Sermon, Sun 9 Oct, wk6: 'Faith'... WMRBW

1st READING: Genesis 12: 1-9
2nd READING: Genesis 15

SERMON
Let’s pray: May the words of my mouth and the
meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, our strength and our redeemer, Amen.

Out of interest, a quick straw poll:
hands up if you’ve seen ‘The Sound of Music’?
Most of you...
If you can remember...
cast your mind back to the very, very beginning –
the opening sequence of the film...
Imagine the lights have all dimmed, you’ve got your popcorn,
or chocolate, or ice cream at the ready, and you’re nicely settled in...
The scene opens – and you’re flying high, high in the sky –
as if on wings of an eagle you swoop among the clouds.
Great mountains – the Alps - come into view,
in the background, flutes mimic the breeze,
there’s the sound of subdued horns playing,
and somewhere, a church bell rings...
you’re moving faster now as the music begins to build,
and as you look down, through the clearing clouds,
a green meadow on a hilltop...
and a tiny, tiny figure.
The camera moves from the vast cinemascope of alps
and zooms in at speed, on the figure –
da...da... da... daaaaah...
and, as she comes into close range,
the music breaks over you:
the woman spins around, dramatically bursting into song:
‘the hills are alive...’
and ‘bang’, there you are – right into the film.

It’s possibly one of the most extraordinary openings to a movie –
and yes, it is one of my favourite movies.
But that opening sequence – from vast, amazing panoramic view,
to sudden focus upon an individual...
is, in a sense, what’s happening here in the Book of Genesis...
although... without the flutes and brass and Julie Andrews bursting into song.

For the first 11 chapters of Genesis,
it’s as if the set in this particular drama is the entire world
and the action itself is huge in scope, exploring big themes:
the great stories of creation,
the not quite so great stories of humans messing up –
stories of violence and corruption and rebellion.
There’s destruction on a global scale by flood –
this, as an attempt by God to try and start afresh,
to wash all the muck and mess away.
But then, it’s followed by a rainbow promise that,
no matter how badly humans mess up,
such great devastation will not happen again.
But – even despite the flood,
despite the new start,
the old pattern comes back:
immediately following the flood story, humans manage to mess up yet again –
and we have a story of human pride, seen in the building of the tower of Babel,
resulting in the scattering of human beings around the world,
and the fracturing of common language into many languages –
from Babel, we get ‘babble’.
So, here we’ve had big, broad, brushstrokes of stories –
stories which, while differing in details, all follow a pattern:
God creates,
humans mess up.

But then, in Genesis, chapter 12, the focus begins to change:
from looking at the wider world,
the camera zooms in...picking out an individual –
and now, Abram, and his family are in close view.
It’s as if God decides upon a different course of action:
‘if punishing all the earth was an ineffective means of dealing with sin, 
perhaps establishing a relationship with one individual would work.’ 
                                                      [Mark Throntveit, Working Preacher] 
Moving from general, to specific,
God takes this particular individual and his wife,
and chooses to work through them –
to call them,
to bless them,
and, in so doing,
through them,      
to bless others.
Through choosing Abram, God begins the work of building, once more:
building a relationship with all human beings.
God begins the work of reconciliation:
‘This quest for relationship is the purpose that drives God's choice, 
God has called Abram into service, and he will become the means 
by which God's ultimate purpose for the salvation of all will be realized.’ [Throntveit]

But just who is this Abram, the main protagonist of our story?
What do we know of him?
Well, we get a little background in chapter 11:
he’s the son of a chap called Terah.
And, tracing his roots, if I have my sums right,
Abram’s about tenth down the line from Noah.
There are also a couple of brothers.
Originally, they were all living in a place called Ur – an early, and great city-state.
There’s a couple of schools of thought on where that might have been:
southern Turkey has a claim,
but it’s also possible that it may have been to the south of Iraq.

Anyway, at some point, Terah decides he wants to head off, to travel to Canaan.
The family never actually get there;
instead, they cheerfully settle at a place named Haran.
Things seemingly work out well for family seem to prosper.
Eventually, Terah dies at the end of chapter 11.
And, here, at the beginning of chapter 12,
God has already called Abram,
asking him to leave his country,
his people,
and his father’s household –
basically, to leave the comforts of home, and everything he’d ever known,
and head off to an unknown destination.
‘Go’ says God...
and then several promises follow this request to leave:
‘‘I will make you a great nation...’
‘I will bless you...’
‘I will make your name great...’
‘all people on earth will be blessed through you.’

Now, if this were actually a Hollywood film,
the next bit of the story would probably have been portrayed
quite a bit more dramatically –
perhaps flashing lights,
great choirs of angels singing,
and Abram falling to his feet, making some memorable speech.
But this isn’t the movies and none of that happens.
God makes the request, and in the very next sentence, we hear:
‘so Abram left, as the Lord told him.’
But he doesn’t go alone:
his nephew Lot heads off with him, as does his wife Sarai.
And he doesn’t go away empty-handed:
the family’s done well for itself –
and Abram’s not leaving without all the possessions –
and the people that they’d acquired while living in Haran.
It’s quite a substantial company,
with quite substantial goods.

Again, if this were a movie,
surely there’d be dramatic depictions of this first part of the journey,
and of adventures on the way.
But no.
Simply, ‘they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.’
Abram then starts exploring the land,
checking it out, from north to south,
building the occasional altar on the way.
And, at the end of our reading in chapter 12,
he’s way down south, and will move into Egypt due to a famine.
Over the next few chapters he manages to increase his wealth –
a way of symbolising God’s blessing –
has a run in with the Pharaoh and is ordered to leave;
heads back up to what will become known as the Promised Land;
parts company with Lot, then rescues him when he’s taken captive;
and continues to increase his wealth along the way.
That’s the whistle-stop tour until we finally arrive at chapter 15.

From the original call and promise –
including that of becoming a great nation –
many, many years have passed.
Abram and Sarai have continued to follow God –
sometimes brilliantly well,
sometimes less well...
They’ve been faithful.
And they’ve waited a long time for some sign
of that bit about becoming a great nation...
there’s been a suspicious lack of the sound of the pitter-patter of tiny feet.
At the beginning of chapter 15, Abram is told by God, that God is his great reward.
And, in response, Abram virtually says to God:
‘that’s all very well...but what’s the point? Where are the offspring?’
Sure, he’s become a hugely wealthy man,
but has it, and the decision to follow this God,
been worth it when, in the end, it’ll be his servant who’ll end up inheriting?
Abram, who has taken such a great step of faith,
who has taken God at God’s word and followed the call
over many adventures, and many years... Abram’s needing a little reassurance.
Moving Abram out from his tent,
the vast night sky, filled with countless stars, is shown to him.
‘Look at that – count the stars, if you can –
your offspring will be as numerous as the stars.’
And Abram’s faith is restored – and possibly not just on that particular night.
The stars were there, always a reminder of the promise.
It would happen.
And the years to the final fulfilment of that promise stretched out to another 14, at least.

We’ll hear more of Abram next week,
Abram, who will later be renamed ‘Abraham’,
meaning ‘ancestor of many nations’.
Meantime, what do we learn here about God:
of God’s relationship with human beings,
and of our relationship with God as we journey in faith?
God  doesn’t give up.
Despite the initial break in the relationship way back in the Garden,
despite the widening of the relationship gap by human beings...
God doesn’t give up on wanting to be in relationship with us.
And tries again and again and again...
until, a change in the way of seeing things
moves God to focus in on the particular...
to begin building a relationship with human beings on
a one on one basis, starting with Abram.
To begin with a call to follow, to trust...
and to be met with a response:
a willingness to see what might happen.
To begin by sharing a blessing with one but not hoarding the blessing –
for the one blessed becomes an agent of blessing...
until all human beings are blessed...
To change from working on a broad canvass and working in,
to working on a smaller frame and working out.

We glimpse the grace and the generosity of God:
the promise is given to Abram before he even does anything...
and the promise is for all,
not to be jealously guarded,
not to be locked away and used only for some...
God is gloriously, generously profligate – everyone gets a share of the blessing...
God doesn’t give up –
even when we mess up.
God longs for us to respond to that call to come back –
to be in relationship with him –
to walk with him wherever he takes us.

As we hear again the story of Abram,
we’re reminded that we, too, are part of the story:
for we are the inheritors of the promise.
Here and now, we’re a part of the great ongoing story of God’s people –
a called people:
called to journey in faith;
called to struggle to believe in a world of doubt and cynicism;
called to make a path of love in a world of hate;
called to walk the way of peace in a world of violence;
called to offer hope in a world of despair.
And whether we succeed or fail, ...
in faith, we can take heart.
The writer, Max Lucado says that:                        
‘Faith is the conviction that God knows more 
than we do about this life and he will get us through it.’

Abram lived his whole life journeying in faith –
he saw glimpses of the promise,
but the promise was grand in scale,
and meant for much longer than merely his own lifetime.
And there’s the nub of it:
nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime;
therefore we must be saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense
in any immediate context of history;
therefore we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
therefore, we are saved by love...

In faith, we take heart –
because the God who created the world out of nothing
and raised Jesus Christ from the dead
will not give up on us,
has not given up on us,
and will work through us for the life and well-being of this world.
We share in God’s blessing to be a blessing.

Let’s pray:
Journeying God,
May our faith be a little more wild,
and a little less guarded.
May we wonder a little more,
and fear a little less.
May we dip more than a toe
in the great sea of faith.
And, when we reach out to hold something,
may we find you already holding us.
AMEN