Stepping Out

Genesis 12:1-10

A Sermon Preached by

The Rev. Mike Elliott

November 8, 2009

This year, your Stewardship and Finance Committee would like you to consider whether or not 2010 is the year that the Lord is asking you to step out.  To step out in faith.  To consider where God is calling you and this church to travel in the year ahead.  To ask how God is calling us to live out God’s rich blessings for us in this year ahead.  To choose how we will give thanks for God’s blessings by blessing others.  So, are you ready to step out in faith and see where God is calling us to journey to?  Are you ready to begin on a pilgrimage of faith with God leading us into bold new places of ministry and love?  Will you answer God’s call and take that first step on an amazing journey?  Scary sounding?  Yes!  Exciting and liberating?  Absolutely!  To walk into the unknown with God as our guide?  Priceless!  Trust me on that one!  And we will be blessed beyond belief.

I am, for one, and I know your Stewardship Committee is ready.  Ready to stop.  Ready to stop living a myth of scarcity that we have been living under and to embrace God’s call to live out God’s abundance.  For too long now we have been living as if God’s blessings were getting scarce to come by here at FPC.  We have cut our budget and mostly at the expense of our faithful church staff.  We have cut every program that we possibly can to make ends meet.  And we still believe God’s blessings are hard to come by!  You know what though?  I’m tired.  Very tired.  Tired of shuffling needed repairs around the church.  Tired of saying no to requests for money at the expense of our church programs.  Tired of delaying payments to our mission partners both here in Albuquerque and around the world so we can make ends meet.  I’m just plain old tired of it all.

And yet, even on the worst days, I am overwhelmed.  Overwhelmed by how richly God has and continues to bless us.  I look around every Sunday and can see on your faces the joy and the pride that comes from worshipping God and providing for God’s children in need.  I see the Gospel preached, our children nurtured, the sick and the lonely ministered too in powerful ways.  Some days I can just cry when I see God’s blessing poured out on us in order for us to turn around and share those very same blessings with those in spiritual, physical and emotional need.

So why do we find ourselves in this situation?  Why do we continue to live a myth of scarcity when God’s blessings are everywhere in our midst?  Why?

Walter Brueggemann, professor emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary sees a recurring theme throughout the Old Testament of the conflict between the “liturgy of abundance” and the “myth of scarcity.”  He says, “The Bible starts out in Genesis 1 with a liturgy declaring God’s abundant blessing on all creation. At the end of each day God declares that day’s work to be “good.”  It is not until we get to Genesis 47 that we encounter scarcity.  Then Pharaoh organizes a plan to save up food for a coming famine. Even in the wilderness, God provides Israel with enough. But the people of Exodus are always fearful that there will never be enough.”

Brueggemann sees us behaving in much the same way Pharaoh did in Genesis.  We, the richest people of the world, are the main coveters.  “We never feel that we have enough,” says Brueggemann.  “We have to have more and more, and this insatiable desire threatens to destroy us every moment of our lives.  Whether we are liberal or conservative Christians, we must confess that the central problem of our lives is that we are torn apart by the conflict between our attraction to the good news of God’s abundance and the seductively overwhelming power of our belief in scarcity.  We spend our lives in Christ trying to sort out that ambiguity.

Maybe Brueggemann hit’s the nail on the head.  Maybe it is our fear of scarcity, even as we enjoy, no make that bask in, the overwhelmingness of God’s blessings that has led us here to this place in our faith journey.  Who knows?  Maybe you and I need to take that first step in a new faith direction.  Maybe it’s time for you and me to take God’s hand once again and walk into the gloriously blessed and yet frighteningly unknown and unfamiliar future that God has planned for us!!!

So, it is with both a fond look to the past and an exciting joy in the future that I invite you once again to step out in faith.  To step out and walk where God is calling us to go.  To take a pilgrimage of faith…much like Abram did when God called him to step out and go.  To make the places that God is calling us to go in the year ahead into holy and blessed places.  So hear the word of the Lord for Genesis 12...[please read…]

Did you know that worldwide, about 150 Christians make a religious pilgrimage each year, which is about 7 percent of the world’s Christians?  Chances are that if your response to that statistic is “who cares or so what?” then it’s probably because you’re a Protestant, and in general, Protestant churches don’t encourage the visitation of religious sites as an act of faith like some other Christian denominations have.  It’s not that Protestants don’t travel to religiously significant sites; we’re just more likely to call them “vacations” as opposed to pilgrimages.   We Protestants just don’t head for places like Lourdes in France; Medjugorje in Bosnia and Knock in Ireland, which are pilgrimage sites for Roman Catholics.

Still, for Protestants, there are plenty of religiously significant destinations out there, including, of course, the Holy Land as well as tours that visit locations important in the Reformation, just ask Libby about that, or that follow the footsteps of the apostle Paul, or that take you to the cities of the seven churches named in The Book of Revelation.   

150 million is a lot of people on the move, but actually, it’s not the whole story.  Those are just the Christians.  In 2006, a record six million people visited the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.  Some 2.1 million Muslims visit Mecca each December.  An estimated 70 million Hindus go to the Ganges River every January and February for spiritual cleansing.  Most of these people don’t consider themselves to be tourists but rather pilgrims, people looking to deepen their faith, express their commitment, receive a blessing or relive the great events in the history of their religion.

As a way of thinking about a spiritual journey, consider Abram and the pilgrimage God called him to make.  God tells Abram to set out on a trip that will have for him, and for us, some serious and amazing spiritual results.

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house,” the Lord says to Abram, “to the land that I will show you.”   So, how is that for taking a faith journey?   “Leave, just leave.  Leave the security of your home, leave the safety of your family and possession, and don’t worry about where you’re going.  You’ll find out what you need to know and when you need to know it!”

The author of Hebrews has this to say about Abrams faith: “By 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.”  For Abram, it was all about leaving, about stepping out in faith, about believing God‘s promise of blessings beyond Abram‘s wildest dreams.

The narrator does not give us a clue as to what Abram felt or thought about this strange call from God, because only Abram’s response was important.  What was important was what God promised Abram for his faithfulness.  Who before Abram had ever received such promises as Abram did?  Promises of nationhood, reputation, blessing and land?  And all he had to do was step out….  As the author puts it “so Abram went ....”   And so started the amazing pilgrimage of Abram.

Just like a pilgrimage that we might take today.  With one very large exception.  Pilgrims today go to sites that are already considered holy and blessed.  In the case of Abram, his destination is not sacred; it’s Abram who makes his destination and the places he paused for rest as sacred.  The places to which God leads Abram are not spiritually significant sites when Abram gets there.  Instead, they become blessed places because of what Abram does when he gets there.

Abram headed out in response to his call from God.  He obeyed the call.  Obedience is just another word for faith in action.  Whenever Abram arrived at his destination, he listened for what God wanted him to do there.  When God seemed distant or unavailable, then Abram took the initiative and called on the name of the Lord.  That is, he did what he could to make the place where he was into God’s place.  Into a holy place.  And so, Abram was blessed by God and brought blessings on everyone and everything he came in contact with.

God sometimes calls us, like Abram, to leave our comfort zone and go to places where we feel are so far out of our league, but God calls us to go anyway.  Sometimes God calls us to step out in faith even when we are not sure where we are going.  Sometimes God calls us to bless others even as God blesses us.  Sometimes God is waiting for us to make the places where we find ourselves on our faith pilgrimage into holy places by our actions.  But all the time it is a call to put our faith into action.

At a Wednesday evening church meeting, a very wealthy man stood and gave his testimony:  “I’m a millionaire,” he said, “and I attribute it all to the rich blessings of God in my life.  “I can still remember the turning point in my faith, like it was yesterday.  “I had just earned my first dollar and I went to a church meeting that night. The speaker was a missionary who told about his work. I knew that I only had a dollar bill and had to either give it all to God’s work or nothing at all. So at that moment I decided to give my whole dollar to God. I believe that God blessed that decision, and that is why I am a rich man today.”  As he finished, it was clear that everyone had been moved by this man’s story. But, as he took his seat, a little old lady sitting in the same pew leaned over and said: “Wonderful story! I dare you to do it again!”

This year, your Stewardship and Finance Committee would like you to consider whether or not 2010 is the year that your hear the Lord calling you to step out.  To step out in faith.  To consider where God is calling you and this church to pilgrimage in the year ahead.  To ask how God is calling us to live out God’s rich blessings on us in this year ahead.  To choose how we will give thanks for God’s blessings by blessing others.  So, are you ready to step out in faith and see where God is calling us to journey to?  Are you ready to begin our pilgrimage of faith with God leading us into bold new places of ministry and love?  Will you answer God’s call and take that first step on an amazing journey?  Maybe for the first time or maybe all over again. 

God is indeed calling us to make the hours and the days and the months of 2010 into holy time.  Into time where we receive and share God’s blessings.

God is calling us to step out in faith, to support our work as the family of First Presbyterian Church and make the ministries and the missions and the programs of our church into holy and blessed activities.

So, will you take up God’s invitation?  Will you bring the best of your time, talent and treasure with you and use your blessings that others may be blessed?  Will you help make 2010 a year where the milestones of God’s blessings are everywhere?  We really do need your financial support to make this coming year an amazing year.

Space is not limited, and you can leave anytime that you feel called.  We sure do hope that you will answer the call and be blessed as you bless others along God’s journey set out for us in the year ahead. 

Amen.