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Robin Kash
June 5, 2005
Continuing the Journey
Genesis 12:1-9
For years I wondered whatever would make a seventy-five year old man and his wife pick up and leave home for parts unknown. When I was a pastor in Texas I realized that Abraham is the poster child for an untold number of Iowans and other midwesterners who make their way south to Florida, Texas and Arizona. Some are just snowbirds; others are making a new home for themselves. I'm still puzzling over the part of the story that comes later when Abraham—he approaching 100—and Sarai—she well into her 90s—imagine that she would get pregnant and have a child. Right now, I'm content to understand that leaving home after you're deep into retirement is not that big a deal.
What is a big deal is why they did it and what happened because they did. Abraham was sure God called them to go find a new place to live. Abraham was confident that great and wonderful things would result. The results are not all accounted for yet, but returns so far are very promising.
I reckon that for many of you here this morning there is an odd sense of dislocation, even as there must have been for Abraham and Sarai. This day is the one you've been looking forward to and this place is where you intended to go. Still, getting here may not have been exactly as you imagined. Some years ago, in another life time, after my then—family had moved to El Paso, and we were making our first trip across the Rio Grande to go grocery shopping in Zaragosa, Mexico, a suburb of Juarez, my step-daughter, looking with her characteristically guileless, pre-pubescent wonder at a mostly dry river bed, said: "Boy I am surprised. Just what I expected." What she expected was not the nearly dry riverbed. She expected to be surprised. She expected to be surprised and she reveled in it.
It's been a long trek from a place of worship with which you'd grown familiar. For years you've been trying to imagine what this day would be like. And now it's here. "Are we there, yet?" "Yes, we are." After a long trip, it's good to stretch, and look around, and try to take it all in. You'll need a while. And that's good. Take your time. Enjoy. Revel in the moment.
Abraham built his altar where he'd heard the Lord speak, where he'd received God's promise. That's a good place to be: where we've heard God speak to us, where we've received the Lord's promise. For generations God's word has been proclaimed to those who've gathered in all those places that have sheltered your community of faith. It's a long way from a mud-brick building to this. You expect to continue to hear God's word in this very place. You expect God's promise to you to be worked out through this very place.
Abraham built an altar to mark where he'd heard God's word, received God's promise. The Lord kept the promise to Abraham. You and I are part of the proof of it. At least we hope we are. We trust that we are the spiritual children of Abraham. And as Abraham's and Sarai's spiritual children we're still on the journey. Partly we're moving into the future; and partly the future is coming to us.
Abraham heard what the future held—that his children would inherit the land he stood on. What he didn't know, couldn't know, maybe didn't care to know just then was just how that was going to get worked out. The promise outweighed improbabilities. Just where he was going to get descendants wasn't the main thing on his mind. He had a promising future, and that's all that mattered. Hope.
I know you all have hopes for the time to come. Now's not the time to worry about the details. Not that you won't have them to wrestle with, and plenty of them. But now's not the time. Now's the time to exult in what the Lord has been able to accomplish through you. You all have had a hand in transforming this place. But this is only the beginning. You have yet to see what sort of place it will become. More than that, what sort of people will you become, you who worship here? Places have a way of shaping us.
Now, now is a time to rejoice and be glad in the day the Lord has made. It is the nature of joy to embrace others. Those who know joy cannot help but love God and love neighbors as themselves. The journey continues. Today rejoice that you have come to a time and place of great promise. Wait upon the Lord to lead you in joy.
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First Presbyterian
Church of Cedar Rapids
310 Fifth Street SE Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
Phone: 319-364-6148
E-mail: church@fpccr.org
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