Here is what I said for Lent 2 last Sunday. The video camera holder seems to have taken the dropsy somehow so I look at little as though I am preaching from the Leaning Tower of Glasgow.

Abram’s Line, or Jesus’s Brood ?

This morning, the reading from Genesis which we had takes us back to the head of a rather large family tree. For the family of religious people who include the Jewish people, the Muslims and all the Christians look back at Abraham and place him fairly and squarely at the top of the tree.

Abraham (or Abram as he is still called in this week’s passage) comes at the top of the tree and gets called things like “the father of faith” or the “patriarch of patriarchs”.

There is quite a lot of effort being put into seeing Abraham as a figure who will unite people of faith. Its common when politicians face trouble between Christians and Muslims and Jewish people to appeal to Abraham as someone from whom we are all descended. “We are all children of Abraham,” they say, “don’t we all have more in common than we have that which divides us?”

I’m a little suspicious of this as I’m not sure I have that much in common with Abraham myself. [Read more…]