Genesis 12:1-9
Journey in the promise
12:1 Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
12:2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
12:3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
12:4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
12:5 Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother's son Lot and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan,
12:6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.
12:7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
12:8 From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord.
12:9 And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.
Did you ever start out a sermon with an unrelated excursus? I’m sure I was told in seminary that this was anathema, but the last verse of this pericope of scripture caught my attention as I began to explore the text. “And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.” That “journeyed on by stages” is what is causing the detour on my OWN sermon-writing journey, presently. You see, I’m a “journey theology” kind of person. There are those who revel in doctrines and dogmas, in terms of their faith, while others swing from worship service to worship service like Spiderman on silk. Then there are those for whom their “incubator” of spiritual formation is prayer and meditation. I’m a journey guy. When John Wesley said that Christ followers should “go on to perfection,” it sounded like a direction to me, so I’ve set my spiritual GPS on “perfection,” and expect life will give me the proper prompts as to when to turn and what roads to take. That has worked well for almost 72 years now. Some would say I’m relying too much on the grace of God, doing it this way, but I fail to see how that is a bad thing? A big part of my “trip” has been academics—degrees, classes, reading, and writing. (Hence, in retirement, I write a weekly sermon, and if you’re reading this on my blog, you’ve stumbled onto my path, dear friend!)
If we’re being honest, I think we ALL are on a spiritual journey, if we are Christ followers. As I said in another recent sermon, we follow a peripatetic Savior, and regardless of which spiritually formative practices trip our personal trigger, we ARE going somewhere. And when we’re not? Look at the phrases we use: “I’m feeling stuck,” “I’m stagnant in my faith,” “I feel like my prayers are just hitting the ceiling,” “I’m feeling LOST.” These are all directional vectors, aren’t they? The text says that Abram is on HIS journey by taking it “in stages.” What this evokes in me is the idea that not all steps are equal, not each day’s travel is as far, and when it comes to delays or detours along the way, we can either rail against them as sidetracking us, or stop and check out the place where we are being detained, possibly meeting new friends along the way. This latter idea reminds me of the Camino de Santiago, which I also mentioned in a recent sermon. The “Camino,” as it is known, is a long, walking pilgrimage across parts of Europe that ends at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. People register to “take the Camino,” and off they go. Several of my friends have done one, and if you want to get a flavor for this unique faith journey, rent the movie, “The Way,” starring Martin Sheen. People meet people and encounter all kinds of “unexpecteds” along the Camino, which sounds exactly like what Abram did on his journey to reach the Negeb. Isn’t “real life” like that? Or are you one of those personalities that just HAS to have a plan for everything, and are “out of your element” if something happens you hadn’t planned for? Maybe it’s time for you to move out of your comfort zone for a while as a “spiritual sacrifice”? For those of you, like me, who relish the “unexpecteds,” especially when they mean new people, new lessons, and new experiences, then ENJOY your “journey in stages” like it is your own personal “Camino”!
What I really wanted to address in this message, though, is the word from God that God wants to make from Abram “a great nation.” WHAT is a “great nation,” I wondered? Diehard literalists will probably tell me that “great” here means “large,” “numerous,” or “exceedingly wealthy and powerful.” These might be the hallmarks of a “great nation,” and I can see the truth here, at least from a political perspective. But what truly makes a nation great? If one takes the Torah seriously, one comes to the conclusion that what God, and God’s Jewish people, think is a great nation has little to do with just population, power, and geography. If you get caught up in the contemporary rhetoric about political Israel, Palestine, Gaza, and this Netanyahu/Trump stuff, you may fall into both the pit of despair and the “black hole” of a timeless war that threatens to consume us all, neither of which are welcome detours, frankly. Wrangling over “who is right” and “who is wrong” in this one gives new meaning to “pitstop,” for it is a pit that will stop everything, for there IS no right and wrong in it, other than that I hope we can agree that innocent people dying on either side is a bad idea.
No, the Torah postulates a great nation as one that “welcomes the stranger” in its midst, treating the sojourning foreigner like a fully-vested citizen, and providing radical hospitality for them! The Hebrew code of hospitality is one of the strongest commands God gave Israel, pretty much next in line behind loving God with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind. Netanyahu should read the Torah. Donald Trump should just read…something. And Christians who back “strong man” Israel against the residents of Gaza and the Arab world should read their Bibles. Great nations are ones made up of citizens who truly want to honor God and their fellow human siblings. Torah, Koran, and the canon of scripture of the Christian all describe “greatness” in terms of honoring God by LOVING God and LOVING neighbor, with the understanding that “neighbor” is anyone other than one’s immediate family, and often especially those with presenting needs.
Truly great nations would have little issue with the benevolent teachings of these holy books, and most especially with the teachings of Jesus Christ. One of the things I have always appreciated about John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, is that he wasn’t about just “saving souls” by leading them to a relationship to Jesus Christ. While he certainly did this, he also believed firmly in saving the PEOPLE involved, too, not just their “soul.” As much as he preached, he visited the sick and those in prisons, and not just to pray for them. He launched ministries aimed at feeding the poor, reforming the prisons, and providing access to education, of which he profoundly understood the value. England credited this holistic ministry of Mr. Wesley’s as one of the most effective “engines” (or at least catalysts) of the Industrial Revolution that cemented that country’s fortune and helped lead many of its people OUT of poverty, in that day. When I made my first trip to England, by the way, it was around the 250thanniversary of John Wesley’s famous “Aldersgate experience,” which launched the Methodist movement. All over London the GOVERNMENT had hung banners with Mr. Wesley’s visage on them, celebrating alongside the Methodists, validating the importance of this historic movement in the successful history of England’s “great nation.” (As it turns out, though, nations have a hard time keeping their focus on the welfare of their poorest citizens, which is a tragedy we will NOT find celebrated in the Kingdom of God, either “here, there, or in the air,” as they say.)
Some “believers” today are saying that their rendition of a “great nation” is one that believes in Jesus Christ (but not necessarily his teachings about the poor, the oppressed, and the identity of “who is my neighbor,” as he relates in the parable of “The Good Samaritan”). They have bought the embellished history that was “rewritten” in the late revivalist period of the late 1800s and early 1900s, and famously “retold” in the 1970s in a book called “The Light and the Glory” by Peter Marshall, Jr., son of the famous Senate chaplain, Peter Marshall, Sr. Marshall and his co-author made “use” of this rewritten revivalist history to assert that American was founded as a “Christian” nation by people like Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, and Adams, who were devote Christians (they were not). As I have stated in previous sermons, the veritable “pen” of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine, was a confessed Deist who absolutely HATED Christianity and the “idea” that God would visit earth in human form. Paine wrote numerous treatises and pamphlets against the Christian faith. All of these historical facts didn’t stop Marshall from capitalizing on this false notion that America has a “Christian” foundation. All this said, this “evangelical” phenomenon has crafted a narrative that says that a “great nation” must be a Chrisitan one, oppose abortion, deify the Second Amendment, and support Israel at all costs. Obviously, there are numerous problems with this formulation. First of all, we were founded as a FREE nation, and these folk are ignoring the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. constitution. And the unwavering support of Israel is advocated because these folk believe the Bible says we must (it does not). While the Bible does talk of Christians loving “God’s people,” it does not address the modern political state of Israel, which is a construct of the United Nations in 1948. It bears little resemblance to Israel of the Bible, especially on the worst days of both! Besides, most of the evangelicals who believe this are doing so because they claim that supporting modern Israel will lead to events that will precipitate the “return of Christ,” something they think will benefit them. (Frankly, the way many of the them are behaving, I don’t think they should be so eager to be face-to-face with the actual Jesus of the Bible. Things might not work out the way they think they will.)
So, what IS a “great nation”? Well, I do believe it is one that is “god-fearing,” in that its principles make it easier for people to worship the god of their choice. It is a nation that TRULY CARES for the “least of these,” and offers all people equal rights and opportunities to prosper (something Jesus labeled “abundant life”). A great nation is not racist or sexist, and it respects and cares for its elder citizens. It makes sure that the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” is always lessening, and the faster, the better. Great nations can have almost any kind of economic and governmental system, providing it supports and uplifts ALL of its people, with no political, religious, or economic group allowed to dominate all others. Great nations seek to edify and relate to all other countries of the world. “America First” is not the slogan of a truly great nation. And while we’re at it, can we take a good look at that MAGA slogan, “Make America Great Again”? When was that? Was it when our nation was drawn together over a World War, forgetting the trappings of “rich” and “poor,” largely, and rallying together to eliminate tyranny from the world? Was it after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when again we were “closer” as a people, feeling like an attack on New York City, Shanksville, PA, and Washington, D.C. was a full-on attack on ALL of us? While these were overly “simplified” times of at least some form of national unity, it doesn’t seem like this is what the MAGA folk are meaning. It doesn’t take reading much between the proverbial lines to see that the “America” they want was a strong WHITE America. A nation when other ethnic minorities “knew their place,” and immigrants were only welcome when they were willing to be basically underpaid “slaves” of the white supremacist majority. (Think back on biblical Israel—they were at their WORST with God when THEY thought they were “great.” In God’s world, it’s humility that counts for something.)
In this text about Abram and God’s plan for him, it is clear that there is a “road” to greatness. So I guess it IS a journey, after all, friends! Mature Christians understand this, and also know it is both a struggle AND a joy to follow the peripatetic Jesus on HIS journey to make us all “great” by leading us to be SERVANTS of all. Again, humility counts for something with him. Those who want the best seat at the banquet must first be the servant of all. Great nations understand this. Respect is earned, and then maintained, by being the most caring, the most “neighborly,” and the most welcoming of the downtrodden and oppressed. Emma Lazarus had it right. Great nations say “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Christ is God’s “lamp” lifted to light all of our paths toward the “golden door” of freedom, acceptance, compassion, and respect. Great nations have these as their stock in trade. Being Christian doesn’t make a nation “great,” but when its citizens LIVE and ACT in accordance to religious teachings that emphasize citizenship, neighborliness, compassion, and benevolence over an “I’ve got more than YOU do” mentality, it is on the right track. They have engaged the journey, and it is one that will unfold in stages. Just ask Abram. Amen.
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