TRAVELLING WITH GOD JUNE 5TH GENESIS 12:1-9
One of my interests over the years has been local and family history. My cousin, Anne, has spent much time painstakingly researching the history of the family of our respective mothers. She has gone back to the 1500s and it seems that our direct ancestors of the line researched are consistently located in three parishes. True, both of my grandfathers mined abroad, one in Chile and one in South Africa, but both came back to the parishes from which they came.
My late mother was certainly an example of someone who liked to stay where she was familiar. Her whole life was spent in one town, Redruth, and she found it hard to understand those who moved away as have most of my generation. I still remember her shock that her sister was moving to, horrror of horrors, Devon - for they people the other side of the Tamar wouldn’t be like us Cornish folk! How much greater her shock when I with my family crossed not just a county barrier but went off shore to the Isle of Man. And in a way I can understand how she thought for whilst I never regretted that move, occasionally on a not so good day, I would feel stranded as I looked out from Douglas Bay and saw the last boat of the day sailing out beyond the horizon. I guess all of us have a tendency to be happiest with the familiar.
Yet today, we look to the story of Abraham who having moved with his father’s family from Ur which is probably in today’s Southern Iraq to Haran which is in the area of the Syrian/Turkish border, now receives the call to go South down to Canaan, a land which includes present day Israel - only this time he is told by God to leave behind the things of the past. Given his age, it must have been a traumatic step to leave the things which had represented security. Indeed, the evidence is that Ur where he came from originally offered much more economically than Canaan and yet Abram’s obedience to the Divine call makes him a hero of faith and one who is even described as a ‘friend of God.’
But this story is about more than a physical move by Abram. The background is that the stories of early Genesis suggest that God has dealt with all creation and met with rebellion. Now comes the dawning of hope and it begins not with all creation, not even with one nation but with one person. Abram becomes God’s man but the purpose of this is made clear in God’s promise that through Abram the nations of the world will be blessed. And intererestingly, three faiths see in this man, one to whom they owe much. For before there was the Law, Abram obeyed and even trusted.
But Abram’s story is not a straightforward story. At times he is not particularly likeable. He is a man who to protect his own skin, tells an Egyptian Pharaoh that his wife is his sister, therefore sacrificing her virtue for his safety. In response to the promise of a child, he hurries God’s promise by making his wife’s slave girl pregnant. He has a difficult relationship with the inhabitants of Canaan and as for his treatment of his sons, I guess that today any family of his would be put by Social Services onto the ‘at risk’ register. Do you get the picture? This is a deeply flawed man and in many ways his journey is a spiritual journey. Standing still can not be an option. He has a need to grow to be the person that God would have him be. And there, we can find a message to ourselves. Like Abram, we are not all that we should be and like him we are called on a journey, not necessarily a journey to far off places but a journey of going closer to what God wants us to be. For Abram, it includes a change in his understanding of God as elsewhere in Scripture we find that he had been a worshipper of many Gods which is not surprisingly considering where his roots were. For us, we still have much to learn about God and what it means to be God’s people. Like Abram, we need to be open to God changing our vision. And is not that an important part of living in faith, that our vision of what it is to be truly human and what it is to be God’s people, get challenged? Think back into Christian history and contemplate a foul mouthed slaver named John Newton, who is touched by God and becomes not only an Anglican clergyman who writes hymns but a campaigner against the very system of slavery in which he once was so involved. And in other fields such as prison reform, reconciliation between races and more recently that great cause of our time, the eradication of the extreme poverty that blights the continent of Africa, amongst those who have offered new vision have been those whose perspective has been transformed by God.
In all of this, our first point of reference is flawed old Abram, a man who shows us that our flaws and shortcomings are no obstacle to being called on a journey with God. For God so often brings out the best from the worst.
And in all of this, paramount is the capacity of God to do things beyond our wildest imagination and dreams. In the case of Abram and Sarai, the Divine purpose is to be fulfilled through, yes, the seemingly impossible. Advanced in years and unable to have the children that were in those days deemed essential, God promises to make Abram into a great nation. The Impossible Dream! Yes but the message here seems to be telling us that when God is at work, the impossible can become the reality. The barriers that we are so concentrated on can like Iron Curtains or even Apartheid, come crumbling down. For in the scheme of things, God’s Kingdom is so much stronger than the power centres which we look to. And here, in an impossible promise, God reveals to Abram the means by which God will draw fractured humanity into relationship with the Divine.
But what does all this say to us? I think that we are called on a journey of discovery with God. We do not know where it will take us. Baggage that we hold dear may have to be jettisoned for that which is more worthwhile. We may at times appear to be counter cultural or even totally crazy. But as a man called Paul once wrote, that which we deem to be God’s folly is much greater that that which we deem to be our wisdom. In our lives, in this church, and indeed in our nation, God calls us not just to accept what is but to be guided by God to what is better. Travelling with God may be at times bumpy but it is creatively bumpy and if we are to be faithful in our commitment made to James earlier in this service, surely we need to be getting on to God’s bus and moving forwards with God.
This sermon was preached at Bideford on June 5th at a service in which a boy whose first name is James was baptised.
My late mother was certainly an example of someone who liked to stay where she was familiar. Her whole life was spent in one town, Redruth, and she found it hard to understand those who moved away as have most of my generation. I still remember her shock that her sister was moving to, horrror of horrors, Devon - for they people the other side of the Tamar wouldn’t be like us Cornish folk! How much greater her shock when I with my family crossed not just a county barrier but went off shore to the Isle of Man. And in a way I can understand how she thought for whilst I never regretted that move, occasionally on a not so good day, I would feel stranded as I looked out from Douglas Bay and saw the last boat of the day sailing out beyond the horizon. I guess all of us have a tendency to be happiest with the familiar.
Yet today, we look to the story of Abraham who having moved with his father’s family from Ur which is probably in today’s Southern Iraq to Haran which is in the area of the Syrian/Turkish border, now receives the call to go South down to Canaan, a land which includes present day Israel - only this time he is told by God to leave behind the things of the past. Given his age, it must have been a traumatic step to leave the things which had represented security. Indeed, the evidence is that Ur where he came from originally offered much more economically than Canaan and yet Abram’s obedience to the Divine call makes him a hero of faith and one who is even described as a ‘friend of God.’
But this story is about more than a physical move by Abram. The background is that the stories of early Genesis suggest that God has dealt with all creation and met with rebellion. Now comes the dawning of hope and it begins not with all creation, not even with one nation but with one person. Abram becomes God’s man but the purpose of this is made clear in God’s promise that through Abram the nations of the world will be blessed. And intererestingly, three faiths see in this man, one to whom they owe much. For before there was the Law, Abram obeyed and even trusted.
But Abram’s story is not a straightforward story. At times he is not particularly likeable. He is a man who to protect his own skin, tells an Egyptian Pharaoh that his wife is his sister, therefore sacrificing her virtue for his safety. In response to the promise of a child, he hurries God’s promise by making his wife’s slave girl pregnant. He has a difficult relationship with the inhabitants of Canaan and as for his treatment of his sons, I guess that today any family of his would be put by Social Services onto the ‘at risk’ register. Do you get the picture? This is a deeply flawed man and in many ways his journey is a spiritual journey. Standing still can not be an option. He has a need to grow to be the person that God would have him be. And there, we can find a message to ourselves. Like Abram, we are not all that we should be and like him we are called on a journey, not necessarily a journey to far off places but a journey of going closer to what God wants us to be. For Abram, it includes a change in his understanding of God as elsewhere in Scripture we find that he had been a worshipper of many Gods which is not surprisingly considering where his roots were. For us, we still have much to learn about God and what it means to be God’s people. Like Abram, we need to be open to God changing our vision. And is not that an important part of living in faith, that our vision of what it is to be truly human and what it is to be God’s people, get challenged? Think back into Christian history and contemplate a foul mouthed slaver named John Newton, who is touched by God and becomes not only an Anglican clergyman who writes hymns but a campaigner against the very system of slavery in which he once was so involved. And in other fields such as prison reform, reconciliation between races and more recently that great cause of our time, the eradication of the extreme poverty that blights the continent of Africa, amongst those who have offered new vision have been those whose perspective has been transformed by God.
In all of this, our first point of reference is flawed old Abram, a man who shows us that our flaws and shortcomings are no obstacle to being called on a journey with God. For God so often brings out the best from the worst.
And in all of this, paramount is the capacity of God to do things beyond our wildest imagination and dreams. In the case of Abram and Sarai, the Divine purpose is to be fulfilled through, yes, the seemingly impossible. Advanced in years and unable to have the children that were in those days deemed essential, God promises to make Abram into a great nation. The Impossible Dream! Yes but the message here seems to be telling us that when God is at work, the impossible can become the reality. The barriers that we are so concentrated on can like Iron Curtains or even Apartheid, come crumbling down. For in the scheme of things, God’s Kingdom is so much stronger than the power centres which we look to. And here, in an impossible promise, God reveals to Abram the means by which God will draw fractured humanity into relationship with the Divine.
But what does all this say to us? I think that we are called on a journey of discovery with God. We do not know where it will take us. Baggage that we hold dear may have to be jettisoned for that which is more worthwhile. We may at times appear to be counter cultural or even totally crazy. But as a man called Paul once wrote, that which we deem to be God’s folly is much greater that that which we deem to be our wisdom. In our lives, in this church, and indeed in our nation, God calls us not just to accept what is but to be guided by God to what is better. Travelling with God may be at times bumpy but it is creatively bumpy and if we are to be faithful in our commitment made to James earlier in this service, surely we need to be getting on to God’s bus and moving forwards with God.
This sermon was preached at Bideford on June 5th at a service in which a boy whose first name is James was baptised.
posted by Rev Paul Martin at 12:44 PM
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