Genesis 12:1-9
Second Sunday in Lent
17 February 2008
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
I’d like to introduce each of you to an old friend of mine. His nickname is Tommy. You probably recognize him and know him better by his full name – “Thomas Guide.” This particular Thomas Guide contains street maps for every street in Los Angeles County – at least it did when it was printed back in 1998 – and has logged about 100,000 miles riding with me in my Grand Am. After 14 years of being here now, I don’t use Tommy as often as I used to, but it used to be that if I was out and about and got a call from the office telling me that someone was in the hospital or in need of a visit, the first thing I’d do is reach into the back seat to find Tommy there waiting to help steer me in the correct direction. Today, in addition to Thomas Guides, we have much more modern and sophisticated tools like mapquest.com and GPS navigation that provide us the same service.
Why are these tools so necessary? It’s because we humans usually like to know where we’re going. Most of us don’t like to just wander aimlessly. Most of us operate on a time table and want to get from point A to point B and quickly and as directly as possible.
Knowing that innate quality in human beings is one reason why the interaction between Abraham and God in Genesis chapter 12 has always impressed me. From out of the blue, God says to Abraham, “Leave your country. Leave your people. Leave your father’s household. Go to the land I will show you.” Then Moses records for us three simple words – “Then Abram left.”
I have an idea that God specifically chose Abraham for this part of His plan because if He had chosen you or me I have an idea that Moses could not summarize our response as simply as “Then Abram left.” No, we’d want to know details. Where am I going, God? What route are we going to take? What do I need to bring along? How long is this going to take? And, Oh, by the way, God, why are You asking me to do this? Most of us would belabor God with questions and with details. His whole plan of salvation would probably unfold without us and we’d still be arguing about where He was asking us to go.
“Abram, leave your country. Leave your people. Leave your father’s household. Go to the land I will show you.” “Then Abram left.”
We’re on that kind of a journey this year as a congregation. I’ve had many of you ask me about this process I’ve introduced this year of determining our core values and then out of those core values developing some new goals as a congregation, some new direction. There’s been some concern that this approach is somewhat esoteric. I wish I could take you to the end of the process to show you what the final good is going to be for us as a congregation but I am with you in this process. Like you, I don’t know what this process is going to do to us and for us, but I do believe God is leading us in this process. God is in control of this process and He has just invited us along for the ride. The lesson we can learn from Abraham is to trust God.
St. Paul wrote that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness [Romans 4:3]. The writer of the book of Hebrews praises Abraham for his faith [Hebrews 12].
All of us as individuals are on a journey with the Lord as well. Our journey is called “Life.” We may not have heard God telling us to pack up and travel to a new land, but few of us truly know what tomorrow holds for us. Those few of us who do think we know what tomorrow holds will be probably be quite surprised. But none of that should frighten us or cause us concern because we have a God Who’s better than any Thomas Guide, better than mapquest.com, better than the most advanced GPS system. Not only can He get us to where we need to be, but He has a way of redirecting us to make our journey even more pleasant than we ourselves intended and planned.
And, of course, there is a final journey ahead for each of us. Jesus spoke to His disciples about it [John 14]: “In my Father’s House are many rooms. I am going there to prepare a place for you and I will come back and take you to be with Me.”
When the disciples heard about that journey, human nature took over. Thomas had to stick his foot in his mouth and do what Abraham had not done. Instead of just packing up and trustingly follow their Savior, Thomas had to ask about the journey: “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. We don’t know the way.” There’s human nature!
But Jesus tolerated Thomas. Not only did He tolerate him, but He comforted him – and us. Remember what Jesus said? He said, “Thomas, you don’t need a map. You don’t need directions. You don’t need any details. Just walk in faith. I am the Way. I am the Truth. I am the Life. I am your way. I am your truth. I am your life.”
Those words of comfort – along with Jesus’ words to Nicodemus that God so loved the world that He have His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life – give us strength in our journey of life.
We don’t need “Tommy” for that journey. We only need Jesus and Him we have!
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena