Soul Food Ministries

Please begin by reading Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7 and Romans 5:1-8 in your Bible. If you do not have one at hand, we have provided the text for you at the end of this reflection.

Paul says in our text that we are justified by faith, but he is also saying more than this. He states we are justified out of our faith in Christ Jesus. God has set us into the right relationship with God’s self through Jesus Christ’s taking on human form and his willingness to die for the ungodly.

Because this justification is a gift from God, it is God’s grace that allows us to enjoy this relationship through Christ Jesus and it is this grace that gives us hope in our future.

God entered into covenant with Sarah and Abraham, promising that a son would be given to them. Despite Sarah’s disbelief and laughter when told of the promise, God was faithful in the covenant.

The word “covenant” means a meeting or coming together. God, the creator and source of life of all that exists enters into covenant relationship with creation in order to provide “love beyond measure.”

Our lesson tells of the length to which God’s faithfulness will go: the God who gave a son to Sarah gives his own to the world so that the world’s despair and hopeless condition can be turned to joy.

As with the covenant God had with Abraham and Sarah and God’s faithfulness to them, it is so with Christians today. This is the faithfulness of love, a true passion that is willing to suffer and die for the beloved.

It is not a sentimental, romantic love, but the loving covenant of a loving God wanting to set creation in order. God’s loving covenant with humankind is a costly love that goes forth to give a love which is unmerited, undeserved but a free gift to each one of us.

In the face of rejection by this world and those we often love and find ourselves rebuffed by, God offers us a loving covenant and promise of eternal life. We are promised in God’s covenant with us that just as we die with Christ in our baptism, we rise from the waters of baptism, as we will in the final days, with joy for we belong to a faithful God who keeps the covenant’s made with God’s people.

In the self-giving, impartial love of Jesus, in his compassion, understanding, eagerness to heal bodies and souls, in deeds of love during his ministry and the supreme sacrifice of the cross, we see what God is and what God is doing for us. There should be no doubt as to the type of character and action required of us.

Living in covenant with God should affect every aspect of our lives. A covenant relationship is more than a code for external behavior. It should transform our ways of thinking about and looking at the world and our life.

If we are living in a covenant of love, then our holiness will be rooted in justice and mirrored in compassion. It is in how we live our covenant, how we practice our compassion that marks us as people of the covenant with God.

Living in covenant requires that we become active, joining prayer with action. By engaging in the promotion of justice for all of the created order we begin to appreciate the fullness of God’s cosmic covenant and the love that inspired it.

The guest author of this week's reflection is the Rev. Gail S. Hicks. Gail uses the pen name "Maw Barker" because of her great love for dogs.

revclay

God appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, "My Lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on - since you have come to your servant."

And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, "Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes." Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

Then one said, "I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son."

And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?"

God said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, and say, 'Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?' Is anything too wonderful for God? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son."

God dealt with Sarah as God had said, and God did for Sarah as God had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

Now Sarah said, "God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me." And she said, "Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age."

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person - though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. [NRSV--inclusified]