Sermon – The World for God
Genesis 12:1-3; 28:13-15; Acts 3:25; Galatians 3:6-9
Farmville Presbyterian Church
11/3/24
When God appeared to Abram and offered him the opportunity to go to a new country and start a new people, the offer did not just end there. Abram who became Abraham was already frustrated by the fact that he couldn’t have children. His was a world in which you needed to have children. Children, in particular boys, secured your family and future. If you had any wealth, you needed a son to carry on and protect the family which included more than direct relatives. Children meant a future; Abram had neither. The best he had was someone unknown except for a name, Eliezer of Damascus. This was someone who apparently would take over for Abram upon his death, but it was not family. Abram did not have his own future.
That offer from God was a future, though. “You will have a family, a big family, and you will have an exceptional blessing.” That was the answer to Abram’s prayers! This was exactly what Abram needed in that moment as the way forward for the rest of his living years, but that was not enough for God. Why any of us know Abram as Abraham today is not just because he had a family, which ended up a big family at that, but the promise that this family would bless all the families of the earth. The call of God, the blessing of God, and goodness of God through this one family would bless the entire world. God’s goal was the whole world.
Talk about a legacy! As we get older, we probably all wonder from time to time what kind of legacy we might leave after us. We want to be more than a name or a placeholder in a family tree. We all want to matter to those who come after us. We want to matter to the world. I catch myself wondering what kind of footprint I might leave. Who would even know I came this way? It can be scary to start going down that path. Some people seem to have it easy. They are literally saving lives each day or rescuing people from crime or burning buildings. Some people are creating medicine or technology that will make the world a safer, heathier place. Some people pour their lives into teaching the young or giving dignity to those who are in their greying years. Some have given their lives to the protection and safety of others. Sometimes, I wonder how much my life will mean to the world.
But then, all I need to do is to bless one person. One person meets me, and if I am able to share one blessing and bless that person, they just might become a blessing for someone else and then someone else and someone else. That’s just one blessing radiating out like a pebble or drop in a pond. Our view is small and narrow as to the scope of our life and influence in the world. Our faces may never make the cover of TIME magazine or an episode of 60 Minutes. The Wall Street Journal might never care what we think about this or that, but imagine blessing the ends of the earth. Unless God is wrong, unless God was just saying things or wishful thinking, unless God has no idea what is going on, then there is an unfolding blessing across the face of the earth, and we are all part of it – each and every one of us.
This was not a one-off remark or a random thought on God’s part. You heard this promise through Abraham to everyone directly expressed in different places in Scripture. This was referenced directly as something important and real. Over the course of many hundreds of years, this promise marched on and still marches on. These biblical writers are recalling this promise at different times in history linked by this same, enduring promise. It is a foundation undergirding the history among God’s people. Amazingly, God not only wants us to be blessed but for all of us to be blessed. As we know God’s love, we can extend that love further past us. The blessing can grow.
Today, we are recalling those who have ended their earthly walk with us and have lived out this promise of God’s blessing in their own way. On the one hand, we grieve their loss among us. There’s no denying it. We have felt their absence in deep and abiding ways. We miss their presence and the life and love we shared, but I hope we see something else, too. Each of these lives that we hold dear in this time of remembering also lived out the blessing of God from Abraham. WE felt their blessing, but they are witnesses to this blessing to all the earth that the rest of us can only hold in hope. They have an appreciation of God’s living love in action that is one voice among many in our ears. Those whom we cherish this day are part of a chorus that shuts every other voice in the magnificence of God’s glory. Until we are also part of that chorus, we will strain to follow the notes of God’s living love among us, but they have the whole song.
By the time that Paul wrote the letter to the Galatians, he recognized the challenge and the possibility of Abraham’s blessing. When we first encountered God’s call, the promise seemed to be pretty open. Through the family of Abram, all the families of the earth would be blessed, but what if they all ended up being one family? That is the blessing – all being connected in faith. Paul is so tired of people drawing lines and excluding people who do not fit neatly into their idea of God’s family. If they are not literally part of Abraham’s family, they cannot be part of God’s family. They are left out of God’s blessing just because they are not related to Abraham and Sarah through the practice of being Jewish. By the way, I don’t think any of us are Jewish, so this is right important.
Galatians is Paul’s angry letter. He is so furious with the followers in the area of Galatia that he does not even have a word of thanksgiving for them at the beginning of the letter like he does for all the others. The ones listening have completely exhausted his patience and ignored the simple truth. We are one family in the faith of Jesus. God was not kidding when he said all the families of the earth would be blessed. Just in case anyone wants to dispute who is in the family and who is not in the family of blessing, Paul makes it very clear: everyone who is of the faith is in the family. Jew and gentile are all in the family of the faithful. We are all in the family of blessing. We are all in the family that extends that blessing.
Each week we have been considering how God is working through the generations and history. There is a goal for God through us. This one is reaching the ends of the earth with the gospel of love. This is what people desperately need to believe – that God in Christ loves them. Every family on the face of the earth wants to know the blessing of being loved. We all want to know that we are loved. It turns out that this was God’s plan all along. As much as you know any blessing from God, share that blessing with others. Share the joy you have, the peace you have, the love you have, even the struggle to be that blessing. We can be honest and still be a blessing. We can want to have a better life in faith, and sometimes it is the other person who blesses us. The point is to keep sharing. We need regular reminders that we are all special. Be the blessing that God has called you to be from the beginning, and with the Spirit, we will bless the world for God. To God be the glory. Amen.