Second Sunday of Lent – Mar 16, 2025
In his commentary on this passage (workingpreacher.com), biblical scholar Justin Michael Reed highlights a bias revealed in the omitted verses from today’s Genesis pericope. The catalyst for God’s promise to Abram of abundant progeny is Abram’s complaint that he has no heir save for Eliezer, a “servant of my household” (Gen 15:2–3). Without a child of his own, an enslaved person would inherit the land God promised Abram’s descendants.
However, with darkness and dread descending upon Abram in the dramatic covenant ritual, the Lectionary also omits the verses in which God declares that Abram’s descendants will themselves be enslaved (v 13). Even though Abram was incredulous that an enslaved person could be worthy, God shows compassion and reassures him while also challenging his prejudice and worldview.
God continues to challenge our prejudices, revealing a greater mystery and reassuring us with the promise that all are precious and worthy to God.
Both Abram and the disciples on that mountaintop in today’s Gospel reading were overshadowed with fear, their vision and understanding clouded by sleep and darkness. Yet it was from that place of disorientation and unknowing that God could reveal to them a deeper truth and vision. It is also where God enters again into covenant with all humanity.
In these days of often terrifying turmoil and increased polarization and suspicion of “the other,” perhaps God continues to challenge our prejudices, revealing a greater mystery and reassuring us with the promise that all are precious and worthy to God.
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