Today we continue in the book of Genesis as we follow along with the Narrative Lectionary. We begin every September in the book of Genesis, and we trace our way through the narrative arc of Scripture, through the Hebrew Scriptures. Then, at Christmastime, we turn our attention to the Christian Scriptures and the story of Jesus and his life, the Gospels, and the early Christian writings as well.
But we’re still at the beginning of our journey, barely even launched off, and we encounter today in Genesis chapter 12 a very foundational and important text, not only for us as Christians, but also for our Jewish brothers and sisters, as well as our Muslim brothers and sisters. We all kind of trace our heritage and our beginning back to this foundational story: the story of an older couple whose names get changed halfway through the story. But this is still the beginning of the story, and so they are Abram and Sarai. We later come to know them, after they’re renamed, as Abraham and Sarah.
Genesis 12: 1-9:
Now 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 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.”
So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan.
When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.
For the Word of God in Scripture, for the Word of God among us, for the Word of God within us. Thanks be to God.
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For the past two Sundays, we’ve been talking about Noah and the ark. As somebody pointed out to me this morning, I probably should have saved those for today with all of the rain. But we’ve been talking about Noah and the ark, and I’ve been trying to give us a different perspective on it: that it is really a story about beginning again, about second chances, about new and unexpected opportunities.
We talked about how, from a biblical perspective, the flood is not an ending, but a new beginning in grace and gratitude. Well, today we discover in our reading what this new beginning looks like on the ground and in the flesh. We find out that second chances come with their own work and challenge, and we learn all of this through a man called Abram, later renamed Abraham.
Abram seems a decent fellow in our text. He has a pretty good life, a loving wife and family. He lost his brother, which is why his brother’s son Lot is coming with them. But they have land, they have work to do, they have familiar surroundings. Things aren’t perfect. As I mentioned, he’s lost his brother. Also, he and his wife Sarai wanted children, but they were seemingly unable. It’s life’s big disappointment for them, a bitter pill to swallow for sure.
Still, all things considered, Abram and Sarai have a good life. And so what God is asking of them is no small thing. Get up and go. Where exactly? Well, I’ll tell you that later. Why? I don’t want to get into the specifics just yet, but basically my plan is to bless the whole world through you. Just go with it.
Professor Susie Park writes, “Abruptly and without warning, God calls on Abram to move from his country, his people, his father’s household.” You know, any time in Hebrew where they repeat something three times, they’re really wanting to emphasize the point. So at the very beginning: your country, your people, your father’s household. Park continues, “That is, he’s called from all that he knows to make a clean break with everything with which he is familiar. Moving forward into an unknown future is not easy. It takes courage. It takes faith. It takes a willingness to walk in trust.”
Richard Rohr writes, “I believe that faith might be precisely that ability to trust” what he calls “the big river of God’s providential love” – to trust the visible embodiment, that is the Son; the flow, the Holy Spirit; and the source itself, the Father.
“This is a divine process,” Rohr writes, “that we don’t have to change or coerce or improve. We just need to allow it and enjoy it.” And that takes immense confidence, especially, he writes, when we’re hurting.
He says, “Usually I can feel myself getting panicky, then trying to quickly make things right. I lose my ability to be present, and I go up into my head and start obsessing. Soon I tend to be overly focused in my head to such a point that I don’t really feel and experience things in my heart and in my body. I’m oriented toward goals and making things happen and trying to push or even create my own river. Yet the big river that is God’s love, God’s care, God’s providence, is already flowing through me, and I am only one small part of it.”
One of the biggest challenges, one of the biggest hurdles we have, I believe, to trusting this divine flow is actually the direction of the current. Too often we think that the river flows toward us, that God’s favor and blessings are apparent through our lives, through our wealth and our power, our influence, our recognition, our success. Winning, right? Winning is evidence of God’s approval. That’s the way it works, right?
And that’s why us preachers need our own personal jets and gold rings and fancy Italian suits, right? I mean, if God loves me, I should be rolling in it, right? That’s what this story of Abram’s about.
No, we know that’s not true. Actually, the river flows in the other direction: not toward us, but away from us, or, as Rohr says, through us. The call of God is not so much to be blessed as it is to be a blessing.
In his book Do One Thing Different, Bill O’Hanlon tells the story of a widow who has fallen into depression. Not only has she lost her spouse, her children are grown and away, living in different states, and her friends – those who are still with us – are either sick or depressed like her.
Her pastor is worried about her. She used to be really active in church. Now she barely leaves home, and she doesn’t want visitors. The few who have managed to stop by have all reported to the pastor that it’s bad. She doesn’t even open the curtains in her house anymore. She was known for taking care of plants and being a good gardener, but her houseplants are starting to die. So they’re all worried about her.
The pastor decides he’s going to do something about it. He sends her a note announcing that he’s going to visit because he has a special message for her. He shows up on the day and time announced, and she reluctantly welcomes him in. The curtains have been cracked just a little bit, but it’s still dark and dusty. She’s made tea, but he isn’t there for the pleasantries.
As soon as they are seated, he launches into his spiel. “You are not being a very good Christian,” he tells her.
The woman’s stunned. How dare he? She’s been a faithful member for many years. She served as a leader in the church. She was even on the committee that called him to their church, for Pete’s sake. Who does he think he is?
But she doesn’t say this. She just sits there. And he continues, “You have so much to give,” he tells her, “and you’re sitting here in your house, hiding your light under a bushel.”
He looks around at her plants and flowers. “We have so many people in our church who are hurting and lonely, and you know better than most how they’re feeling. You could be writing them cards, sending them flowers or plants, and visiting them to cheer them up.”
The woman was shocked. He was right. How had she not seen it? She thought she was done and that no one needed her anymore, but nothing could be further from the truth. There were people all around who needed just what she could do.
Get up and go and be a blessing, God says to Abram. Get in the river. Trust in me to take you where you need to go. Trust the flow.
Bono, the lead singer of U2, the Irish band, gave a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast when George W. Bush was in office. He tells of a transformative encounter that he had had some years earlier. He says, “Years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song; look after it. I have this family; please look after them. I have this crazy idea.”
And this wise man said, “Stop. Stop asking God to bless what you’re doing. Get involved with what God is doing, because it’s already blessed.”
Get up. Go and be a blessing.
Friends, the Christian life is not about stockpiling blessings for ourselves. It’s about gratefully counting our blessings and then seeing how we can put them to use to bless others. I don’t know how we got so completely turned around that we’ve made people think that wealth and prosperity are signs of following Jesus. Do we not remember that Jesus himself said, “I have come not to be served, but to serve”?
That is who we follow. That is the life that we are called to lead. That is where God’s river takes us.
As Christians, each and every one of us is called to serve, to get involved in what God is already doing because it’s already blessed, to leave our comfortable confines, and to venture out into the flow of God’s love and be a blessing.
Amen.
