Lent 2 – Genesis 12: 1-4 Blessed to Be a Blessing - Pastor Paul Larsen

My name is Abram. You probably know me better as Abraham, but that handle came later in life. I don’t have a last name – shouldn’t need it. After all, I am credited with being the father of three great religions. Jews, Muslims and Christians all trace their roots back to me. Let me tell you my story in hopes that it might help you understand your story.

I lived 4000 years ago. My family moved around a lot. Dad was a part of a nomadic tribe that left Ur of the Chaldeans. Today you would say southeastern Iraq near Nasariyah. We all moved on to Haran, which is in the country you call Turkey, on the Syrian border. Dad decided we should stay there and we did until he died at 275 years of age.

It was at that time that God actually spoke to me. It was amazing. He told me to leave my country, my family, my father’s house and go to a land he would show me. He promised that he would make of me a great nation. He promised to bless me so that I could be a blessing to others. God said that all of the families of the earth would be blessed because of me. Wow! Can you believe it? I mean here I am one day, herding sheep and living an ordinary life and Wham! Out of the blue the Lord calls and wants me to pack up and move to God knows where and tells me I can do great things for him! What could I do? I had to say yes. I mean I am only 75 years old at the time and in the prime of my life. Sarai and I don’t have any kids yet. This will be the adventure of the lifetime. I packed my bags and left. Well, the truth is my wife Sarai packed. She organized the yard sale and the food for the trip and took care of all the details that I wasn’t so good at. I invited my nephew Lot to come along too. When we took off it was all one grand adventure. I didn’t have a doubt in my mind. I was sure this was what God wanted me to do.

Have you ever had that happen? You just know God is calling you to do something. You visit a college campus and it clicks - this is where you want to go to school. Or you just know you are supposed to take that job or move to that new town or do this thing that maybe your friends think is crazy!

At the beginning this was really exciting! But then, reality set in. The road was long and hard. There was a famine in the land and so we took a detour into Egypt where they had food. Entering into Egypt I did something I am ashamed of. Sarai was beautiful. I mean she was a real looker. I knew that could mean trouble for me. Those Egyptians could decide that they could have her if I was dead. I didn’t want to die and I figured God helps those who help themselves, so I lied. I told everyone she was my sister. People told the King of Egypt about her beauty and he wanted her. He gave me flocks of sheep and goats, he gave me herds of cattle and donkeys and camels. He even gave me slaves to try to win my favor, because he thought Sarai was my sister. He took her into the palace thinking she wasn’t married. But the Lord was angry and he sent terrible diseases on the king and on the people of Egypt.

When the king learned that Sarai was my wife and not my sister he was pretty ticked off. He gave her back to me and told me I had until sundown to take my stuff and get out of Dodge! Actually, Egypt – I just wanted you to know that I know about your cowboy movies.

Just like God promised, he blessed me. I was blessed with my wonderful wife and with all kinds of sheep and goats and cattle. I was rich. Lot became rich too. That isn’t always a good thing. When you get a lot of stuff you become protective of your stuff. I have seen it with you people. You put alarms in your cars. You put security systems in your houses. You are always worried about someone stealing your stuff. You sweat bullets about the stock market taking a dive and losing your pension and investments. Well, it wasn’t that much different for me. Lot’s herdsmen and my herdsmen fought over grazing land, over watering rights and over which sheep or goat belonged to Lot or to me. It wasn’t good.

We decided to go our separate ways. I gave Lot the choice. I said if he took the land to the right I would take the land to the left and if he took the land to the left I would take the land to the right. Lot looked at the whole Jordan valley with its rivers and streams and he took the best land for himself. It didn’t matter. Just like he promised God, took care of me. He blessed me and I prospered.

It didn’t go quite so well for Lot. He settled near the town of Sodom. A gang of neighboring kings decided they liked the same land Lot liked so they waged war on the area and took Lot captive. I had to mount an army to go and rescue him.

That was pretty exciting, but when I got back home some doubts started to nag at me. I mean how am I supposed to be the father of a great nation when I don’t even have a child? That is when the Lord came to me again and renewed the promise. He said I would have a son. So I believed him. Sarai didn’t. She lost faith In the whole thing and told me to take her maid and have a child with her. I am not proud of it, but that is what I did. Hagar, Sarai’s maid gave birth to Ishmael and the people of Islamic faith trace their roots back to me through Ishmael.

I have to tell you even though it was Sarai’s idea, she wasn’t happy with the results. She resented Hagar and she made me sent Hagar and Ishmael away.

To tell you the truth, I wasn’t too happy with the whole deal myself. I mean I am getting too old for this stuff. I am 99 years old by this time and Sarai is not exactly a spring chicken. God came to me again and told me that I was going to be the father of a great nation. In fact, he changed my name from Abram to Abraham, which means “Father of a great nation.” He also told me to change Sarai’s name to Sarah, which means “Lady.” Even though she was some lady, I have to tell you I didn’t believe him. In fact, I bowed down and put my face in the dirt so God wouldn’t see me laughing. It was ludicrous to think that a 100 year old man and a dried up old woman could have a child! I couldn’t help myself. I just burst our laughing. You know how when one person starts laughing others just get caught up in the moment and start laughing also? God started laughing too and through his chortles and guffaws he told me I should name the boy Isaac, which means, “Laughter.”

When we finally stopped giggling, God told me that he would bless my son Ishmael and make a great nation of his descendants, but that he would keep his promise to my son Isaac, that he would bless him and that his descendants would be God’s chosen people and through them all nations would be blessed.

I mean, I wanted to trust in God, I really did, but I had been chasing around for 25 years going here and there on the basis of some promises. They hadn’t been fulfilled yet and despite the fact that God is God and God can do anything, I still didn’t have a child. And let’s face it, 100 year old guys and 90 year old women don’t have children. It would take a miracle.

One hot day I am relaxing in the shade and these three guys show up out of nowhere. I don’t know how it is here, but we had rules about hospitality. You didn’t let people pass by your tent without offering them something to eat and drink. It just wasn’t done. So I ran out in the blazing sun and invited these three strangers to come in and enjoy some lunch. Am I ever glad I did! They turned out to be angels. They told me that nine months from now Sarah would give birth to a son. I did my best to keep from laughing all over them, but Sarah was just inside the tent and she split a gut. I have never heard such uncontrollable laughter.

The angels weren’t exactly caught up in the laughter. They asked, “Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything too hard for the Lord?” We pretty much straightened up after that. I mean if you have faith you know that God can do anything God wants to do – even cause two old, I mean really old, people to have a child.

Those same angels were on their way to Sodom and Gomorrah. God had learned about the wickedness of those cities. The angels were to check it out and if those cities were as wicked as reported the angels would destroy them. That didn’t seem right. I mean sure, there could be a lot of evil things going on in those towns, but there must be some righteous people living there. So I asked God about it. I said, “Are you really going to destroy the innocent with the guilty? If there are 50 innocent people in the city will you destroy the whole city?” The Lord said, it 50 innocent people were found there he wouldn’t destroy it. Then I said, “What if there are only 45? Will you destroy the whole city because there are five too few?” God agreed not to destroy it there were 45 righteous people there. Back and forth we went until I bargained God down to 10. Unfortunately, only Lot and his family were found to be innocent. They were told to escape the city and then God rained down fire and brimstone on those two towns. It was like nothing you have ever seen before. Everything was destroyed. Every building, every person, every animal, every blade of grass - it was all gone. That certainly showed the awesome power of God.

But there was something else that showed God’s power even more clearly. Sarah became pregnant! My 90 year old wife got pregnant! Even though we were both well beyond child bearing years we had a son! You can’t imagine the joy we felt. It was a miracle. God was finally fulfilling his promise that I would be the father of a great nation. Just as God suggested we named him Isaac – Laughter – and he brought such incredible joy and laughter into our lives. I still laugh when I think about it.

But then, God pulled a dirty trick on me. God came to me and said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love so much and go to the land of Moriah. There on a mountain that I will show you, offer him as a sacrifice to me.” I couldn’t believe my ears. Why would God want me to do this? I had waited 25 years for this child. Why should he be taken away from me? But God said it and I had to do what he said. I took my beloved Isaac up on the mountain. I built an altar out of rocks and laid down the wood for the fire. Then I tied up my little boy with a rope and laid him on the wood. With tears blinding my eyes I raised up my knife to kill my son, but God stopped me. Just in the nick of time God called to me, “Abraham! Abraham! Don’t hurt the boy or do anything to harm him. Now I know that you have an obedient faith because you would not have kept back your only son from me.”

Neither Isaac nor I will ever forget that experience. It was awful. I couldn’t imagine that God would actually want me to sacrifice my son. I thought it was too much to ask, but I was willing to do it because God had always been faithful to his promises. He had done a miracle and provided us with Isaac in the first place. Despite the horrible pain in my heart I had to believe that God would provide for us again and fulfill his promise to make me the father of a great nation and a blessing to others. Still it didn’t seem right that God should ask me to make such an enormous sacrifice, and yet, if God is really the Lord of our life we are to love him more than anyone or anything else.

Two thousand years later God fulfilled his promise that that through me all nations would be blessed. God sent his son into the world to be born as one of my direct descendants. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. God sacrificed his own son for the sake of the world. God’s love for the world is amazing. It is awe inspiring to realize that God loves us more than life itself and that Jesus died so that we might live.

I hope you will take that message to heart. God loves you and God calls you to do his work in the world. Maybe you won’t hear God’s voice as clearly as I did when God promised to bless me and to make me a blessing for others, but God makes that same promise to you. God’s call may come to you in more subtle ways: a nudge to do something new; the calm confidence that you are already doing what God wants you to do; the discovery of a passion for something that causes you to reach out beyond yourself. It is different for all of us because we all have gifts that differ. What I do know is that God loves us and blesses each of us and that God calls us to be a blessing for others. Listen for that call and answer it. Amen.

GUIDED BY THE GOSPEL: GATHERING • GROWING • GIVING