Remember the Promise

Sermon by Katrina Ross Zezza, February 25, 2024, Pleasantville Presbyterian Church, Pleasantville NY

Reading: Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

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We are in the season of Lent, which is the time of year that we remember the events leading up to Jesus’ death, and contemplate the 40 days that he spent wandering the desert, surrounded by wild beasts and being prepared for his public ministry. It’s also a time for us to contemplate the ways that we wander the desert in our own lives. 

Winter can feel endless at this time of year, but has anyone noticed that the days are getting longer? I realized it the other day when I woke my kids up for school. My daughter is in 8th grade and my son is a junior in high school, so we wake them up around 6:30. Through the winter it's dark when we get up, but lately it’s been lighter. The sun had pretty much risen and the window was glowing when I walked into my daughter’s room on Friday. I won’t say that made it any easier to wake her up… but it was nice. I thought to myself- oh I guess the light is returning, just like it always does in the spring. It’s hard to remember that sometimes, especially on the coldest, darkest winter mornings.

When I started contemplating the scripture passages for this week, I knew I would be diving into the concept of the covenant relationship that God establishes with God’s people through Abraham. To help me think I usually try to come up with a question- something that the passage makes me wrestle with. And the question I came up with was this- why would God make a promise to humanity? Why would the ultimate, sovereign, all-loving and all-powerful presence of the universe make a covenant promise to human beings? God doesn’t have to do this. But the story of God’s covenant with Abraham is one of the most fundamental stories of who God is. 

To understand the significance of this, we have to understand what a covenant was in the ancient world. A covenant was a binding legal promise or treaty that a more powerful entity would make with a less powerful entity to establish conditions for their relationship, as well as consequences if those conditions were unmet. The subordinate party was called a vassal, and the dominant party was called a suzerain. Covenants were often sealed by severing an animal. And in Hebrew, the verb meaning “to seal a covenant” translates literally as "to cut". While this kind of promissory covenant would bind the suzerain as well as the vassal, it’s important to note that there is still a significant power dynamic at play here, the vassal was still at the mercy of the suzerain. The suzerain would set the terms of the agreement and the vassal was required to agree. 

Many times in the Bible, pervasive societal constructs are reclaimed as metaphors for us to understand the nature of who God is. It’s likely that these kinds of covenants, in the human world, were not always about kindness, but in the case of the Abrahamic covenant, God’s character is that of a benevolent suzerain who places himself under oath as a gift to his loyal subjects. In contrast to worldly covenants which may have been about establishing a relationship of control and domination, God’s covenant is about establishing a relationship of love and protection. 

Before the covenant is established, God promises Abraham that he will be the father of many nations. To illustrate his point, he tells him to look at the night sky and count the stars- that’s how many descendants he will have. I love this image, because the night sky is a perfect symbol for us to imagine the infinite creativity of God’s promise. Especially with what we now know about the expansiveness of outer space. The amount of stars which exist in our incredible, seemingly endless universe is truly beyond our ability to count. And that is the number of blessings that God wants to give to us as his children.

When I was 16, I worked in a natural food store. One day, while I was working, I met someone who became very important to me. I noticed her right away because she had twin babies with her, and I loved babies. They were about a year old with sparkling blue eyes and bright hair. After I bagged up her groceries, I could tell she could use some assistance, so I offered to take the bags out to her car, and she accepted. As we opened the sliding door of her silver 1990 Toyota TownAce van, she told me her name was Darcie, and she asked if I knew anyone who might be able to help her occasionally with the babies. I couldn’t believe my luck. 

I spent the entire summer with Darcie and her twins that year. We’d go to the beach mostly, or read, or lounge on the floor while the babies crawled on us. We talked about Buddhism and horticulture, and she taught me how to create colorful felted vessels by covering a stone with wool. She let me drive her van, even though I only had my permit. I felt good when I was around her. One time someone asked if we were sisters and she answered that we were soul sisters. It made my heart leap. I wanted it to be true.

One warm summer morning she came to pick me up at my house and I had slept in by accident- she came to knock on the door but no one answered because no one was home except me- fast asleep in my bed. Instead of leaving, she walked around back to stand under my open window and called my name. I can still remember how sweet she sounded as I woke up, and the sight of her smiling up at me while I rubbed my eyes and looked down from my window. She wasn’t annoyed or scolding, just happy to see me.

Because I wouldn’t let her pay me much she was able to have my help more often- which was how I wanted it. And she said I was like an angel because I came along right when she needed someone. Looking back, I can see that’s how I felt about her. She was the supportive, grounded, caring adult figure I needed. And even though it was really only that one summer, the time I spent with her and her babies was very formative for me. 

As we go through life, we are formed by people and experiences. Darcie was a teacher for me, and she made me feel like I was a teacher for her. But the ones we really learned from were the babies. Darcie and I shared the belief that being around children helps us stay connected to the source of life. And that as we grow older we have to make sure to stay connected to our own inner child, being careful not to forget the things we know in childhood- like how to play. She appreciated my insights and respected me- not in spite of my youth but because of it. 

The thing that sticks with me the most about Darcie though is a poem that she gave me. I could tell it was a message she wanted me to hold onto, because she copied it out by hand and gave it to me very purposefully. And I found it this week, tucked in the pages of my journal. The poem is called Remember, and it was written by Joy Harjo, who is a poet, musician, activist and member of the Muscogee Nation. It’s about remembering who we are, listening and having respect for animals and the natural world, and our interconnection as humans in the history of the universe. I won’t read you the whole poem but here are some excerpts:

Remember the sky you were born under, know each of the star’s stories. 

Remember the moon, know who she is. I met her in a bar once in Iowa City.

Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time. 

Remember sundown and the giving away to night. 

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life, and her mother’s, and hers.

...

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe.

Remember you are all people and all people are you. 

Remember you are this universe and this universe is you.

...

Remember.

Essentially, the covenant is a promise that God will always be our God- that there is something at the heart of life that is true and good- a spirit which unites us and gives us strength- and we can always return to that source in the struggles that we face. As humans we forget this promise sometimes and we despair. We think we have been abandoned. And in our despair we bring harm to the earth, to ourselves and our fellow human beings, but the good news is that we can remember. We can find ways to return to ourselves. 

The theologian Cynthia Bourgeault says our visible universe is not just an object created by God’s love, it is that love itself. The universe is the heart of God fully made manifest in the only possible way that it can be, in the dimensions of time and form. She says the created realm is not an artifact but an instrument through which the divine life becomes perceptible to itself. (Bourgeault) And I would add to care for itself. Through this lens, the covenant is almost a form of divine self-love. It is God in relationship with Godself. You, me, the birds, the trees are all ways that God promises to care for and nurture Godself. So returning to my original question- why would God make a promise to humanity? I think it’s because we are part of God.

We think we’re alone sometimes but the promise is that we’re not- God is present in the world through our relationships and our commitment to one another. In community, we can establish relationships of mutual care, commit to love one another with our work, and liberate one another with our actions- notice when someone needs assistance with their groceries, or be the caring adult figure that a kid needs. God’s work is happening all the time through us and in this season of lent I hope we can discover ways of remembering that promise. 

It could be as simple as taking a mindful breath - for me it was finding a poem in the handwriting of someone I loved 25 years ago. I looked up some more of Joy Harjo’s work this week and found out that I really like the music she makes. In one song entitled “Calling the Spirit Back,” which is really a spoken word poem, she says, “Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long."

 

References:

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Way of Knowing: Reclaiming an Ancient Tradition to Awaken the Heart (Jossey-Bass: 2003), 51-52, 53.