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Romans 4:1-5, 13-18
A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent
There are two opposing views of reality today. The first view, the scientific view, functions like a religion for many today and we can understand why. Science is even altering what it is to be human as humans and machines are merging through AI, neurotechnology, and digital dependence. Some robots have emotional intelligence. The scientific view of reality promises that the future can be managed through science and technology.
Over against this view is the view of reality found in Abraham and in the texts for today, Genesis 12 and also in Romans 4, which says of Abraham: “In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations; as he had been told, ‘So shall your descendants be’” (Romans 4:18).
We see in Genesis 12 that the Lord has made a covenant with Abraham. He’s already in Haran and halfway to Canaan. The promise is made, not only in this chapter 12, but also in chapters 15 and 17.
He was 75 years old, and now he’s grown older. In Genesis 18 there is that famous occasion when the Lord comes to visit him. It says three people came, three angels, but it’s definitely the Lord visiting him.
He, as was customary for hospitality, prepares a meal for them. And then the Lord says to him: “Your wife is going to have a son.” She’s back in the other part of the tent. She hears this and she laughs. There’s this famous verse in Genesis 18:14: “Is anything impossible with the Lord?” And she says: “Oh, I didn’t laugh.” But there’s no question that she did.
The story goes on with Abraham having some contact with the neighboring king, Abimelech, who saw Sarah and she was very beautiful, and he wanted to take her as his wife, and Abraham was afraid that he would be killed so he says: “Oh, she’s just my sister.”
Abimelech takes her, and the Lord has to intervene because Abraham is so weak.
Then Sarah and Abraham grow older and there’s no heir, so Abraham says: “I have to help the Lord along here.” He takes his maidservant Hagar to be his wife, and they have a child, Ismael, who is considered the father of all the Arabs. There is that, and the Lord says, “No.”
And then Sarah has a son named Isaac, which, of course, means: “She laughs.” The Lord does it his way, and he laughs while we are our feeble, unbelieving selves.
It says in Romans 4:17 that the Lord is the one who made the world out of nothing. This idea of creating out of nothing is a late idea. It’s not found in what we call the Old Testament. It’s not found until 2 Maccabees 7:28. Here then in Romans 4:17 Paul writes that the Lord is able to create out of nothing, and even more he creates life out of death. That’s spelled out not only in 4:17 but also in 4:25 and most of all in our text for today in Romans 4:5: “He justifies the ungodly.”
It’s a difficult thing to draw out what is meant by “the ungodly.” We think that means that you’re not pious enough, or you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do.
But the word “ungodly” to the ancient Hebrews meant something far worse, something foul and abhorrent. You’re outside of God, or like the scapegoat chased into the wilderness and abandoned. You’ve fallen into the pit, the waste, into complete lostness.
It’s like Galatians 1 where Paul says that those who do not preach the gospel should be damned. The word there is “anathema” and it means to be absolutely cut off from God, the most terrible thing there could be. This is “the ungodly” whom the Lord justifies, and this is repeated in the same book of Romans in 5:6:” While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”
It’s the ungodly, the foul, who are redeemed, who are justified, and this comes out in Galatians 3 where Paul writes again about the covenant.
He says there are two kinds of covenant. The first kind is the covenant with Abraham which is one-sided. God simply says: This is the way it is.
And then, as Paul writes, some 400 years later, is the covenant with Moses. That’s the two-sided covenant. You recall in Exodus 20:1 which begins the Book of the Covenant, it says: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,” and it is implied: Therefore, then comes the law. I am your Lord and you should and you must keep the law.
This is not the way it is with Abraham. Abraham is the one who has the covenant that is one-sided. And in Gal 3:8 is this remarkable verse: “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying: ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.” It was by the promise and not by the law.
You can tell this if you go back and look at this account about Abraham. Time and again he was weak and wavering. Talk about faith—it’s not some kind of psychological power. It’s not a work. It’s what God does. What God does is God makes it happen in spite of Abraham.
This then is the center of history for this view of reality. The center of history, the center of reality, is that God saved by sending his Son to die and rise again.
We have then two particular and opposing views of reality. It’s like building an ark out in the plains of Nebraska. That is how foolish that would seem. This huge wooden boat out in the middle of nowhere. And on top of that saying: “Now there is going to be a flood.”
You know how they made fun of Noah. It’s the same here with two different kinds of reality.
Our situation is like that. Many, perhaps even most, people aren’t in church today. Why bother with that ark? Why bother with church? Most don’t bother because they are seduced by that other view of reality. Somehow it can all be managed.
In that other view, we are going to manage the future, even the matter of dying.
We have to be very sure, when we, who claim the center of reality is in the cross and resurrection, talk about this, that we don’t come off as Luddites, or as Amish, or as those who are against technological progress. That’s happened in the past.
For example, in 1796 Edward Jenner discovered a vaccine for smallpox, and at the time both Catholics and Protestants churches said this should not be done because if God had wanted you to have a cure for smallpox, he would have built it into the nature of things. And therefore, we shouldn’t do it.
That’s not to say, of course, that Christians support every technological advance. We keep in mind Prometheus, Nemesis, and Frankenstein. The ancient Greeks talked about Prometheus who stole fire from heaven. Nemesis is that something built into the nature of things which causes things to go wrong. And Frankenstein reminds us of how things go wild.
The problem is thinking that through using artificial intelligence and the like, the future is something we are going to be able to manage, and we can even change human nature.
What do we say to this?
On the one hand, we disavow all notions of building the kingdom of God on earth. This is a temptation that both Roman Catholic and mainline churches have fallen into. A few years ago, a mainline denomination, at its national convention, asked the assembled delegates to vote on what should be the priorities of the church based on a list of 20 suggestions.
The assembled delegates voted. It turned out that the number one priority chosen was to pursue the UN development goals! The option to spread the gospel didn’t make the top 10. We see in this vote that even among Christians, the Christian claim has been absorbed by the modern technological claim to reality.
What do we say?
On the one hand, we’re not about building the kingdom on earth. On the other hand, it is also true that Christianity is not just a private matter. As John 3:16 says: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” We make the claim that the center of reality is what happened in about 30 AD. in Jesus Christ dying and rising again. That is an exclusive claim. It excludes saying all religions are the same, and it excludes saying religion is just a private matter, even while we want to affirm the best of what is being done by the abilities of human minds and hands.
In this season of Lent, we remember Abraham, weak and wavering, and the Lord’s one-sided covenant with him.
We remember that the Christian claim is a particular one, and it is in Jesus Christ who died and rose again.
Amen