When
I was growing up, I was blessed to be surrounded by a community that seemed to
be almost through and through Christian. Everyone belonged to a church—whether
they attended regularly or not—and all of my friends were extremely involved in
church activities. Now, there was a lot of cross-pollination occurring among
the youth of the community; it was very rare for a junior high or senior high
student to have only attended youth group at one of the many churches in town.
And
let me tell you. There were a lot of churches.
Southern
Baptist. American Baptist. Methodist. Lutheran. Episcopal. First Christian.
Church of Christ. African Methodist Episcopal. Non-denominational. Churches of
all denominations and from all walks of life littered this tiny town. In fact, my
home town is in the Guinness Book of
World Records because of its ample amount of churches: it is the only town
in the world that can boast that it has four churches and jail all on one city
block.
Now,
I was a good Methodist, heavily involved in the United Methodist Youth
Fellowship, or UMYF, that happened every Wednesday night and Sunday mornings at
First United Methodist Church. But I was also known to show up on occasion to
the youth events put on First Baptist. I also found out that some of the best
food to be found on Wednesday nights was at the Church of Christ youth
fellowship, so every once in a while I would head over there for a bite to eat
and Bible study. Church at the Epicenter, a new extra-denominational
church—which is just another fancy way of saying non-denominational—was just
starting while I was finishing up high school. Their services were always
spiritually filling and I loved sneaking in the back to join them in worship.
This
ecclesial cross-pollination led to some very interesting conversations between
people with different church backgrounds, but it also led to the forming of
some absolutely amazing faith-based relationships. The minister the Church of
Christ congregation is still a friend and mentor of mine, and some of the
members of the First Baptist Church and Church at the Epicenter had faiths so
strong that to this day they are still some of the examples to which I strive
to emulate.
No
matter where I went, though, whether it was my home congregation, the church across
the street, or one of the many within walking distance to my house, I know that
I could walk through the doors and be immediately greeted by people I knew and
loved and who knew and loved me. I would see families with children as young as
James, young men and women my age, and highly experienced men and women who
looked like they could be my Papa’s parents; but everyone was glad to see me,
and I was glad to see all of them.
It
was a great time to be in the church, because it seemed like everyone was there.
Now,
as all of you can see and as many of you have pointed out, I’m still a
young’un. It hasn’t been a full decade since I graduated from high school. But
it seems like a good bit has changed since I was in high school. When I went
back to my hometown a few weeks ago, I got to go back to that church I grew up
in. I got to see many of the people who had helped raise me in faith, and it
was a wonderful, nostalgic time of fellowship and worship. But something had
changed. Now, there were still people of all ages there, some of the ones in
high school are the little brothers and sisters of my friends, which still
trips me up because I think they should still be in second or third grade. The
old friendly faces that I missed so dearly were still there, and there were a
good many new faces alongside them.
But
the attitude had changed. The atmosphere of the church was just a little
different. Instead of that feeling like I was entering a celebration or large
family gathering, I felt like I was walking into a bunker full of soldiers who
knew they were fighting a losing battle. Now don’t get me wrong. The worship
was wonderful. It was great to see all of my old friends and to spend time
praising God with them. But something was off.
It
wasn’t until after the service when I had a chance to talk to some of those
people that I began to understand. You see, no matter whom I spoke to, I heard
the same few statements from almost everyone:
“No
one comes to church anymore.”
“We
can’t compete with Sunday sports.”
“It’s
not like it used to be. Everything’s changed.”
This
church—still reaching a large number of people and still full of many of the
individuals from my past—this church had seemingly forgotten who they serve.
For whatever reason, and they could give you a laundry list of them, they had
taken their eyes off of the true prize, the true reason for doing church.
They
had lost sight of the promise.
In
our Scripture lesson today, we witness a very interesting, extremely important
exchange between the Lord Almighty and Abram. Earlier in the story, God called
Abram out of his father’s land, the land of Ur, and sent him on a quest for the
land that God had promised to him. First he went to Egypt, where he had a
run-in with Pharaoh. The Lord saved him from what should have been certain
death. Then, Abram gives his nephew, Lot, the entirety of the prime grazing
land for his herds. Abram’s flocks should have starved to death if they did not
long before die of thirst. The Lord provided for him there as well. Not long
after, Lot and his family are captured and enslaved by an evil king, and God
uses Abram’s 318 men to conquer a nation.
And
now, after all of this, God comes to Abram to speak of the blessings in store
for him. God tells Abram, “I am your shield, your very great reward.”
And
after all of this, Abram replies with words of defeat. "O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue to be childless, and heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir." Later, he asks, "O Lord God, how can I know that I will possess these things?" After all that
God had done for Abram, he still cannot trust that God will truly provide what
God promises.
And
I don’t really blame him, honestly. He’s old. His wife is old. The human body
was made with a window of time for procreation. Doctors will tell you theses
days that women who try to give birth after about 40 years of age run high
risks of complications—both for themselves and for their babies. Not long after
this, it becomes less and less likely that having a child is an option until it
is not possible at all anymore.
Sarai,
Abram’s wife, is at this time 85 years old. She is well past her window of
opportunity, and I’m sure that many of you in here would think her absolutely
crazy for even thinking about having a child that late in life! Abram has good
reason to doubt, good reason to question.
But
this is God we are talking about. The same God who time and again has provided
for Abram and will continue to do so, by the way. God is telling Abram not to
worry.
I
think I’d put my trust in the Lord.
Now, in the face of Abram’s doubt, in the
face of his questioning and in the face of his minor loss of faith, God does
not leave Abram. God does not desert him and find someone else who trusts more
implicitly. Instead, God enacts a solemn covenant with Abram, one extremely
well known during this time as a way that kings would confirm treaties.
You see, this is what would happen: when two
kings met to agree on a treaty after a war or to preemptively stop a war,
animals would be gathered—usually the best of breed. They would be lined up,
slaughtered, and cut in half vertically. The lesser king, usually the one
asking for the treaty, would then walk through the bloody carcasses.
Messy, yes. But it was a way to symbolize for
the kings and the world that if the treaty were broken for whatever reason, the
fate of these animals would be meted out to the now-humbled king. God passes
through these animal halves, vowing on pain of death that God will answer this
promise to Abram.
That is the promise that God made to Abram,
who later became Abraham, the patriarch of the Israelite people, God’s people.
And friends, as descendants of that promise,
as brothers and sisters adopted not only into God’s people but into the holy
body of Christ, that is the promise that God makes to us as well. God covenants
with us to be our shield and our very great reward. God vows to walk with us,
to engage this world with us, and to work through us to bring God’s kingdom
upon the earth.
Now, I’ve heard from many of you the same
kind of talk as I heard two weeks ago in my hometown. The community has
deserted us. There’s no one left to reach out to. How can we compete with
everything else happening on Sunday mornings?
Now, these might all have some facet of truth,
and the questions might be as relevant as anything else that we could be
asking, but let me be very clear about something: God has promised to be our
shield and our very great reward. This is a promise worth holding on to. If we
keep our sights locked on God, if we keep our trust in our Creator, Savior, and
Sustainer, we will see this and anything else through.
We have a lot that we can learn from the
story of God’s pursuit and blessing of Abraham. We can learn the perseverance
that God has asked us to maintain. God provided for Abraham, but it was not
always the easiest journey. We can learn God’s knack for bringing new life out
of necessary change, even change that might seem scary. Abram was living a good
life in Ur, but God called him out of that place, out of that context, and into
something greater. We might find that we are called to leave our comfort zones,
leave our pews, and take the work of God to the people.
We can learn a lot of lessons from this
story, but one of the most important is the lesson of keeping our eyes on the
prize and our sight on the promise.
No one should walk through our doors and
encounter a spirit of defeat, even if that means we change our tactics for
ministry. We can’t get people here on Sunday mornings? Let’s try inviting them
on Tuesday nights. If all of the young families are out on the soccer field
down the road on Sunday morning, maybe that’s where we should be as well.
No one should walk through our doors and
encounter a spirit of defeat, even when it seems like the brokenness of the
world is winning. God provided a son for a 100 year-old man and a 99 year-old
woman. God kept his promise to Abram, and God will keep his promise to us as
well.
No one should walk through our doors and
encounter a spirit of defeat, for the Lord is our shield and our very great
reward.
Let’s keep our sights on that promise.
Amen.
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