FAITH IN GOD

The first sermon I ever preached was on this morning’s passage from Genesis. I remember feeling great empathy for Abram – after all, while God had answered some of my prayers, it seemed as though God had turned a deaf ear to others. Now, 12 years later and still waiting on some answers, I understand more deeply how Abram may be feeling today.

Abram, who, at God’s command, leaves his home in Haran to go to only God knows where.

Abram, who, with only God’s promises of land and descendants to hold on to, allows his nephew Lot to settle in the most fertile piece of land.

Abram, who, after rescuing Lot from enemy kings, refuses to take the spoils of battle from the king of Sodom, so that the king couldn’t turn around and say, “I have made Abram rich.”

It was after these things that the word of the Lord comes to Abram. When Abram hears that he will be rewarded greatly for his faithfulness, he is, not surprisingly, quite skeptical. What do you do when, as New Testament scholar William Dols points out, "all the evidence around you witnesses against the promise?” Abram does the natural, human thing. He doubts. He tells God his dilemma. He questions God. “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless . . .?” That’s the issue. He continues childless. Not for a few weeks or a few months or a few years.

And, while he has been waiting, surely he must’ve heard other couples announcing that another baby’s on the way.

Surely, his wife Sarai must’ve heard that a herdsman’s wife just gave birth to a baby boy.

Surely, she and Abram must’ve been invited to share in the couple’s joy.

“O Lord God, what will you give me. . .?” “What good is all else if I don’t have the one thing I really want?” “You have given me no offspring and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” For Abram, it’s not a matter of whether or not he will have an heir, it’s a matter of who will it be – one of his servants or his own flesh and blood?

Imagine what must be happening between God and Abram at this moment. Here is Abram, who grew up in a “don’t confront, after all Father knows best” culture, expressing himself freely and honestly with this Other Father. Here is God, who, as some of us may be surprised to discover, does not strike Abram down with lightning.
How is it that Abram feels comfortable enough to be open with God – to confront God, to doubt God?

Brother Robert Hugh, a Franciscan Friar and spiritual counselor, invites us to consider that:

"Our God is . . . a vulnerable God who invites us into relationship. God never engages with less than all that it means for me to be me in my brokenness and my beauty, thus giving me the freedom to be fully myself. I cannot be fully myself by myself, but only when I stand in a relationship of trust and truth towards another."

So whatever is happening between God and Abram is allowing Abram to be fully himself. And isn’t that what most of us want? To be in relationships in which we can be free

to be fully ourselves –
to express our hopes and fears –
to know that we will be accepted and loved – no matter what?

Being in relationship with God is transforming Abram.

Perhaps Abram is learning to see God in a deeper way – not only as the One who gives good gifts, but as the One who is GIFT.

Perhaps God is teaching Abram that the gift of a son is not a litmus test of God’s faithfulness.

Perhaps God is preparing Abram for a purpose larger than Abram can imagine – to become not only the father of Isaac but the father of faith.

So when God renews the promise, Abram accepts that God is God, believes that the fulfillment of the promise depends more on God’s character than on human reason, and, with no hard evidence, simply takes God at God’s word. Doubt gives birth to faith. And faith always lives with hope.

Abram’s faith gives rise to a hope that is in God. Not in human reason or external circumstances. And, as New Testament scholar, Fred Craddock points out, both “triumph and tragedy, success and failure . . . describe the life of trust in God. To those who always draw a correlation between faith and one’s circumstances, tragedy or failure is not of faith but of unbelief; else why else would they suffer? To those who always draw a direct correlation between faith and hardship, triumph or success is not of faith but of compromise, else why else would they fare so well?”

Which reminds me of the story of a priest, a rabbi, and a minister who were fishing in a boat in the middle of a pond . . . None of them had caught anything all morning.

After a few hours, the rabbi stands up and says he needs to go to the bathroom. He climbs out of the boat and walks on the water to shore. He comes back ten minutes later the same way.

Shortly afterwards, the minister decides he needs to go to the bathroom, too, so he climbs out of the boat and walks on the water to shore. He, too, comes back the same way.

The priest looks at both of them and decides that his faith is just as strong as his fishing buddies and that he can walk on water, too. He stands up and excuses himself. As he steps out of the boat, he makes a big splash as he goes down into the water.

The rabbi looks at the minister and says, "I guess we should’ve told him where the rocks were."

God calls us, not to compare our faith with that of others, but to be faithful. During the years since my first sermon, some of my prayers have been answered while some still seem to go unanswered. All the while, God has been teaching me that God is faithful. Perhaps God is doing the same with you.