Rector's Sermon
4 March 2012

First Reading	Psalm	Epistle	Gospel
Genesis 17:1–7	Psalm 22:23–30	Romans 4:13–25	Mark 8:31–38

       The story of Sarah and Abraham begins the saga of the people of Israel.  They were told by God to leave their tribe and establish themselves in a new homeland to which God would lead them. God made to them an amazing and seemingly impossible promise, that through them and their descendants they would become people of blessing for all nations.  They never knew for sure what God had in mind, and there were times that by all accounts God’s promises seemed empty, if not totally ridiculous. Nevertheless, they never gave up, and hence become the mother and father of faith. To be sure they had flaws and the Bible does try to hide that. Yet wherever they found themselves, they lived committed to keeping God’s promises alive.

       In today’s story both Abraham and Sara are very old, with no hope of having children of their own. Children in their time were people’s social security, especially when you had no extended family around on whom to depend. According to the world’s wisdom, their future certainly looked like it was coming to an obvious and forgettable end. Sure enough, however, that wasn’t God’s reckoning or future.  In a year, Sara would be pregnant.

       Laura Ingalls Wilder was a daughter of a pioneer farm family in the later half of the 19th century. Later in life when she was in her sixties and at the urging of her daughter, she began writing a marvelous series of books on her experiences. Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, By the Banks of Plum Creek are some of them. The individual books center around one of the places the Ingalls family at one time or another, called home. Laura openly adored her father. In her writing, she never issued a word of criticism about him. In retrospect, Pa Ingalls appears to be sort of a “will-o-wisp” fellow who didn’t stick to anything very long. Yet what is so attractive in Laura’s books and accounts in large measure for their continuing popularity, is her obvious love for the places she and her three sisters lived. Laura would be born in Wisconsin move to Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota and finally settle in Missouri. None of the locations ever made the top twenty places to homestead.  Yet you never get the impression that Laura was rootless.  She was able to fully live and savor the nectar in every situation. As a child growing up in the literally ‘wild west’, she went through some pretty frightening experiences--prairie fire, draught, locusts, and the senseless violence humanity inflicts on each other. She did not have an easy life and was able to rise above it. Her legacy is in stories of charm and beauty. They are stories of the love of a family in rural 19th century America that transcend hardship and tragedy.  All through her long life, whenever Laura was given lemons, she made lemonade, and I think God was on occasion pleased to sample her lemonade.

       Jesus doesn’t want just admirers or a cheer leading squad of fair weather fans. It’s easy to cheer and to show support when times are easy and favorable. Jesus wants inner commitment, not public praise from his disciples. That is why his rebuke of Peter, in effect saying, “depart behind me Peter” was so sharp.  Followers of Jesus are called to be committed to trust in God’s promises as Abraham and Sara did, and committed to live a new life of faith as caring for each other through thick and thin, as members of a family, just as Laura did. Jesus calls forth trust, not applause. If we go through life with the main purpose of preserving our own comfort, or fulfilling merely our own wishes, in the end, it will be as futile as always trying to wedge our own little ego into the center of the universe.  To be sure, Jesus doesn’t want us to suffer. Suffering in and of itself is hardly a virtue. In a sense, hedonism and masochism are the two sides of the same coin of excessive self-indulgence.

       There is an African tale of wisdom that claims that when we are brought before God at the last judgment, we will be asked, “Where are your wounds?” If we claim that we have none, we will be asked, “why not? Was there nothing in your life on earth worth suffering for?” I suspect that is what true discipleship and today’s gospel is all about.

       And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.