To read this Father’s Day sermon from The Rev. Dr. David A. Marcus, Jr. about one of the great fathers of faith read below.
Sermon based on Genesis 12:1-9 & Hebrews 11:8-12
This morning’s Old Testament reading from Genesis and New Testament reading from Hebrews speaks about Abraham. At first glance of his life, people would develop the idea that Abraham was a person who had it all together. It would appear that he stepped from one mountaintop experience to another. He seemed to have no trouble obeying God, even if it meant a willingness to sacrifice his own son.
We seem to dwell on Abraham’s victories, never his calling. The trouble about learning a few basic facts is that we tend to hold on to the basics and overlook the details. There is a tendency to focus on the mountaintop experiences of the lives of great people and miss many great lessons that need to be learned in those valleys that we all experience. Those mountain top experiences must be observed in the context of their entire lives. Abraham’s life and the direction he chose upon answering God’s call became less of a mountain top experience and more an adventure and I imagine at times a difficult journey in faith.
This morning we will look more closely at his journey in faith. Through his journey we are comforted and reminded of a God who remembers His promises, and in His remembering, blesses us. It often seems as though God chooses the most unlikely of people to accomplish his promises. Abraham was certainly no exception as he accepts God’s call at the ripe young age of 75! His wife, Sara, was sixty-five and they had no children. They had a comfortable home in Haran with servants, sheep, goats, cattle, possessions and property. It must have been very shocking to hear the voice of God asking to pack up your stuff, leave your country, your people, and your family, and go and wander the rest of your life like a homeless nomad in a land that doesn’t belong to you. Abraham and Sara were planning to live out their childless days in the comforts of Haran, but God said, “No, you’re going to wander as pilgrims and live off my Promise. Can you imagine what it would feel like to be 75 years old and be asked to move to some distant place? Not only would you have to endure those trials and tribulations of moving, but also God asks you to give up your retirement to oversee the responsibility of starting a new community.
At an age when most people are settled down, Abraham was beginning a new and unfamiliar journey in faith—why? The answer is that Abraham answered God’s call and trusted in God to provide him the strength, courage and hope he would need to accomplish His purpose. Could we handle such a journey today? How would we respond if God were to take everything away from us? What would we do if God took away our home, job, friends, and family? What would we do if God took away our identity?
As we speak about identity, there is a story about a farmer who was walking through the forest adjacent to his land. There in the forest he found a young eagle that had fallen out of its nest. The eagle was taken home and placed in the barnyard where it soon learned to eat and behave like the chickens. Word got out in town that there was eagle acting like a chicken and many people came to view this peculiar site. One day a person came by the farm and asked the farmer why it was that the king of all birds should be confined to live in the barnyard with the chickens. The farmer replied that since he had given it chicken feed and trained it to be a chicken it had never learned to fly. Since it now behaved as the chickens, it was no longer an eagle. “Still it has the heart of an eagle,” replied this person, “and can surely be taught to fly.” The farmer doubted that this could happen but he gave his permission to allow this person to try to get that eagle to fly. So he lifted the eagle toward the sky and said, “You belong to the sky and not to the earth. Stretch forth your wings and fly.” The eagle, however, was confused. He did not know who he was, and seeing the chickens eating their food, he jumped down to be with them again.
The person then took the bird to the roof of the house and urged him again, saying, “You are an eagle. Stretch forth your wings and fly.” But the eagle was afraid and jumped down once more for the chicken food. The person left dejected but still determined to see if that eagle could fly. A few days later he returned and he and the farmer took the eagle out of the barnyard to a high mountain. There he held the king of the birds high above him and encouraged him again, saying, “You are an eagle. You belong to the sky. Stretch forth your wings and fly.” The eagle looked around, back towards the barnyard in the distance and up to the sky. Then he lifted the eagle straight towards the sun and it happened that the eagle began to tremble. Slowly he stretched his wings, and with a triumphant cry, soared away into the heavens. It may be that the eagle still remembers the chickens with nostalgia. It may even be that he occasionally revisits the barnyard. But as far as anyone knows, he has never returned to lead the life of a chicken.
In a similar way, Abraham, would have been very comfortable remaining in the safe confines of his barnyard. However with God’s urging he decided to soar like an eagle and reached out in faith of the Promise that the Lord would make this seventy-five year old man and his sixty five year old wife with no children into a great nation, with descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. In answering this call, we learn that the rest of Abraham’s life was a calling to be blessed. It’s interesting the shape that blessing took in his life. Our passage from Hebrews says:
8By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. 9By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
God promised that he would make Abraham’s name great and that he would lead a great nation. Abraham could not have known, nor could he have seen, how large the promise of God was, how great His blessing would be by answering this call. Like so many other figures in the Old Testament, Abraham never saw anything of this that God promised. He never saw himself become a great nation. He never saw his name become great. He never saw all people of the earth blessed through him. Abraham simply believed God and answered the call. He trusted in the promise of God, and our lives in return have been blessed.
The Old Testament is a history of God’s Promises. In it we hear how God has worked throughout human history to plan our salvation. Through the stories of Noah, Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David we learn how God established his covenant to create a community of faith. This community of faith would eventually bring us our Messiah. Of all of God’s promises the greatest is revealed in John’s gospel when it says:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life
All other promises in the Scriptures – serve this one core and central Promise, the promise of salvation through Jesus Christ. Everything that happened in the Old Testament, prepared the way for Jesus to one day be born in Bethlehem, baptized in the Jordan River, crucified on the Cross of Calvary, raised from the tomb and provide us God’s Holy Spirit.
One of my favorite books is entitled Joshua. Joshua is a person who comes to live in a small town and transforms this community by his simple faith. Throughout the book, Joshua is constantly talking about the church, encouraging different communities of faith to come together. At one point in this book he is asked the question, “What is the church?”
Joshua responds,
“The church is the handmaiden of Jesus. It is his chosen partner in bringing God’s love and concern into the lives of people. It is his living presence throughout history… (Joshua, pg. 255)
How are we doing in showing God’s love and concern among us? As one of God’s chosen partners, we have the opportunity to live out God’s promises through our ministries at New Philadelphia. Several years ago we went through a goal setting process here with Rick Sides, who served as the facilitator in this process. I remember Rick sharing that churches can often suffer spasms in their ministry. One definition for spasm is a sudden, involuntary contraction of a muscle or group of muscles that brings with it a great deal of discomfort. Like most churches we suffer spasms like this from time to time. But a second definition of spasm is a sudden burst of energy, activity, or emotion. Whether it’s our Mission Possible Roof Blitz, Vacation Bible School, upcoming mission trips to Alaska or to Mission camps at Laurel Ridge we are seeing new energy and new activities at New Philadelphia, which is so exciting!
Perhaps Abraham heard God’s voice and became very excited too. God chose to speak to Abraham out of all the people in his day. God told him He would lead him to another land; He told him he would have a child; He told him that through that descendant all the families of the earth would be blessed. Abraham ordered his life around that inner voice of God. Like Abraham we must be obedient to where God is calling us as a congregation and believe in His promises. We must never stay frozen in our ministry but we also must be still at times, to hear God’s voice.
An example of being still enough to listen can be found in this story I first heard while living in Wilmington, NC. In downtown Wilmington there was once a historic Icehouse. Before refrigerators, people used icehouses to preserve their food. Icehouses had thick walls, no windows, and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the icehouses, and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer. I heard one account where a man lost a valuable watch while working in an icehouse. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn’t find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved unsuccessful. There was a small boy who heard about their search. One day he slipped into the icehouse during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch. Amazed, the men asked him how he found it. “I closed the door,” the boy replied, “lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking.”
Often the question for us is not whether God is speaking, but whether we are being still enough, and quiet enough, to hear. Abraham stood still long enough to hear God’s call. Each of us has a calling from God. We are all called to share in the mission of God’s Kingdom. We are to follow our great commission that calls us to share our faith with others and bring others to know God in a more personal way.
If our lives were compared to a movie, God would be the director and each of us would be an actor or actress playing roles both great and small. It is our responsibility to learn our script and perform our role to be best of our abilities. If we should tire of our roles and responsibilities, it helps to remember God has planted us in a certain place and told us to be good at whatever we do, whether it is as a husband, wife, teacher, mother, father, or member of New Philadelphia. Christ expects us to be faithful and in doing so, we should strive like Abraham to be a blessing to others!
The Rev. Dr. David A. Marcus, Jr.
June 20, 2010