Friends, we are focusing on very familiar stories from the Old Testament over the next few weeks. Last week, our focus was on Noah and his family. Noah was faithful to God in a time of widespread disharmony. God commissioned Noah to build an ark – Noah and his family stayed on the ark for almost a year when the earth was flooded. They cared for and protected many animals – after the flood waters receded, God made a covenant with Noah, his family and the animals and promised to never destroy the earth with floodwaters.
This week, we turn the first of the Biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs – Abraham and Sarah. Abraham and Sarah were from the ancient Sumerian city of Ur – in what is now Southern Iraq. They were called by God to migrate to a new land – to leave their homeland forever. In doing so, by listening to God, they became the ancestors of the three Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.
Let us listen to the Call of Abraham as we turn to Genesis chapter 12, verses one through nine:
The Scripture Genesis 12:1-9
1 The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.
5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.
7 The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.
9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.
Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Prayer before Message: Open our ears, Holy One, to hear your still-speaking voice. As the scriptures are read and spoken today, disturb our complacency, comfort our anxieties, and guide our steps onto your paths. Amen.
The Message Call of Abraham
Most of the people who attend Trinity did not grow up in this community – a handful of us did, but the rest of us grew up somewhere else. Many of us grew up in the city, or a city, or in older suburbs that are closer to the Philadelphia city limits. But, we chose to move to Skippack or Harleysville or Collegeville. We came here for different reasons, but there are few common threads – low-crime, good schools, access to parks and trails, and peace and quiet. We moved here because this place felt safe.
Abraham did the opposite. He left the safety and security of his father’s house, where his relatives and friends all lived and protected each other, and ventured out into the unknown. Jerusalem is 815 miles away from the location of the ancient city of Ur in modern-day Iraq. Eight-hundred and fifteen miles away from everything Abraham ever knew – safety, family, predictability…..Abraham literally stepped into the great unknown.
In this season of the church year, we are reflecting on God’s covenants with God’s people. Last week, we read the story of God’s covenant with Noah and the animals – God promised to never destroy the earth with water again, and in turn, Noah and the animals promised to restore the earth – to repopulate it, to fill it with people and animals who are striving to live together in harmony.
This morning, we turn to God’s covenant with Abraham. We hear the story of Abraham’s call – God chose Abraham and Sarah – a couple who struggled with infertility – to become the ancestors of God’s chosen people. God chose a couple who weren’t able to have children to become the parents of countless generations – some of those generations related them biologically through the miraculous birth of Isaac, and the rest of us related to them through adoption as a result of our faith in Jesus Christ.
Each place where Abraham and Sarah touched down, and set up their tent and stayed awhile, became a place where Abraham also set up an altar to worship God. In today’s reading, Abraham built two altars – one at the site of the Great Tree of Morah in Shechem (now the modern day West Bank of Palestine). The other Altar was built east of Bethel and west of Ai – still in the modern day West Bank.
The names of the towns to the east and west of this altar are significant….Bethel means “House of God” and Ai means “Ruin.” So, Abraham’s altar was between the house of God and Ruin – a middle place – a place that isn’t perfect, isn’t quite safe, isn’t quite predictable.
We also live our lives in that middle place – we spend time interacting with the holy, with God. We pray, we worship, we participate in the work of the church, we endeavor to help people in need. But, we are also interacting with “ruin” – our world often feels like a perilous place. We drive our cars and sometimes just avoid accidents with distracted drivers. We eat out at restaurants and sometimes go home with an upset stomach. We get unwelcome diagnoses, and our dish washers break down, and we worry about our children and grandchildren and nieces. Our lives are also teetering between hope and heartbreak, between goodness and ruin.
And, that is all the more reason we need our faith. This is why we need a relationship with our God…. to keep balanced…. to keep the ruin part of our lives from weighing us down.
Worshipping God was so important to Abraham that he built an altar wherever he put up his tent. We need to make sure we are also connecting with God wherever we are. Worship is not only for Sunday morning – we can pray wherever we are, whenever we can. When I was a little girl, my Sunday School teacher took the bus to work every day. She told me she often prayed the whole ride to work – We can pray when we are driving…we can pray when we are waiting in line at the grocery store…we can pray in the shower ... .We can pray when we are walking on the treadmill at the YMCA.
We also must work to carve out time in our busy days to read the Bible. The words of God are inspiring and comforting. In the Bible, we read the stories of the people God called upon to do God’s work in the world – people who were imperfect and inconsistent – people like us. God tells us to “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds.” Reading the Bible helps us remember the words of God, so that they are permanently etched in our hearts and minds.
Part of the way we worship God is through service. Helping other people and helping the church are ways to honor God…..volunteering at the Daily Bread Food Pantry…helping to sort the white elephant items….singing in the Choir….bagging trash at a Perkiomen Stream clean up. God has given us the responsibility to care for God’s creation, to care for each other, and to extend the reach of God’s church. We worship God through serving beyond our own needs.
Abraham demonstrated his devotion to God in ways that we would find very difficult….he travelled away from his home to a distant land, a place with no predictability or safety for him or his immediate family. He heard God’s promise to make him and Sarah the parents of billions of offspring, and trusted God to fulfill that promise despite infertility and advanced age. Abraham worshipped God everywhere he went – when he set up his tent, he also set up an altar.
Let us work to be like Abraham and Sarah – let us work to put our trust in God and God’s plan for us. Let us be brave if God calls us to do unlikely or uncomfortable things. Let us work to worship God wherever we are, not only in formal settings like we are part of right now, but also through our prayers, through reading God’s word and by serving God’s world.
I pray we will do all these things with love in our hearts today and all days. Amen.
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