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Second Sunday in Lent

Genesis 15
12As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him. 13Then 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; 14but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16And they shall come back here in the fourth generation; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”


I have good new and bad news. The good news is that Google is a powerful tool to aid in sermon writing. The search engine is a helpful way to take a simple phrase like “good news and bad news” and find examples of its use all over the Internet. The bad news is that the phrase “good news and bad news” appears in 643,000 places on the Internet.

Scanning a few of these, I am amazed both by the widespread use of this particular cliché and the variety of topic addressed. Good news and bad news for Democrats, for Iraq, for aboriginal midwives, for bloggers, for pot smokers, for Linux users, and even George Bush. The popularity of this familiar formulation never seems to wane, rooted, I suppose, in the way we think and the way we view the world.

And this, of course, leads to the question ‘which do you want to hear first.’ Call it the first personality test: hear the bad news, get it out of the way, and finally enjoy the good news. Hear the good news, enjoy it, and then move on the bad news.

Luckily scanning 643,000 webpages did yield a little fruit, namely the following joke, which may not be a joke at all:

There is the story of a pastor who got up one Sunday and announced to his congregation: "I have good news and bad news. The good news is, we have enough money to pay for our new building program. The bad news is, it's still out there in your pockets."

Meanwhile, I’m left with an early example of the “good news, bad news” formulation found in the Bible. Not the earliest, because that belongs to Noah and the first weather report in scripture. In this version, God begins to review promises to Abraham and is interrupted: ‘You make promises, God, but Sarah and I remain childless. In fact, our heir is someone named Eliezer of Damascus. It has fallen to a slave born in my house to be my heir.’

Undeterred, God continues to make promises: ‘This man will not be your heir, it will be a child born to you and Sarah.’ The Lord then takes him outside and shows him the stars. ‘Look toward heaven and count them, Abraham: so shall your descendants be.’ This is the good news, now for the bad news.

Or not quite. The people who brought you the three-year cycle of readings we call the lectionary make one of the most foolish editing jobs to date. There is frequent adjusting in the lectionary, with verses omitted for the sake of length, clarity or both. Clearly you want to be home before lunchtime, so the makes of the lectionary cut four verses from the centre of this lesson.

You heard the conversation and promises, and then the final verse before the cut, verse 12: “As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.” As dramatic writing goes, this is top drawer. But rather than deliver the “bad news” for Abraham, the lesson skips down to the next promise, the land that his descendants are to occupy. Here is the bad news you have yet to hear:

12As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him. 13Then 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; 14but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.

Clearly it’s not all bad news. Mixed in the revelation that his descendants will be enslaved for four hundred years is the caveat that eventually the unnamed nation will also suffer. And the descendants will prosper in the end. And Abraham will die in peace. It’s all a bit much. We are awash in news here, mostly good, but the “elephant in the room” has been named and cannot be glossed over. Both the lectionary makers, the author of Genesis (and you could even argue God) seem to want to pass over (pun intended) this detail of four hundred years of suffering. The “terrifying darkness” that is foretold here is impossible to ignore, and despite all the good news presented here, the bad news is impossible to ignore.

***

At risk of excessive repetition, I wonder of the same pattern can be applied to our Gospel lesson:
Bad news: Herod wants to kill you.
Good news: there is still time to finish my work.
More good news: as long as I avoid Jerusalem, I’m safe.
Bad news: Jerusalem is the city that kills prophets, and this is where our story will end.
Good news: God will gather us in, like a hen gathers her brood under her wings.

I think it can. And I think the pattern may be at the heart of our Lenten journey. What is life, but an ongoing pattern of good news and bad news? As Judith Viorst tells us, life is a series or losses, of ‘little deaths’ which set the theme for much of human experience. Without sounding too much like Woody Allen, I think we would do well in Lent to ponder the “bad news” of our life on earth and the extent to which we seek to ignore it. Jesus pauses on his journey to the cross to acknowledge the direction is set and all he needs to do is stay out of town for a little while longer and he will accomplish much he has set out to do in his earthly ministry. But the warning remains, and the reality of the prophetic ministry he is engaged in remains: it will end badly.

Years ago, we were taught that preaching was a kind of “good news, bad news” enterprize. In fact, we were taught the reverse. Imagine travelling around a circle, with the downward passage called “law” and the upward passage called “Gospel.” The portion may vary, with more law during Lent, for example, and more Gospel at Easter, but the pattern was to remain. This “bad news, good news” approach, with sin followed by forgiveness, death followed by new life has been taught for countless generations. It defines us. And despite all the new study I do on this topic of preaching, the pattern remains.

Preaching in Lent can also be sometimes described as “find the Good News.” That’s Good News with a capital G and a capital N. It's there, but it comes to us in measured doses. This too is intentional. We are in a unique place. We are in a place where believers are called to live into the tension of suffering and death. We are in a place where we are encouraged to ponder the “bad news” of human life and in particular our role. But we do it in a unique place. “How often,” Jesus asks, “have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings?” The answer in Jerusalem, and the answer here is the same: we are always gathered under the protective cover of God’s wings. In Lent, in times of trial, and whenever bad news overshadows good news, God is with us. Thanks be to God.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 2:14 PM