Henrietta United Church of Christ

Rev. David Inglis September 7, 2008

Genesis 12:1-9

“Step By Step–Abraham’s Journey of Faith”

For a man of 75 years, I didn’t have much to show for my life. I had a flock of sheep. I lived in the simple house my father had built in Haran, the land he had moved us to when I was a young man. But the house was pretty empty except for my aging wife Sarah and me. We hadn’t ever had any children, though God knows we had prayed for them more times than I can say.

Both my brothers had died. When I died and Sarah was gone, how would anyone ever know I had walked on this earth, besides my nephew Lot and his family? It’s kind of an empty feeling, to think of the dust blowing away your footprints so quickly, and the world going on as though you had never been there.

I had survived the droughts and illnesses and hardships of a sheep-herder’s life. Maybe that was enough accomplishment for a lifetime. I could spend my last years dwindling away, letting Lot have my sheep in exchange for feeding Sarah and me. Maybe he would promise to bury us in the sand with a marker that would last more than a season or two.

But every time I found myself slumped over thinking like this, something deep inside me stirred up and protested. “No, Abram, that’s not who you are. You should leave this place. There’s another place for you, and a blessed future you can’t yet imagine.”

I’d shake off this notion as the nonsensical babblings of an old man whose grape juice had sat in the flask too long. But it wouldn’t leave me, even if I drank only water. Sometimes when I closed my eyes, I saw people–lots and lots of people–calling me their father and grandfather. I began to see these people shining a light of wisdom and hope into the world.

Maybe I was getting to be like Sarah. She had felt so bereft in her barrenness that sometimes she imagined she was dandling a baby on her knee or talking to it and singing to it to sleep. Now I was seeing our children too, and hearing them calling me by name!

Where was this coming from? Was it my fear of dying? My loneliness? My aging mind? It didn’t feel like any of those. It felt like it came from something bigger than that and deeper than that. It felt like it came from the One who had made everything and had made me and had put me here. I called this mysterious power Yahweh–I AM WHO I AM.

Most people divided this Divine Mystery up into parts, and made different images and called it by many names. But for me, it was all one God–not contained by any one thing but present in every thing. Not the possession of one people but the creator of all people.

Now, as I thought about my life, I felt more and more clearly that this Yahweh had created me for a reason–there was a purpose I hadn’t found or completed yet. And Yahweh was telling me it was time to fulfill it.

What should I do about this persistent voice? I knew I had to talk to Sarah about it. But how would I approach her? I waited for just the right moment. One day she came into the house exhausted. She had walked down into the valley and back three times to fill her water jars, because the sky was growing dark with one of those sand storms that blows in from the desert once in awhile and chokes everything with dust.

“Sarah, do you ever wish we could move away from here and find a different land, a land that’s not so hard on us, maybe a land with more water? Maybe we could start a new life.”

She squinted at me and drew back. “What are you talking about? Leave this house your father left us, and live in what, a tent? Leave this land that we know, and go where, a place we’ve never been? Leave the only relatives we know, and have who to help us, foreigners who don’t understand our language? This is the life we’ve made, Abram. It hasn’t been the one I dreamed of, but you work with what you’ve got and make the best of it.”

“So do you still have a dream for a different life, Sarah?”

“Why are you asking me about that now? My dreams have all shriveled up and died, and it’s far too late to try to revive them now. I think you know that as well as I do. This is the lot we were given, this is the life we have to live. You’ll be a lot better off if you put your mind to making the best of what we have instead of dreaming about what can never be. Now can you help me close up the windows before that wind starts to fill our house with sand?”

I sighed. Sarah was probably right. The most sensible thing to do was to stick with what we already knew, what was predictable, what was right in front of us. Of course she was right. How could I even think about uprooting now and heading off to a place I didn’t even know?

I kept telling myself that. But that practical advice never seemed to satisfy that voice. “Abram, 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.”

This voice kept telling me that my life could be more than a story of surviving and making do. My life could be a blessing to a whole nation of people, and even to all the families of the earth. I wanted to be a blessing to people like that with all my heart and soul. I didn’t have any idea how that could be. But if there was a chance, even the smallest one, that it could be, it was worth every risk to me. I would willingly give my life away trying, if there was any chance that my life could be a blessing like that.

“Sarah,” I said after a sleepless night, “this idea I told you about–you know, about going to a different land...”

“Yes?” she eyed me warily.

“It’s not my idea, really. It’s not so much about what I want to do. It’s about what God wants me to do, or wants us to do. I keep hearing God telling me that if we leave this place, He will show us a land where our people will become great and will be a blessing to the world.”

“This Yahweh you talk about has been talking to you? The One who created everything and is forever has come to you out here in this godforsaken place and has a special plan for you and me?”

“That’s what I feel, more than I’ve ever felt anything before. I can’t make any more sense of it than you can, Sarah. But if there’s any chance this really is Yahweh God telling me he wants to bless the world through us, I don’t think I can bear to let this chance slip away. I’ve decided that I’d rather die trying to do what God wants than to live out my days just making the best of a life that serves no purpose. But I can’t answer God’s call for you. Sarah, look deep inside yourself, and see if there’s anything of your dream of being a blessing to a family left in you.”

She looked away and was silent as her eyes began to tear up. “Abram, how can I even look at that dream again, after all those years of prayers that went nowhere, and all those people looking at me as though I was cursed by God? I’ve grown too old to have children, and you want me to dream of raising a family now? How can you ask me to exchange my life for something that’s impossible?

“Sarah, we know what things we think are impossible, but we don’t know what God considers possible. Maybe we have to let go of our notions of what’s real, and do our best to follow God’s will as faithfully as we can. Our job isn’t to make anything happen by ourselves; that’s God’s job. Our job is to follow God’s call, one step at a time.”

“So we just step out, not knowing where we’re going or how this is all going to work out, but trusting that if we follow what God asks of us, we somehow will be blessed and we’ll become a blessing to others.”

“Well, yes, I think that says it pretty well,” I said.

“It’s a whole different way of going about things than what we’re used to, isn’t it?” Sarah said.

“It sure is.”

“It’s kind of scary,” she said.

“It sure is,” I said.

“It’s kind of crazy,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “It seems very crazy. And yet, I feel like part of me will shrivel up and die if I just stay here waiting for my life to end.”

“Yes,” she said, patting my hand, “I know. Well,” she said, “shall we be crazy together? Shall we say good-bye to everything we know, and leave it all behind, taking nothing except what we can carry, the faith that God is calling us, and the willingness to follow wherever He leads?”

“I’m scared, but I’m ready,” I said.

“I’m scared, I think it’s crazy, and I’m not sure I’m ready,” Sarah said. “But I’m willing anyway,” and she gave me her hand. And we just sat there for the longest time, holding hands and trying to imagine what lay ahead.

You know, that never worked very well–imagining what lay ahead. We never got a clear picture of that, at all. But as we journeyed out into the unknown, with Lot and his family so worried about us that they followed us too, we learned a thing or two about what faith is, and what it isn’t.

Sarah and I learned that faith isn’t about imagining what you want and believing God will make it happen the way you expect, like answering our prayers for a baby all those years. Faith is about making yourself available over and over again to what God wants, even if you can’t imagine it.

Faith isn’t trusting that everything is going to just falling into place if you’re trying to do God’s will. Sarah and I faced all kinds of unexpected tests and trials. Faith is about developing perseverance, persistence, and deeper trust when the wind is blowing against you.

Being faithful isn’t the same as being good. Wow, I made some bad mistakes along the way. In Egypt, I passed Sarah off as my sister because I was afraid Pharaoh would get rid of me so he could have my beautiful Sarah as his own. But I found that faith means trusting God’s forgiveness enough to admit my mistakes and learn from them and start over again.

Faith isn’t even about feeling close to God. I kept doubting God and questioning God’s promise to me and sometimes felt that God had forgotten us. But I still kept listening for God’s will as best I could make it out, and followed it, just one step at a time.

And even though I faltered many times along the way, I came to be called the “Father of Faith”–by Jews, Christians and Muslims. As things turned out, I guess I have become a blessing to the families of the world. And if those families ever come to learn what it really means to walk in faith in the God who made us all and who has a plan for the whole human family, they could all become part of God’s dream for them, and be blessed by peace instead of torn by terror and war.

It’s still amazing to me that a simple sheep-herder like me ended up with an important part to play in God’s plan. But one thing I have come to see is that every one of us has a part in God’s plan. Each of our lives is important, and God has given each of you what you need to help fulfill God’s dream for your life, your family, your church, your workplace, or your world. Look at your own life. Are you resigned to live the days and weeks and years of your life making do with things as they are? Or are you listening for God’s call to help create a better world? Are you moving through life out of fear, clinging to what is familiar and easiest, or are you stepping forward in faith?

God has dreams for us all, my children. Can you find the faith and the courage to listen deeply and listen together for God’s call. Can you put your hand in God’s hand, offering to God all that you are, and walk towards the new place God will show you, one step at a time?