Sunday, June 8, 2008 - Romans 4:13-25

In our Epistle lesson, Paul gives us a brief synopsis of the birth of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah. Abraham was about 100 years old and Sarah was about 90 and, by his assessment, they were as good as dead. Paul records, yet “he did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body” and “no distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God.”

This is an interesting assessment of Abraham since in Genesis, when the Lord confirms His covenant with Abraham and tells him that Sarah will “surely give you a son,” it is recorded, “Abraham fell face down; he laughed and said to himself, ‘Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?’”

Paul says, yet he did not waver through distrust or unbelief regarding the promise of God. And Paul is right. Abraham had some anxious moments. He faced the facts that his body was as good as dead and Sarah’s womb was as good as dead. Faith does not refuse to face reality but looks beyond all difficulties, and looks to God and His promises.

The reality of Abraham’s situation caused him bewilderment. It caused him to shake his head and laugh at this promise that seemed to good to be true. But it did not cause him to enter into doubt or unbelief.

When we get caught up in difficult realities of our lives, the bewilderment and frustration we often feel is not necessarily unbelief. God understands our limitations and doesn’t hold that against us. Forgiveness is a wonderful thing.

Paul says of Abraham that all these things happened without “weakening in his faith.” Having a lack of understanding as to how God is going to accomplish the goodness of His divine will when all around us is turmoil and strife, that is ignorance, not unbelief.

We are ignorant of what God has planned for us in this life -- we just don’t know what the future holds, but God does. The only thing of which we can be sure is the promise of God that when this life ends, those who die in the faith of their Baptism will be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven. But we are ignorant of how and when that will happen – and we often shake our heads and ask ourselves questions – and ask God questions.

As the Christian Church around the world proclaimed a few weeks ago in the Athanasian Creed on the Sunday of Holy Trinity: God is infinite. The old translation, I believe, was better. God is incomprehensible. We will never, in this lifetime, understand the fullness of God’s will. He is infinite -- we can’t get our hands or minds around Him. Nor will we fully comprehend the goodness of His divine will in the midst of the sin and evil of this life. We just can’t see all the ways He saves us each and every day.

But this is not unbelief. We are like Abraham. Abraham received God’s promise in faith, and that faith was counted to him as righteousness. We have received God’s promise in Baptism, and the faith created there is counted to us as righteousness.

In our Gospel lesson, we hear of how Jesus ate and had fellowship with tax collectors and other “sinners”. I am sure a few eyebrows would be raised if we invited the sheriff to drop all those arrested this weekend to the church picnic this afternoon. What a surprise that would be for Irene. But that, in essence, is what God does every Sunday.

He invites poor, struggling, ignorant, miserable sinners into His House and to His table and communes with us. But God does not look at you through the lense of the Law – showing all your faults and failings. But rather, He looks at you through the rose colored glasses of the Gospel. Those rose colored glasses are permanently stained with the blood of Christ, and because of what Christ has done, our faith can now be counted as righteousness.

Abraham is our father. We are his children. We may not share his bloodline, but we do share his faith. And we even share his faults. At times, we may even shake our heads and laugh at promises that seems to good to be true, or question why God has brought circumstances or certain people into our lives.

Abraham had a comfortable life in the land of Haran before God called him out and caused him to wander in Israel for 24 years before fulfilling His promise with the birth of Isaac. His faith did not waiver, but his anxiety level did fluctuate.

Like with Abraham, God sometimes disturbs the comfort of our lives and we may even feel as if we are wandering aimlessly. But even in our ignorance, like Abraham, we are still filled with faith that is counted to us as righteousness. Amen.

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