Sermonette: March 9, 2020

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” — Genesis 12:1-3

As I reflect on God’s call of Abram, I am struck by the fact that the call came before God made a covenant with Abram, before God renamed him Abraham, and before God made circumcision a mark of identity (Genesis 15 and 17). In a very real sense, this took place before Abram was a follower of God, yet Abram was still the father of all nations, and all nations would be blessed by him.

Through this call of Abram, humanity gets a fresh start by being invited to once again enter into a relationship of total trust with God. Only this time, unlike in the story of the first couple in the Garden of Eden, the fulfillment of God’s promise did not depend on the faithfulness of humanity. As we read in Genesis 15:17, only the firepot, the symbol of God, passes between the cut pieces of the animals used for the covenant ratification ceremony.

I am also amazed by the fact that Abram had to leave behind the security of the familiar – country, kindred, and father’s house – and go on a journey in which God was his only security. Abram’s responsibility was not perfect morality but a discovery of the faithfulness of God. It would be the same lesson that Abram’s descendants would have to learn in their journey across the wilderness. It is the same lesson that the church has to learn over and over again.

One can see in the call of Abram that he was chosen not for his own sake but for the sake of the world. The church, also, has to keep learning that lesson. Jesus commanded his disciples right before he departed from them that they were to go into all the world and teach the nations what he had taught them (Matthew 28:19-20). Jesus had demonstrated in his own temptation, that which they were to teach the nations could not be imposed on the world through displays of power and might, even divine power, but must be demonstrated in servanthood.

My cynical side could ask: So where is the servant church and not the what’s-in-it-for-me church? At the same time, whenever any of us who are part of Jesus’ church in the world trust the Holy Spirit to give us the power to remember and live out the promise of being blessed to be a blessing given to Abram and his offspring so many centuries ago, we find the servant church.

As we live out God’s promise to us that we will be a blessing we begin to develop a servant’s heart. When this servant’s heart is seen, noticed, touched, experienced the servant church is evident in the world. When we are the servant people of God who by our very lives are revealing God’s amazing love for this world God so dearly loves, the servant church is alive and well.

Jesus’ amazing love for us calls us, invites us to a life of servanthood, and we respond by loving one another. As Jesus has done for us, we are invited to do for each other. In serving, we become a blessing. Let us all bless one another in Jesus’ love. Glory be to God!