to discern the central message of Jesus.  He concluded, and I quote, “Our Lord’s attention was entirely directed to the outcast and the marginalized, the poor, the lame, the blind, lepers, women, peoples possessed by demons, prostitutes, tax collectors, Roman soldiers, Samaritans, SyroPhonecians, thieves…His wrath was reserved for members of the religious establishment of his own faith community; Pharisees and Sadducees, scribes, elders, chief priests, money changers in the Temple…and his own chosen disciples.”

The bishop recalled a statement by Dr. Lamin Sanneh from Yale Divinity School.  Dr. Sanneh said that “when we attempt to bring the margins into the center we necessarily push the center to the margins.”  Bishop Theuner went on, “If Canterbury or New York, for instance, wishes to help Nigeria or the West Indies move toward the center, then for everyone to continue to occupy the space available, Canterbury or New York must be willing to move toward the margins.”

When we left the consecration, we stopped for dinner.  It was late and the restaurant was largely empty.  Our waitress had had a long day.  As we talked about what we just experienced, she listened and wanted to know of what happened.  She said that the story of Gene’s consecration gave her “goose-flesh.”  And then she shared that she was abused by her father since age 12.  She spoke openly of her disappointment in a church that left her feeling unworthy.  You could see the pain of years on her face and hear the sense of shame in her voice.  The story of Gene Robinson’s consecration brought her hope.  If someone on the margins can become a bishop, then just maybe God could see her through her brokenness, through her shame and pain.  For a moment right there and then, an opening was created for her from the margins to see the center – a new thing was within her reach – the possibility of God’s renewing love – a glimpse of her true, loved and graced center – and she rejoiced in it.

The God who speaks to us from the margins invites us to listen intently to the margins of our own heart and to the margins of the world in order that we might live into Abraham’s covenant that is extended to all regardless of the standards established by the world.  We are called to extend hospitality to those on the margins and listen to what they have to say, even if it means being pushed toward the margins ourselves in order to make room at the center.  Amen.

Copyright 2009 © by the Reverend Ronald J. Kolanowski