Into Existence

Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
02.17.08; Rev. David Williams

Scripture Lessons: Genesis 12:1-4; Romans 4:1-5; 13-17

Abram must have heard that message with a bit of puzzlement. We’re introduced to Abram at the very end of chapter 11 in the book of Genesis. There, we hear that he’d hung around his Dad’s house through his youth, and deep into his adulthood, ever since his father Terah had packed up some of the family and moved from the bustling Sumerian city-state of Ur into Haran in Canaan, a new country of promise. Once they were there, Abram remained with his father, as he and his wife grew older and older. They couldn’t have kids, because, well, Sarai just couldn’t. So they stayed on with Terah in the family home. It was the place to be.

Terah finally passed on, as the Bible tells us, at the ripe old age of two hundred and five. Now, Abram was the oldest son. According to the customs of the ancient world, everything in the family now belonged to him. All that Terah owned became his, and given how long the old cuss had hung on, he’d waited a looooong time to get his inheritance. You’d think that this would have been the time when Abram would have kicked back, popped open a nice frosty HeBrew, and relaxed his way in comfort through his golden years. But just as he was suddenly freed to do whatever he liked, Abram heard a voice, a calling, a message, that must have sounded impossible in his ears.

Leave all this. Go. There’s something new I want to make of you.

It’s a promise that God repeats over and and over again to Abram. It comes first here, and when Abram hears it, he just takes off and follows it, almost without thinking, like a startled deer. Then the promise comes again in chapter 15, as Abram is deep into his wanderings and deeper into doubt, struggling with the idea that a childless couple could ever found a nation. It comes again in chapters 17 and 18, when God changes Abram’s name to Abraham, and then God blesses Abraham and Sarah with Isaac, their son.

Even though it’s God speaking, both Abraham and Sarah really struggled with the idea that this impossibly bountiful future awaited them. How could it? How could it even be possible? They were old. They were set in their ways. How could there be any real newness coming into their lives? It just didn’t seem possible.

Newness is always a challenge. Pulling up roots and finding a new way of going about your life almost always seems beyond us. Things we don’t yet know, things we haven’t yet seen, these things seem like ghosts to us. Though we try to imagine our future, and sometimes think we have a grasp on it, things almost never turn out the way we anticipate.

If you’ve lived more than five minutes in this world, you know the truth of that. That friend who you thought was always going to be there. That relationship you just knew for sure was the real thing. That degree...or that job...you were sure was going to turn your life around. It seems like there are so many different paths, so many different ways that our lives are going to turn out...and then they don’t. As you watch hopes for change in your life sputter and fail, it’s easy to forget about changing, to forget about growing, to forget about doing anything different. You can settle into a comfortable rut, committing yourself to nothing but what you know, repeating the same patterns over and over again until your every day is like the last. Or, you can give in to cynicism about the possibility of anything different or better than what you now know and do, which is a deeper rut still. Those are the easier paths, the paths that Abram could have taken if he’d just closed his ears.

“What, me move? Nah, I like it here in Haran. I’ve got too much equity in the farm. So why pack up and move? How do I know things’d be better? And kids? Oy, they’re just a pain in the tuchus.” But that’s not how the story went. Abram did have descendants as numerous as the stars. Here we are, and millenia have passed, and we’re still telling his story. Why? Because he and Sarai were willing to commit to a vision that changed them. A vision that not only brought them a new life, but gave new life to an entire people.

It wasn’t that they were perfect. It wasn’t that they had every last detail meticulously planned out. If you read the story of Abram in Genesis 12-24, you’ll find a man who is completely and utterly human. He’s flawed. He doubts. He struggles. He connives. On two separate occasions, he actually pretends that his wife is his sister because he’s not willing to stand up to powerful men who..shall we say...take an interest in her. Wives usually don’t take this kind of thing well once...but twice? This is not exactly the highest and most noble man in the entire universe. He’s just a startlingly ordinary person who trusts what God has shown him.

It’s that trust...that faith...that the Apostle Paul highlights in his letter to the church at Rome. This letter to Rome is perhaps the high point of Paul’s theology, the richest and most detailed Christian expression of what it means to have your life changed by Jesus of Nazareth. In the fourth chapter, Paul uses the promise to Abraham as Exhibit A in the case of God’s grace. The point Paul makes is this: God fulfills God’s promises to Abraham not because Abraham has proven himself worthy through his personal holiness or feats of amazingness. Abraham receives what he receives because he listens and is open to what God is trying to do. He listens, and even when he’s torn by doubts, he has faith. Even when that future seems hard to grasp, he has faith.

Each of us face that kind of challenge in our own lives...and we all face it here together as we gather as a church. We now find ourselves in the second week of the season of Lent, a season of preparation and commitment to the faith. So the question should rightly stand...what are we preparing ourselves for? What is it that we’re looking forward to as a church and as a gathering of Christ’s people?

We know where we’ve been as a church. Just five years ago, this church was looking right over the brink of the abyss. It wasn’t clear where things were going to go, or what future lay before us. We know where we are as a church. Where we are now is a place that I’m not sure folks would have anticipated. This church has one of the most unusual mixes of people I think you’ll find in any Presbyterian church in the area. We have a unique style of worship. I mean that in a truly good way. We have become...for all intents and purposes...a new church, as now more than half of us here weren’t here five years ago. So we, like Abram, have found our way to a new land, to our very own Haran, and settled in for a bit, and it’s been kinda pleasant.

But this isn’t our final destination. What this church has become, what it is now, is only a waypoint on the path to what God has in store for us in our lives together. There’s much more coming. It’s not about growth in numbers, about just making sure we’re filling the pews. It’s not about seeing to it that the plates are full of nice fat envelopes on Sunday.

It’s about finding ways that we together as a church can be better disciples. It’s about realizing that we as a church are free to do things that many other churches couldn’t even attempt. It’s about seeing the possibilities that God has placed before us...and even some of the things that are seemingly impossible...and having enough faith in the God who calls creation itself into existence to press through our doubts and move towards them.

What are those things? Well...I’ll talk about them next week.