Sermon: You’re Never Too Old to Start – Second Sunday in Lent (Genesis 12:1-4)
Genesis tells us that Abraham was seventy-five years old when he responded to God’s call to be the start of something new. He set out on a journey that would lead him to find a home for his family, and he would be the father of a new nation. Seems rather late in life to be starting such a journey, but as they say, age is just a number. A popular fact that gets circulated is that Colonel Sanders was 62 when he opened the first Kentucky Fried Chicken. He was 73, almost Abraham’s age, when he sold the company to investors and became a millionaire. Life can take many unexpected twists and turns and it can happen at any age. Age is just a number after all.
The story of Abraham is not about age, though. It’s true, in Genesis 12:4 we are told that Abraham is seventy-five years old. He is an older man at the time of his encounter with God, and he descends from a long line of old men. Just as the Gospel of Matthew begins with a genealogy, listing of names of ancestors that connect Jesus back to King David, in Genesis chapter 11 there is another genealogy. This one is there to connect Abraham back to Shem, the son of Noah. This time we are given ages for these men, each one living to be hundreds of years old. Some people believe this is just a reality, that people lived to be much older in those ancient, mythic times. I believe these details serve more of a literary purpose, rather than a historical one. In those days did they have the same concept of time that we do. Even when the book of Genesis was written, is it likely that they understood that each time the sun came up in the morning and set in the evening it was because the earth they were standing on was rotating, and each day was one rotation? And did they realize that when 365 rotations had occurred it meant the earth had revolved once around the sun? Did they know that meant a year had passed? That Abraham had done that exactly 75 times? Maybe, but then again maybe not. I think what we are meant to take from this is that Abraham was an elder in his community. We are also told, Genesis 11 that Abraham is married to Sarah and they have no children and Sarah is unable to have children. We are given Abraham’s age, and information about his wife Sarah’s inability to have children, not so much for historical record, but to raise the literary stakes of the story. So that we might observe and understand how unlikely it is that these two people would one day produce a great nation of people.
Of course, that they will make a great nation is only part of the promise and one of the blessings God has for them. God also say, “I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse him that curses you; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you.” All of this would come from a man in his seventies and his wife. A couple who had no children and did not expect to have any. Yet today, thanks to Sunday School and Church camp, I imagine if someone mentions Abraham by name, or maybe Father Abraham, one of the first things that comes to mind is “had many sons. Many sons had Father Abraham.” It all seems so unlikely to begin with, though.
We are given no particular reason why Abram, soon to be Abraham, was chosen by God. We know very little about his life up to this point, beyond his family line and his homeland in Ur of the Chaldeans. However, the text does provide us with several reasons why Abram would be unlikely to receive this blessing and see it fulfilled. In that sense the story invites us to question what God is doing here, and why. That skepticism is for us though, for the reader looking back. Abraham, on the other hand, never asks the question “how?” or “why?” In fact, he does not speak at all in this interaction with God. He simply listens, and responds.
This is one of the lessons we can take from this story. It tells us something about God, and a little something about ourselves. God makes bold, extravagant promises. They may be beyond our understanding and belief. We, however, are called to respond in a way that shows belief that God can, and will, fulfill those promises. Which involves listening first, and then responding. This is what would call a faithful response, and often this story is used as an example and to teach about the importance of putting faith and trust in God, as Abraham did, so that we might be blessed.
Faith is a risky business. Abraham’s story is often presented as an example of great faith because he and Sarah and their family trust God and act in faith on God’s instructions, and with no questioning. They are not sure how this blessing will come about, and they are setting out on a dangerous journey. Will God be able to keep them safe? These are also challenges we face when we are presented with opportunities to be faithful. There can be the risk to health, to physical and mental well-being, certainly. We also risk uncertainty, having to take a leap of faith without knowing exactly how we will land, or if we will land in one piece. When faced with these risks is when we might find ourselves saying things like, “I’m too old to start now.” Or “It’s too expensive.” Or “How is this going to work?” Or “What will people think?” We begin thinking about all our human limitations.
However, that isn’t the only reason our faith journeys are risky. Physical struggle and hardship are not the only risks. Uncertainty over the outcome or the destination is not the only challenge. The other risk of faith is having faith in a God that is surprising, imaginative, and not limited by human thought and behavior and imagination. That is the first risk we take, when we realize we are putting our faith in a God that would do something as outrageous as sending someone like Abraham, who was too old, who didn’t have children, but God sent him out to build a nation. Why did he deserve such a blessing? A God that gives instructions without assurance is risky. A God that gives blessings without reason and makes promises is a risky God to follow. A God that is not limited by our notions of what is possible can lead us to some risky places.
For all these reasons, faith in God can look different in different circumstances. I’m not denying that we all have certain realities in our life that we have to deal with. Som related to age, or health, or income, or responsibilities to our families or communities. Responding faithfully to God can also take different forms. It doesn’t just mean praying and waiting for God to intervene in our lives and our troubles. It’s not just about letting Jesus take the wheel. Responding faithfully to the promises and blessings of God also means embracing them, as well as the vision that those blessings and promises lay out for the world. This is how Abraham responds. By having faith in God’s promises of blessing for Abraham and his family, but also how that will bless the world.
“In you all the families of the Earth shall be blessed” God promises Abraham in 12:3. However, this phrase can also be translated as “and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you.” This phrasing implies that Abraham’s example of faithfulness and how to be in relationship with God was itself a great blessing, and I think gets at the spirit of this promise. Abrahams faithful response to God may not have led to Abraham seeing all the promises fulfilled in his lifetime. What does happen is he leaves behind a tradition to later generations to model and strive for. Such a blessing is available to anyone, regardless of their religion, their race, their age, or any other perceived restrictions or limitations. This is true no matter when we start our faith journey, or why. It can be a blessing to us, and to others.
One of the commentaries on Genesis that I read this week put it this way, God blessing Abraham is “an initially exclusive move for the sake of a maximally inclusive end.” God blessed Abraham and his family, but not for their benefit alone. And so it is with all of us. God’s blessings are not limited to the personal. These blessings do not only take the form of personal health, happiness, comfort, or convenience for our life. I certainly hope and pray for those things, and I pray that you can have them as well, but these are not the only ways that God works and shows up in our lives. And that part is important, wanting others to be blessed, because God offers blessings to us so that others can be blessed as well. Not just us. Our interconnectedness within God’s creation makes this type of blessing possible, but it is also complicated.
In choosing to bless Abraham and make these promises to him, God is beginning to show that God is adaptable. In making these promises to Abraham and his ancestors God is taking on a new “job description,” so to speak. Up until this point in the Book of Genesis, God has been mostly concerned with universal issues like creating the universe, and within that creating the earth, then, unfortunately, flooding the earth and starting again. God has been somewhat removed from humanity, especially since they left the Garden of Eden. Only occasionally when things seem to be getting out of hand does God get more involved. Such as bringing the flood wash away a wicked world, or to scatter the people and their languages at the Tower of Babel. With Abraham God takes a new path and the narrative of the Book of Genesis begins to change. It moves from a story of the fall out of what happened in the Garden, and the curse that followed, to now being a story of blessing. God is not limited by how God has operated and related to humanity in the past, and God is not limited by human history or human choices or human failings. All of this can be used by God to bless and to shape new possibilities, but it will not limit what God can do.
If you have been reading from the Lenten Devotional we have been sharing, called “Tell Me Something Good,” you will remember that during this past week after the first Sunday in Lent, the devotional used as its focus text the story of Jesus at the wedding in Cana from John 2:1-11. This is the story where Jesus, at his mother’s urging, turns water into wine, simply for the purpose of keeping the party going. The reflections in the devotional frames this as God giving us good news in surprising ways. when we don’t expect it. At the wedding no expected the good wine to show up that late in party, and for it to be overflowing from the barrels. And for us readers, those of us in the know, we wouldn’t expect Jesus to use his gifts for that purpose. God’s blessings catch us by surprise, they are not limited to social location or human understandings of what or where a blessing is merited. Of course, for that matter, blessings aren’t merited at all. That is, they don’t require merit. They don’t require that you be a certain age, or that you have children. They don’t require you to be on anyone’s schedule. They don’t require you to be a certain race or a certain gender. They don’t require that you believe all the same things as your neighbor. They don’t require you to say the right words. They don’t require you to be sinless. That’s what makes them blessings.
So, you’re never too old to start, to pick up your journey of faith from what ever place you find yourself now. And the story of Abraham reveals to us that the blessings and the promises of God are alive and at work in our lives even now. Even where we don’t see it, and especially where we don’t expect it. This includes those blessing that come to us from the faith of Abraham – a community of faith to journey with, and a great cloud of witness that went before us. Let this help us to hold strong to our faith, and together further uncover the blessings of our life, no matter who we are, and then share them with others. No matter who they are. Amen.