This is the Pastor’s Blog for the Service on Sunday June 7th. This week the message is titled “The Blessing Journey”. Included here is the primary Scripture of this message and the Pastor’s notes.
Scripture: Genesis 12:1-9
Now the Lord had said to Abram:
“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
2 I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
4 So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan. 6 Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land.
7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. 9 So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South.
Pastor’s Message:
An important mentor to me early in my ministry was named Wally Chappell. We served together on a large church staff when he was in his mid-80s, in retired status and part-time. He prepared all of his sermons and small group studies on an IBM Selectric II (that’s an old-school typewriter for those of you who haven’t experienced typewriters).
I remember walking down the hall in the church office suite one day, hearing Wally’s typewriter clacking away at blitz speed. When I stuck my head in his office door to say “Hello,” he looked up at me and chuckled. “I get excited about ideas and inspiration that come to me, and then when I start typing it out, I realize I’ve already said it before dozens of times – just in different ways.” Wally shared more than once that he was amazed God wasn’t finished with him yet. He served faithfully into his 90s, leading intensive journalling workshops and small groups in spiritual practices.
I wonder if Abram ever thought God was finished with him? Or maybe he wished God was finished with him!
“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” No map. No timeline. No reason given. Just a call. And 75-year old Abram goes, maybe surprised that God’s not finished with him yet.
Abram leaves everything familiar behind. In the ancient world, where you came from and lived out your days meant security and connection. Ancient families were rooted in a place for generations. It meant connection to kinfolk and resources. “Home” was identity and survival. The family land meant stability and sometimes wealth. Being “home” meant being connected not just to family, but also to one’s ancestors and history.
Yet God calls Abram away from all of it: to leave the generational home that tells him who he is. God sends Abram into a future that isn’t known and cannot be controlled.
The writer of this story doesn’t tell us how Abram feels about this. He just packs up and goes. There is no description of fear, or anxiety, or of Sarai arguing with Abram about it.
We do hear the promise God makes, though: “I will bless you… so that you will be a blessing.”
Abram is not blessed for his own personal privilege. Abram and Sarai are blessed so that the whole world can be blessed.
There’s irony in the promise God makes to Abram. God promises to make of Abram “a great nation.” But Sarai is barren; she and Abram are past the age when having kids is a possibility. We have no idea if Abram and Sarai are “deserving” of God’s promise. God chooses them even though they would likely prefer for God to choose someone else.
When God makes a promise, we can trust that promise will be kept.
God’s promise moves Abram and Sarai from a predictable, status quo existence to a dynamic new place, both geographically and spiritually. God sends them to a place of new possibility that boggle the imagination. Because of Abram’s and Sarai’s journey, all the families of the earth will be blessed.
Blessing. There’s a word that’s been hash-tagged to death. What do we mean when say “I am blessed”? Or when we say to someone “bless you” or “you are a blessing”?
To be “blessed” is more than receiving good luck, comfort, or material success. To be blessed is to be grounded in the sacred, to feel the grace and love of God, and to offer this grounding and grace to others. To tell someone that they are a blessing is to recognize this grace and divine belonging in others.
In the same way, Abram’s journey was never only about Abram. It was about “all the families of the earth.” From the very beginning, God’s vision has been expansive, inclusive, for the whole world. The purpose of blessing was – and is — healing for the world.
We can expand this to the Church as well. The Church does not exist merely to preserve itself, the Church exists to bless, and to help others hear and know they are blessed. We are blessed with community so we can welcome the lonely. Blessed with resources so we can serve neighbors. Blessed with hope so we can stand with people in despair. Blessed with grace so we can extend grace.
Just surviving and preserving is not the way of the gospel. The way of Christ is missional and generous. The way of Christ is about becoming a blessing for others so that they can know they also are a blessing and can bless others.
There’s another important element about Abram’s journey: Abram does not “get there” all at once. Abram moves from place to place, building altars along the way. Abram keeps moving, dedicates altars to God in every new place he lands. He keeps listening for God’s voice even without knowing where he will wind up. God meets Abram all along the journey
In the end, Abram steps into an unknown future trusting that the One who called him will remain faithful, will show him the way, and will bless him at each and every stage of the journey..
God’s call to God’s people still echoes:
Go.
Trust.
Journey.
Bless.
For we are blessed not so we can hold tightly to what we have, but so that through us, the people of the Way of Christ, and all the families of the earth, might know they are blessed, too.Closing prayer
