Call of Abraham

G'day everyone.

It's another TUC Talks.

Love the name.

Um, you know, it means Terragoo United Church in conversation with someone, which I am this week in the Reverend Phil Swain.

Hello, most Reverend Phil.

It's great to be back here again, Richard.

Always love to chat.

It it's a very good conversation.

I've got to say, I was doing one and two, Timothy, before I went back to the start of the narrative lectionary.

Man, I'm happy to be back in the narrative lectionary.

One and two, Tim, were hard work.

Um, so this week we are discussing Genesis 12, 1 to 9, which is the call of Abram.

Um, I believe that you're about to preach that this weekend, Phil.

Yes, because our church has been doing season of creation, and uh we needed an extra week to fit that in.

So we've actually started the narrative lection a week late, and I liked the first couple of readings, so we're a week behind until I think week four we get back into the normal flow of things or something like that.

So, yes, I'm just about to preach on it.

Really you have preached on it last Sunday.

Ah, fair enough.

So, look, it's the call of Abram, and it's a fantastic story.

Um I want to tell you quickly one of the things that I found incredibly interesting this time around, Phil.

When you have you ever read just the end of chapter 11 of Genesis?

I'm sure you would have read it, but have you ever sort of included it in your studies?

I'm not sure.

I'm just turning back to the end of chapter 11 right now.

It's this really dull bit, and like it's a really it it is pretty boring, but what it says, it gives the background story of Abram and his dad and when they left Ur.

So, Abram, you know how often when we read this story, we think that God is calling Abram from where he grew up and where he's lived all his life and all that kind of stuff, and it's not true.

Abram and his dad and his brother have walked the bulk of the way around the fertile crescent and have reached a spot and they've stopped.

And in that time, Abram's brother has died, which is Lot, Lot's dad, which Abram then takes on the gig of being Lot's sort of supervisor kind of person, you know, father in father in in in that kind of sin.

And Abram's dad has just stopped there.

And you want to know where they were going to?

Canaan.

Yeah, I just was reading that right now.

Yes.

So I did not know that.

So Abram is called one of the things that I played with this week is that Abram is actually being called to finish the travel that he was started.

There we go.

Yeah, so God is saying to him, get up and go.

And in a sense, God's saying, get up and go, finish what you actually started doing and gave up on.

That's a really interesting take, isn't it?

It really is fascinating, isn't it?

And and there's a couple of things about it that are interesting.

So the name of the place that they reach and stop at is actually similar in sound to the name of Abram's brother that died.

So it's so it's so one of the commentators that I was listening to, and you you'll probably listen to this commentator sometime soon, said that they've probably been tromping around heading towards Canaan, and they've come to a place that has reminded them of this dead brother.

It's a bit like Scone and Scone, you know, similar but different.

And then it's reminded them of their dead brother, and they've stopped there.

And and they've just grown old there and stopped moving.

Which I found really interesting.

Like, it's like Abram, and one of the commentators was saying it's like an end.

Like chapter 11 looks like Abraham or Abram has reached an end.

He's got no children, he's got no future, um, his father has stopped, he's not gonna have children because he's too old.

Um it's a bit like he's moved to Terregal and tried to work out which Probus Club he's going to, and and that's as far as it gets.

And that's where we get called from.

That's very interesting.

Yeah, call called out of what looks like a perceived endpoint.

Yes.

Yeah.

Which which I think is fascinating for us to think about when this is the beginning of the people of God.

Yeah.

The beginning of the people of God comes from a point that looks like its conclusion.

Yeah.

So that that was you know, if you want my sermon in a nutshell, there it be.

Well, that's very different to where I was thinking of going.

So that's an interesting start already.

Where were you thinking of going?

Well, the way that um my planning team has looked at these um initial readings out of Genesis, um, and and we've sort of seen a thread that's emerging that we thought would be interesting to play with all these readings, which is that of promise.

Um and, you know, how do we understand promise?

Because in our world today, uh, we've become quite skeptical of promises, you know, when a politician promised something or a um clickbait pops up and says, if you click this, you'll see something extraordinary.

We know that we we won't.

Um and so we get very clickbait's lying to us still.

We get very skeptical of promises.

Um and and so whilst our Christian part of us wants to argue, of course, any promise in the Bible will be true, and of course God always keeps his promises.

I wonder how much of this starts to creep in, this skepticism of promises.

And that's what my planning team was playing with.

And like we did Noah last week, which you would have done two weeks before, um, and you know, this idea of yeah, you know, I'm I'm giving you this promise that that you I'll never destroy the world again.

Um, but it it's done in a context of going, yeah, but what has really changed here?

You know, um, and and the the tension of yeah, how do we hold on to a promise when maybe the stuff around us is giving us different ideas?

And I think Abraham is just a great story to explore here um because you know, God gives Abraham a promise, but Abraham and Sarah lived the next 25 years, living in that gap between the promise and the fulfillment of that promise.

And the thing about Abraham and Sarah, or Abram at this point in time and Sarah, is that they receive the promise, believe in the promise, and then do everything that they can to try and make that promise fulfilled and mark it up because they don't trust in God again and again and again.

Yes, yeah.

That that sense of how do people live in that gap between promise and fulfillment.

Yeah.

Because the reality is that in our Christian life we're doing that a lot.

You know, well, we're literally this we we we as Christians live in between the promise of eternity and we we live the life here on earth, not waiting for eternity, because if it is eternity, then we've we've started it, but but waiting for its fulfillment, don't we?

Yeah.

So so so yeah, I I sort of get why Abraham struggled.

And and you're right.

I that there's the sort of things I'm trying to pick up on, you know, that that sense of trying to force fulfillment on on you know the the situation.

And all Abraham ends up doing by that is is hurting people, you know.

Um that that's a very difficult part of the story with um Hagar and Ishmael.

Um and and and so not only did you know Abraham try to force the fulfillment, he ends up hurting people in doing that instead of trusting in God.

Uh, that is really interesting.

And I wonder if we occasionally hurt people by trying to live out our faith by trying to do the faith ourselves rather than trusting that God, you know, like end up doing the judgment that we think God should be dumping on people, yeah, therefore hurting them rather than offering the grace that Christ shows us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But at the same time, it does it doesn't mean that we get to sit down and do nothing, because your part of your insight is that sense of God going, don't just stop either.

You've got to keep moving in trust.

And and that tension is is tricky, you know.

Abraham was called to keep moving and yet uh wait for that fulfillment of the promise that God had given.

And in a sense, at this point in time in the initial part of the call, this is almost not even a promise yet.

It is like it's it's an offer, but the promise comes in the covenant, doesn't it?

A bit later.

Yeah.

Well, there's a series of them that happens, you know.

There's chapter 12, there's chapter 15, I can't remember all the other ones, you know, but but that they keep on coming back, you know.

Um, and it's almost like yeah, God just keeps reminding Abraham, you know, I haven't forgotten here.

Um but but yeah, it hasn't happened.

You know, the the key one that that Abraham gets is the promise of of descendants, and and as you acknowledge, you know, they're sitting in a place where that doesn't seem to be possible, and and they have to somehow yeah believe in the promise, live in that promise, in in a situation that looks more and more like it's not gonna happen.

Yeah, like like Abram's faith must have been great to to actually hear those words of you're gonna have a great nation, now go, and for him to go, that is a massive step of faith.

He is too old to have children, and Sarah's too old to have children, and they still step up and say, Okay, we'll we'll go.

Yeah.

For me, the stepping up and going, the interesting part, if we look back at chapter 11, the interesting part for me is that God is more or less saying, now go and fulfill the life that you had always planned to live.

You know, re and and there is a big difference in it because the big difference is that he's actually fulfilling the life with God and through God rather than by himself.

So that he actually steps into the call with God and through God.

So he's been planning to go to Canaan and stopped because he was doing it all on his own steam.

And then now God calls him to actually do this, and God's with him, and he does this through God.

So it's actually quite a different foundation to the reason that he was aiming to go there in the first place.

That's really interesting.

I find that helpful.

Uh, there's there's two points that I'm because I'm still writing myself, but haven't teased out properly yet, and and you're hitting on one of them.

That for me, the promise is bigger than Abraham.

Like it it'd be easy to think this is a promise to Abraham and Sarah, uh, or Abraham and Sarah, and and this is all about them.

But it's not, it's bigger than that, and God is calling them into something bigger, and so they're stepping into something which is larger than than who they are, and it's because God is part of it that they're stepping into this larger.

As I said, I can't nail that as good as I want to yet, but yes, because the blessing is not just for them, the blessing is for all people.

And do you notice it talks about blessing in a few different ways?

It sort of says, I will bless you, and I will bless those that bless you, and curse those that curse you.

By the way, the blessing and curse there, it's not like sort of you know, stink eye curse of uh uh some kind of thing, it's actually it's about lifting up and encouraging and raising up.

It's that so those that edify you, Abraham, on your on your travels, I will edify.

Those that lift you up on your travels, I will lift up.

And then the other thing that God says is, and wherever you go, be a blessing.

Yeah, you know, so it's not just I will bless you, and anyone that's nice to you will get a bit of a lift, but you your task, in a sense, like the only thing that God's asking him to do on this travel is trust and bless everyone that he meets.

So it's not just it's not just you know, you're gonna you're gonna end up famous, which God says, you know, I'm you're gonna be famous, all that kind of stuff, but your task is everyone you meet, bless them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So so but I quite like that idea that, yeah, it it is about Abraham, uh Abraham and his faith, and Sarah and her faith, but it's more that they're they're being called into something bigger, and their faith is to step out, you know, the the unknownness isn't just go, the unknownness is we're stepping into something with God.

Yeah, and whilst that's not completely clear yet, uh we're we're we're doing it because we're stepping with God into that.

Yeah, and and in a sense, if you feel like you're at an end point in your life, like uh I'm too tired, I'm too spent, I'm too weary, I'm too old, I'm too young, that's that's the point that Abram gets called.

It's not while he is striving around to head towards Canaan that that God calls him.

It's not while he is young and vital and you know energetically doing what he wants to do, it's when he reaches the absolute end, it's when he is spent tired, old, grieving for his brother, trying to work out what it and and and one of the things that I actually said was because culturally in those days, lineage with everything.

If you didn't have children, you basically disappear into obscurity, and that's what Abram's looking at disappearing into obscurity.

Yes, he said that at one point that his inheritance is going like to my slave.

To my slave, yeah.

Yeah, after Lot has died, yeah, and he's sort of and they haven't had a child yet, yeah.

He says to God, God, my inheritance is going to a slave.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um the other thing that I haven't quite worded well yet, but I'd love to try and explore this as well, is that look, I've I've read the larger story, and like Abraham is not always a great character in the story.

He's awful.

He does to his wife a couple of times.

It's terrible.

Yes.

But one of the things that that happens um a few times, which I'm really keen to try and explore more, is that he keeps on pausing and building these altars, which are not like the altar that uh we burn animals on, but rather, you know, the pile, the pyramid of stones that somehow for Abraham was a marker on that journey.

And I want to try and say it's to remind him that God is with him.

And and he's pausing to go, look, yeah, this is hard living in between the promise and the fulfillment.

But I know that God is still here.

I think if we want to look at that altar kind of concept, possibly the best place to pick that up is in Jacob.

Yeah.

When Jacob, when Jacob wrestles with God, the first thing he does is build an altar.

And if you look at um in the chapter, uh the reading for this week, each time that he builds an altar, he stops, he experiences God.

So one time he hears God's voice, another time it says that he meets God, and so he stops, he experiences God, and he builds the altar as a response to meeting God.

So it's more or less the sign of I have experienced God in this place.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And and so what where I hope I get to in my sermon is that, you know, because as I said, I think in in relation to our spirituality and our Christian walk, we are also people who in some cases are living between the promise and fulfillment.

We're living between the now and the not yet.

And and in a sense, um, it's not about trying to you know race ahead and grab the fulfillment or force the fulfillment like Abraham did.

Yes.

But rather, how do we and and it's not about just putting up our feet and waiting for it to happen.

Um, it's it's it's because Abraham kept moving.

He kept moving, but he always recognized that yeah, God was in this place.

That even in the midst of the waiting or the I don't want to use the word waiting, uh, in in that point between the promise and the fulfillment, he realized God was still there with him.

Because he's actually not waiting, is he?

But like because and that's probably in that line in today's reading where God says go.

And the go actually at the start, Abram doesn't know where he's going.

It's only a bit later that God says, Canaan.

Yeah, you know, so but but it's never uh a passive wait, it's a go, and therefore I don't think we can say that he's waiting.

He is constantly moving.

I'm a uniting church person in the basis of union.

It says we are a people on the way, yeah, constantly moving to the fulfillment of God, like you know, God's promise.

Yes, he he's living between the promise and the fulfillment.

Yes, you know, he he hasn't stopped living, he's living that's that's where he's now living his his his life, yeah.

Yeah, and he's and and he's actually striving in that time between promise and fulfillment.

Yeah, oh I quite like that, Phil.

Yeah, I just hope I can form it into a sermon, yeah.

Um so so what was your conclusion at the end of your sermon then?

God calls you out of the end?

Yes, where did you end up?

Yeah, I did actually that God can call us out of that end point, that God that we need to actually realize that God lifts us up and calls us when we feel like everything has reached an end.

God probably has a task for us, and for Abram, he thought he was too old, but he's not, he's actually got a mission to go on with, and and that we need to remember that that God calls us on, and it doesn't mean that we're gonna leave where we are and you know go to Bogabrae or anything like that, but well, we might, but but it's that we are called on, and that we are to be a blessing wherever we go.

Yes.

That blessing, I really picked up on that blessing about where whatever you know, all the people that you meet, you you should be a blessing, not a judgment.

I've I've Scribble down um uh because I try and sum up where I'm trying to get to in a sermon in a sentence.

I was taught that at a theological college.

They said if you can if you can't do it in a sentence, then you're preaching too much.

Um it's true, like you can have very long sentences, but yeah, but but I I've written down we can live towards God's promised future by being a blessing in the present, even when we cannot see how that future will come.

I I see what you mean by your sentence becoming a bit of an essay in the same time.

But but yes, uh to me, you're just saying that that the way that we live whilst waiting for fulfillment, not waiting, unless we live towards that fulfillment, is by being a blessing in the present.

That's what God called Abraham to do, be a blessing in the present.

Yeah, yeah.

One of the things that I played with in the sermon, um a great minister for that I used that that I've worked with in the past, not worked with, but sort of spent time with Maz Smith.

She is just stunning.

And Maz, I can remember one time Maz basically said, look at the all of the stories at the beginning of Genesis, basically, through not no, right for a long way through, the promise that God offers is always at peril.

Like it's never a promise that is easily like you're not sort of sitting back and going, Oh, I can see God's got all this in hand.

Like with Abraham and Sarah, they are old and there is a risk that they just won't be able to have the child.

And then, you know, there then there's the the requesting for the child to be offered as a sacrifice, and then you go on, and each and every step there is this sort of peril that the promise will fall over.

Yeah, and it's in a sense the only way that it survives is because eventually we have to trust that God is in charge of the promise, not us.

Yeah.

Yeah, and and until we actually continue to work for God in this story rather than us trying to fulfill the promise, we're actually not helping the promise come through.

That's really good.

Yeah, it is and and and and I think with what you're talking about there, like we live in the time between when the promise has been said and the fulfillment of the promise.

We need to trust in it and work towards its goal, not work towards our goal in it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Last week when I was doing Noah, we we talked a little bit about, you know, sometimes we think the promise is all dependent upon us.

Yes.

Um, and and you know, the the great message of Noah is that yeah, it's not it's it's it's not about us, it's it's actually about the faithfulness of God, not about our faithfulness, yeah.

Yes, yeah, like yes.

And and and God God engaging in this world, like in the Noah story, God changes God's mind.

Yes, and that is a fabulous and important thing.

And in this story, God will hold to someone no matter what.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, Phil.

Any other interesting little bits that you would like to throw up on the Abram story?

Um, I I I I think I've covered where I'm thinking at the moment, but I I you know my worship team, you know, was saying it's it's not just about a simple promise to Abram.

Um there is there is a larger thread that's running through, particularly Genesis, but I would argue through the all of the Old Testament, this idea of yeah, you know, we we we are we are looking forward in hope because of a promise that God has given us.

Um I don't think that's just the Old Testament, is it?

That's the whole Bible.

The whole Bible, yeah.

Yeah.

It's just that we're doing Old Testament narrative flexionary at the moment, so that's why it's important.

Yeah, yeah.

Um but but no, you're right.

And and and so, you know, it the promise gives us hope.

Um, and you know, we still have to move forward, we still have to be a blessing, but the promise gives us hope.

Yeah.

Yes.

And and I suppose one of the challenges for us as a Christian today is how to live in that hope and have a confidence in that hope.

Like that that ultimately is the challenge for us, isn't it?

To live and embrace that promise and to live in such a way that that promise can touch others' lives.

Which I assume you're doing Joseph this week.

Yes.

And and and to me, that's a great story to come next because in Joseph's case, you you're almost just sitting there going, this could not get any further from being fulfilled, and yet he still has to trust God, you know.

Ends up injustly in jail.

Yes.

And and somehow he has to hold on to the promise that that yeah, God is still at work here.

Yeah.

Yes.

And that's what we've got to do as well, don't we?

Yeah.

You know, when when things seem to be getting a bit ugly and going to the pot a little bit, we've got to trust that God's in what there was a minister, Murray Fish.

Murray was fantastic.

He was a youth worker when I was a youth worker.

He used to say, yes, yep.

Richard, you can't ruin God's church.

You might be able to fluff the edges, but it's God's church, not yours.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's I think that's really important.

Yeah.

Well, Phil, I want to really thank you.

I I'm glad that you are working towards the sermon because you brought some insights into it that I didn't play with.

Yeah.

And likewise, Richard, you know, you've helped me shape a little bit more of mine, too.

I'll I'll definitely use um Genesis 11.

Yeah, look, definitely worth playing with.

Yeah.

Um, now I should let my congregation know a couple of things in the notice sheet.

One, Harvest Festival is coming on the last Sunday of next month.

Make sure you're starting to prepare something to bring along, something you can either make, bake, grow, whatever.

Um, the other thing is repair cafe is this coming Saturday, um, the last Saturday of every month.

And Holiday Kids Club is the 7th of October.

Um, help out if you can.

Um, I think that's everything.

Phil, you've been spectacular.

Thank you, Richard, for inviting me back again.

It's always a joy.

We will talk to you another time.

Indeed.