“Abraham’s Call and Ours”

Second Sunday in Lent A 2008

Genesis 12:1-4a

Let us pray:  You call us to be your people, O God.  You give to us talents and blessings to be used for service in your name.  Open our ears to hear your call.  Give us faith to listen and respond.  Empower us to be obedient and faithful servants as we engage in mission and ministry, all to the glory of your name.  Amen.

              I’m sure he wasn’t looking for the job, Abraham, that is.  Abraham was quite content with where he was and what he was doing.  He had done very well for himself, first in the city of Ur of the Chaldeans, and then later on in the city of Haren, where he had been living for some time.  He and his wife Sarah, who were both getting up there in years, had acquired many possessions and had many servants, and, I suspect, liked their way of life.  You could say that life was pretty good.  Abraham had it made.  But then came that interruption, a voice from outside.  Abraham was called by God.  Actually, I think it was more of a command.  The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”  Away from the safety and security of his home and family, God tells Abraham to “Go.”  And what does he do…he goes.  Answering the call to a new beginning, Abraham picks up his possessions and all his belongings, and he and Sarah leave for a new adventure, a new destination, a new direction in life.  This was the start of God’s grand plan to reconcile the world back to Godself and free us from “sin, death, and the power of the devil.”

              Leaving without so much as a road map in hand, Abraham went out, not knowing where he was to go, only he went with the promise of God.  And what a promise it was.  “I will make you a great nation,” God said, “and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing … in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”  Abraham was chosen and called by God.  He obeyed and responded in faith, trusting that God will be faithful to God’s Word.  Through Abraham, God began the great adventure of a new beginning in which the salvation of the world would come.

              You and I are also a part of this new beginning, this adventure of faith.  You have been chosen by God and have the opportunity to answer the call.  For the disciples of Jesus, the call has gone out many times, but none more pointed than in the Gospel of Matthew, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.”  Like Abraham, we have a choice.  We can, either, respond in faith and leave behind the safety and security of life as we know it for a new life as God’s servants and ministers to a fallen world, or we can ignore the call and try to remain untouched by the cares of the world.  Faith, you see, is always a risky business, not knowing where faith may lead us.  That is probably why we don’t always listen very well when the call of God comes.  The “leaving” of things familiar and safe can be scaring.  A lot of the time we think that someone else is better suited or equipped for the job.  Sometimes we find other excuses like I don’t have the time, or I have a business to run, or I have other important things to do, or we just decide we don’t want to change and keep things the way they are.  But, as with the call of Abraham, there is a promise for us in it as well.  Jesus says, “I will be with you always, even to the close of the age.”

              There are many examples of people who have heard and answered the call of God and responded in faith.  As a young man in England, faith led William Wilberforce to struggle against the slave trade in his own society.  How could he have ever known that as an old man he would sit in the halls of parliament one evening and hear the English empire put an end to slavery?  Led by faith, Martin Luther King, Jr. answered the call to fight against prejudice, hate, and discrimination.  With his tragic death, he of course was unable to see that his efforts, and the efforts of many others, resulted in the Civil Rights Act for all people in this country regardless of race, creed, or color.  Called by God, Albert Schweitzer left the opulence and influence of Europe to set up a medical mission in the Congo of Africa.  Little did he know that he would leave behind a legacy for others to follow. 

              I also think of all the people, both clergy and lay members of the church, that serve in special ministries in the United States and around the world, proclaiming the gospel, serving the needs of the poor, serving the church in places around the world.  Pastor Steve felt called to be a chaplain in the National Guard, leading him to spend over a year in Iraq, sharing God’s Word with the soldiers there.  Many of us had the opportunity a few weeks ago to visit with the missionaries we support as a congregation, David Wunsch and Kathryn Lawler.  They serve in South America, living in Buenos Aries, Argentina.  David and Kathryn, along with their two children, left their families behind for a 8-10 year commitment.  When I met Kathryn in Argentina two years ago, I remember how she teared up a bit saying that that was the hardest thing, leaving family behind.  (When I graduated from the seminary, my class had nine people go to oversea missions, places like Tanzania, Japan, the Central African Republic.  I have never heard a word from any of our special missionaries that they ever regretted going to their places of service, but they always regarded their work as an experience of a lifetime.)

              Like these people, and millions of others, the call of God comes to us too.  It may be that we are not called to go to a foreign land, or to put our life on the line, or to do something that will be recorded in history for all the world to read about.  No, we may not be called in that way, but we are all called by God in some way to serve him by being a witness here in this church and in this community.  To receive a call from God to ministry is what it means to be a Christian.  It is a result of our being baptized into the Christian faith and church.  To be called in this way is indeed a blessing.  We have all be blessed, and, like Abraham we can be a blessing to others, as we seek to share the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  We can leave the safety of our surroundings and the security of our homes and “Go.”  We go out to those who are in need of the loving presence of Christ.  The unusual thing about it is that in our serving we may think that we are being a blessing to others, when, in reality, we are the ones being blessed in some way by those we are serving.

              Helen Harms tells of her experience working with the Lutheran Appalachian Ministries in Kentucky, as they delivered quilts to community organizations in the Appalachian Mountains.  This is what she said:

              ”The visit was to a poverty-stricken area of Harlan County.  I’d had enough of poverty and I was tired.  “I’ll just drop off the quilts and go home,” I thought, but the community center director there insisted that I come along to deliver the quilts.  I had planned to “cut and run,” but there I was.  This trip was getting worse with every minute.

              My discomfort was obvious as I gingerly made my way into the house.  It was every bit as bad as I had imagined – and then some!  It was heated by a coal stove and coal dust clung to the furniture, the floor, the walls, and the grandchildren’s smudged knees and faces.  Wind blew through broken windowpanes.  The grandmother, her teeth gone, was a woman too soon old.  She hadn’t bathed for a while.  She was everyone’s stereotype of a poor hillbilly woman.  I thought, “Lord, get me out of here.”

              We opened a couple of quilts for her to see.  She lovingly stroked the bright colors.  Delight wreathed her face as she remembered the quilts her mother used to make.  Then she walked over and hugged me.  She hugged me with all my middle class biases and pretensions, all my feelings of superiority and aloofness.

              I could have cried.  “What a fool I am, Lord.” I remarked as I headed home that day.  I came wearing my self-righteousness and conceit.  I walked away with the gift of acceptance and love.

              This is what happens, I think, to many of our high school youth when they go out on a mission trip, like to Chicago or the reservation in South Dakota.  For the most part, they don’t know what to expect.  It turns out to be an adventure that changes their lives and helps them see how they can put their faith into action.  This is what happened when we went on the mission trip to Biloxi, MS last October.  It was a trip of a lifetime.  In a recent update from Bethel Lutheran Church in Biloxi, they say that they have received over 2700 volunteers since 2005 following Hurricane Katrina.  The director wrote, “God calls them and each person responds in their own way.  We are blessed to be able to house and feed them.  We are so grateful that God has called us to the work so that you can come here and do His work.”  The motto of their mission is this: “Hurricane Katrina was an act of nature; what is happening here is an act of God.”  This coming week, eight people will be going to Rushford to help out with the flood recovery there.  We look forward to hearing of their experiences when they return.  The feeling of being blessed is what often happens when people answer the call of God and go out to do ministry. 

As we move through this Lenten season, we are given the opportunity today to reflect on our call to be disciples of Jesus Christ.  Just as God called Abraham to go, God also calls us to go.  Just as Abraham was blessed by God to be a blessing to others, we are also blessed to be a blessing.  “The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you … So Abraham went,” and so shall we.  Amen.