Scriptures: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 & Hebrews 11:1-12
Given on 08/11/19
It is possible, on that day, that Abram was just beginning to feel his age. Perhaps he had gotten out of bed that morning and his joints were just a bit too stiff, his bones seeming to ache with the dull ache of overuse, his feet sore. Perhaps the long days of traveling, day after day, had become too much and he was just tired of constantly moving. Perhaps he had begun simply to do the math and realized that he was much closer to the other side of the Jordan than he was his mother’s womb. Maybe it was the few more gray hairs in his beard, maybe a few less hairs on his head, maybe he was just getting tired. But one way or another, Abram was beginning to feel his age. And with this new awareness of age, of the inexorable passing of time, it was on this day that a bit of doubt had begun to creep into his mind. You see, at the point in the story at which we arrive this morning, Abram has already been through quite an adventure on this Divinely inspired trip. He has already begun to mark the area of land with which God has said he will be blessed. He has already traveled down to Egypt during a time of famine only to have an unfortunate run in with the Pharaoh. He has already separated from his brother Lot and yet over and over again on the journey God had told Abram that a mighty nation was going to be born from his lineage and yet he still didn’t have any. And I wonder if maybe on this day, this day when just maybe, Abram’s advanced age had begun to catch up with him, I wonder if he was beginning to have a bit of doubt creep into his mind. And I wonder if this doubt had driven him out of his tent at that part of the day when the pink hues of the sky begin to pass over to the luminous darkness as other stars, planets, heavenly bodies begin to emerge from the blackness of the sky, I wonder if it was that part of the day that had greeted him as he went for a walk in the wilderness to ponder, to be silent, to, as the older folks say, have a little talk with God. You know, some folks are like that. Some folks, when they need to think, when they need to pray, when they just need a few moments of silence, they go for a walk. I do that. Often times when I am in the office working on a sermon and I hit a wall I’ll start walking around the building, looking at the artwork in the gallery, sitting in the front pew in the sanctuary looking at the stained glass. Sometimes I am wrestling with a passage of scripture. Sometimes I use the time to escape from the heaviness of the scripture and think about anything else. And so, in my head, when I read this passage, I imagine Abram going for a walk. And maybe it was on this walk that he began to talk to himself, began to wonder whether all those folks, who told him he was crazy when he announced sometime ago that he was leaving everything he had ever known to follow the call that God had put on his heart, were maybe on to something. Sure God had spoken to him all that time ago and talked about a new land for his people and talked about a mighty nation, as countless as the stars or of the grains of sand on the beach arising from his familial line but he was getting older and still had no line upon which to rise up a family, much less a nation. He, Abram, a man of great means and faith, still had no heir to pass on his wealth and faith. And I wonder if it was into this doubt, into the conversation that he was having with himself, into the silence of solitude that God’s voice rose up again. “Fear not, Abram. I am your shield. Your reward will be very great.” But Abram, wasn’t so sure this time. Abram wasn’t sure what the value was of all his possessions, all his riches, if he did not have a child with whom to share it. To whom to pass it on. And God directed Abram to look into the sky and see how many stars you can see. And we’ve all had nights like that, sitting on a beach, or high atop a mountain, or in an open field far removed from the trappings (and ambient light) of human progress, those nights when we looked up into the sky and saw the massiveness of the firmament on full display. This is what I think Abram experienced when God directed him to look up and see. See all those stars, they will represent your offspring. Your lineage. Your family. And we are told, upon hearing this, Abram saw and in seeing, he believed.
But as we know, belief is never a simple thing. It is never a one-time acceptance. It is never without struggle. And so we are told that Abram looked to God for a sign, looked to God to offer concrete proof. “O God, how am I to know that these things you say are true?” And with that, Abram learned a powerful truth about belief. Belief requires that you sacrifice just a bit, that you move out in faith, that you step off the edge just an inch in hopes of God catching you. And so we have this beautiful passage. That follows Abram arranging his sacrifice to God. This beautiful and chilling passage. We are told that after gathering up his sacrifice and protecting it from the animals of the air that sought to consume that which is God’s, Abram fell into a deep sleep and a “deep and terrifying darkness fell over him.” And Abram found himself in that space between the jump and the catch, that space between belief and assurance, that space in which you hang in the air unsure whether the next thing you will feel is the ground below or the comforting hand of God. And maybe he stayed there all night, maybe he was just there for an instant, a split second, but when he awoke the Word of God came upon him again and he knew. “On that day, God made a covenant with Abram, giving he and his descendants the land between the river of Egypt and the Euphrates.”
Too often when we encounter characters in the Biblical witness, we ascribe to them these superhuman feats of faith, devotion, fealty to God. Too often, we look at them as living lives that we could never possibly live, setting a standard that no one could possibly meet. Growing up, I remember learning about Abraham in Sunday school, about his faith, his goodness, his uprightness before God and if that is the image that you have of Abraham, it is easy to feel like each of us is unworthy to experience the call and challenge of God on our lives. Too often we remember Abraham as a person of faith, as one of the parents of whole communities of faith, of whole new religious groups and if we jump ahead to the end of the story that is what we see. Ourselves along with our spiritual parents in Judaism, our spiritual cousins in Islam we are collectively called the Abrahamic faiths. And yet, rather than unyielding faithfulness to God, Abraham’s story is one of doubt again and again. Rather than seeing a person who in following the call of God was given an easy journey, rather we see that his story is a story of struggle. Rather than seeing a person who was completely perfect all the time, we read a story in which on two separate occasions he lies to folks about his relationship with his wife euphemistically offering her up to the rulers of two different countries. A story in which he impregnates a servant girl because he’s not so sure that God is going to keep the divine oath sworn to Abraham. A story in which he stands over his child with every intention of offering him back to God. A story in which many times he goes back to God uncertain of the future or the present, uncertain if he can go on, uncertain if this move from the place that he had known, the place in which he felt comfortable, the place that was his home, uncertain if that was really God’s plan for the world. And yet, it is also a story of God’s unfailing faithfulness to Abraham. Of being present each moment along the way, even when Abraham veered off the path. Of hold Abraham in a loving grasp and never letting him go. Of calling Abraham to have faith even when there was nothing to touch, or hear, or see. Faith was the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So it is in our second scripture for the morning, a letter to those who understood themselves to still be both Christian and Jewish, that we are given the contours of faith from the earliest forebears of the Jewish faith. Of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Of a God who, from the earliest beginnings of the story of the Jewish people was present and faithful and loving and just like that, their story become our story, their history, our history, their journey, our journey, their faith, our faith, unified into a singular narrative that tells of the presence of God, forever and always. And to believe it, all we have to do is look up at the stars.
As most of y’all know, a few years back, I was in the country of Malawi and between the natural confusion that comes with being in another country in another part of the world, the jet lag, and the presence of vervet monkeys seemingly jumping on our tin roof all night long the first few days of the trip were a bit of a blur and so it wasn’t until the third or fourth night there that I saw it. Sitting on our little porch, the whole of our beings enveloped by the darkness, that I looked up and saw four bright stars perfectly placed, the Southern Cross. I should say that prior to that evening the only thing I knew about the Southern Cross is that it made for a great Crosby, Still, and Nash song but that evening, it felt like I stared at that cross for hours, completely transfixed, the spirit of God reaching out from millions of light years away, reminding me that even in the deepest darkness that a light shines in that darkness and the darkness is never able to overcome it. And all I could think that night was how great would it be to spend the whole of your time as one of the stars in that constellation, forever present, always point people back to Christ, back to light, back to God. Friends, we are the stars that Abram stared into the terrifying dark of the evening sky and saw. We are them.
Sisters and brother, we are living in a time in which the ravages of of brokenness and violence continue to plague our existence whether it is mass shootings in school, or racial animus, or just the greed of the world that deems some folks worthy of life and others of starvation. We are living in times of great darkness for a great many people, and yet. And yet we also live in a time pregnant with hope. A time in which all that is going on, all that we struggle against in ourselves and the world, all of it is just the birth pangs of something new, and holy, and beautiful about to be born anew. The redemption of Jesus, that frees us from our burdens, from our fears, that moment in time in which the immersive darkness of hatred was pierced with a blinding light, frees us today, all we have to do is step into the light. It has already happened and all we have to do is faithfully step into this moment. And this one. And this one. The one who traversed through the countryside calling out the poor and the dispossessed. The one who reached out to grimy fishermen and broken tax collectors and turned them into pillars of the faith. The one who loved all people unconditionally even though he demanded that we give it everything we have to be better tomorrow than we were today. In that one, we find freedom. We are free, free from trying to find meaning in the stuff of this world, free from serving any powers and principalities but God, free from getting lost in the brokenness of ourselves if we will but only step out of the darkness and into the light. It is that easy. A hand is extended with the greatest gift we could ever imagine. A voice pierces the cold and unfeeling silence of the world with singular foundational truth of the universe. “You. Are. Loved!” No matter who you are, no matter what you have done or left undone, you are loved. That is the whole of the scriptures brought together. If you wanted to study the depth of the universe or of God you could spend a lifetime pondering those words. You are loved. If you want to challenge the power structures of every dominant culture in the world they can all be brought down to their knees with the words, “you are loved.” If you want to pierce the most cynical parts of ourselves, wipe away the apathy of unconcern that so many of us battle everyday simply repeat the words, “you are loved.” And we are called to share that message and that love with everyone we meet.
And so what now? We may, allow the darkness of the world, the brokenness of the world to overwhelm us. We may leave this place and return to life as normal with the old order of the world still in place, still cycling unchallenged through our world and our creation. We may choose to be unmoved by the plight of those who search in vain for hope and peace and love and acceptance. Or we can be the stars that we are. Little dots of light piercing bit by bit the suffocating darkness of the night. We can be those who came after Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Leah and Rachel, Naomi, Ruth, Boaz, Peter, James, and John, Paul and Silas, the desert fathers and the mystical mothers, the prophets of old and revolutionaries who shook up the Church again and again and again. We can be beloved children of the most High and we may, follow the footsteps of the one who was born in utter disgrace and disregard, the one who was beaten, spat upon, cursed and killed but who brought a message of radical love that continues to infect people. A message of love that breaks the barriers that too often tear people apart. A message of love that can bring joy eternal to you this moment and every moment. We can choose at this moment to no longer be imprisoned by the brokenness of the world and then we can reach out and touch the love of God and never be the same. And then we can go out into the rest of the world, obeying all that Jesus told his earliest followers and show people how they too can touch the boundless love of God. The choice is yours, and mine, and ours. This is the moment. There are no others. Glory be to God in the highest and on earth peace amongst all God’s children. Alleluaia, amen.