I will Bless You so that You will be a Blessing (a sermon based on Genesis 12:1-5, page 9 in the pew Bible)

Transcription

1 I will Bless You so that You will be a Blessing (a sermon based on Genesis 12:1-5, page 9 in the pew Bible) by Rev. Dr. Paul A. Lance, Pastor First Congregational United Church of Christ 201 S. Second Ave., Alpena, Michigan November 2, 2014 According to the Bible, after the Great Flood, God issued (unilaterally) the Rainbow Covenant, 1 promising never again to destroy the earth -- no matter how wicked we might become. This decision on God s part was a significant limitation on God s power -- promising never again to reach for annihilation as a solution to the problem of human sin. As in the original Creation story, God entrusted humanity once again with dominion (that is, giving us power over the other creatures) 2. Since we human beings have been made in God s own image, 3 there s no stopping what we can do in the world! In the original Creation story, and again after the Flood, humanity is instructed to be caretakers and good stewards of the earth -- to go forth and be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. 4 That s a task we have accomplished many times over. 1 Genesis 9:11 2 Genesis 9:2 3 Genesis 9:6b 4 Genesis 9:1 1

2 When God decreed that first Covenant between me and you, and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you 5 for all future generations 6 a covenant between me and the earth, 7 I suspect that God was hoping that the violence & oppression & exploitation that had been done by the mighty men of old 8 was a thing of the past. But, no such luck. As Noah s descendants spread, mighty warriors arose once more, 9 cities again enslaved their workers; 10 and things were just as bad as before. But now, with God s solemn oath never again to annihilate humanity to correct our wicked ways, God had to come up with a new approach. Out of all the scattered nations, God is going to find the least-likely to succeed (on their own merits) -- a single family somewhere, with no name recognition, with no hope of a future -- and make them into a role model of faith to bring blessing to all. Here s how the writers of Genesis put it: Now Sari was barren; she had no child. 11 Terah took his son Abram, and his grandson Lot, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram s wife, & they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran (a city in Mesopotamia, near modern-day Baghdad), they settled there Genesis 9: Genesis 9:12 7 Genesis 9:13 8 Genesis 6:4-6 9 Genesis 10:8-9 (Nimrod) 10 Genesis 11:3-6 (The tower of Babel/Babylon) 11 Genesis 11:30 12 Genesis 11:31 2

3 The Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you & make your name great, so that you will be a blessing In you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 13 Instead of taking a blanket approach which covered all of humankind (as did the Rainbow Covenant), God s second attempt to fix the problems of misguided and mean-spirited society was to pick a couple of nobodies from out of the many, and to use them to start a new family (or tribe, or nation) which would live by faith in God, and show in their behavior the righteousness that God desires. To focus on just one family unit -- and to get that small set of ordinary people working right -- may become the solution to sin. (!) God hopes that when the world sees how Abram & Sarai operate, they will all do likewise. Then the blessing that God bestows on them will flood the earth with goodness & faith; being a blessing to all the nations. It s worth the risk anyway. Now, if the life-story of Abraham is an example of what it means to live by faith, a life of faith is not an easy one. In fact, it would have been much easier if Abram had just said no to the call of God in his life! 13 Genesis 12:1-3 3

4 And even if he was gung ho to go, I suspect his wife Sarai, may have had a few thoughts of her own! To set the stage for that (imagined) conversation, let s get back into the mind-set of the historical setting: Abram s travels start at one end of the Fertile Crescent, down at the Persian Gulf -- then they travel up the Great River valleys of Mesopotamia (the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers) -- sweeping up and across Iraq, Syria, & Jordan, continuing down through modern-day Israel/ Palestine, to end down in Egypt You see, they were moving from one end of the fertile crescent to the other -- avoiding the harsh desert life of the interior (the Bedouins & nomads) -- staying well within the wide arc of ancient civilizations hugging the rivers. Desert dwellers (then as now) lived on the edge of starvation. Abram s route stayed within the civilized mainstream. The litany of locations where Abram & Sarai visited along their journey gives every culture & city a reason to claim Abram as one of their own patriarchs. It reminds me of the many locations in New England & the Middle Atlantic states where a plaque reads: George Washington slept here. Nearly the whole of ancient civilization, from Persia (modern-day Iran) in the East to Egypt in the West, can claim Abraham as one of their own: Abram & Sarai slept here! & here! Is it any wonder that Arabs, who claim Abraham as the founder of their own religion Islam -- and that their ancestral tribes descended from Abram s son Ishmael -- imagine a pan- Arabian world from Iran to North Africa? an Islamic State. 4

5 From the beginning of time, nomads had been moving around in this well-watered agricultural area; pressing together into cities, pasturing their flocks a bit further out, and scraping together whatever bare existence they could muster on the outskirts of the vast deserts which surrounded them. To this day, much of that has not changed. The terrain of the Middle East dictates the terms. To live in the wilderness was hard! You d get a little goat milk, whatever honey the bees produce, and maybe a few dried locusts ground into flour & baked as bread. Is it any wonder that Abram looked around those barren hills of Canaan -- the Promised Land -- and decided that he and Sari ought to just keep on going!? Abram was a city boy, not a farmer. He moved with his father s family up the river a couple of times, yes, but never out into the desert. When he and Sarai embarked on their long journey, they kept to the main route: the cities & civilizations along the rivers. It makes me wonder why he even bothered!? It would have been easier just to settle in a city along the way. Our New Testament book of Hebrews (11:1 & 11:8-12) explains Abram s journey as follows: By faith [Abram] obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance! And he set out, not knowing where he was going! (I ve been there!) 5

6 By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents (as did Isaac & Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise). By faith he received power of procreation, even though [Abram] was too old, and Sarai herself was barren... Why did they do all this? Because of their faith. The definition of faith, says the writer of Hebrews, is the assurance of things hoped for; based on the evidence of things not seen. Abram must have felt assured that God would keep God s word and lead him (& Sarai) to a place prepared for them, where they could start a family...even though he didn t know where it was, nor when they d get there! Can you imagine Sarai s surprise when Abram first broke the news? Honey, we re gonna move away! Where to? Don t know. Why? cuz God says to. Come again? Look, Sarai, Yahweh-God wants us to move away -- away from our country, away from our kinfolk, away from our parents & family of origin. Uh- huh... and go where? To the land that I ll show you. Wait a minute, Abe. You say God is gonna show us... when we get there? No brochures..? No land-title? Is somebody trying to sell you something, Abe!? Look, Sarai, God promises to make us into a great nation! Promises to bless us! Promises to make my name great, so that I will be a blessing! And, Sarai, in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed! 6

7 Abram, those are just promises. Promises! We have a great nation here already -- Chaldea, Babylon! We are part of a great city that will forever be known. These are our people, Abram. We re secure here. We ve got roots! And you want to lose all that!?? For what?!? To go... who knows where?! God knows where, Sarai. It s God s world, after all. If God says there s a certain piece that s set aside for us, and for our off-spring, what better land-title could ya ask for!? God has promised! So, let s just call it the Promised Land & go find it! Offspring? What offspring, Abram... You re 75 years old, and you ve been shooting blanks since our wedding day. And I m no fountain of youth myself, sweet-heart. Here we ve got a civilized lifestyle, and family all around us to help out. If we haven t been able to start our family here, what makes you think you ll have offspring when we reach that Promised Land? Because Yahweh-God has promised, Sarai. Promises, promises...! Abram, how come you hear these promises from God talking, and I only hear you talking!? If this is going to be a new nation, a whole new people, a family, that we re supposed to start, it s gonna take two-to-tango. It s gotta be a team effort, Abe; you tell God that! I have no trouble trusting God s wisdom; I m just not convinced about yours! Sarai, don t you want me to have a great name? I mean, what kind of a name can I make for myself here? Abram, son 7

8 of Terah, resident of Te-Haran, married to Sarai, the barren one. Where s the glory in that? Abram, you know very well what your name means! Ab means father and ram means great! What an irony that your folks named you Great Father! You call me the barren one, but you are no better, Mister! We both don t have kids! That s it, Sarai! Yahweh-God has promised us not only the land, and not only a great name for me, and a source of blessing from us to all the nations, but God has promised a family of our own, Sarai -- kids of our own! I can just hear them singing sometime in the future: Father Abraham, had many kids -- sons & daughters, had Father Abraham! I am one of them, and so are you, so let s just praise the Lord Yahweh! Promises, promises! There you go again! Abe, if you want me to start calling you Abraham (which means Father of Great People ) then I d like you to start treating me with a little respect, too. I don t want to hear anyone calling me Sarai anymore ( Sar meaning prince and i the possesive ending, my ). No, I m not my prince, dear prince! From now on, you re gonna call me Sarah -- princess in my own right! Or else I m not packing! Have we got an understanding? * * * * * It probably went something like that, I suppose. Abraham s faith in God s promises -- his inner assurance of the realizable possibility of things that he hoped for, yearned for, but didn t have (& certainly couldn t prove) -- trying to persuade 8

9 Sarah to the same conviction, based only on the evidence of things not seen. That s what faith is. That s why we Christians say that Abraham is the Father of our Faith. That s why he is listed as a Saint in Hebrews 11: by faith! But Abraham is not only our father in faith, his story is (as I mentioned a moment ago) the foundation of Mohammed s Quran -- Abraham is the patriarch founder of the faith Islam -- and he is the founder of the Jewish religion in our Bible! All three of the faith traditions that have been killing each other in God s name in the wars of the Middle East (and in terrorism, religious fundamentalism, & ethnic cleansing elsewhere) all claim to be offspring, descendants, of this same Father Abraham! What irony; what folly! Let s be clear: Faith is not defined by one s ethnic group -- Abraham & Sarah purposely left all that behind at the very start of their journey! Faith is not accepting a set of doctrines -- after all, (you ll notice) that Old Abe (& Princess, his wife) have no set of beliefs, no criterion, hardly a plan! Faith is risking a journey into the unknown, believing only the promises of a trustworthy God. It s not an easy thing to live by faith. To follow God is not an easy path. Conflict, confusion & a lot of un-certainty are the traveling companions of faith, if Abraham and Sarah are our model. So, to act on faith means simply: to say yes to God. As the Nike ad says: Just do it! Go with it, and see where the Spirit leads us. Amen. 9