- Genesis 15:1-6
- Psalm 27
The Sermon title is Future? Trust? Hope?
Early Thoughts: Someone has made you a promise. But then a lot of time has passed and there is no sign that the promise will come true. What do you do?
If you are Abraham you ask the person who first made the promise what is happening (and you start to make a back-up plan).
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When we first meet Abraham (Abram) in Genesis 12 he is childless (in the late verses of Chapter 11 we are told that his wife Sarah (Sarai) is barren) and yet he is told that God will make of him a great nation, and that in him all the families of the earth will be blessed. Now to be the source of a great nation one sort of needs progeny, preferably male progeny but here we are several stories later and still no progeny. It appear Abraham may be getting a little anxious for he and Sarah are no longer young. He calls out to God who reaffirms the promise, adding to it the promise that Abraham's descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Thins seems to comfort Abraham (for now). Still the wait for progeny will take many years and include another attempt by Abraham and Sarah to create a back-up plan (the birth of Ishmael with the slave Hagar). Delayed gratification is the lot of Abraham and Sarah but the story relates that they still remain faithful to the promise, they trust in the God who first made the promise, they still live in hope for the promised child -- though they also doubt at times.
WE are all people waiting on a promise. As followers of Christ we live in the promise that the old world has been defeated and the new world, the reign of God "on earth as it is in heaven" both has replaced it and is going to become fully evident in the fullness of time. I don't know about you but there are days when it looks like that promise is a LOOOONG way from being fulfilled. It is easy to doubt that it will happen. It is easy to lose hope -- particularly when it seems that many powerful forces (the ones who supposedly were defeated in the cross and empty tomb) are actively fighting against the growth of the Kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven".
What do we do? How do we respond as people of the promise? When we feel that we/people we love/things we hold dear are under attack, when the promise itself is being attacked what do we do?
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I think Psalm 27 might be a good place to start. In this song David (who is traditionally listed as its writer) both sings about his trust and and confidence in God and calls out to God for help and comfort. As people of faith our trust and hope lie in God. As people of faith that is where we turn for consolation and strength in times of trouble.
It is tempting to think that we have to step in. And it may well be that God is calling us to step in, somehow. What we have to be wary of is to start to think that we know the way to make the promise come true, to make back-up plans and stop trusting in the promise-maker. When Abraham and Sarah made back-up plans (either as in this week's passage or in the Hagar/Ishmael story line) God reminded them that the promise was the promise and it would come out as promised. Our plans may or may not match God's plans for the fulfillment of the promise.
We live as inheritors of a promise. In some ways it is still the promise made to Abraham, that all nations would be blessed through his family, because Christianity is one of the Abrahamic faiths. WE are part of the family of Abraham. To that promise is added, or maybe refined through, the promise of Jesus that the Kingdom of God has come near. We live in the promise of the Reign of God that is both here among us and yet to grow to full bloom. We live in the promise that in the cross and the empty tomb the powers of evil and injustice have been defeated and a new world has emerged victorious.
At the same time the powers of evil and injustice still seem pretty lively for having been defeated. Some days we seem to be moving away from the promised victory of the new heaven and the new earth, the Peaceable Kingdom envisioned by Isaiah, the time when "thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" feels like a reality rather than merely words in a prayer. It would be easy to lose hope while we wait for the promise to be fulfilled. Delayed gratification is a great theory (and a necessity for us to learn) but sometimes it really doesn't feel good.
So remember this, while we wait patiently (or less patiently), God is still at work. God is still on the side of the promise. God remains faithful, even when God's people doubt or lose hope. There is a promise and it will be fulfilled.
Hopefully soon. Some of us are tired of waiting. Some of us are worried what damage the powers of evil and injustice might do in their death throes.
--Gord
--Gord
