If I was preaching today, the last few days would have been different. Instead of showing friends around our temporary home, sitting in cafés, buying fresh food at the market, riding bikes to the beach for a picnic and enjoying the gorgeous sunshine, I would have spent a lot more time studying today's scriptures, trying to find a way to talk about the New Zealand mosque shooting and its roots in white supremacy without seeming "too political."
God weeps. There is a church on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem called "Dominus Flevit," the Lord wept. Shaped like a teardrop, it overlooks the Old City and commemorates Jesus weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19). From inside the church, the straight-line view includes the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque, built on the ruins of the Temple of Solomon and just beyond, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, within which lie the sites of Jesus' crucifixion and burial. The three Abrahamic religions, within sight, within a few minutes' walk, never at peace with one another. God weeps.
Abraham had a hard time trusting God. Today's reading from Genesis 15:1-18:
"After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness. Then he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.” But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him. Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years; but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates."
I have added emphasis to show Abram's doubt and hope intermingled. The Lord made a covenant with Abram. Not a two-way covenant, but a promise of eternal presence despite Abram's inability to 100% be faithful to God. We are all Abraham's children; none of us, in any of the faiths that claim him as our ancestor, can keep our end of the covenant. We can try, for sure, and that is what faith is about - never giving up on trying to trust God completely, never giving up on trying to be in relationship with God - but it is God who is faithful, God who is trustworthy, God who loves us eternally.
God weeps when we kill one another. Whether we pull an actual trigger or not, we do violence to one another in many ways, and we allow violence to be done.
So the word of hope for today is God's eternal presence and love. May we hold on to that hope, but more than that, may it strengthen us to pursue love and goodness and relationship. As we weep with God over the violence God's children do to each other, let us strive not to do violence to others, whether in word or deed. Work for peace. Tear down walls. Beat swords (and guns) into plowshares. Love one another. It is what the Lord requires.
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