A Son Promised to Abraham and Sarah

This summer the church of St Raphael in the Valley, Benson, Arizona, using the Revised Common Lectionary, is following the semi-continuous track 1 for the first reading, beginning in Genesis... 

In the story last week, we heard of Abraham and Sarah leaving their family to follow the promise of God into a new land.  There God would make them a blessing to many nations.

Now we are getting deeper into the cycle of readings about Abraham and his family, which begins in the 12th chapter of Genesis and continues through until the 36th chapter. Last week began that cycle as soon-to-be long-suffering Abram and Sarai left the place their family had begun to settle and ventured south into the promised land. Only to find that it was a temporary respite. 

In today’s first lesson, they share that respite with others. They extend classic Middle-Eastern hospitality to strangers, offering water and rest and food to three travelers. Sarah and Abraham are tent-dwellers, with their herds and flocks and servants around them, and they are resting under the trees and the tent-flap on a hot day. 

[This reminded me of the journey of the Odyssey, where a long-suffering hero travels through many countries before he could reach his own. Like Abraham and Sarah, on the way he encountered divine messengers.]

We can imagine who these three travelers are, who turn up at the Oaks of Mare. What comes of it, along with the hospitality, is a promise. “I’ll come back this way next year and Sarah will have a son.” A pleasant prophecy but unlikely to be fulfilled - unless God is speaking. 

And so there is a promise given. It will be renewed and repeated, to Abraham and then his son and then his grandson. Abraham and Sarah are already traveling, venturing, on the basis of earlier promises. Go to the land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. But how are you to become - here it is! the Fathers’ Day reference - father of many nations? Abraham and Sarah are old, they have journeyed far already; they are in the midst of – what proves to be – a very long wandering navigation of the Fertile Crescent, from Iraq to Syria through Palestine, down to Egypt and then back north again to Palestine where they settle down at last. 

And yet they are following a promise that will be fulfilled: for a child will be born to them, as subsequent events bear out.

There is a promise - and there is more: for faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love. 

We see faith at work in the relentless courageous obedience and trust of Sarah and Abraham as they venture forth from home ground, seeking beyond the familiar what is only familiar to them as they are God’s people.

We see hope at work. Hope that persists beyond toil and travel and despair, injury, bad weather, woeful barrenness and impossible pregnancy, there will be a child, and children. There will be a place for them at last, in the promised land. War will not prevent them, nor drought, nor incapacity. They will make it there. They will find it home.

We see love at work. Love between husband and wife. Love, compassion, caring for the strangers. Love, in the expectation of a child. Love, in seeing a future with hope. Love, in the strangers’ promise. And love, in its fulfillment.

This is part of the ongoing story of Abraham and Sarah, and their family. Of love, hope, and faith. And through faith, hope, and love, it is our story too.

We seek a future with hope. We come to expect the fulfillment of the promise. The promise that is behind and beyond all these other promises. 

Beyond despair or deprivation or strife, animosity or the cessation of good will, there will be and is, a greater good, a greater peace. And we are called to proclaim it, and to live into it. The peace of God, the love of God, hope in God, faith in God.

You will see from the day’s prayers, and from the gospel, that we can have that expectation, that is more than a dream, a hope and faith and love that will bring God’s love into the world, in the children of Abraham that are all those who share his faith. And that promised land will begin right here, as we, children of the promise, of faith and hope and love, seek and make a new community and a new home with all those who respond to the call.

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As he sent them out for the first time, Jesus commanded his disciples: “As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’” 

That is the message. The one who sent Abraham and Sarah on their journey is the one who is sending the disciples on theirs – a mission that belongs to all his followers, from then on. It is ours as well as theirs. 

Abraham and Sarah were told that they would be a blessing to many nations. Those nations are us. And the message that in those nations would be established the kingdom of peace. The reign of God is what encompasses and embraces all who seek the peace of God.

Jesus sends out those first disciples on an early mission. They go before him into the villages of Israel, with a message and a ministry. We too proclaim the kingdom in both deed and word. This congregation, I am told, has many ministries to those around us, strangers and residents, as they are in need.

This congregation has a ministry to those around us as we welcome them into our celebrations. In these ministries we proclaim the good news, we live the good news, we celebrate the good news. The ministries make manifest the reign of God. We show that the kingdom of heaven has come near. 

Those early disciples, messengers of the reign of God, were so urgent on their mission that they traveled light. Lucky for them that ancient Mideastern tradition of hospitality had not worn off. 

As they entered villages where they might find a welcome, and be able to rest and even, we can imagine, receive water and food. They might find a welcome for their message. Not everywhere, nor with everyone. Where they did not, they could move on. 

Where they did receive a welcome, there was much to talk about with those who received the message: How do we live out the good news? How do we live as citizens of the kingdom of heaven? What does the reign of God look like? How does it begin to show? How do we live into it?

We receive, and we give. May God’s love go with you today and always. May you carry with you Jesus’ message of peace, and the promise of Abraham and Sarah. May faith, hope, and love abide with you, and go with you.

For the kingdom of heaven is near. Right on top of you. Proclaim it with joy.

JRL+

June 14th 2026 : 3rd Sunday after Pentecost. San Rafael, Benson.

The Lessons Appointed for Use on the Sunday Closest to June 15

Proper 6, Year A, RCL, Track 1  

Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7)

Psalm 116:1, 10-17

Romans 5:1-8

Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23)  

 

The Collect (Episcopal)

Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Prayer of the Day (Lutheran)

God of compassion, you have opened the way for us and brought us to yourself. Pour your love into our hearts, that, overflowing with joy, we may freely share the blessings of your realm and faithfully proclaim the good news of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

Amen.

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From the Lectionary Page (https://www.lectionarypage.net/):

"What are “Track 1” and “Track 2”?

During the long green season after Pentecost, there are two tracks (or strands) each week for Old Testament readings. Within each track, there is a Psalm chosen to accompany the particular lesson. The Revised Common Lectionary allows us to make use of either of these tracks, but once a track has been selected, it should be followed through to the end of the Pentecost season, rather than jumping back and forth between the two strands. The first track of Old Testament readings (“Track 1”) follows major stories and themes, read mostly continuously from week to week. In Year A we begin with Genesis, in Year B we hear some of the great monarchy narratives, and in Year C we read from the later prophets.

Do you hear God speaking?

“I will make you father of a multitude.” Well might Sarah laugh - as she does in the next chapter of the book of Genesis - when she hears God make this promise to her ninety-nine year old husband. She is old too. And yet shall she have pleasure? She asks you. And yet - the day comes when God's improbable promise is fulfilled. Not by the means they concoct - here is Hagar, take her - but by God's own improbable scheme. For he has more in mind than these two's progeny - or Abraham's "seed" (biological offspring). 

    God through these human means will bring a new joy into the world, a new closeness between humanity and Creator. And not before time. It has taken three thousand years - so far - for us human beings to live into the implications of that promise. To live into that promise and the call in earlier chapters of the same book to both care for and commune with the creation of which we are a part. 

    Over and over God calls on the people to come into relationship, and offers a few ... guidelines. As my friend Lois used to put on the butcher-paper cover over her Bible: "If all else fails, follow the directions." 

    How are we to live? Here is a way: to become the parents of a multitude, the progenitors of faithful offspring beyond count. Beyond count and beyond the charts of genealogists and family therapists. (Though hoo, boy, Abraham's children could use some of those as well... ) But the emphasis here is on the gift: the free gift of God to all humankind, through the faithfulness of Abraham and Sarah. And what is that gift?

    No less than life itself, life in communion with God, each other, our own true selves, and all creation.

    So easily broken is the covenant, so faithful is the promise, that we continually are called back into it.

    "If God is speaking, God speaks more often than people hear."--Tanya Luhrmann.

    God is speaking and offering life. A few people fishing, straggled along the shore of a small Mideastern lake, get the message - a bit directly. A man comes toward them along the shore, past the small mammals and large birds and shoreline plants and rocks, a man they may know - from a hill town some nine hours' walk away - or may not have met before: and he inhabits and manifests and makes known clear and loud the Word that is God come to humanity - and this time, to 'simple fisher folk', in the form of a man who works with his hands, and calls them.

    The man along the shore has something to say to the workers mending their nets - the two brothers, the other two brothers, perhaps an independent woman working her own boat - and offers them a wider world.

    Come with me and I will make you fishers of people.

    This calls them away from their everyday occupations. It requires another level of concern, of care, of commitment. 

    Who do you really serve?  

"Do you hear God speaking?" Keeping the Faith, Home + Life, Arizona Daily Star, Sunday, April 21, 2021, E3. 

• Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
• Romans 4:13-25
• Mark 8:31-38
• Psalm 22:22-30
  
  

http://edgeofenclosure.org/lent2b.html

Tanya Luhrmann, Noel Q King Memorial Lecture, "Voices of Madness, Voices of Spirit" - (https://youtu.be/MTyxhro_Apw). https://www.tanyaluhrmann.com/

Why did Sarah laugh?

There is a famous icon, by the hand of Andrei Rublev, called the Old Testament Trinity. Based on a story in the book of Genesis, it shows three angels gathered around a small table laden with food and drink. The icon gives us a picture of three persons in a mutual relationship of commonality and exchange - that helps us imagine the nature of God as one in three.

The Old Testament Trinity changed the subject, literally, of an earlier iconic image, the Hospitality of Abraham and Sarah. You may see this image in icons and in other art. What it shows is the whole image of the visit of three strangers to the Oaks of Mamre, and the tent of Abraham and Sarah. Abraham humbly greets the angelic visitors, while Sarah looks on from behind the gathered folds of their tent.

The three visitors have just arrived; they are strangers. And yet, unaware that he is entertaining angels, Abraham extends the full hospitality of his household to them.

He offers them everything Martha and Mary and Lazarus combined would give the Lord.

He doesn't know them at all. But there it is.

Openhearted, open-handed hospitality. And it is an icon for us, of just that.

It is more than an image to contemplate - if we choose it to be: it can be the opening of a door to the sacred, a doorway to the future.

A future in which all are welcome. Whoever we are, the door is open to us.

You may be a total stranger; but you are welcome. And you are invited to welcome others. 

As we welcome others, strangers to us as they may be, and offer to share the gifts with them that God has entrusted us to give, we encounter ... messengers of a hopeful future.

Before they leave Abraham and Sarah, the three visitors give them a promise, one only God could keep: the first heir of a future with hope, not just for themselves but for all who follow them in faith; indeed what God has purposed will happen, and the inheritors of their faith will become as numerous as the stars.

Sarah laughed. Why did Sarah laugh? Perhaps it was doubt. But maybe it was joy.

JRL+

Genesis 18:1-14

"Offer open-handed hospitality even to strangers", Arizona Daily Star, Keeping the Faith, Sunday March 7th 2021 page E3.  https://tucson.com/open-hearted-open-handed-hospitality-even-for-strangers/article_5c886751-b8a3-5282-8c31-8c84a87179fe.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(Andrei_Rublev)#/media/File:Angelsatmamre-trinity-rublev-1410.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Ghiberti_puerta_para%C3%ADso.jpg

Faithfulness and Hospitality

 Faithfulness and Hospitality

When God promised Abraham and Sarah that from them would come a multitude, that they would be the parents of nations and of kings, when God made that covenant promise, Abraham and Sarah had already shown faith. In Genesis 17 the promise seems all one way, but as the Apostle Paul pointed out, Abraham's faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.” And they had shown it: traveling with Abraham's father up the Euphrates Valley from Ur in Chaldean territory near modern-day Baghdad to somewhere near Mosul or Kirkuk, but then Abraham and Sarah had struck off on their own through the desert and across to Syria, and down through the Judean hills, probably along the Gaza coast and into Egypt, and then back to the land of Canaan, where three angels, Genesis 18 tells us, found them resting with their flocks and herds in the front of their tent under the Oaks of Mamre. The land they travelled through was not deserted: this happened about a thousand years after cultivation began in Tucson - Jericho was half as old as it is now, olive trees that are old now (and still bearing fruit) were only a thousand years old back then. There were no borders, no walls, no iron curtains thirty feet high between countries, but there was desert, and mountains, and rivers, and plains, and people who could be hostile or friendly. And it was in this environment that Abraham and Sarah showed faithfulness, courage - trust in the promise, and hospitality. For their response to the strangers who approached their tent was radical hospitality. Come turn aside to rest, let us give you water and food. And then it was that the three who were one, who were God cloaked indeed in mystery, laid on them their strange promise: you will indeed have children, Sarah will bear a child. We'll be back and you'll see. No wonder Sarah laughed - with surprise but with delight and joy.

Faith was reckoned unto him as righteousness and their hospitality showed it in action.

• Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
• Romans 4:13-25
• Mark 8:31-38
• Psalm 22:22-30
• Genesis 18

After the Second Sunday in Lent, Year B

legacy

Yesterday my wife and I drove to Cochise County to see the Sandhill Cranes. We drove south from Benson through Tombstone and then east into the Sulfur Springs Valley to Whitewater Draw. 

"I see a large bird."

"I see lots of large birds!"

"Wow!" 

We laughed in delight as we walked over to a shallow marsh where the birds were congregating like a crowd of cabbages, or lifting off and flying, circling or moving away high into the sky, always calling to each other. 

When we got back there was a message from a friend. He had looked up "sandhill cranes" and sent me a picture of two. I called them Abram and Sarai.

Then I sent him my own picture, of a multitude of cranes, with the caption, take two, multiply by ten thousand, then set them all a-flight.

In the evening Miles Green sent me a picture he'd just taken of the cranes resting again at sunset.

See for yourself at "cranes com" - https://www.azgfd.com/wildlife/viewing/webcamlist/sandhillcrane/cranecam/)

Or go!

So the story of a man and a woman, of Abram and Sarai, now to be called Abraham and Sarah, becoming the blessed forebears of a multitude, and a source of blessing to all people, is not so alien to Arizonans. 

It can happen. 

We have seen it.

A season of promise becomes a heritage of blessing.

So the promise, Paul says, comes to the children of faith, and it is through faith that we inherit the blessing, that we become the children of the promise.

I'd been thinking of Lent as a season of preparation for Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter.

But here it is founded in hope. Lent is a season of promise, fulfilled in Good Friday and Easter.

For Jesus' whole life was a testament to faithfulness. Even unto Death he did not fail.

And we share in his rectification, his glorification, his resurrection, as he is raised from the dead in triumph over Death, and his faith communicated through his first witnesses, and comes to us.

Witnesses - for witness is the basis of discipleship, of following Jesus - from Mary at the Tomb to his astonished Apostles, to -- us. We did not see but yet may Believe. 

It is said that one sign of his truth is the crowd of witnesses we have Become.

We have seen life transformed, we have seen hope in the midst of Despair, Joy in the middle of sorrow.

We have seen small become great, and we have seen the mighty overcome by the true.

Faithful adherents, to the promise, joining in the heritage that two small creatures began, that grew into a multitude, a crowd of witnesses like a cloud above us and circling around us, in which we delight, and at last share in peace.

3 strangers

Three strangers came to the tent. Abraham and Sarah had journeyed far – from northern Iraq, across Syria and down through Canaan and on into Egypt (where they had many adventures) and then back to Canaan.

Here they were: their flocks and herds around them. They pitched their tent under the oak trees. Strangers came – and were welcomed.

Stay with us Lord and rest your feet. Sit in the shade under this tree. Let me bring you something to drink. Quick! Prepare a meal, a fine feast

The guests, receiving hospitality, now offer their hosts a gift: a promise of a future with hope. You will have a son.

Sarah cannot believe it – she laughs to herself behind the flap of the tent – and she is afraid when they catch her out: “O but you did laugh.”

When the promise comes true, how does she feel?

It was a happy meeting. They name the child Isaac (Laughter).

Remembering and celebrating a promise fulfilled, the beginning of a hopeful future – with descendants that would outnumber the stars – all God’s doing – but God can raise up sons to Abraham from these stones.

It was faith that singled Abraham out. In faith he received the promise – and his true legacy is faith.

His true descendants and heirs are those who are heirs through hope – of the promise of God – and that hope is found in Jesus Christ.

It is through him, through Christ, that the basis of faith, of hope, and of love is revealed.

The gospel from Matthew today is the conclusion of his last chapter, a chapter that began with women going to the tomb of Jesus about the break of day.

“He has been raised,” they were told, “from the dead and is going on before you into Galilee; there you will see him.” They got the message and spread the news.

And the disciples did go to Galilee – they made their way to a mountain and Jesus met them there. They greet him, believers and doubters alike, shoulder to shoulder; they greet him as the holy one of God: they worship him. And now in a few quick words the risen Lord Jesus say so much.

“All authority has been given me on heaven and on earth.” He is the only Son of the Father, the one true living God who created all things. There is no other.

And this Jesus, now risen Lord, has a message for his disciples. A big task lies ahead. His earthly mission has ended.

The mission of the church now begins. So – he commissions them, and he empowers them.

He sends them forth to build his church, to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God, and to bring its reality into the midst of the earth and all its peoples.

“Make all people my disciples; baptize them everywhere in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; teach them to do all I have commanded you to do.”

As you have learned from me so go and teach. As I have made you disciples, disciple them. From here on the legacy now passes from one to another, from generation to generation. What I have given you – all that you have received, you must now pass on.

You will not be alone. For Emmanuel, God-with-us, says: I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Past, present, and future come together in this moment at the foundation of the Church.

On this mountain Jesus brings forth something beyond what Moses received on Sinai. He brings forth the living presence of God to accompany his messengers throughout the earth.

Worship, go, evangelize – and remember. Remember the promise given to Abraham and Sarah. Remember that their true descendants are the people of faith.

And remember Alban’s testimony to the one true living God who created all things.

Alban was living in a Roman town north of London when he found faith – or it found him. It came to his door in the person of a priest, fugitive in a time of persecution.

He sheltered the priest, welcomed him, gave him hospitality and safety, learned from him about ‘the one true living God who made all things’, and came to believe – so that he stood in the place of the priest and gave his life.

Hospitality, courage, and faith.

For his witness, for his faithfulness, he was executed, and won a crown in glory.

His faith we count as righteousness. It was his steadfast trust and witness that brought home to the people of the town the truth of the faith of the one true God.

What Alban did, living in his place in his time, was create a legacy of lasting witness.

People go there still, to the place where he was martyred, on pilgrimage, to the place so many now have gone before, where Alban simply stood the test of faith.

We may not be called to die by the sword but we may be called to simple witness to the truth of Christ, the promise of God, the faithful future, as heirs of hope that we like sons of Abraham may be raised up, may growth as heirs of hope and forebears of faith.

Courage, compassion, generosity, and hospitality – these gifts of faith are Alban’s legacy.

Fearless in the face of danger, Alban would not give up his faith. He testified to God’s truth.

Courage, compassion, and generosity; hospitality, bold truth telling, and unswerving faith, Alban in simple words led the way, a way so many pilgrims follow.

He followed the way of Christ through the Cross to Resurrection, through acceptance of Jesus’ gift on their behalf – and yes, its necessity – to a new life, a new way of living.

His allegiance was no longer to the gods of Rome, the gods of empire, the gods of greed, wealth, envy, instant gratification, the flash beauty of surface appearance, power, or hate.

Jesus calls all people to himself through all his people

All authority on earth and in heaven has been given to me; go – spread the good news.

Spread it to all nations and all generations – let this be your legacy, the living truth of the living God. He is Lord indeed.


O God, our Father, who gave to your servant Alban the gifts of faith, hospitality, compassion, generosity and courage, and sent people forth across the world to carry the word of your gospel to every creature, grant, we pray, a like spirit to your church, even at this present time. Further in all things the purpose of our community, that hidden things may be revealed to us, and new ways found to touch the hearts of all. May we preserve with each other sincere charity and peace, and, if it be your holy will, grant that this church, a place of your abiding, continue still to be a sanctuary and a light. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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