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Green Blades Preaching Roundtable

2nd Sunday in Lent

Year A
March 5, 2023
Rev. Gary Hedding

Genesis 12:1-4a
Psalms 121
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17

There will be thousands of sermons preached this Sunday about a searching Nicodemus and a righteous Abraham - both of whom will be examples for people in their relationships with God. This is not inappropriate nor unworthy of the texts. What often goes unnoticed is the place of “world” and “land” in these texts, which extends the passion of God for grace and redemption to all of creation, and cements the connections between our interests for redemption and the interests of redemption for all that God has brought into being.

 

“Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’” So, what is so wrong with Abram’s family and the land of Haram that Abram needs to abandon them in order to establish this blessed new nation? I can see how the old gods and traditions of Abram’s kindred could be a distraction, but the land itself? Is it just an invitation to invade someone else’s home and make it yours, or is God establishing a promise to the land in partnership with the people? The land becomes a sign of the covenant as much as Abram’s and Sarai’s offspring. Just as Isaac is all they receive as a hint of the promise of God for descendants as the stars in the sky, a cemetery plot is all they own of the promise of a land. Still, even this is enough to trust in God’s promise. God’s covenant with the chosen people includes care for the land as well as care for people. Leviticus is full of expectations that the land will have a sabbath. The land is tied to promise in such a way that it cannot be sold forever, but must be returned to its people in the year of Jubilee. When the people develop a long history of breaking their part of the covenant, they finally go into exile in Babylon. Exile from what? Not God, but exile from the land, which is a sign of God’s presence and blessing.

 

Psalm 121 also focuses on land. “I lift my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” The bit about my help comes from the LORD does not contradict the lifting up of the eyes of God’s people to the hills. There are too many references to God coming to God’s people on hills and mountains. Holy Places are such because people have found a Holy Presence there. The Ark’s grounding, Sinai, Zion, Jesus’ sermon on the mount, Transfiguration, the mountain in Galilee to which Jesus directed them for his ascension. The psalmist is not foolish or superstitious in lifting eyes up to the hills. It is where God’s people have found God before. It is the God “who made heaven and earth” who has the power and desire to be a help to those who are in “distress”. (See Psalm 120, which is the first of the couplets in this collection of Songs of Ascent and without which Psalm 121 is without context.) The psalmist must look to the hills because “too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace”(Ps 120:6). God, by God’s own covenant, is tied to land just as God is tied to people.

 

Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus is full of earthiness. Jesus’ picture of what it takes to “see the kingdom of God” is a new birth from above/anew. Nicodemus stumbles on the impossibility of him returning to a woman’s uterus. Jesus invites Nicodemus into the realm of mystery by comparing the movement of the Holy Spirit to bring this birth of grace and faith to life with mystery of the wind, “you do not know where it comes from or where it goes” yet the wind is real, experienced as force either gentle or strong. It moves ships and blows chaff away from the grain. Wind may be mysterious, but it makes things happen, so don’t worry so much about how faith comes, but receive the way it makes things happen in your life, Nicodemus.

 

The claim of Jesus that all creation matters and is included and essential to God’s work of redemption is revealed in verse 3:17. God really loves the world and so intends not to condemn the world but sent the Son “in order that the world might be saved through him”. In John’s gospel the world (cosmos) is broken and often at odds with the good news Jesus is, but all that means is that it needs redemption just like the subset of people do. So, just as Christians witness to this good news to people to give them hope and lives of promise, Christians witness to this good news to creation to give the creation a sign of God’s hope and promise. Just as the most inspiring witness to people is listening to them with respect and honor and caring for them in ways that are meaningful to them, so we join in inspiring witness to creation by listening to it with respect and honor and caring for creation in ways that are meaningful to the creation. We seek to protect the health and beauty of creation. We respect the land by caring for it more than selfishly or thoughtlessly demanding from it for our own luxury. We honor creation by constantly acknowledging and valuing its presence just because God loves it. We make use of creation as a partner, not as a possession. We give back to creation more than we take from it, because that is what we do with a partner we respect. So, we listen to creation as the Columbia River dries up, as the earth heats up way too fast, and as toxic chemicals from railway cars, mines, and factories burn it. We must act to show the promise of God’s redemption for creation by restoring it, and not demanding from it what it cannot give and remain healthy. We do this so that the mystery of the wind remains a mystery of birth from above/anew rather than a mystery of death.

 

An idea for a hymn this week is ELW 450, “I Bind unto Myself Today”. The music might be a bit spritely for Lent, but the words reflect Celtic theology’s love for creation as a revelation of God. Verse 3 - “I bind unto myself today the virtues of the starlit heaven, the glorious sin’s life-giving ray, the whiteness of the moon at even, the flashing of the lightning free, the whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks, the stable earth, the deep salt sea, around the old eternal rocks.” Verse 2 is all about binding ourselves to Jesus’ incarnation, baptism, cross, resurrection, ascension, and return. You could do worse.

Rev. Gary Hedding
Rev. Gary Hedding
Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin

Gary Hedding is a retired pastor who graduated from Luther Seminary in 1978. He served his internship in Brooklyn, NY. His first call was Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Coloma, WI; then as associate pastor and later lead pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Marshfield, WI; followed by serving six years as assistant to the bishop in the Northwest Synod of WI; then as pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Cedar Falls, IA. Gary has been retired since 2018.
Gary is married to Linda and they live in Chippewa Falls, WI with their dog, Strider
Their daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons live in the Fort Worth, TX and their son and daughter-in-law and one granddaughter live in Eau Claire, WI. Gary enjoys wilderness canoe tripping, sprint triathlons, fishing and hunting, reading science fiction and urban fantasy, and vegetable gardening.

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