Scripture: Genesis 12: 1-9 and Hebrews 11: 8-12
Sermon: The Call and Promise of Pilgrimage
Topics: Pilgrim, Abraham, Call
Preached: October 13, 2002 am baptism service Woodlawn
Rev. Mike Abma
Genesis 12: 1-9
12Now 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. 2I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, 6Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’ So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. 9And Abram journeyed on by stages towards the Negeb.
Hebrews 11: 8-12
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. 9By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old—and Sarah herself was barren—because he considered him faithful who had promised. 12Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, ‘as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.’
INTRODUCTION
This fall Peter and I will be preaching a series of series on what it means to be a pilgrim. That word pilgrim comes from the latin word peregrinus which means a foreigner or stranger or someone who is far from home. As such, the word pilgrim is very close to the word sojourner. What we will be exploring is what it means to be pilgrims or sojourners in our world today. What does it mean to be far from home? What does it mean to be in the world but not of the world? What does it mean to live with that tension between what we naturally yearn for on the one hand and the redeemed life we are called to on the other hand?
CONTEXT
We begin this exploration by looking at the Father of all pilgrims, the Father of all sojourners, Father Abraham. Now how did he become the Father of all Pilgrims? How does he make his appearance in the Bible?
What we need to see is how the 12th chapter of Genesis acts something like a second beginning to the Bible. We all know how the Bible begins with great expectations and even greater disappointments:
God creates the world and everything was good. But then sin slithers in and corrupts everything.
Adam and Eve are blessed with children and the hope of a new beginning. But envy begats hatred and erupts into murder, and Cain kills Abel.
What follows are 10 generations that get worse and worse, until it reaches the point where God decides to wash creation clean of them in a flood, all of them except Noah and his family who are spared. They represent the hope of a new beginning.
But things are not any better after Noah. 10 more generations of escalating wickedness that is epitomized in the Tower of Babel.
The Jewish Tanach – Old Testament – refers to the first eleven chapters of Genesis as the Era of Desolation. Things seemed hopeless. For God to get people to listen to him, to obey him, was as difficult as herding a group of cats – each went his or her own way. So what was God to do? Could God turn his back on the work of his own hands, the creatures in his own image? No, God could not, God would not do that.
Then what?
NEW BEGINNINGS
Then what?
Genesis 12 is the “what.
Making a stunning and personal appearance to Abraham is what happened.
Calling this one person, and getting this one person to follow him is what happened.
Here we see God’s creative imagination at work.
Here we see the beginnings of what we will come to learn as God’s specialty:
God’s ability to create something out of nothing;
His ability to begin an era of hope out of an era of desolation;
His ability to bring life out of death.
That is in many ways what the calling of Abraham represents – the calling of one man out of darkness and death,
in order to walk in faith of God’s new life and light.
And we know that that pattern will return again and again:
God will bring a baby out of Sarah’s barrenness;
He will give birth to a brand new nation when it walks out of Egyptian
bondage, through the Red Sea, into a new life.
He will rebirth this nation when he takes the exiles from captivity in
Babylon and marches them back to rebuild Jerusalem.
But it all starts here with Abraham, a man as good as dead, from whom comes descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore.
THE CALL
It all starts with the Call.
God shows up and says in Hebrew Lech Lecha – LEAVE
Leave your country,
Leave your people,
Leave your father’s household.
Why so abrupt? Why so dramatic? Why did Abraham have to leave everything that gave him a sense of identity, a sense of belonging, a sense of security?
Because God was doing a brand new thing.
The old had to die. The new had to come to life.
The old had to be taken off. The new had to be put on.
That is the way God works.
He seeks us out. He calls us.
When Jesus came he said, “Come, follow me.”
He also made sure his disciples left their nets, their families, and even what they thought were their highest responsibilities. Abruptly and even rather shockingly, Jesus said things like “Follow me and let the dead bury their own dead” (Mat. 8:22)
“Unless a person hates his own father and mother … and even his own life, that person cannot be my disciple (Luke 14: 26; Mat. 10:37-38)
As we sang just a while ago Faith begins by letting go – answering the call of God means giving up all those old sources of security, and living in complete trust of God.
THE PROMISE & TASK
Now there may be some who are wondering “Why Abraham?” Why was Abraham called and not, say, his brother Nahor?”
I could say that in the Dutch language Nahor means something like, “No, thank you.”
But seriously, what can anyone really say?
Why was Abraham chosen and not Nahor?
Why was Isaac chosen and not Ishmael?
Why Jacob and not Esau?
Why was I chosen? Why were you chosen?
If we start to answer that question in terms of the chosen somehow deserving to be chosen, we know we are off to the wrong start. From Genesis to Revelation, that is the wrong answer. We do not deserve God’s love and grace. The only real response to being chosen, to being called is a quiet and even surprised humility.
But there is one answer we can give to why we have been chosen. We’ve been chosen to be a blessing to all the nations.
Abraham’s call to Leave is followed by 4 clear promises. God says:
I will make you a great nation
I will make your name great
I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you
All people on earth will be blessed through you.
Abraham is chosen for a purpose. He and his family are to become a conduit, a channel, through which God will in fact bless the whole world. Already, by the end of the book of Genesis, Abraham’s great-grandson, Joseph, will be a blessing to the world in saving it from a deadly 7-year famine. But this is simply a foreshadowing of Abraham’s great-great-great….grandson, Jesus. And Jesus who reverses everything from the very beginning For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22)
Is how God speaks to Abraham really so different from how Jesus speaks to his disciples? After calling his disciples, Jesus says to them in John 15:
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.”
And why did Jesus chose his disciples out of the world? Jesus says, “You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last…This is my command – Love each other (John 15:16-17).”
BAPTISM — SIGN of the CALLED OUT ONES
When we think of Abraham’s call, and the promises and responsibilities this call entailed, it should be clear that we also need to think of Abraham’s present family, the church. What is the name for the church in the New Testament? It is the ekklesia – literally “the called out ones.” Those called out of the world and into the family of Abraham through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
And how do we become members of this ekklesia – through baptism, through being buried in Christ’s death, and raised in the glory of his life. Baptism is the sign and seal that we are pilgrims – we are the called out ones, called out of the old and called into the new.
PILGRIMS LIVING ON THE EDGE
The thing about pilgrims – “the called out ones” – is that they always live in a certain tension between the old and the new;
The tension of being in the world but not of it;
Of being residents of this earth yet citizens of heaven
Of already living as God’s people but not yet receiving all that is
promised.
Just look at Abraham.
He listens to God and is called from death to life, but that doesn’t make his life easy. Abraham ends up living on the edge
- he is in the land of Canaan, but he is not of the land of Canaan;
- he is already in the Promised Land but he does not yet own any of it.
- he is incensed by the evil of Sodom and Gomorrah, yet he intercedes for their survival.
- Abraham has a love/hate relationship with the world he lives in.
This is the same tension every present-day pilgrims continues to live with.
We are in the world but not of it.
The kingdom of Christ is already here but has not yet been fully realized.
We both hate the wickedness of the world and are tempted to live as far away from it as possible, like a pilgrim just passing through.
And yet, how can we turn our backs on this world, a world Abraham was called to bless, and Jesus was sent to redeem, and a world we have been commissioned to go into with the good news of the gospel?
CONCLUSION
These are some of the tensions we will be talking about over the next number of weeks.
But do not leave this morning with an image of a pilgrim as some lonely stranger in the middle of the desert living as far away as possible as from other people.
Instead think of pilgrimage as something like a parade,
a parade that Abraham starts,
a parade that through Jesus, every Jew and Gentile, male and female,
slave and free is invited to join,
a parade that doesn’t march through the desert, but rather marches
through the wastelands of our cities getting as many others as
possible to join in,
a parade that marches and marches and marches until its leader, Jesus
Christ returns, and the old is entirely replaced by the new,
Until that day, we march and we sing on.
Amen.
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