The Key to Saving Sermon

The Business Section of this morning's paper contains the headline
“The key to Saving is to start small and stay Consistent.” While that may be true economically, the proclamation is also true in Faith,“The key to Saving is to start Small and stay Consistent.”

Within the Church, community and businesses of Central NY, there is a perception that we have been stuck, there has been such a long history of business closings, membership losses, legal and governmental battles, that hopes and dreams and Destiny have postponed. Of late, I have been working with different groups of elected leaders to try to discern and teach leadership, getting unstuck and starting fresh. Time and again, we come back to this same basic precept, start small and stay consistent.

Check your assumptions, because there are so many daily pressures upon us in the moments of decision making, it is too easy to react, to become defensive, to remain stuck. We need at the most foundational level, to name our assumptions for ourselves. WHO AM I? WHAT DO I WANT? We CENTER OURSELVES on what is most vital, most basic. Being clear in our own minds, we then share with one another in a small group OUR COMMON ASSUMPTIONS, finding consistencies and commonalities. Then, step by step, we begin to foster a dream, a shared dream of new possibilities, what seemed impossible, illogical, there were so many roadblocks and logical reasons why not, but with a shared dream, built on consistent small steps, the impossible becomes possible. Cancers are found and cured. Businesses thrive. Warring peoples, even within a family, learn to trust and believe in something new.

Universally, the scholars agree, that tis passage in Genesis is THE CRITICAL PIECE in the whole book, even in the whole Old Testament. In Chapter 15 Abraham changes from FOLLOWING GOD TO BELIEVING anything is possible, even believing God.
Yet, the same authorities have been perplexed by the Chapter prior and what comes after. In Chapter 14, Lot and the soldiers of Gomorrah go into battle against the kings and armies of four neighboring nations. Abraham's nephew Lot is taken captive, Abraham goes to his rescue, and like Gideon or Samson, Abraham at the tender age of 95 defeats the four kings and their armies. Melchizedek, the Priest and Prince of the territory known as Salem, who also believes in God blesses Abraham and offers him reward. Melchizedek is ever named again. The names of the four kings and their territories do not coincide with any known histories. SO why is this here?

A problem of our current time, is that we know too much. We have inherited all the affirmations and conclusions of earlier peoples, and all things are not helpful to us at the same time. There are occasions, when we need to carefully de-construct the conclusions we have been given, and question differing conclusions as we reassemble the pieces. In the Middle Ages, in Europe, the Scholars of the Bible tried to make the reading and digesting of texts more available by assigning Chapters and Verses. While the Commentator Paul Harvey was known to announce in his broadcasts, PAGE TWO, neither Jesus nor the Evangelist Luke in the New Testament, nor Abraham described their actions or words with Chapters and Verses. SO, what would happen, if we do not try to settle all the questions of Chapter 14, before taking up Chapter 15, but instead read them as small significant pieces that fit together and reinforce consistent conclusions. What we take away from this is that LOT and the Sinful men of Gomorrah waged war against their neighbors. Abraham had been uninvolved, until his nephew was captured, then out of loyalty and love, he went to rescue his companion LOT. While the armies and weapons of destruction had captured LOT, nothing could restrain the LOVE & DEVOTION of Abraham the Man of God. Afterwards, Melchizedek is willing and able to give to Abraham reward or payment for vanquishing their enemy, and Abraham refuses any reward from Melchizedek, the Prince and Priest of Salem, all he receives from Melchizedek is a blessing. TO WHICH, God Almighty then offers Reward to Abraham, not for conquering an enemy, not for winning a war, but for REMAINING FAITHFUL CONSISTENT DEVOTED TO THOSE HE LOVES.

The Obstacle to Faith for Abraham is sex. Abraham has followed God for years. Abraham has trusted and known that God would provide for him and his family as he worked hard. BUT ABRAHAM is now 95 years old and Sarah 80, they are stuck, they have never been able to conceive, they cannot imagine it, the heir to Abraham will be the child of his slave Eleazar of Damascus. And God says, NO a slave is a slave, a child is part of you by adoption or from your own loins.

Having shared this basic assumption between God and Abraham, and the assumption that Abraham should be rewarded for faithfulness (Mechizedek had said so), God invites Abraham to go out in the night and count the stars as assurance of what God can do. IN RESPONSE Abraham made a sacrifice.

There is an enormous shift here, a commitment not only to follow and do your best, but to trust and believe. All my life, I had thought that if you apply yourself, you succeed. This is the basic cultural lesson of education. You can choose to fail, or you can choose to participate. If you choose to participate, you can do what is required to the best of your ability and earn the C or perhaps a B. If you truly apply yourself and seek additional ways to learn, you just might earn an A. As a minister, I also believed that simply because you had failed, this was never THE END, that there were always other ways, additional possibilities, forgiveness and as many second chances at life as we are willing to apply ourselves. But the COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM is something else again. INCREASINGLY in these years after turning 40, there have been circumstance, chronic illnesses, aging, that no matter how we apply ourselves, we cannot work harder to make a difference. When logic dictates that we are stuck, and still to hope, still to love, to believe, these are the basic assumptions, the small consistent ways of saving. Salvation not in the sense of knowing the moment and date in time when you were destined to go to Heaven or to Hell. But SALVATION in the living of this life, as living the Covenant DREAM of Abraham with God. Salvation is a mater for God, Christ and the Holy Spirit, for all Humanity, but what we can do are the small sacrifices, of real devotion, when having tried our best, and knowing forgiveness we try all the more, then we come to a CROSSROADS of what we will believe, whether dreams will be realities, AND WE CHOOSE TO MAKE AN AFFIRMATION.

This evening at 9:00 I believe on the Cable Discovery Channel is another lace where we MAY need to take small consistent steps, regarding our affirmations. New discoveries and interpretations have been made of a discovery from 30 years ago. Underneath an Apartment building in Jerusalem, someone discovered a burial crypt. Down inside, were burial caskets, with inscriptions, that these were the mortal remains of Mary, Jesus, Mary Magdalene and the son of Jesus. IF, and there are MANY who dispute these conclusions, but if these were the mortal remains of our Jesus, this does not cast doubt on the RESURRECTION. If anything, it may provide historic proof, that the one who was crucified, suffered and died, was RESURRECTED and had a family. THE SMALL STEP that is challenged is the ASCENSION. After the resurrection, did he physically ascend to heaven to sit at the right hand of God? Like, unpacking the separation of a consistent and interdependent story into chapters, needing to be re-interpreted, the Church may well need to reinterpret the conclusions of our AFFIRMATIONS, but this does not THREATEN OUR FAITH, or THE LOVE OF GOD!

In this passage Jesus named another of the obstacles to faith. The Pharisees thought it was Herod, One King Herod had killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem when Jesus was an infant, now another King Herod had beheaded John the Baptist and was threatening to kill Jesus. But Jesus was unafraid of authorities or governments. What truly troubled him, what has come each of the last several weeks in our readings of Scripture, is that God can only help us with what we are wiling to take on. Jesus' analogy is that he is like a Mother Hen trying to protect, shelter and nurture all the children of God, but like little chicks in the barnyard we scatter and stand alone, unwilling to accept help, unable to change if we are not able to address the real circumstances that cause us to be stuck.

This week I was asked to address a real world circumstance, to question and to explain PASTORALLY and SPIRITUALLY about a Sexual Matter. When in Sudan, the leaders had
nervously asked, this Clinic you promise to build will address childhood diseases, labor and delivery of childbirth, dehydration, and emergency wounds. IT SEEMS INAPROPRIATE T ASK A MAN OF GOD, but what about sexually transmitted diseases.
This week the question came from a local reporter, concerning the Human Papillova Virus and the Equation with Cervical Cancer, and whether a VACCINE should be mandatory for teen-aged girls?
My response is that I am not a Doctor of Medicine, not a biologist or chemist. I do have training in Medical Ethics, and do serve on the Ethics Boards of differing hospitals, so I cannot address the medical issues, but the pastoral and spiritual issues. WHAT I BELIEVE, is that more than any other circumstance in history, this has given us as PARENTS the OPPORTUNITY to talk with our children about the realities of SEX. Rather than morally condemning all sex, or sex outside of marriage, this circumstance, MANDATES our talking. According to the National Center for Disease Control 50% of Women in America between the ages of 20 and 24 have been exposed to this Virus, 25% of all women n America. This Virus CAN be known to cause some varieties of Cancer. AND he Vaccine is effective if administered prior to any exposure.

The question is NOT whether people should have sex outside of marriage, but rather, as stated to ABRAHAM :You have been faithful and loving and protective of family; you know the realities of sex (Abraham was 95 Sarah 80) (This Virus has been known to cause Cancer, 50% of women 20-24 have the virus in their bloodstream), WILL YOU TAKE THE SMALL STEP of sharing your ASSMPTIONS, and The CONSISTENT ACT of sharing your HOPES AND DREAMS talking with your family, in AFFIRMAION?