Deacon Kathryn Snelling delivered this sermon of hers today at St Peter’s by the Sea
Second Sunday in Lent – March 8, 2020
Read Psalm 121 from St. Helena Psalter
A few years back I, for a time, met with a group of residents at the Sitka Community Hospital Long Term Care. The activity person working there at the time asked me to come provide some spiritual activity with the residents. So each Sunday afternoon she would bring those who wanted to come and we’d gather in the little activity room. I would come armed with Bible and Prayer Book and a selection of other spiritual reflections. I’d bring my CDs of old time hymns and sometimes my autoharp and we would read scripture and sing hymns together. And share stories and memories as well. It was a wonderful time. And we developed a ritual of ending our time with reading someone’s favorite Psalm. We did this in turns each week. As you might suspect, we said Psalm 23 quite often.
But among our group was a gentleman, we’ll call him Joe, who, when it was his turn, always requested Psalm 121. Joe no longer had the energy to speak with any volume. You had to really listen closely to hear him. But as we said the Psalm together I could just perceive his lips moving and I was convinced that he knew this psalm by heart.
So one day when the aides were taking the residents to the dining room and he was the last person to remain. I took the opportunity and I knelt down beside his wheelchair so we could talk face to face. I asked him, “Joe, why is Psalm 121 your favorite?
Now I knew a little of Joe’s history – I knew he had been a fisherman. And he told me that when he was in his troller, often times alone, out on the fishing grounds, he always said this psalm. In any kind of weather – and then he grinned and said, “But especially when the weather kicked up. I’d say it over and over and I rested in God’s hands.” Joe was a man of deep faith – tested faith. Resting in God’s hands.
I expect the author of this psalm had the same feeling of resting in God’s hands. It’s attributed to David. I can imagine a young David – on the run from Saul who is hunting him to kill him, knowing that there was only One he could lift up his eyes and look to for help. And take refuge and rest in God’s hands.
Our Old Testament reading this morning is God’s calling of Abram.
Now if we back up a few verses in Genesis we will read that it was Abram’s father, Terah who left the land of Ur and headed for Canaan. But he stopped in Haran. And ended up settling there and never moving on to reach Canaan. Instead he died in Haran at the ripe old age of 205.
We don’t know exactly how long they lived in Haran but it must have been a good long while because Abram accumulated many possessions and acquired many people.
And I wonder if Terah had gotten a call from God to move to Canaan but for whatever reason didn’t complete the journey. It doesn’t say that in Genesis - that’s just a thought I had. At any rate, Abram now starts hearing the voice of God speaking to him.
The author or authors of Genesis didn’t spend ink and space on delving into the mind of Abram as he struggled with this call from God to move away from the comforts of home.
But years ago I watched a film – actually a series on TV, titled “Abraham”. And it was his whole story – starting with the passage we read this morning, his being called by God – and moving on through his life and his relationship with God. Richard Harris played the role of Abram. Maybe some of you saw this series, too?
I think the writers, director and Richard, himself did a great job is depicting Abram in all his humanity. He did do as God directed and set out - but it wasn’t a sudden “drop everything and go” kind of thing, the first time he heard God’s voice. He had a lot of questions and more than one conversation with God before he was convinced.
It took a huge step in faith. Huge. He didn’t have precise directions – a map, or a list to follow – do a. b. c. and you will arrive at your destination.
At one point – fairly early in the journey - Abram and his nephew, Lot who had come along with all his household and possessions - decided to split company – And Lot settles in the plains of Jordon while Abram goes on to Canaan.
God says to Abram “lift up your eyes. Look north, south, east and west. All the land you see I give to you and your offspring forever. Go walk the length and breadth of the land I am giving you.”
So, in faith, he travels on. He had to learn to trust in God. He made mistakes along the way – you can read all about them in the book of Genesis - but he believed what God was promising him and he was faithful.
And this is that faith Paul points to when writing to the Romans. It was Abram’s faith to do, not his doing, which God credited as righteous.
So we come now to Nicodemus. He, along with the other Pharisees has been listening to Jesus and watching all the things he is doing. I wonder if Nicodemus maybe had a tug on his heart that urged him to go seek Jesus out. It’s unlikely he was sent by the group, as he goes at night, presumably so as not to be seen. And he starts their conversation with:
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who comes from God, for no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God is not with him.”
Jesus brushes all this aside and gets right to the meat of the matter.
“No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born anew.”
And Nicodemus’ answer “How can a person go back into his mother’s womb and be reborn?”
And what I hear in Jesus’ answer is him saying, Nicodemus, lift up your eyes! Forget what you “know” or think you know. Unless you open your eyes – not just the physical eyes, but the eyes of the mind and the eyes of the heart - you will miss the kingdom of God.
Just as you can see the evidence of the wind but not the wind itself, so you must open to the Spirit and take on a new life, letting the Spirit move you – the invisible moving and influencing the visible.
Don’t trust in the eyes and thinking of the flesh – or as the world sees and thinks – but in the Son of Man.
And just as Moses lifted up the bronze snake in the desert – so is the Son of Man lifted up.
In case you haven’t read this story found in Numbers Chapter 21 – or to refresh our memory, here’s a summary of what Jesus is referring to:
The people traveling through the desert with Moses had sinned (again) and were dying from poisonous snake bites. They acknowledged their sin and asked Moses to pray for them to be forgiven. God told Moses to make a snake, put it on a pole and lift it up so everyone that looked at it would live – even if they had already been bitten. But they had to look up and look at the bronze snake.
So, just as Moses lifted up the bronze snake in the desert – so is the Son of Man lifted up – so that all who believe in him may have real and eternal life.
In my readings and study on these scripture passages, especially the Psalm, I learned that the Hebrew word for “Lift up” is the same word used for “Crucify”.
We lift up our eyes to Jesus. We are crucified with him, in our hearts and lives when we take on new life – a rebirth to a Spirit-led life.
And our lives will show evidence of the Spirit moving us as we listen to and answer God’s call to us – in whatever capacity that may be for each individually. But In fact, even in our everyday mundane activities – our going out and our coming in.
We may never be asked to leave our home and set out for a foreign land – (though some may feel they already did so when they pulled up stakes and came to the foreign land of Alaska) but we do face challenging situations and can find ourselves in “foreign territory” figuratively speaking.
I expect we can all think of times in our past, and there will be times in our future when we were faced with something – a situation or an opportunity - that tests our faith. When we may be asked to go or do --- when we don’t have precise directions – or even all our ducks in a row. And we make mistakes along the way.
But we keep our eyes lifted.
We lift our eyes to the hills
We lift our eyes to the cross
We lift our eyes to Jesus
So where is the Good News in all of this?
It’s right here before our eyes!
Please join me and let us read or recite John 3:16 together:
For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life.
That’s a lot of love – Huge!
It is that God who watches over you – it is that God who knows your going out and your coming in.
It is that God you can trust in - as you step out with faith. Amen
The Rev Deacon Kathryn Snelling
St Peter’s by the Sea Episcopal Church
Sitka, Alaska
Today’s scriptures - March 8