2 Lent 2024
Channel: St. Bartholomew's, Livermore
Date: 2024-02-25

Scripture (Romans 4:18-21): Hoping against hope, Abraham believed that he would become ‘the father of many nations’, according to what was said, ‘So numerous shall your descendants be.’ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

Collect: O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Reflection:  What is so amazing about the story of Abraham and Sarah is the sheer improbability of it.  God's people, now billions strong, can trace their lineage, both biological and spiritual, back to a single century-old desert wanderer and his 90-year-old wife who had never been able to bear children?  This seems more than a little incredible.  And yet it is so.  When it comes to the work of being God's people, we are invited to abandon the game of playing the odds in the usual sense.  The odds are meaningless.  We are invited instead to prayerfully look and listen, always discerning what is and is not in accordance with God's plan and God's will.  Those things that are not will fail, no matter how likely they seem to be, and those things that are, no matter how improbable or even impossible they may seem, will find success.  So we are never to lose hope.  So long as we are always actively allowing God to align our wills with the divine will, even that which seems utterly doomed to failure will ultimately succeed beyond our wildest dreams.