Sermon: “Abram believed the LORD”
September 20, 2020 Rev. Betsy Perkins
Scripture passage: Genesis 15:1-6 First Baptist Church, Delavan WI
The late congressman John Lewis tells a story from his childhood. He was with a group of about 15 children playing in his Aunt Sevena’s dirt yard when a storm blew up. The sky darkened and the wind picked up. Lightning flashed and suddenly little John wasn’t thinking about playing anymore; he was terrified. Aunt Sevena was the only adult around, so as the sky grew darker and the wind grew stronger, she herded all the children inside.
“Her house was not the biggest place around,” he recalled, “and it seemed even smaller with so many children squeezed inside – small and surprisingly quiet. All the shouting and laughter going on earlier, outside, had stopped. The wind was howling and the house was shaking. We were scared. Even Aunt Sevena was scared. And then it got worse. The house began to sway, the wood plank flooring began to bend. And then a corner of the room started lifting up. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. None of us could. This storm was actually pulling the house [skyward]. With us in it. That was when Aunt Sevena told us, ‘Line up and hold hands.’ We did as we were told. Then she had us walk as a group to the corner of the room that was rising. From the kitchen to the front of the house we walked, the wind screaming outside, sheets of rain beating on the tin roof. Then we walked back in the other direction, as another corner of the house began to lift. And so it went, back and forth, fifteen children walking with the wind, holding that trembling house down with the weight of our small bodies.”
Lewis titled his memoir of the Civil Rights Movement, Walking with the Wind. For it struck him that our society was not unlike that house, rocked again and again by the winds of one storm or another, the walls seeming at times as if they might fly apart. He described the 1960’s as one of those times, when America itself felt like it might burst at the seams –so much tension, so many storms (couldn’t that also describe this year of 2020?). Yet Lewis writes, “the people of conscience never left the house. They never ran away. They stayed, they came together and did the best they could, clasping hands and moving toward the corner of the house that was weakest. And then another corner would lift, and we would go there. And eventually, inevitably, the storm would settle and the house would still stand. But we knew another storm would come, and we would have to do it all over again. And we did.”
When Abram arrives here in chapter 15 of Genesis, he has been through a few storms. He had packed up all his belongings, believing a promise God spoke to him back in the land of Haran. It was a three-fold promise: of fathering a great nation, of being given a land for his people, and of a blessing – for Abram and for all peoples on earth through him. Believing this promise, Abram traveled to the land of Canaan, detouring for a time to Egypt because of a famine, and surviving a stormy encounter with Pharaoh. On returning to Canaan, he had to mediate quarrels between his herders and his nephew’s herders over land and water. And finally, he had to take on a coalition of kings and their armies who kidnapped his nephew and family and possessions.
Abram weathered the storms, but he was now well into his eighties and losing hope of ever having children, doubting that the land would ever be his, and questioning the blessing. In Abram’s day, children and land were your social security – there was no medicare, no pension plans, no senior living facilities. Despite what we might think today, the commandment to ‘honor your father and mother’ was not given to kids in the youth group, it was directed toward adults with aging parents. Not to have any children meant uncertainty as Abram and Sarai became old. Religious belief at the time contained little sense of an afterlife, so to die without children was to be forever forgotten. God’s promises appeared empty in the face of childlessness. They appeared to be broken promises.
In this time of our uncertainty, where are the places in your life where you are feeling abandoned? What disappointments do you carry for promises broken or promises not yet seen? Where does it feel like the house is coming apart at the seams and you are afraid or struggling to find hope? Are there family disappointments – broken promises in a marriage or siblings that left you with all the responsibilities? Have friends let you down – not called when they promised, not there when you needed them most? Maybe promising job hopes were dashed, or a promised investment tanked? Maybe these things happened for reasons beyond anyone’s control – like storms, or illness, the pandemic – but you still feel hurt. I’ll ask it again: what disappointments do you carry for promises broken or promises not yet seen?
On top of our personal disappointments, we also have our collective disappointments. We sing ‘Let There Be Peace on Earth’, we pray for peace, we proclaim Jesus, the Prince of Peace, and yet violence continues in homes and on the streets, between nations and between ideological groups. We long to see now the promise that love overcomes hate. We want to see now the promise of unity for those baptized by the One Spirit and formed as one body, yet many faith communities are torn apart by disagreement or by circumstances.
It is natural in the face of these disappointment to struggle to hold onto faith; hard to be patient and persistent in believing, when promises seem empty and uncertain. God broke in on Abram’s disappointment and uncertainty. The Lord came to him and said, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your protection; you will be greatly rewarded.” Until this point, Abram has simply listened to God and obeyed. But now, for the first time, Abram responds to tell God honestly of his disappointment and confusion. He questions God and then repeats his doubts a second time, whether because God was silent or because Abram is so upset he doesn’t give God a moment to reply, we don’t know. But what we see is that in the life of faith, honesty with God is key; not only is it acceptable, it is essential.
Then we see another key to the life of faith, imagination. God gives Abram the impossible assignment of counting the stars and invites Abram to use his imagination – to imagine the future with the promise fulfilled. Abram is to be as certain of God delivering on the promise as he is of what he sees in the sky. As we wait for promises that we don’t see realized yet, and as we work with faith that God is already fulfilling those promises – those promise that His kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven – we are invited to exercise honesty and imagination. Tell God honestly about your disappointment and your uncertainties. Imagine God’s promises fulfilled. And believe!
This past week our study group began reading John Lewis’ book Across That Bridge, with the first chapter on Faith. Lewis wrote, “Faith is being so sure of what the spirit has whispered in your heart that your belief in its eventuality is unshakable. Nothing can make you doubt that what you have heard will become a reality. Even if you do not live to see it come to pass, you know without one doubt that it will be. That is faith.” Lewis’ unshakable faith that love had already overcome hate allowed him to face the violent attacks of those who chose to live in hate. His faith in his value and worth as a child of God, undiminished by skin color or any other human category, was also unshakable. He wrote, “We believed that if we are all children of the same Creator, then discrimination had to be an error.” His faithful imagination knew there would come a day when that error would be exposed and corrected. He was sustained by faith, as he embraced a promise yet to come.
In his letter to the Romans, Apostle Paul wrote, “Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring – not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.” (Rom.4:16)
Let us this day, use our faithful imaginations to see the day when we will truly live together as one family, when divisions will be healed, and we can join hands once again. Let us imagine a day when dangers and disasters in one part of the nation, or in one part of the world, lead us to walk as one people toward the lifting corner, to the place of weakness. For when we walk together, united to the places of disaster, the places of suffering, the places of injustice, when we use the collective weight of our small bodies and the collective power of our faith, to hold the house together we will be one day closer to the day when all God’s promises will be fulfilled, not in part but in whole.
Prayer: God of covenant promises, as you promised Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars, you have also promised us that we might live under those stars as your people, faithful and loved. Show us how to live as your people, and how to nurture all your children with whom we share the same canopy of sky night after night. May we believe! – through the name and spirit Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Closing Song: “We Believe”
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