"Journey Unknown", March 16, 2014

Genesis 11:31 – 12:4 John 3:1-21 (The Children's Sermon with this was to play Simon Says with the children, then with the whole congregation. Then describe that our Bible reading this morning is about God saying leave your home, your family, everything you know, your teddy bear, etc to go where God leads. It is okay when several of the children respond that they would not want to, because most of us do not want to, BUT Abram did what God commanded.) This morning's Scripture Passages are more than familiar, these provide the Crossroads of our faith! At these intersections, we are called to faith, to leave behind everything we thought we knew, to leave everything that is safe, to GO, and according to Genesis Abram and Sarai went! Genesis 12 is the fulcrum, in that everything until this point follows the pattern of human nature. In the Beginning, Creation was Darkness, a Void, Chaos, there was no light, there was no land, there was no life. Where there was darkness, God called for balance of Light and dark, Night and Day. Where there was a churning sea of waters, God separated the waters over the earth from the waters of the earth, and the waters upon the face of the Earth God separated into Oceans and and Lakes and Rivers and Mist. From the Beginning throughout the first 11 Chapters, everything has followed the familiar pattern of moving from Chaos to Control, from undisciplined to disciplined, from unknown to known. And throughout, there has been this tension in the text. Because, while it is logical, reasoned and orderly, life itself is struggling against the known, the wilderness... the future... faith is calling. At the end of the 11th Chapter of Genesis, Terah this descendant of Seth the firstborn of Noah, takes his family and leaves Ur of the Chaldeans, the place their family had lived and known for generations. Terah had three sons, Abram, Nahor and Haran. Abram had a wife Sarai who was unable to have children, and Haran had a son Lot, and Haran had died. Terah set out and left Ur of the Chaldeans with Abram and Abram's wife Sarai, and Lot the grandson of Terah. Terah got as far as Haran, a place between the Chaldeans and the Canaanites, and there Terah settled, making a home and a life and a future for his family, where he had settled. And God changes the direction of the story! Rather than going from the Unknown to the Known, from Chaos to Control, from All Creation to Adam and Eve, from all Sinful Humanity to Noah, instead God begins with a particular man, Abram. And God called Abram, who we are told was 75 years of age, to GO! Leave behind, the Nation, the Land, the Family you have known, and go into the Unknown, Wander dependent upon God, Trust. There is nothing in the text to suggest that Abram was any different from anyone else in all the world. He had not accomplished great things. He was leaving behind all their possessions. He was to go into a foreign land, a strange world populated by strangers. There is in the Call of Abram a three-fold Calling. Leave WHAT YOU KNOW, Leave the PEOPLE YOU KNOW, Leave what you OWN & CONTROL & POSSESS. Leaving what you know to go on a Journey into the Unknown is to Embrace what you are Ignorant of. Leaving the People you know to wander among strangers is Expanding your Community through Inclusion. Leaving what you possess and own and control in exchange for experiencing what might be, is an Acceptance of our own Impotence regarding the Impossible, and in all this an absolute acceptance Trusting God. Just as God has changed direction here, from Primordial Chaos to Created Order, instead to follow the repercussions of the particular trusting God, accepting others, sharing with family. Abram was Called to Go where God would lead, to be alien in a foreign land, never controlling, never owning, always being frustrated at those attempts. Because Owning and Possessing and Controlling are about making a Past, rather than living into a Future, a future that may not be within your lifetime. Just as the Call of Abram is from what is known to IGNORANCE, INCLUSION and IMPOTENCE, God promises to Bless Abram and through Abram God will bless the world. God promises Abram to become a great Nation with as many generations of children as there are stars in the heavens or grains of sand upon the shore. God promises a Land flowing of their own. We know as Givens, that Sarai is unable to Conceive, that Abram is 75, in terms of conceiving a new Nation they are as good as dead. To Go with God is to leave behind everything Abram and Sarai knew to be true, to be certain, to possess, instead to experience the impossible, the unknown, to expand your circle from yourself to all the world, and to give up control and dominance for the sheer please of living into the future. The entire remainder of Genesis follows Abram following God, Abram becoming the father of Nations, Abram's Son and his son and his son, all wandering among strangers, blessing those who bless them, cursing those who curse them, until they go down to settle in Egypt, where they give up trusting God, give up the Land, and become slaves, which sets up all the rest of the Hebrew Bible, and in so far as Jesus was a descendant of Abram, also sets the direction for the Christian Gospels. There are several different Crossroads throughout the sacred texts, when God the Creator chooses to enter into Creation, when Jesus chooses to kneel down in the waters and be baptized, when the Savior is crucified and rises from the dead, when Peter has three dreams of a great sheet being let down from heaven containing every creature Clean and Unclean together. All these are Crossroads, just as there are many crossroads on the many journeys of our lives. One is of Nicodemus, if ever there were a Biblical figure who represents the 21st Century American, it would be Nicodemus for here is this one, who is self-reliant, self-sufficient, successful and respected. Nicodemus knows that faith in God is important. Nicodemus is a leader in the Synagogue. Nicodemus believes Jesus to be sent from God. But Nicodemus has compartmentalized all these, so as to make life safe. At the time for worship Nicodemus goes to worship. When it is time for a sacrifice Nicodemus makes an offering. But here under the cover of darkness, in the shadows, where you are uncertain exactly the boundaries between different things, Nicodemus came to Jesus. There is no location of place. And Nicodemus was seeking answers, explanations, help me to know. It is important here, to understand that Jesus was not shaming Nicodemus, but he does try to help Nicodemus see the humor in his circumstance. You are an Expert, a Leader, a teacher of the Law, and you do not the answers? What Nicodemus was to have concluded was perhaps faith is not about conclusions. Instead, Nicodemus took everything Jesus said literally as real answers. What Jesus said to Nicodemus in Aramaic was “anathon”, you must be Born Again. Tragically, just like Nicodemus, there have been those who tried to interpret this passage literally, wanting to know the exact date and time when those who are saved were born again. Tragic, because part of the nature of being born again, is that we are born again and again and again, born anew in every experience and relationship. But also, “anathon” has multiple meanings, in addition to being Born again, anathon can mean “Born from Above,” which is to follow the journey into the unknown, interpreting all life as a parable of God. What Jesus was challenging Nicodemus to do in the dark, was to embrace your faith in all of life, letting your belief in God out of the safe compartment we have known. Doing so, we live life differently, we live life by faith.