March 17, 2019 (Lent at the Movies II) – Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Lent at the Movies II – A Star is Born
Second Sunday in Lent – March 17, 2019
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
The story about Abram and God in Genesis is an old, strange story.
You will remember that a few chapters prior to this we are introduced to Abram.
It marks the hinge point in the entire biblical story.
After 6 chapters of things going badly off the rails in the story of God’s world,
God decides to deal with things going badly by simply destroying the world –
and starting over.
Having realized this is perhaps not the best solution to conflict or to the fulfillment of
creation’s promise, God promises never to do that again but to try a different method.
God enters into a deep, long-lasting relationship with a couple:
Abram and his wife Sarai and their family.
It’s the way of relationship and faithfulness that will finally save the world, not violence.
Through you and your family, God says to Abram, I will bless all the families of the world.
This is how God will save the world.
Then God says to Abram: go to a land I’ll show you.
Okay, says Abram. And he and Sarai go.
And the story begins.
The promise that God gives to Abram is for those two most longed-for things in human life:
a place and people, home and family.
Well, they go to the land. They wait for a child. Nothing.
They go down to Egypt, they come back, they wait for a child. Nothing.
They become prosperous and wealthy. Still no child.
Their nephew Lot separates from them, is captured, is rescued – and still no child.
A lot of time passes – and still no child.
And hey: Abram and Sarai are not getting any younger!
After a great deal of time, God finally speaks where our story begins today.
And God says,
“Hey Abram! Prepare to hear some good news: something amazing is gonna happen to you!”
But Abram’s response is not what we expect: rather than being jubilant,
Abram complains!
Abram has been waiting a long time for God’s promise to come to pass:
for home and family, for a place and a people.
It’s all he wants. But he still has neither.
Abram is hurt – and so he looks deep down inside at his deepest hurt and
his unfulfilled hope and cries: YOU HAVE GIVEN ME NO OFFSPRING!
Abram doesn’t need any more stuff – he’s got everything he could possibly need.
He just wants what God had promised him long ago: home and family, a place and a people.
God’s response is interesting, right?
God does not blame Abram for his impatience or his desire or his Divine rebuke.
God responds by simply repeating the promise – and making it even bigger!
Abraham had looked deep inside himself to his deepest hurt and unfulfilled hope –
and God responds by taking him outside and showing him the stars.
Abraham had looked in – God invites him to look up.
I will give you as many descendants with whom to bless the earth as stars, says God.
And I will give you land from the Nile to the Euphrates.
The strange covenant ceremony that seals this promise is the lynch-pin of the story.
It is here that God makes a solemn promise.
It seems strange to us, but its meaning is simple enough.
God tells Abram to sacrifice an animal by
splitting it in two and laying its sides opposite each other, with a space inbetween.
Normally in a covenant ceremony, both parties would pass down the middle,
swearing that if either were unfaithful to the covenant,
the consequence would be what happened to the animal: death. Yikes.
But what happens next is kind of amazing.
God puts Abram into a deep sleep.
And while Abram is asleep, God – in the form of a fire-pot and a torch –
God alone passes between the two halves of the animal.
God is the only one making any promises in this story – God’s promise is unconditional.
God is saying: I promise you will find a home and family, a place and a people –
my own death is a promise of that.
This covenant ceremony is the central key to the relationship between God and Abram.
It marks a point in the story where their relationship goes deeper, right?.
Abram wants more: God promises it.
The relationship is at a tenuous point and the covenant provides some stability.
But here’s the thing: it will not be all roses and sunshine from this point on.
The reading skips a few verses: and those few verses tell of hardship and
enslavement in Egypt for Abram’s offspring,
before they finally settle in the land long-promised.
Life in relationship is not easy – even in relationship with God.
Maybe especially in relationship with God.
Abram wants to go deeper with God – and he does.
And in order to do this, he has to bare all his hopes and hurts – he has to authentically be himself.
Well, we all know this is how relationships work.
Our relationships deepen and strengthen when we open up, become vulnerable, and are honest.
Which of us does not want more, to go deeper?
It’s what Abram wants – but going deeper is dangerous.
It will mean continuing difficulty, and even bizarre, painful circumstances when he is asked
by God to sacrifice the child that is finally born to him.
Yes: he wants more and is honest with God about that:
he wants what we all long for most deeply perhaps as human beings:
home and family, a place and a people.
The recent Bradley Cooper film A Star is Born is maybe so effective because it is a story that
also taps into this deep human longing: for authenticity,
for a place – in stardom and pop culture – and
for a family – in a love relationship between its two protagonists.
The story is well-known: Lady Gaga portrays up and coming star singer Ally.
Her talent is discovered and nurtured by fading rock star Jack, played by Bradley Cooper.
Early in the film, after a huge stadium show, Jack gets in his limo in search of a drink.
His driver lets him off at a bar where Jack sees Ally perform La Vie en Rose.
He is entranced.
They fall in love.
Later that evening he asks her why she doesn’t sing her own songs.
In response she sings a snippet of a song she’s been working on and Jack is impressed.
The following night at his next show he invites her onstage to sing the song as a duet with him.
And suddenly: boom! Thanks to the immediacy of social media a star is suddenly born.
And as her star rises, Jack’s star falls – as we all know.
And, as we also all know, the song they sing at that concert is “Shallow,”
which won the Oscar for Best Song.
It is an undeniably great and powerful song, wonderfully performed by the two leads.
It is also the lynchpin of the film – and of their relationship.
It is, in terms of our story of Abram today, the covenant at the heart of the film.
The song is like a dialog between the two characters: they take turns listening and singing.
And what they ask each other is: are you happy? Are you full? Or do you want more?
Well, they both want more.
Ally and Jack clearly both want love.
Ally also clearly wants a place in pop culture stardom.
Jack clearly wants a home, a person to home in, a relationship with depth and meaning.
The song is called “Shallow,” but it’s about longing for something deeper in life:
more authenticity, more meaning, more self-expression, more love.
this is a theme that follows both characters throughout the movie as
they seek to fill these voids in their lives – together.
There is an implicit promise in the song to go deeper together – but the film famously depicts
The challenges to the promise in the struggles and the pitfalls of stardom and addiction.
This moment in film is undoubtedly a movie high of 2018.
And it’s powerful because we all are children of Abram who want more.
We all have unfulfilled hopes and longings.
We all have disappointments.
We all feel that God could be a little more faithful to God’s promises.
We all long for a place and people, for home and for family –
and sometimes we are disappointed in those longings.
And there are always distractions and difficulties along the way.
Abram’s offspring will suffer – greatly – in Egypt on their way to a long-promised home.
Ally will become distracted from her authentic self in pursuing pop stardom.
Saddest of all, Jack will go deeper – but deeper and deeper into addiction.
And finally Jack will take his own life,
falsely thinking that he is getting in the way of Ally’s career.
We all want more – but there are pitfalls in more.
We all want deeper – but there are pitfalls in deeper.
Here’s the thing, though: Abram, Ally, and Jack are not wrong to want more.
God has after all promised more: more life for more people.
And it is what Jesus came to bring, after all: more, deeper life for more people.
More healing, more food, more justice, more forgiveness:
in short, blessing for all the families of the earth.
Jesus came so that we might go deeper.
When the star was born over Bethlehem, God was staying true to the promise.
God came in person to make good on the promise:
as the covenant party willing to die so that we might know the promise is true.
That God really meant what God said way back when making the promise to Abram:
that God will bless us all with home and family, with a place and a people – with life.
We here at First Lutheran Church have found a home here at Sargent and Victor and
we have found a family in one another.
We have committed to going deeper with one another: deeper in relationship with God,
deeper in relationship with one another, and deeper in relationship with our neighbours.
This commitment and desire to go deeper is rooted and grounded in God’s promise.
But we know it is not easy and that there are difficulties and challenges.
Still the desire for place and a people, for home and a family is real.
And God has promised that your desire will be fulfilled.
God has even died to ensure you know the sincerity of the divine promise to bring
blessing to all people: to Abram and Sarai, to the millions like Ally and Jack who
simply want to be authentic and find love – and to you, who long for
a place and a people, a home and a family, where you can be blessing.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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