2^nd Sunday of Lent, C        March 4, 2007

Have you ever heard the expression, “Cut a deal”?  It means the same as “Make a deal” or “Make an agreement.”  Do you know the origin of the expression “Cut a deal”?  It comes from today’s first reading.

The story is about Abraham and a primitive ritual, the details of which may seem very strange to us.  The ritual is about making a covenant, or in the original Hebrew “cutting a covenant.”  In this ritual animals were slaughtered, divided in two, and the halves were placed apart opposite one another.  Then the two parties who were making the covenant or agreement stood between the halved animals and made a pact with one another.  Why did they stand between the animals?  Standing there signified that they would accept the same fate as the animals if they failed to live up to their agreement.  So, in today’s text, God and Abraham are cutting a deal, a covenant with each other.  The animals were slaughtered, cut in two, and the halves placed opposite one another.  Then, God appeared in the form of a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch and passed between the pieces of the slain animals.  This was God’s solemn promise to live up to his part of the agreement, to give a vast land to Abraham’s descendants, the Promised Land.  But what happened next was different from normal.  Abraham did not stand between the animal parts, because he did not have to agree to anything.  This covenant was one-sided.  Only God pledged to do something.  All Abraham had to do was trust that God would deliver on his promise.  So Abraham put his faith in God.  He is the first to do so in the Bible. That is why he is called our father in faith.

The next covenant in the Bible, the one with Moses, is different in that it is two sided.  God promised never to abandon the people of Israel and to bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey after their slavery in Egypt.  In return the people are to keep the 614 precepts of the law, including the 10 commandments.

But the other covenants in the Bible are like the one with Abraham.  They are basically one-sided.  God promises something.  All people have to do is accept it.  There are three such covenants.

The first was with Noah after the flood.  God promised never again to destroy the earth in a flood as punishment for sin, and God created the rainbow as a sign of this promise.  Keep in mind that in antiquity, people thought God was the immediate cause of everything that happened, even destructive things like floods.  But we no longer believe that floods and earthquakes, tornadoes and volcanoes are God’s punishment for our sins.  Still, whenever you see a rainbow, it is right on target to think of it as a sign of God’s love and care for you!

Another covenant was with King David.  David thought that the tent where the Ark of the Covenant was kept wasn’t good enough for God.  So, David gets the idea to build a house for God to live in.  In response God says to David, “You want to build me a house?!  No, no, I’m going to build you a house, a royal house.  One of your descendants will rule over the house of Israel.”  We believe that God delivered on this promise through the birth of Christ.

And so we come to the last and best of God’s covenants, the one in the blood of Jesus.  God promised to forgive us and raise us from the dead into heaven, all because Jesus loved us so much he died to save us from our deadly sinful choices.  This is what we are preparing over the next five weeks to celebrate, God’s gift of eternal life won for us by Jesus’ death and resurrection.  This again, is a very one-sided agreement, God’s free gift to us, undeserved and unearned.  All we have to do is accept it.  So, stay close to God, keep from wandering away down the path of sin.  Vaja con Dios.  Walk with God!