Genesis 12:1-4a; Romans 4:1-5,13-17; John 3:1-17
I don’t know about you, but I struggle
sometimes with the implications of having faith in God. It’s not that I doubt whether God loves me,
or whether Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God for humanity – those ideas
rest pretty well in my head and my heart.
Where I have trouble is with the next step: making it real. If I have faith in God, what am I called to do? How do I follow faithfully?
We find one answer in the reading this
morning from Genesis, one of the most remarkable demonstrations of faith in all
of Scripture. We’re told almost nothing about
Abram before this reading, other than his origin story. He and his extended family were living in Ur
of the Chaldees in lower Mesopotamia, present-day southern Iraq. Abrah’s father, Terah, took Abram and his wife,
Sarai, and their nephew, Lot, to go to Canaan, modern-day Israel, though we’re
not told why. But the extended family stopped
their journey early and settled in Haran, in upper Mesopotamia, somewhere in
northern Iraq or Syria.
So, his father dies, and Abram apparently is
minding his own business when he hears the voice of God calling him to complete
the journey his father began. God tells
him to take the family and all their herds and possessions and go … somewhere –
“the land that I will show you,” God says (12:1). God promises Abram land, and worldly success,
and descendants – that God will make of Abram “a great nation,” one so important
that “in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (12:2-3). And then comes the all-important next line,
which is simply this: “So, Abram went,
as the Lord had told him” (12:4). Really? No questions?
No clarifications? He just
went. And because of that, and because
of Abram later formalizing his covenant, he became for us the paragon of right
relationship with God, as Paul explains in the reading today from Romans. “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to
him as righteousness” (4:3).
I love the Abraham story. And, I struggle with it – because it might
imply that if we really have true faith, then the directions for our actions
are crystal are clear. For me, at least,
discerning what to do with our faith is a lot more complicated than
that. I think it’s like raising
kids. My mother has a great metaphor for
raising kids, something that’s stuck with me for years. She says, “Raising kids is like painting in
the dark.” You do the best you can; but
in the moment, you really can’t see what the outcome is going to be.
Well, I do think God gives us some guidance
in how to paint in the dark, how to follow the calls we hear faithfully. For me, three suggestions, or maybe three “best
practices,” come to mind, and I think we can see each of them playing out in our
church family’s life right now.
Here’s the first best practice for
following God faithfully: Listen
together. Maybe, like Abram, some people
get a direct order from the Almighty that’s so clear, there’s no need for
questions. But for most of us, and
especially when the stakes are high, I think we do best when we take the risk
to share our calls with each other and listen with more than two ears.
There’s a great example of that happening
among us here. At this moment, we have
four people from our congregation who are following a call toward ordination as
deacons or priests – Rita Kendagor, Jean Long, Ryan Zavacky, and Adam James – and
others are at an earlier stage in the listening process. I think that’s amazing. It’s a testimony to these individuals’ faithfulness
in responding to God’s claim on their lives – and, it’s a testimony to the
power of having others walking with you as you listen to discern what God’s calling
you into. They’ve each talked with me,
or Fr. Jeff, or Mtr. Anne, or Deacon Bruce – or, more likely, all of us. And they’ve each spent hours talking and
listening with the members of our Discernment Commission, a group of powerfully
faithful souls committed to helping others hear God’s call. That community of listening hearts is essential,
because I think when God asks something significant of us, God comes to us in
the people around us, helping us hear what the next step should be. So, when you’re trying to act faithfully, when
you’re trying to paint in the dark, find other faithful folks; and listen to
God, together.
Here’s another best practice, I
think: Act first in love. As our presiding bishop, Michael Curry likes
to say, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” And often, that means acting in ways that are
going to cost us something. We follow a
God who came among us, as the Gospel reading today says, ready to “be lifted up”
on a cross in order to lift all of us up into eternal life (John 3:14). So, we shouldn’t be surprised that following that
model of love is costly.
This morning, we’re experiencing an
example of that kind of faithful action, of giving something up for the sake of
others. As you all know, our nation and
our world are trying to manage the risks of infection with coronavirus as new
cases appear in new places daily. We
know we can take important steps to keep ourselves and others safe, things like
washing hands well and frequently, staying home when we’re sick, and coughing
into tissues, not our hands. But here in
a church community, we have to discern how to act faithfully given the reality
that some significant parts of our common life revolve around physical intimacy. We hug a lot here. We shake hands a lot here. And every week, we share this deeply intimate
meal of Holy Communion, where the sacramental mystery involves receiving God’s
own self in our own hands, taking Jesus’ body into our bodies, and all from a
common plate and cup.
There’s always some risk of infection in
that, despite the steps we take to use hand sanitizer before Communion, and to
wipe the chalice carefully – and, for you, trying not to dip your fingers in
the wine when you intinct. So, we’ve had
to discern how to act first in love as we respond to the risk of coronavirus
infection. We’ve decided – for now – to
stop touching each other in the Peace and other greetings, to stop passing the
collection plates, and to stop serving the consecrated wine during
Communion. I particularly don’t like
that last one; and I’m guessing for many of you, it will be upsetting not to
receive the cup of salvation. But we’re
taking this step in order to act first in love.
Here’s what I mean: Honestly, many
of us are at pretty low risk of infection.
But many of us – because of age or compromised immune status – many of
us are at higher risk. And we need to protect
those at risk, even if it means giving something up. That’s the loving action to take.
OK, here’s the third best practice for
following God’s call faithfully, the third tip for how to paint in the dark: Take the step. Listening together is essential, and choosing
the path of sacrificial love is key. And
then, we have to go, even though we can’t quite see where we’re going. “You must be born from above,” Jesus tells Nicodemus. What? “How
can these things be?” Nicodemus asks. (John 3:3,9) I’m not sure how to do that, or where it will
take me, if I step out and follow you, Nicodemus is thinking. I’m a religious leader, and it might cost me
a lot to follow this rebel who turns over tables in the Temple and claims to
come directly from God. I get it, Jesus
tells him. Take the step anyway.
If you want to see that kind of faith in
action, you can look right across the street.
Six weeks from today, we’ll kick off a new worship opportunity at HJ’s
called “Trailside,” a chance for people who probably wouldn’t be here otherwise
to find their path with God. The service
there will start at 10:45 a.m., and the worship will involve most of the same
things that happen in worship here: praising God in song, reading the Bible,
hearing a sermon or a kids’ sermon, proclaiming our ancient faith, praying for
ourselves and our world, and sharing Holy Communion. But the music will be more accessible and
familiar to modern ears, with keyboard and guitar rather than organ. And the person leading all this won’t be an
ordained person, at least not yet. Jean Long,
our minister for children, youth, young adults, and families – one of the four
people I mentioned on the path to ordination – she’ll be the worship leader. And the preacher here at 10:15 will go across
the street after the sermon to preach at Trailside … with just notes, not a text,
trusting the Spirit to blow hard enough to keep him from falling on his face.
Now, if you know me at all, you can
probably figure this is not exactly in my comfort zone. Dr. Tom has done worship like this in several
places, thank God. But not me. And certainly not Jean Long. And not the people who will be serving as
hosts for this experience that we’ve never done before. We’ve heard a clear call, that now’s the time
to create a new way to draw people into the loving family that is St. Andrew’s,
to open a new door in a new facility into a new experience of praise and refreshment
and thanksgiving. Everything tells me
the time is right … but … Jesus, how can these things be? I get it, Jesus says. Take the step anyway.
The direction God asks us to take is not
always clear. As Jesus tells Nicodemus, God’s
call is like the wind: powerfully present but invisible, and impossible for us
to control. We don’t know where it comes
from or where it’s going, any more than we can see the future that lies ahead
for us, any more than we can see the picture we’re painting in the dark. But, like Abram, we go ahead and take the
next step. We listen together, we choose
the path of love, and we go. We go
without guarantees that each step is right. But we go with the guarantee that the purpose
is right, because the purpose is God’s and not our own. And we go with the guarantee that what awaits us
at the end of the journey is right and a good and joyful thing– in fact the very
best thing: God’s embrace and God’s empowerment, forever. “For God so loved the world that he gave his
only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have
everlasting life” (John 3:16). With that
as our promise, we can rest assured that, if the steps we take are faithful, the
trail will take us there.
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