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Second Sunday of Lent, Year A, February 17, 2008

First reading, Genesis 12:1-4a

The Literary-Liturgical Setting: Last Sunday's first reading, from Genesis, chapters 2 & 3, dealt with God's first human creatures. A later section, Genesis, chapters 6 through 9, deals with the near destruction of that people in the Flood, and its renewal in Noah. Today, in the next major episode of Genesis, we come to another inauguration of a group of God's people.

Abram, whose name will soon become Abraham, is the first person in a new era to hear and respond to God. So everything that happens to him is a kind of prototype of the life of faith. And today's passage is really the first encounter between Abram and God. Abram was prosperous in land and livestock, but he had no children, and that, to people of his time, is the most serious of all possible deprivations. So God's first words to him are quite daring:

Leave what you have and I'll give you what you want.

When God says "I will make of you a great nation," the meaning is that God will create a great race out of the descendants of Abram (although it seems there are to be no such descendants naturally). But God's requirements are absolute, "Go forth from the land of your kin." The requirements are to become even more absolute when, after Abraham finally has a son, God asks him to sacrifice that same son (see the second reading at the Easter Vigil, Genesis 22:1-18.)

Proclaiming It: This is a straightforward story about a very difficult decision. Make God's call in the first sentence sound as demanding as it is. (Remember receiving your draft notice? This was a much bigger deal than that.) Make God's promise (not just an heir to this childless man, but a nation of descendants!) sound rich and extravagant. Make your voice expansive. And finally, when you say "Abram went as the Lord directed him," make it sound matter-of-fact, as if Abram hesitated not at all.

A Theological Reflection: Proclaimed thus, this becomes a prototype of the life of faith: God asks us to leave the bad and the good for the unknown better, and we should simply go.

Second Reading, 2 Timothy 1:8b-10

Our Liturgical Setting: This passage has some Lenten themes: bearing hardship for the gospel, being saved and called to holiness not on our merits but by grace, and the destruction of death and advent of immortality. The phrase "manifest through the appearance of our savior" may be a reference to today's gospel, Matthew 17:1-9. That is the story of Jesus' transfiguration, traditionally read on the second Sunday of Lent.

Proclaiming It: It's hard to make a case for any particular oral interpretation. You might decide by asking which, if any, of these themes resonate in your own heart, or describe your own journey of faith:

Having personalized the reading, perhaps, you can proclaim it with confidence that your listeners have the opportunity to do the same.

Several other commentaries on these passages. All are thoughtful, all quite readable, from the scholarly to the popular.
Links may be incomplete more than a few weeks before the "due date."
Lutheran pastor and college teacher Dan Nelson's notes for a study group (Covers Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 for second reading, and John 3:1-17 as the gospel.) Father Roger Karban's 2002 reflections on these readings

and his 1999 column on the same readings
The Text This Week; links to homilies, art works, movies and other resources on the week's scripture themes Saint Louis University's excellent Sunday liturgy-preparation site

The Lectionary selections in the frame at the left, if any, are there for your convenience. The publishers of the page in that frame have no connection, except for membership in the one Body of Christ, with the publisher of this page. Likewise the publishers of the pages on the links above.

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Last modified: Mon Jan 17 20:33:11 CST 2005