Loading...I remember so well as a newlywed in my twenties, packing pretty much everything we owned (except the good wedding china), loading it into the trunk of a Ford Fairlane and driving three and a half days to Indianapolis to meet my husband who had just graduated from Navy basic training. It was a journey to an almost unknown place that was tinged with both adventure and fear. What would the future hold? I wondered as I drove that quirky stick-shift car across the Midwest.
It certainly wasn’t a journey with the drama or the significance of Abraham’s journey, but there were some emotional connecting points, I think. Abraham has a unique place in our spiritual tradition as one whose story begins with God asking him to pack up and hit the road. His is a longish story in Genesis that spreads over several chapters. It is part of our pre-history – close to 4,000 years ago – before Moses, before King David nearly 2,000 years before Jesus.
We heard part of the story in the first reading today as Abraham (called Abram then) and God have a conversation about God’s promise to Abraham. One in which Abraham is getting a little concerned (as an older man) about whether he will have any offspring – any heirs when he is gone.
It helps to go back a bit in the story and remember the context. Abraham is introduced in Genesis in a series of ‘begats’ in Chapter 11. Later he is approached by God who asks him to leave his land, his birthplace –basically everything secure and familiar – and to go to a place that God would show him. An unknown place.
And there is also a promise that went with that: “I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and you will be a blessing,” God says to Abraham.
I love to think about what that conversation and its aftermath would be like. What if you were out in the yard admiring your rose garden, being thankful for the roof over your head, the car in the garage and the wonderful neighbors. The aunts and uncles and cousins who live nearby. And then comes this tap on the shoulder: and a conversation with God.
“Uh – – I have something I need you to do. You need to leave all of this behind and go somewhere else.”
And you answer, “Oh yeah? And where might that be?”
“Oh, it’s a place I’ll choose for you. Somewhere --- it’s not important to know where. But there are some perks. I have some important things for you to do and I’ll make you into a great nation – lots of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and beyond. I’ll bless you and you will bless others. You will have a lot of land.”
Has God ever asked you to take a big risk? To leave the comfortable behind? What was that like for you? Was it hard?
Abraham’s whole household took off to this unknown place -- probably loading up the camels with their pots and pans, tents, the servants and all their stuff... And they set out.
God had promised much -- land and offspring. And God had also blessed them so that they would be a blessing. Where we joined the story today, a couple of chapters later, Abraham is complaining that he is still childless. But God is reassuring, remembering the promise and asking Abraham to look up and count the stars in the night sky – more stars than he can count. That multitude of stars represents the offspring to come. (Eugene Peterson paraphrases this: Count your descendants. You’re going to have a great big family!)
After that God makes a covenant with Abraham and seals the promise in a strange, arcane ceremony with sacrificial animals and a flaming torch. It probably seems very mysterious in the dark night.
What do we make of this? What does it have to do with us? With Lent? With St. David’s -- aside from an intriguing journey into ancient history? I think the connection is a pattern in the story of Abraham that has more to do with us than we might think at first glance.
First, God is calling Abraham to a new place. An unknown place. (the old AAA Triptik map or the GPS device are little help here. ) This is a big journey that means cutting some ties with the past.
We can get this at several levels Certainly in our own lives there have been those times when we’ve been called to move from the comfortable and familiar to a strange, unknown place—to take a leap of faith. To learn how to trust God in the midst of change. Maybe even to let go of some control needs. It might mean moving to a new community, changing jobs, moving into a challenging new responsibility or a new relationship. We are a people on the move in more ways than one and as with Abraham, God is our companion. Maybe even the one who gets us on the move.
This parish is on a journey of sorts – moving through a transition after the recent departure of two priests, living through more than a year of transitional time with temporary leadership, and now happily welcoming a new clergy leader in Kimmy Meinecke. Starting on a new phase of the journey.
We can also connect with the theme of promise. God promised Abraham and his family that they would become a great nation – would have many descendants. That God would bless him – and them.
This is not at all like what some call the prosperity gospel today -- where people measure their favor with God by the amount of wealth and success they enjoy. God’s promise to Abraham is not this at all. It is more a promise of God’s presence and direction and partnership. God is with Abraham as he becomes the patriarch, the great ancestor of our faith tradition. It suggests Jesus’ promise after his resurrection that he would be with us always – to the end of the ages.
And finally there is the notion of blessing. God blesses Abraham so that Abraham will be a blessing to others. He carries God’s work forward. (In this country we often say – or sing, “God bless America,” desiring God’s blessing on us. When I worked on the diocesan staff the firm that did background checks for the diocese wrote at the bottom of their communications, “America bless God.” It’s worth thinking about. What does it look like to return the blessing -- to share the blessing?
Knowing that God loves and blesses us, how do we carry that blessing forward in our lives as individuals and as a church? How do we share that blessing through our service, our generosity, our love for the Lord?
This is a good day to be thinking about the journey forward. A good day to think about Abraham – his faithful response, his gutsy move with all of his camels and stuff; his call to be the ancestor of a great nation; his embrace of the call to be a blessing to others.
It’s a good day to do this because the journey of this parish community is right before us. A parish – any parish -- hears again and again a call to move to a new place (at least figuratively). A call to move to a place we do not know. Sometimes we resist. But at our best, we make ourselves available to be re-invented as we continue on the journey that we may be a blessing to others. We are formed by our tradition, but we are also nimble enough to embrace change as part of our vocation.
May the journey continue, as Abraham’s did, as a journey of faith and trust. May we know that we are blessed and share that blessing with others. And may we live into God’s promise as we journey on. Amen.
