Br. Luke Ditewig

The Second Sunday in Lent

Genesis 12:1-4a

A woman and her young daughter move into a French village and open a chocolate shop. The mayor urges residents to keep away and not each chocolate because it is Lent. With kindness, generosity, radical welcome, listening presence, and great chocolate, the woman slowly ushers healing into many people and relationships, ultimately the mayor and town. The 2000 film Chocolat starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp tells this story.

The mayor was convinced he knew what was right and good and that he acted out of duty. Yet fasting was distorted into a legalistic rigidity and a sense of earning God’s favor. He treated his community and himself with restriction and condemnation. Many of us have received an image of God who is a harsh and stern authority with a pointing finger demanding an apology. Lent with fasting and kneeling on marble might trigger that image.

Remember how we began the liturgy. “Let us come to the Lord who is full of compassion.” Lent does not begin with confession. Lent begins with love. Lent is like a retreat with the purpose to reclaim, renew, and refresh our identity as children whom God loves. Retreat, Lenten fasting and discipline, and our different order for Lenten worship is all rooted in the love of God who calls us beloved.

Nicodemus, a prominent leader, came to Jesus sounding confident. “We know who you are.” We know what is possible and impossible. By what you’re doing, “you must be a teacher from God.” Jesus replied, “No one can see the kingdom without being born from above.” How is that possible? Nicodemus asked. “Can one enter the womb again?”

Nicodemus came at night, a sign that he’s in the dark, that he cannot see, and does not know. Jesus gives images that push the bounds of expectation and imagination. Life with God is being born from above, born anew. We keep needing to be saved from our limits, graced by expansion from power beyond. Being born again is not a one-time act nor an individual’s decision. It is receiving from the heavenly Breath we cannot see or comprehend. As for all new life, birth is a gift received.

Abraham struggled waiting to see God’s promise. God had said: “Leave country and your family. I will give you a huge family to bless the world.” Abraham was about 100 years old, and Sarah, his wife, was barren. Paul wrote to the Romans that Abraham was justified by faith not by works, not by his own effort or merit. Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 that Abraham’s faith “‘was reckoned to him as righteousness.’”

In Genesis 15, years had passed without Abraham receiving a son. God appears and says: “Don’t be afraid. I am your shield. Your reward will be very great.” Abraham responds: What will you give me? I still don’t have a child, so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”[1] Is Abraham loud shaking his fist or slumping dejectedly while groaning about his Plan B? I imagine both.

God replies: “No, my promise is true. I will give you your own son. Look up. See these stars. Your descendants will be this numerous.” The text then says Abraham “believed the Lord, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”[2] Did Abraham begin to believe afterward? No, it was throughout. Believing God, having faith in what is not seen, being reborn, includes doubts, pushing back and questioning, fist shaking, slumping, and groaning.

God called Abraham into a promise beyond imagination took long patience, first for a son, and then through his life. In Genesis there are seven episodes showing Abraham and God which illustrate “a lifetime of developing response.”[3] Abraham is slowly or repeatedly reborn from self-reliance to trust in God, from striving to make a name for himself to generously being blessing for others.[4]

Do you identify with Nicodemus or with Abraham in that Jesus and divine promises seem impossible and confusing? How are you trapped or caught, distanced from God or others or yourself? What needs saving now? What might be the invitation to expand your imagination and trust that God is real good and loving? God might come at night pointing to stars as grace or welcomes you at night in your fear and confusion. Perhaps the Spirit comes in a kind stranger with listening presence and chocolate in Lent.

As we shall sing, God is “a spendthrift lover . . . who never counts the cost or asks if heaven can afford to woo a world that’s lost. . . . behold the bruised and thorn-crowned face of one who bears our scars   and empties out the wealth of grace that’s hinted by the stars.” [5]

What’s ours to do? Accept love. Accept this grace, this gift.[6] Being born anew is ours to receive as God keeps changing and empowering with love.

[1] Genesis 15:1-3.

[2] Genesis 15:4-6.

[3] The Rule of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist (Lanham, MD, 1997), 78.

[4] Paul Borgman (2001) Genesis: The Story We Haven’t Heard (Downers Grove, IL, 2001), 103.

[5] Thomas H. Troeger, “A Spendthrift Lover is the Lord” (Oxford University Press Inc., admin in North America by GIA Publications, Inc., 1983).

[6] Ibid, last verse: “How shall we love this heart-strong God who gives us everything, whose ways to use are strange and odd; what can we give or bring? Acceptance of the matchless gift is gift enough to give. The very act will shake and shift the way we love and live.”