June 17, 2012
Father Abraham
- Genesis 11:31-12:5
- Dr. Teri Thomas
That blasted song from VBS has been running through my head all week.
Morning, noon and night I find myself humming or worse singing
“Father Abraham, had many sons,
many sons had Father Abraham,
I am one of them and so are you, so let’s all praise the Lord…
If you were here for VBS you know the story…
One day, out of the blue, God says to Abram, "Go!"
Leave your home and your people behind,
pull up tent and tent pegs, bag and baggage,
and take all that you have and go to a land that I will show you.
I will make of you a great nation,
and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse;
and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
There are seven promises in that sentence.
The word blessing is used five times in four verses.
Abram will have such a dynamic and fruitful relationship with God
that it will benefit not only him, but all people.
So Abram goes; he risks; he leaves his home and extended family behind,
his community, his religion, his land, his life and future in Haran,
to follow this unknown God.
I’m not sure I could do what Abram did.
Pick up and leave a place where he was successful, where he had land and possessions and a family, and journey off to a place known only to God, who says to him, basically, "just keep walking, and I’ll tell you when you’re there." At age seventy-five, no less!
So we have the story of a man. Nobody special.
Just a guy following in his father’s footsteps.
A husband with no children of his own. No legacy. No real sense of purpose
And God says- Leave and go!
So Abram leaves and goes and become the father of many sons (and a few daughters).
The father of a nation. A blessing to generations of descendants.
The father of three world religions.
Scripture calls him a man of faith. It says that God reckoned him a righteous man.
Christians, Jews and Muslims all consider him to be our spiritual ancestor.
He is our father figure. So what do we learn from him?
Abram is an example of obedience.
Unfortunately, obedience has a bad rap today.
We value free thinking.
We value the entrepreneurial spirit.
We don’t much value obedience.
Obedience is for children, for trained animals,
for servants and for soldiers.
Obedience is giving over our personal power
and it is a loss of control.
But the word “obey” in English comes from the Latin- to listen or to hear.
Abram becomes an influential and powerful man
Not through fame
Or romance
Or conquest
Or even ambition
But his power is the result of listening and attending to God.
His wisdom, his faith and his knowledge all come from God.
Abram is the first human to really understand
that God’s light will come to those who are wandering in darkness.
God’s power will be given to those who give up their personal power.
Victory will come to those who surrender to God’s purpose.
Abram was obedient- but to God, not to the customs of the day.
Custom and tradition said that Abram would inherit his father’s estate.
He would stay in Haran and tend that inheritance.
But Abram broke from that tradition.
With no idea what obedience to God would eventually demand of him,
he had to renew his commitment each step of the way.
But he obeyed. He obeyed voluntarily.
And God blessed him and made him a blessing to the nations.
Now in VBS we talked about Abram’s obedience.
We kind of glossed over some other parts of the story.
Like Abram lying about Sarai being his wife in order to save his own skin.
He let her go to the Pharaoh’s harem in order to gain wealth and possessions.
God was not happy with that.
God told Abram he would have a son.
But when it did not happen Abram took Sarai’s slave, Hagar,
and they produced a son, Ishmael.
Then when Sarai did have a son, Isaac, she was jealous of Hagar and Ishmael
so Abram sent them away to die in the desert.
God saved them and wasn’t happy with Abram.
The story of Abram is not a story about perfection.
Sure it speaks to obedience and faithfulness
But it also includes
Jealousy
Anger
Self-interest
Impatience
Adultery
Sibling rivalry
Dishonesty
And just about every other human emotion or behavior you can imagine.
Abram was far from perfect.
But, even the mistakes and failures God turned to blessing.
When you and I think about faithfulness
And the promises of God made to us,
and about God’s role in our lives,
do we ever dare ask ourselves about our role in God’s life,
our role in God’s story,
our role in God’s future?
When we consider God’s blessings
They usually have to do with our lives,
with our needs and wants,
with our visions of what the future should look like for us—
careers, relationships, family, health, or personal concerns.
But when we face a disappointment,
when we think God has somehow let us down,
shut a door we very much wanted open,
or led us in a direction we would have preferred not take,
do we ever dare ask ourselves
what this might mean for God’s greater purposes and promises in life?
Who of us can know how God is using us?
We are called to make a journey with God.
Our journeying might take place
entirely within the limits of the state of Indiana.
Or it might take us halfway around the world.
It might involve our whole family,
or it might be a journey for us to make alone.
We can never know all the details at the outset.
I imagine we can all think of fears we have
in relation to an unknown future:
things we might be asked to give up,
scary things we might be asked to do,
or that might be done unto us,
and so on, and so on.
And we will make mistakes;
we may take wrong turns
and have to backtrack and try again;
we may do a few incredibly stupid things.
Welcome to the human race.
What matters isn’t knowing the destination before we begin.
What matters is deciding to get up and make the journey.
And then going, even when the end point is unknown,
even when the road isn’t clear,
even when we’re a little bit scared about what lies ahead.
Our calling is to be a blessing.
Go, from what is familiar and comfortable and what you’ve always known,
into the unknown.
That is where God is,
waiting to bless us.
Amen.