The Rev. Rob Fisher
St. Dunstan’s Church, Carmel Valley

Lent II
Texts: Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit – Amen.

One of my new favorite images for the Christian life is a crab on the beach.

I was introduced to this image at our Tuesday book group*, and it has resonated with me strongly in the days since.

Crabs grow new shells from time to time, and discard their old ones.  They leave the exoskeleton behind, and you might come upon one of these and think it is a dead crab.  It is not.  It is only the legacy of that crab that has gone on to inhabit a new body of sorts.

It can’t be easy for the crab.  Imagine the courage it would take to slip out of that familiar, hard protection of the old, trustworthy shell.  Even a simple creature like a crab must instinctively know how vulnerable this in-between period is going to be while the new shell has yet to harden.  The crab goes through with it anyway.

But crabs don’t have a choice.

We have a choice.

Look in the closets and garages of most houses, and you will see the old shells that people are still carrying around from their previous lives.  It takes courage to shed the old, the familiar, the safe identities that that we have worn and made friends with.

Can you imagine if crabs did this?

Just picture the image of crabs on the beach carrying around three or four old empty shells, dragging them through the sand like we drag our old stuff that we can’t bear to part with.

***

Abram, too, gets called out of safety.

He hears the call of God to go from his country and his kindred and his father’s house to the land that God will show him.

It may not sound too difficult to us because we know how the story turns out.  We know that Abram will take on a new name—Abraham—and will ultimately succeed in his difficult journey, and will be the father of many.

But for Abram at the time he hears God’s call, this must have been a terrifying sound.

Abram leaves the safety of his land, with great faith, and enters into a time where new promise lies on the other side of vulnerability.

***

The idea of newness is the core idea of Christian faith.

I suppose we are like crabs.  To be a Christian we learn to make way for what is new.

So it is a little troubling that when people think of churches they often think of communities that are focused more on the past than on the future.

You know the joke about how many Episcopalians it takes to change a lightbulb?  The answer is, “Who changed that lightbulb?  My sainted grandmother donated that lightbulb!”

(There’s one that I like better that goes like this: How many high church Anglo-Catholic Episcopalians does it take to change a lightbulb?  None, they use candles.)

Happily, the Episcopal church, while it looks old, has a commitment to living in the present.  We try to strike a balance between ancient wisdom and future promise, and all of it under the light of God’s unfolding call to us which is not locked in the past but is present to us in every minute.

On a less grand note, but one that is very evident here, this church’s new space committee has been amazing.

It was time to molt some old skins, and furniture, and random items nobody knows where they came from.

Without making space by removing what is no longer needed, we cannot have room to bring in what is new and needed for today and tomorrow.

It is important to remember that a crab when it molts does not cease to be the crab that it was.  It is still that same crab, but now it is ready for the future.

And it is like how our bodies in heaven will not be the same as they are today, but we will still be the same people.

That is our goal, not to be something different from ourselves.  Not to be something different from whom God created you and me to be.

Rather, the goal of each of us is to be more fully that person.

***

Paul says that Abraham is the father of all of us, because he is the father of our faith.

He is the father of that part of us which has the courage to step out of our comfort zone and to place our trust in God.

Two things are put in contrast here by Paul – adherence to the law, and the faith of Abraham.

Paul himself came from a background of living by strict adherence to the Law.  Paul was famous for ruthlessly inflicting judgment on those who did not adhere to the law.

It means a lot that he of all people has come to see that the old way of checklists and rules needs to make way for a new way of being in relationship with God.

***

Philips Brooks, who was an Episcopal priest in Boston during the time after the Civil War, and who was revered as the greatest preacher of his generation, spoke about making room for newness.  He said this over one hundred years ago, but it applies just as well to us today:

“Every now and then a conscience…is stirred, and some one looks up anxiously, holding up some one of the petty idlenesses in which…people spend their days and nights, and says ‘Is this wrong?  Is it wicked to do this?’

“And when they get their answer, ‘No, certainly not wicked,’ then they go back and give their whole lives up to doing their innocent little piece of uselessness again.

“Ah, the question is not whether that is wicked, whether God will punish you for doing that.  The question is whether that thing is keeping other better things away from you; whether behind its little bulk the vast privilege and dignity of duty is hid from you; whether it stands between God and your soul.

“If it does, then it is an offence to you…The advantage and joy will be not in its absence, for you will miss it sorely, but in what its loss reveals, in the new life which lies beyond it, which you will see stretching out and tempting you as soon as it is gone.”

***

The single word from the Bible that Steinbeck hones in on in the book East of Eden is the Hebrew word timshel, which means “Thou Mayest.”

It was translated in the King James Version as “thou shalt” and in other translations as “thou must” but the best translations according to Steinbeck it is actually “Thou Mayest.”

What it means is that you are free.

You may be like a crab, or you may not.

You may choose.

You do not have to go down the road that leads to destruction—ever—because it is never too late to choose the better way for your life.  It is never too late to choose what God would have of you.

God does not say “You must.”  God says, “Timshel.”  You may.

You are free.

But will you cede your freedom to the winds that will blow your life in any direction at all, or will you use your freedom to be free?

You may.

—Amen.