Lent 2

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My son has been called a miniature version of me. It will happen that Will does something, reacts to some situation in some particular sort of way, displays a certain aspect of his sense of humor and Julie will turn to him and say, “Will, you’re just like your dad.”
I suppose that happens a lot. Kids pick up on the character traits of their parents. Some of it is how they look, their physical features, their build and body type, eye color and hair color, even the sound of their voice, but as they grow and mature it is obvious that kids mimic even more of their moms and dads than just the way they look. They act like their parents. They think like their parents, and for our purposes today, kids believe like their parents. That is to say, kids pick up on their practice of the Christian faith as they observe the way that faith is practiced at home with mom and dad.
What practice, what habits of faith, are you teaching your children?
But maybe you don’t have children. Or if you do, maybe they are grown. If that’s the case, consider your parents, every one of us has parents, how has your faith been influenced by the faith practiced by your parents? By your mom and dad?
The question of legacy is one that is important here at St Paul Chuckery. We value the faithfulness of previous generations. After all, consider our practice. There is a placard out in narthex with photographs of our founding fathers – the original members of St Paul Chuckery. We have produced a genealogy book that traces our relationships back to these individuals, that traces our interconnectedness to each other. We have great sense of pride in the institution that we have inherited from these original members. These are all good things.
Our Scripture lessons have a thing or two to say about legacy and inheritance today. Our Old Testament text is from Genesis 12. The call of Abram. God’s promise made to Abram and to his offspring or heirs. The Romans text further elucidates this doctrine. God promised Abram that “his offspring would inherit the land.” God promised Abram that through him, that is to say, through his offspring, all nations of the world would be blessed. God granted Abram a legacy, children, heirs. And through this legacy, according to this legacy, God has accomplished great things for all of his creation.
The legacy of Abram is faith.
Our Epistle lesson says as much. Vs 13 of Romans 4 says that the promise to Abraham and his offspring, that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. That is to say that God gave Abraham a very specific promise, a promise of a great and grand inheritance, a promise of land and blessing and honor for him and his children and his grand children and his great grandchildren. This promise had everything to do with faith.
We this clearly in the Old Testament text and again in Romans. God came to Abram with a gospel call, a call to leave his family, his father and mother, his life in the land of Haran. These days it has become more common for us to relocate and change jobs and pick up our lives pack up what we own and move across the country or even around the globe. It was highly unusual in Abrams day. But God called him to do it so he did. We are told that Abram did it because of faith. Romans says that Abraham believed God and God counted it to him as righteousness.
As Abraham found his way to his new home God showed him the land and God appeared to Abram and said to him, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So Abram built and altar and there at Shechem he worshipped the Lord. So this is the legacy and the inheritance of Abraham; faith, belief in and worship of the true God.
And God made good on his promise. A quick review of through the Old Testament reminds us that God kept this promise to Abraham. He had a son, Isaac, a grandson, Jacob, 12 great grandsons. And from that family was born a nation – Israel. The Jews, all who trace their heritage back to this man, all of whom count their lineage according to this promise. All of whom take great pride in the fact that they are heirs and descendants of Abraham.
By the time Jesus came around, the nation of the Jews was very proud of this legacy. They made sure to remind Jesus on several occasions that they were descendants of Abraham. They had come to misunderstand what they inherited. They had come to believe that Abraham’s legacy was made up of dirt and real estate, a city and a temple building. They needed to be reminded that the thing that made them heirs to Abraham’s estate was not ethnic and genetic. It wasn’t who your earthly father was, it had to do with your spiritual father. The Jews were spiritual children of Abraham and the greatest thing he left for them to inherit was the faith in the true God.
Much of the new testament then is written to deal with this very issue. Who are the true descendant of Abraham? Who are his true heirs? The Jews thought they had a corner on the market because of their genetic connection to the man. Paul would have us understand that the true connection isn’t found in your family tree, rather it is found in your baptism.
Or, as Jesus puts it in our Gospel text, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. You must be born again.” We need a new birth and a new inheritance, not one of dirt and a temple building. We need one of faith. Of baptism. Of the Spirit.
So what then is it that makes us true “Chuckeryites”? Is it the dirt? The farm? The family? The building?
We have similar sort of a legacy here. Photographs on the wall, family relationships, generations and inheritance. All good things. All good gifts of God. Apples don’t fall far from their trees. The question is where is the root? The question is what waters the root?
The root is the Gospel. The root is Jesus. The root is faith. Remember, Abraham believed God and God counted it to him as righteousness. Abraham was as good as dead. God gave him the promise that he would be a great nation when he was 75 years old. Abraham’s wife didn’t have her first child until he was 100! A great nation? At 100?
But that is hardly the most miraculous thing.
If Abraham was as good as dead physically, then what of his condition spiritually? He was all the way dead. The Lord tells us in Joshua 24 what Abraham was busy doing prior to his call here in our text. “Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah the father of Abraham and of Nahor and they served other gods.” Abraham was a pagan, a man of the world, an unbeliever, tied up in the fog and the confusion of sin and having no knowledge of the true god until the Lord came to him and interrupted his life of unbelief and set him on a course of new life and new faith. Or, to put it the way Jesus puts it, Abraham was born of the flesh, the Lord came to him and gave him a new birth, a re-birth into a life of the Spirit.
And so it is with us. And so it was with the Loschkys, the Burgers, The Vollraths the Burnses the Gaulkes, Nicols, Strengs, Rausches, Theirgartners, Bishops, Scheiderers, and Schmidts. Not to mention the Schlueters, the Spragues, Dillahunts, Thrushes, Underhills, Headings, the list could go on and on and on. We are all children of Adam, heirs of sin and unbelief. But we have been reborn as heirs of the Spirit of God, washed in the water of Baptism and granted the promise of an inheritance that won’t ever perish or spoil or fade kept in heaven for you for ever for all eternity. (1 Peter 1:4)
For us today, the question is one faith. There are many things in this world that tie us together. Many different sorts of associations that create all kinds of different communities.
I was creating an online collaboration group for our marketing committee at Google Groups, a way of keeping in touch and sharing ideas over the internet – very useful. There are literally hundreds of thousands of different groups and associations that one could join. But the say blood is thicker than water. They say family, family bonds and family ties are more lasting and more permanent than all of these peripheral associations and friendships and communities that you could join. Well, if blood is thicker than water, if family ties are tied tighter than friends, that faith is tied tightest of all.
Look around you today. Look at those who are seated here in our worship space this morning. These are not just your friends, not even just your family members. See here, fellow believers in Christ. Fellow Christians. Fellow heirs of an eternal inheritance. These are people that you will be spending a lot of time with, an entire eternity together. You are tied to one another in faith, in baptism, in service and in love. God has tied you together. God has re-birthed you in baptism, given you a new life of faith, and together you are children of the heavenly Father.
So they say Will is a lot like his dad… (Poor kid) If he gets anything from me let it be faith. .
In the name of Jesus.
Amen.