Big Picture Living in a Little Picture World

Genesis 17: 1-7 & 15-16

Roger Lynn

March 12, 2017

Second Sunday in Lent

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

God’s covenant with Abraham & Sarah – “You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations.” It is a grand, even outlandish, vision. There is no reason in the world for them to believe it. Indeed, both of them laugh at the complete absurdity of it all. They are old, and they are childless. Life has not worked out for them as they hoped it might. And yet. And yet! In spite of their laughing, in spite of their questions and uncertainty, in spite of even their blatant attempts to take over control of the situation (remember the story of Hagar and Ishmael), God continues to be fully and completely present. “I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.” And somehow, through it all, they manage to believe it and live ever more fully into that reality. 

Thus it is that Paul looks at Abraham and Sarah and sees in their story a foreshadowing of our story. Their faith is an example of what we can strive for. This can be true because God’s covenant with them is a foreshadowing of God’s covenant with us. Not necessarily in terms of the particular details, but certainly in terms of the overarching theme. When we live life in relationship with God it is grand and even outlandish. There is more here than meets the eye. It defies conventional wisdom about what is true and what we can trust. “Abraham, you are old. Your wife is old. There is no life left in you. You have no future. You have no hope.” That is what the voices of conventional wisdom would have been saying. But somehow, through it all, Abraham and Sarah managed to hear another voice. A voice filled with the promise of life beyond expectation. A voice filled with hope beyond despair.

We live in a world filled with voices that urge us to see only the “little picture.” Look at the outward circumstances. See only what is right in front of your face. There is nothing else. These voices are filled with fear and they are filled with despair. We hear these voices in the newspapers, on the television and radio, spread across our Facebook feeds. “Global warming! Terrorism! War and crime and the latest sex scandal! Details at 11!” We hear these voices from our politicians. “Be afraid! The world is not a safe place! Just trust me, and give me control, and I will keep you safe! But don’t look too closely at the methods I use along the way.” We hear these voices from religious leaders. “I know the Truth. Just believe this Bible verse and that ‘time-honored tradition’ and you will be saved. And if you don’t then you are not on God’s side, and you really don’t want God as your enemy.” Sometimes we even hear these voices from our own lips. “I’m a failure. Or a victim. Or a loser. Life never works out for me, and it never will.” And the problem, of course, with such voices, whatever their source, is that they contain just enough “truth” (with a small “t”) to convince us that they do, in fact, represent a true and comprehensive picture of life. How often have we allowed our lives to be colored and shaped by this “little picture” version of reality?

The gift of faith, on the other hand, offers us a different perspective. It doesn’t change anything, and yet everything is new. If there are pieces of truth in the “little pictures,” they are still true. If there are words of truth in the “little voices,” they are still true. And yet, faith allows us to see that such things are never the whole truth or  the final word. Abraham and Sarah didn’t stop believing that they were old. They didn’t stop believing that they were childless. But they chose to believe that there was more to their story than simply those raw facts. God was at work in their lives and God is never limited to simply what we can see on the surface of our circumstances. There is a “big picture” beyond all the “little pictures” upon which we so often become fixated. We can choose to look, or not. There is a voice of hope beyond the voices of fear and despair which so often dominate our living. We can choose to listen, or not. The difference will be in how we live our lives as a result. Will we be ruled by fear, or will we be freed by faith?

The “big picture” reality is that we are all God’s chosen people. God chooses to be in covenantal relationship with each of us. This is not always immediately evident when we focus on the “little pictures” of life. Sometimes all we can see is the pain, and the loss, and the disappointment. Sometimes all we can hear are the voices of despair. But when we can trust that there is more to our living than that, then what we begin to discover is that even the little pictures start coming together to form a rich, vibrant tapestry. Even the discordant voices begin to blend in complex harmonies. Seven years ago this past week my life came unraveled. After two weeks in the hospital dealing with an aggressive form of breast cancer, my wife Veronica died. The color drained out of my world. That could have been the end of the story. I could have fallen into a pit of grief and despair and never come out. But I was blessed with the amazing gift of family and friends who surrounded me with love and support. And I had what I can only describe as the gift of grace that allowed me to open myself to that love and support. It didn’t eliminate the pain. It didn’t stop the grief. But it kept before me the awareness that the picture of my life was larger and more expansive than just the pain of that moment. It allowed me to remain open to the possibility of healing and new life.

May we begin to experience big picture living even in the midst of this little picture world. Anything less is just too small. Anything less and we are cheating ourselves of the full, rich, vibrant experience of God. What does the “big picture” look like in your life?