HEADED FOR THE PROMISED LAND

Scripture: Genesis 12:1-9, 17:1-8, 15-21; Hebrews 11:8-12

INTRODUCTION

As we continue on our journey into this new church year, the theme we have chosen to guide us with a sense of direction and to provide us with great expectation is “Christ at the Center: The Hope of the World!”

Last week we talked together about Noah, his family and all those animals, two by two, on the ship of faith – a huge ark – which kept them afloat in the midst of a flood. As the waters receded and the sun began to shine, God hung a rainbow in the sky as a sign of His promise to bless and watch over them, their descendants and all future generations for the rest of time.

Our sermon concluded last Sunday with the affirmation that God finally got into the boat with us in person, in the person of Jesus Christ, who has come to show us the way and to reassure us through his love, forgiveness and grace that we need not be afraid. That’s hope!

This morning, we pick up this ancient story from the book of Genesis, as two biblical characters, Abram and Sarai, later re-named Abraham and Sarah, are called by God to leave their home place – originally the city of Ur which is now Iraq (Genesis 11:28) and then the region of Haran in modern-day Turkey (Genesis 12:4) – and head for the Promised Land of Canaan. The story of their remarkable journey is recorded in Genesis 1 – 25, and if we are willing to pay attention, old Abraham and Sarah have much to teach us about hope and about trusting God with our own lives today.

I think the first lesson we can learn from them is that they are willing to take the time, to make the journey and not to be in a hurry.

The Bible says that Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran (Genesis 12:4) and Sarai was just a few years younger. Realizing that the ancient authors who wrote the story counted time differently than we do now, even so, Abram and Sarai were no spring chickens as the expedition got under way.

What motivated them to pick up stakes and take to the road was the covenant which God offered to that husband and wife – including a Promised Land to live in, descendants who would become a great nation and the blessing of God’s presence wherever they went. Abram and Sarai’s part of the bargain was to remain faithful and obedient, and that required a great deal of patience.

Why? Because from Genesis 12 to 15, there is no record of any further revelation from on high. Then God appears to Abram, reminds him of the covenant and Abram asks How can this be? For my wife and I still have no offspring? God re-affirms His promise as Abram looks toward the sky, saying Look at the stars … so shall your descendants be (Genesis 15:1-6).

In our reading from Genesis 17, Abram is re-named Abraham, meaning “the father of a multitude of nations” and Sarai is called Sarah, meaning “the mother of nations” … which ignited some laughter between both of them. Old Abraham was pushing one hundred and Sarah was well into her nineties and they wondered how on earth it was going to happen. Dr. Will Willimon, chaplain of Duke University who will be here to preach in just two weeks, has written a book entitled “Last Laugh,” and one of the chapters includes this imaginative reflection:

“Abraham thought to himself ‘Sure God, you promised us that when we followed you, we would have a child. But now we’re old and you know that it’s impossible. So now you’re making a joke with old Abraham? You’re going to tell a hundred year old man with a ninety-year-old wife, ‘Congratulations, your baby is on the way!’

So Abraham fell on his face laughing and Sara got the silly giggles behind the tent flap. And God said to Abraham ‘What’s she laughing at?’

And Sarah said ‘I’m not laughing’ while she bit her lip. But God said ‘You are too’ …

You see, they had bet their lives on a promise, and the promise had not come true. And then, on that comic day, God showed up at the tent with a great smile on His face and said ‘Abraham…Sarah…Now!’” (From a sermon entitled “On Getting the Last Laugh” by Dr. Clyde Fant, in a book of sermons edited by Dr. William Willimon, Last Laugh, Abingdon Press, 1991).

Now, in case you didn’t know or have forgotten, it wasn’t until four more chapters in Genesis and thirteen years later that little Isaac, whose name in Hebrew means laughter, was born (Genesis 21:1-2). In between time, Abraham had another son named Ishmael through his Egyptian maid Hagar and ever since then, sad to say, the descendants of those two children – Jew and Arab, Arab and Jew related through the same father and two mothers – those descendants have been set over and against one another to this very day. That is why we continue to work and pray for peace in the Middle East.

But the point of the original story is this: Abraham and Sarah were willing and faithful to wait – to take the time, to make the journey and not be in a hurry as they headed for the Promised Land. And that is a lesson that you and I need to learn in our own time and place.

I confess that is difficult for me, and my guess is, it’s hard for you too. Because we have places to go, people to see, a long list of supposedly important things to do and almost always it seems that we are in a hurry!

Back in 1980, I met the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, D.C. named John Walker. He was an African-American, a visionary leader and our neighbor in Sewickley who had known the Bishop for many years, arranged for him to preach in our Presbyterian Church.

Soon thereafter, John Walker invited us to come visit him at the Washington Cathedral for lunch and a tour. So we left early one morning in May – my neighbor, another Presbyterian pastor and myself – and headed south through West Virginia. Because there was construction on the road, we were running late and so I stepped on the pedal when the way was clear, which turned out to be a big mistake.

A State Trooper pulled us over and asked for my license and registration. I was wearing my clerical collar and proceeded to tell him who we were and where we were headed – to Washington, D.C. to meet with the Episcopal Bishop of the National Cathedral. The trooper listened to my story, smiled back at me and replied, “Preacher, I’m a Southern Baptist, you were doing 75 and I am going to give you a ticket.” Which is exactly what he did.

Well, I am a reformed speeder now. But I remember how I tried to justify why we were in such a big hurry…and that is the dilemma and delusion of our fast-paced, pressure-packed modern age. More often than not, we don’t take the time or make the time to wait for God’s promises and plans to unfold in our lives. So instead of feeling hopeful about the future that the Lord holds in store for us, we are harried today while we hurry toward tomorrow, missing the joy of each moment and forsaking those relationships with our family members and friends which we claim mean the most to us.

If you have come here this morning, trying to catch your breath from the treadmill of a schedule that you are running right now, it could be that God is calling you to slow down, to wait upon Him, to take better care of yourself and to pay attention to the people around you.

That’s how a Methodist woman in Indiana chose to live her life. As a local newspaper reporter interviewed her on her birthday when she turned 105, he asked if she felt anxious or worried about anything. That lady smiled, looked at him and replied, “Actually, I am quite content and have no reason to be afraid. I am in God’s hands and all of my children are safe and secure in nursing homes.”

Just so, the first lesson we can learn from old Abraham and Sarah is that they were willing to take the time, to make the journey and not to be in a hurry.

II.

Another lesson we can learn from them is that wherever life’s journey may lead us, it is a good idea to ask for directions.

The author of the New Testament letter to the Hebrews describes it this way:

By faith, Abraham (and Sarah) obeyed when they were called to set out for a place where they were to receive their inheritance; and they set out, not knowing where they were going. (Hebrews 11:8)

Now the Hebrew text of the story in Genesis doesn’t say so for certain, but I imagine that as Abraham and Sarah moved on from one place to another, eventually headed toward the Promised Land, they asked people to help them find their direction along the way. The journey took them into uncharted territory and it is unlikely that they could have or would have made it alone.

Yet if the truth be told, there is an independent, self-sufficient and often bull-headed streak in many of us that actually thinks we can find the way on our own.

A husband and wife were heading north on the interstate from New Haven to Boston and as dusk settled in, they got lost. The husband, who prided himself as a good driver with a keen sense of direction, tried unsuccessfully to correct their course while his wife sat there silently next to him with the map in her lap. (Does any of this sound familiar?) Finally, she said, “Let’s pull in to that filling station and find out where we are.” Reluctantly, the husband did so and he asked the attendant, an older man with a pipe in his mouth, “How far is it to Boston?” The man thought a moment and answered “Well mister, if you keep going the way you’re headed, it’s about 25,000 miles. But if you’ll just turn around and go the other way, you’ll find Boston 46 miles down this very road.”

The reality, of course, for all of us, is that none of us can make it through life on our own. We need family members and friends to walk the road alongside us, mentors and teachers and leaders to guide us, and above all else, we need God to provide us with the spiritual strength and emotional endurance to go on instead of giving up.

That’s what Abraham and Sarah discovered in their journey of faith and we can find it too, if we are open to the power of God, the presence of His Holy Spirit and the personal guidance and grace of Jesus Christ who has promised to show us the way through. So for each of us and all of us as Christians, it is a good idea to ask for directions.

CONCLUSION

Which takes us to this last lesson that old Abraham and Sarah can teach us if we are willing to listen and pay attention: As we trust in God, He will lead us toward our destination.

Barbara Brown Taylor, the Episcopal priest, professor and prolific author who is a good friend of this congregation, she reminds us in one of her sermons “The Late Bloomer” that Abraham and Sarah found part of their destination during the twilight years of their lives:

“For two dozen years they lived in the promise, led by the delicate threads stitched through their hearts. For two dozen years they watered every seed that fell upon their paths without losing sight of where they were going or who had set them on their way … And never did this seem more true to either of them than the spring morning of Sarah’s ninetieth year, when she came to her husband, drying her hands on her dress and said (with stars in her eyes) ‘Abraham, I have something to tell you.’” (“The Late Bloomer,” by Barbara Brown Taylor, from “Gospel Medicine,” Cowley Publications, 1995, page 41).

And through the birth of that little baby named Isaac, the promise of the future continued to unfold – descendants, as many as the stars in the sky, including another child named Jesus who would become “The Christ” …and entry into the Promised Land, not only here on earth to the land Canaan, but someday into a place called Heaven. And that, my friends, is the greatest promise of all.

Over the last eight months some friends near and dear to me have died. And as I have conducted the funeral and memorial services here and in other places, we proclaim the promise of eternal life which I believe in my veins and in my heart. But I feel sadness, as do you, at the loss of those people. A call came this past week from a friend for many years, a Presbyterian pastor whose wife Susan died of ALS after a long, long struggle. I told him that he was in our prayers. The service will be next week and Barbara and I are going up for it.

But that night, Friday night, I was feeling sadness in my soul, and watching CNN, there was an interview with Johnny Cash just a month ago. With that deep gravelly voice, he said to the reporter, “There’s a great light. It is the light of the world, and I’m looking forward to walking right into it.”

He was talking about heaven and about the promise from Jesus Christ who said, I go to prepare a place for you. Someday I’ll come again and receive you unto myself so that where I am there you will be also. My peace, said Jesus, I leave with you. And that is the greatest hope we have as Christians.

There is a Promised Land my friends, here on this earth and someday in heaven. And there is a poem which I share with you in closing, that has meant a great deal to me in the good times and especially in the hard times, and I hope and pray that today that this poem will become God’s word to you:

“I know not where the road will lead I follow day by day.

Or where it ends: I only know I walk the King’s highway.

I know not if the way is long, and no one else can say.

But rough or smooth, uphill or down, I walk the King’s highway.

And some I love have reached the end, but some with me may stay.

Their faith and hope still guiding me, I walk the King’s highway.”

(Anonymous)

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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