Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent (Year C) March 16, 2025

March 16, 2025 0 By BLACKCATHOLIC

The following transcript of the homily is in the original formatting that was used for the sake of live delivery with all cues, emphasis, and notes included.

Transcript:

“‘How am I to know that I shall possess it?’ Abram brought him all these [and] split them in two.” “Then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my chosen Son; listen to him.’” Words from the Book of Genesis and the Gospel According to Luke.

In the Name of the Father + the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Lent is a time to make covenants.

Lent is a time to be split open.

Lent is a time TO offer and TO BE offered.

And so here we are in the second Sunday of Lent with this first reading.

Here we are looking towards the fulfillment of the great promise of the New Covenant that was foreshadowed with Abram looking at the stars.

Here we are waiting for the glory of the One in whom we, through faith, have become those stars

– spiritual descendants of Abram in his greatest physical descendant,

Jesus Christ.

Thus, we – as we do each year – enter a time in which we remind ourselves of the great New Covenant that we, through baptism, have made with the Lord,
– a covenant that makes CLAIMS ON US as WE CLAIM IT.

We claim it by enacting little 40-day “covenants” with the Lord whom we put our faith in – we call them Lenten promises.

And that is what a “covenant” ultimately is – a promise.

And so at the heart of the covenant God makes with Abram is the promise of two things:
– physical descendants, which would later turn “Abram” to “Abraham,”
– and land upon which those descendants will dwell.

Now, when the Lord promised Abram that he would have true physical descendants, this was after years of suffering with the inability to conceive a child with his wife Sarai.

And it is only through understanding the pain behind this inability that we can understand the greatness of the news to Abram that he would in fact have children someday.

And it is only through understanding the greatness of this news that we can truly understand the greatness of Abram’s faith that was “credited to him as an act of righteousness.”

Because, as a biblical commentary reads: “The inability of Sarai to bear children is more than a personal disappointment; barrenness was often viewed as evidence that God had withheld his favor.”

So when God promises Abram children, there is not only the overwhelming joy that, yes, he and his wife will indeed have a baby,
But there is also the joy at the news that God had, in fact, not withdrew His favor. – Even better, the Lord was granting favor beyond favor to Abram.

And thus the righteous faith of Abram came out of a thirsting, desperate heart that clung to God’s benevolent action which made the future father cry out totally beside himself perhaps saying: “Oh, yes, Lord, please, yes!“

Now, this is the type of faith we need to have in God.
The type of faith that sometimes sparks up from the inside,

And at the same time comes crashing in from the outside like:

[PAUSE]

– The brightness of the face that was “changed in appearance” and,

The “clothing that became dazzling white.”

But there is room for us within Abram here.
For, like him, we don’t often keep the purity of such faith for long, either.

And so even after God tells him directly that he would have kids & the Promised Land, Abram asks, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

Then God shows him how in a way that Abram knows very well,
so well that in the text he just automatically does what needs to be done with the animals that God tells him to go get:
– he uses them to whip up a contract – a covenant – a promise to be signed by blood.

Life was split open and killed.

Now our Lenten promises are a little less intense than the biblical covenants if only because they lack one thing that was common to biblical covenants

– the shedding of blood.

For, Abram took animals and “split them in two.”

And yet Lent is still a time to be split open.

We split ourselves open in unbloody ways through our Lenten promises.

Thus, we cut up our self-will to engage more intently in the following actions:

– We divide our time and energies so that we might pray more often.
– We cutback our eating and chop our appetites in two for our fasting.
– We crack open our wallets and part ourselves from our money in almsgiving.
– We cut our egos down to size with humility.
– And we separate ourselves from our sins when we are shriven in the confessional.

We split our souls in two as we offer up our bodies as living sacrifices pleasing to the Lord.

And the turtledoves and young pigeons we keep whole in our offering are the good practices we add on to build up what is already there.

But we feel the necessary pain of these sacrifices because of what they are supposed to represent.

For, we are split open spiritually because Jesus was split open physically so that the great promise of the covenant of Abram might find an even greater fulfillment in the covenant of Christ, and the Abrahamic sky may be filled with stars beyond counting that shine:

[PAUSE]

With the same glory that Moses and Elijah appeared in as they spoke with transfigured One whose exodus was “going to be accomplished in Jerusalem.”

And this glory was the exodus of a Man who was to be hung and “split in two” and cause the seamless veil that hung in the temple to be split in two.

Divine flesh and blood were separated in the air like the animal flesh and blood were separated on the ground as Abram drew up a covenant-contract that was a “well-attested way of making a treaty in the” ancient world

– in a way of saying may the same thing happen to the one that breaks the terms of this contract.

And then Abram waited for the moment God was to manifest Himself in some physical form like He had done at previous times and walk with him between the carcasses in order to “seal” the covenant being made.

But this is where God turns the convention on its head, puts Abram in a trance, and, through smoke and fire, “walks” through the animals alone.

It was the LORD God that sealed the covenant for both parties,
placing the weight of its ultimate fulfillment upon His own divine shoulders,

– Because it would be upon the strength of the godly arms of a sinless Descendent splitting Himself open in the same Promised Land,
that the promise was to be kept.

And unlike a mere man – the GOD-MAN WOULD NOT FAIL.

And thus, it was through the splitting up of life that LIFE ITSELF brought about the great covenant that Abram experienced.

Abram needed the divine smoke; He needed the holy fire to pass through,
Because clouds and pillars of fire often stood in for God’s presence and assurance.

And that is why on the mountain of Transfiguration,

The Father spoke through the cloud giving assurance of His Son

to the apostles that the Lord Jesus took up like the LORD God took Abram out.

But, though the 3 apostles often acted like beasts of burden,

They were not to be split open like the cow, the goat, and the ram.
They could not yet walk the path of the Lamb.

But their time to be split open like Jesus by their martyrdoms was to come.

Because the disciple having his or her life “opened up” in some way in imitation of Christ is part of belonging to the new and everlasting Covenant in His blood.

Thus, it is only when we are “split open” spiritually that we can experience more deeply the great covenant God has made with us in Christ.

And, as I laid out before, we accomplish this IN Lent through the penitential promises we make that open up our souls

and separate us from our over-attachments, our self-will, and our sins.

The refusal of this reality of the Christian life is at the heart of St. Paul’s criticism and warning in our second reading against

the “many” who “conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ,”

The cross that split open the flesh of the Savior & separated His blood from it.

They do not want to be “split open” like Christ in their souls

in imitation of the One who was poured out.

Instead, they want to stuff themselves with worldly things

as offerings to the god they serve, the “stomach” of their most basest desires.

And they desire NOT the true glory of innocence,

But to twist the INFAMY of all that is shameful into a crown of false celebrity
– we call it “clout” and “freedom of choice” these days.

Some of this can even be found in the Church, and that is why Paul warns the Philippians about it.

For, those who refuse to be “split open” like the Head in imitation,
Will “split up” the Body in desolation.

But if the Head of the Body seems too unapproachable,