Have you ever tried counting the stars?
Counting the stars takes a long time, the more I look the more stars there are to see.
It takes a long time, it involves a great deal of waiting, and well…counting.
Life seems to involve a great deal of waiting.
We wait for little things like traffic and checkout lines.
We also wait for big things, some filled with hope some with fear.
Waiting to heal, to give birth, to find a home, for suffering to end, for death, for direction and purpose.
Waiting. What do we do with all that waiting and hoping and dreading?
How do we wait?
The story of Abraham involves a great deal of waiting.
The word of the Lord came to Abraham. Whenever we hear of the word of the Lord we know that things are being restored, God is speaking creation back into proper order, the goodness and vitality of the Universe are being renewed. The incarnate word and the resurrection of that living word are the ultimate breath of life to a dying creation.
Do we wait upon that true word that brings life and resurrection or do we grow impatient and settle for the false words that bring death, the lies that exclude, the false logic that justifies harm?
The true word, the word of the Lord comes to Abraham with promise and the challenge of faith.
Will God be faithful to his promise to Abram whose name changes to Abraham?
Will Abraham trust God? Even with a waiting that takes centuries, long, long after Abraham’s bones are gathered to his ancestors.
Those are the questions for Abraham’s story. Can God be trusted? Will Abraham trust?
Count the stars Abraham, you will have descendents even more than you can count.
See the land Abraham, it will be yours.
And Abraham responds both times with doubt, I don’t see how, the evidence says otherwise.
Wait and see.
Faith, it involves waiting for something that is contrary to our experience.
How do we go about waiting in the way that is faith?
Faith is ultimately contrary, contradictory and belligerent. (Sounds kind of southern doesn’t it?)
The stories of faith in scripture are all about that faithful waiting on God to follow through, what that looks like and what it does not look like.
Abraham’s story is a story that it involves doubt and questioning and impatience in the face of unbearable and unreasonable waiting. But it is also a story of adventure, of risking everything and starting over, of breathless rescues and escapes, of costly hospitality, of forgiveness, divine visions, ominous dreams and angelic visitation. The way of Abraham is repeatedly contrasted to others who are selfish, abusive and violent. The true word versus the false words.
Abraham’s way of waiting welcoming faith, the way of God’s word, receives the land and stars in the sky.
The way of false words, of hostility and abuse receives fire and brimstone from the sky, purging the earth of its way of exploitation.
Faithful waiting.
The gospel today compares the way of Herod and the powerful of Jerusalem to being a fox on the prowl, and Jesus as a hen gathering her brood under her wings.
The way of those who do not trust God, predators, who will not wait, of false words and failed logic, contrasted with the Way of those who wait and trust, who nurture and gather together.
Faith always bids us to wait for something that for all appearances will never happen. And that is why it is so hard, we try to make it make sense, to have good reasons for it, but ultimately faith does not have its reasons, it only has the word.
Lent, forty days of waiting, that number forty is deeply symbolic. It means waiting longer than we can bear; counting more stars than we can count, because God can ultimately and simply be trusted to speak life and love back into the Universe.
The word of the Lord still speaks, still comes to us, still brings things back together when they fall apart.
Will we wait upon that word?
How will we wait?
In fear or in faith?
With fire and brimstone or counting the stars?
With abuse and hostility or with costly welcome and hospitality?
With false logic or with the Resurrection?
With the fox or with the mother hen?