Week 2 (Year 1, NL)

What we know about Sarai is what she lacks. This week’s reading lacks her.

When we read scripture backward

Why do we forgive him so much more easily than migrants today?

Is it man or humanity? Ark or chest?

2 Corinthians 13:11–13; Genesis 1:1–2:4a; Matthew 28:16–20

Genesis 12:1–4a; John 3:1–17

It seems a little backward on the Sunday after Pentecost to receive instructions that have already been successfully carried out. Peter and the disciples blew them away last week, preaching up a storm of fire and spirit like a host of Rosetta Stone experts. But today we go back to the place where Jesus told them what to do: Go and make disciples.

Go and make disciples? More like wait and welcome converts.

The call of Abram is one of my favorite stories in the whole Bible. I have moved quite a lot, and the experience of packing up my life in England to move to the U.S. nearly three years ago is still fresh in my memory. The challenges that face Abram and his family are exciting, probably daunting, but certainly not without their cost. I love the way the call is vague about the destination: it seems that getting moving is more important than knowing the final details. 

At my baptism, I giggled.

The three readings for this Sunday have few obvious connections. But they do each point to forms of holiness: Genesis points to vocation, Romans points to faith, and John points to rebirth.

Faith, birth, vocation: our readings offer us profound, intimidating terms for thinking about what it means to be in relationship with God.