Genesis 15:1-6 & Luke 1:39-55 on September 15th, 2024
Above is audio of the sermon pulled from the video and amplified.
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Grace Mercy and peace to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So have you ever tried to count the stars? You know, if you can even find a place dark enough to see stars anymore, they have to have parks that are intentionally left without any kind of artificial lighting. So folks can leave urban areas, suburban areas, merdle beach areas to see the stars. And we've probably been those places where you're just in all, where it feels like you can reach up and just pull them right down into your hand.
That's how I imagine it was when God took Abraham outside and said, look at the stars, can you even count them? Now I think of that story because when I was raising my family, I had to do some travel. A lot of the travel was for Gettysburg Seminary because I worked visiting interns and I would go for the day, but maybe they were in New England or Missouri or even the Dakotas and I'd have to fly out there and that meant leaving behind my three sons and my daughter. My sons were probably glad Mom was gone. My daughter not so much and I would take her by the hand and I would say to her, yes, Mommy's going to be gone again tonight, but you know, tonight I'm going to look up at the stars and I'm going to think those stars are shining down on me, but they're also shining down on you back home. When I see those stars, I'm going to know that I'm with you and that I love you and I'm going to throw a kiss to you and I want you to look at those stars and I want you to remember me and think about me being with you and throw a kiss to me and I'm going to put it right in my heart.
We would go through that. I'd like to tell you this morning that I was inspired by this story from Abraham to do that, but I wasn't. I was inspired by Fival Mascowitz. Some people know Fival Mascowitz. Fival Mascowitz was the main character in a 1980s animated film called An American Tale, T-A-I-L. It was about a mouse family in Russia and the cats came through and destroyed their homes and village and the mouse family decided it had to find safety and it heard about the promise land. And the promise land was America because there were no cats in America and the streets are paved with cheese and the cat that destroyed their village in Russia would be far behind them so they got on a ship and they sailed. And little Fival was just a little boy mouse and during the storm he went overboard. Now luckily there was a bottle that caught him and he bobbed in that bottle all the way to New York City and landed in America, didn't find his family right off the bat. The Fival would spend the evening looking at the sky and singing to his family somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight and that's probably what inspired me. But I like to think that the story writer also knew something about this Abraham story that we have this morning.
We are now in week two of the narrative lecture for 2024-25. Last week we heard about how God created a world that was good and yet they're sin. We fall into disobedience, we fall into brokenness, we have broken dreams, broken promises and broken people. And for the next 11 chapters of Genesis we hear some direction of how God tries to make that right again and at one point there's a great flood and he tries to recreate the world that that doesn't really last either and nothing seems to work. Even in chapter 12 we get a whole new way of doing things. God meets Abraham and Sarah, his wife. These unlikely people in their 70s, Abraham living in a particular place, Sarah, a beautiful woman but not able to have children and that's always been kind of a painful loss in their lives. And God goes to Abraham and Sarah and makes them a promise. If you go, if you go to the land where I send you I will create for you a great nation which they took to mean you will have descendants, you will have a child even at 75 they were prepared and ready.
I got to tell you when I was a little child and I first heard about Abraham, all I was about was father Abraham, had many kids, right? I was one of the stars. And then when I was an adult and I heard the story, it kind of hit me, well Abraham is going on an adventure. He's called away from what is familiar and known into something new and certainly we see that in our own lives when we hit those places where we have to take a risk, do something new, go someplace we haven't been before, try something in a different way. Now I'm in my 70s and I kind of see old Abraham as a peer. And I begin to think, well if God came at me, I'm not sure I'd want to go. I worked hard to get to this place and I kind of want to be comfortable here.
So I get how Abraham must feel at the beginning of our reading today. He's sitting in his tent. Now probably 15 years have passed since God first made that promise to Abraham and Sarah and during those 15 years they went off wandering about looking for Cain in the promised land that God was going to show them. They took a lot through nephew of few others, they're going from place to place. There's a famine, they have to detour to Egypt, they get back, then a lot is kidnapped by these powerful kings and Abraham has to wage war, 15 years of struggle and still no child. And Abraham is sitting in his tent, I think he's sulking. That's what I would be doing. And I think if we're honest we'd all be doing that. We all know what it's like to feel God's with us and has promised us life as we expect it to be. And then it doesn't come off the way we thought it was going to where God's goodness hasn't yet been realized and we're growing a little impatient here and a whole lot older. We know what's happening to Abraham as he sits in his tent.
You know what a lament is? Abraham's about to lament to God. Now a lament is a little bit like a complaint but a complaint is usually what we do when we complain about other people to other people, right? I can complain about all kinds of things to you about going on in my life. That's a complaint. A lament is when I take the complaint directly to the person that needs to hear it and lets that person know my anguish, my disappointment, my hurt. A lament is from the heart and it's hard but it's honest and it's raw. When God comes into the tent and Abraham lets God have it, still no child. Where is your promise? Am I only going to have the child of a slave as my heir? Is that my future?
Friends, it's okay to give God your laments. I know sometimes we're a little nervous about that because we want to be on God's good side. It's not like God doesn't know what we're thinking and feeling. So we may as well get honest enough to say it and it's healthy. Look at the Psalms, almost the third of them are laments. It's healthy to have a good, solid, honest talk with God. Here's where I'm hurting. Here's where I'm waiting. Here's where I'm frustrated. Here's where I'm starting to doubt. Here's where I'm afraid. And God's going to come back. Not with anger, not with lightning bolts. Not with avoidance, not with getting up and walking away. God's going to come back to say, I am your shield and your defense. I am here. God's going to take us by the hand and walk us outside until us look up. Gaze at the stars, gaze at the heavens. What you can see, but knowing that you're only seeing in part all that God's created, the vast universes beyond even where our best telescopes have gone. And if our artificial life and light get in the way and we can't see the stars, if it seems to be clouded and we can't see beyond the clouds, God wants us to know the stars are still there. Count them. Count on them. Know who created them and who makes this promise to you that I have things in hand. Count your blessings. Count those times when you didn't expect it and I was there. And you realize who had you by the hand, who caught you in the lap of grace. Count them. And as Abraham does that, a righteousness comes over him. It's not his right spirit. It's God's right spirit coming over him to give him peace, to give him faith, to give him the trust to keep on going.
Friends I suggest we become stargazers. I suggest we look at the stars and we think who else is under those stars with us. Who can we count on? Most especially how God can be counted on. How God loves us and throws down kisses to us to put in our hearts. Most enough strength to get by day by day to meet the challenges and to know the promise will be realized. Yes, there is a child to come to Abram and Sarah. Yes, the story goes on and the descendants tell the story and they tell the story and they tell the story right down to the gathering here today. Yes, there are others that need to know it as good news who need to have us walk with them when they are too afraid to walk alone. Yes, it is sure. In fact we call it a covenant, a promise. Father Abraham had many kids. I am one of them, so are you. We go forward because we gaze at the stars, feel God's kisses and expect the promise to be true. Amen.