Begin

We are in now in the worship series, Before I Die, Life Before Death. We have an interactive wall, and I would like to thank the amazing Carl Skorepa for constructing it. I would also like to thank Charlie Owens for helping Carl get it into place. I would like to thank the worship team for helping me plan this series. I hope the series is salt and light to you here.

This is an experiment. It means we’re trying something. Many folks don’t like change, but don’t worry, my friends. We shall return to your regularly scheduled program later. What I would like to hear from you is not whether you liked or didn’t like something. We cannot reduce God to a popularity contest. Jesus says and does a lot of things that I don’t like. What I’m more interested in is whether you’ve found meaning in something. Whether something sparked an idea or a thought or if you have an idea that might help spark meaning in others. Meaning is the goal.

Our first experiment today is something I learned from a preaching icon of mine the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, OM3 for short. At the beginning of each sermon at Trinity UCC on the Southside of Chicago, he has his church turn to one another and say the key point of the sermon. So we’ll try that for this series today. I need you to turn to a neighbor. Go ahead, turn to a neighbor, I can see you. Please look at them and repeat after me, “Neighbor. Oh, Neighbor. Everybody. Is God’s Somebody.”

Yes, everybody is God’s somebody, and we’ll be talking about the story of Abraham to get at this concept of Life Before Death and finding purpose and meaning within all of life’s challenges. At every stage of our life, we can find purpose and say, “Before I die, I’d like to…”

It’s good to notice today that Abraham isn’t Abraham yet. His name is Abram. Abram means, “High Father” in Hebrew. It’s good to know that. It’s an ironic name as Abram doesn’t have any kids. It’s also good to know why we’re even talking about Abram. Who is Abram?

My guru Rob Bell says, “Abram is a nobody. He doesn’t come from some grand lineage, he’s not blessed by the gods, he has no prerequisites that other ancient narratives have. For all intents and purposes, Abram is a nobody at the beginning of the story.”[1]

This is unlike the story of Achilles, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, slayer of the Trojan prince Hector outside the gates of Troy. Achilles wasn’t like you and me. He was invulnerable because his mom dipped him in the River Styx as an infant and his only weakness was his heal. Achilles was different. He was the stuff of legends and heroes. Stories get told about people like him. They don’t get told about people like Abram.

Or Hercules. Another hero who was the son of Zeus and Alcmene, a demi-god who had amazing strength, courage, and wisdom. He defeated monsters, bandits, and criminals. He was great and glorious. Stories get told about people like him. They don’t get told about people like Abram.

Stories circled around heroes like Achilles and Hercules, or about the gods themselves. Stories about the pantheons range all over pagan culture. Stories from the Nordic tribes about Odin, Loki, and Thor. Stories from Greek and Roman Pantheons with Jupiter, Zeus, Mars, Athena, Poseidon and Neptune. Stories from the African cultures like Anansi the Spider an Akran folk hero, the spirit of all stories and the trickster who is featured in West African, African American and Caribbean folklore. That’s what people told stories about back then. Those were the blockbusters of their time and often of ours today.

Even our superheroes have a special start. Superman is from another planet and can leap tall buildings with a single bound. Batman and Ironman are super-rich geniuses. Wonder Woman is a super-human Amazonian warrior princess. As much has things have changed, some things stay the same; there is nothing new under the sun.

Who is Abram? A nobody. Stories don’t begin like this. They don’t feature characters like this. This is a change from everything. This is a break in history and society.

The story begins when Abram is already a grown man. He was born to a man named Terah in Ur of the Chaldees. We know he’s an adult as he’s married to Sarai, who we are told is barren. A man named “High Father” is married to a woman whose name means “Princess” and there seems to be no possibility of them having kids.

Terah dies and Abram gets a direct call from God, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”

This just isn’t done. The ancients had a circular view of history. What happened before is what will happen again. You stayed in your area, married and had kids, and you worked in the family business. This is what we humans do, this is what we remember. Our memories tell us how it ought to be. And those stories of history shape how we act in society. One doesn’t leave land and family and go somewhere else! It isn’t safe. You won’t know what to do! How will you make a living?!

The ancient rabbis have many stories around Abram and why he was chosen.

Rabbi Hiyya taught that Terah, Abram’s father, was a maker of idols. One day he left Abram to watch the shop. A person came in to buy an idol and Abram asked him, “How old are you?” And the man said, “50 years old.” And Abram said, “Oy to the man who is 50 years old and needs to worship an idol that is a day old.” The man was embarrassed and left.[2]

Another story shows how Abram though idols were a joke. His father left him alone again to watch the shop and Abram stages a “riot” among the idols in which he claims that a large idol smashed the others in order to take their grain offerings as his own. Terah, upon returning to the shop, refuses to believe the tale. After all, the idols aren’t alive! Abraham catches his father in this logical flaw: Why worship the lifeless work of your own hands?[3]

The rabbis show that Abram isn’t super-gifted, and he doesn’t have special powers. Abram is an intelligent and rational person who is unafraid to challenge his society regarding their most basic religious claims. Abram doesn’t believe in God because he’s told to. Abram discovers God for himself.

All it takes for God to find Abram is Abram’s desire to find God. Not the God of his family. Not the lifeless god of the idols of his culture. But the Living God. He discovers this as a 75-year-old man. When he gets the word from God, he goes.

He takes Sarai and his nephew Lot and all their goods and persons whom they had acquired to a new land.

Often in our history and society, we are afraid of change. This is shown in the church fights over the years. Throughout church history, people have fought over what goes in a church building, how the building ought to look, and worship styles. First it was Paul writing to the church in Corinth telling them to wait to worship until everyone is gathered and can have communion. Then it’s the idea of the sale of indulgences and the Protestant Reformation. Then it’s whether to have an organ or music at all. Or to ordain women. Or to have a contemporary style or a traditional style. Or what the pastor should wear on a Sunday or the color of the carpet or whether we should clap or laugh or show any emotion at all in service.

Dr. Marcia McFee theorizes that the intensity over change is “the unarticulated fear of losing God.” If we change, we might lose the experience. Instead of articulating that concern, we describe other worship as “not holy”, “not reverent”, or “boring.”[4] Or “I didn’t like it.”

Yet look what Abram does. He’s a nobody who sees what his family and society are doing and thinks it strange. He seeks a bigger expression of life. He hears God’s call, not through the routine but through a change in the routine. It is there, in the questioning of family history and society that God says to Abram, “Leave and 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.” In almost every benediction at the end of worship, I say “Go, having been blessed, to be a blessing…” That’s where this comes from.

The idea that we… everyday people… regular church going folk, share in the promise of Abram. And who was Abram? A nobody… who found God and discovered that he was a somebody. In fact, he became the father of the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Abram never lost God. He found God and through his story and in his name, people from all over the world are finding meaning and the Living God.

Many of you didn’t like the idea of Jesus being a disturber or saying that Jesus comes to bring not peace but a sword to divide son from father and daughter from mother. It’s a hard saying. It’s a disturbing saying. Yet we see that here with Abram. He steps out in faith, away from what his society and family tell him, and finds God. It takes that sometimes. The paradox of faith here… and in my book, we can tell it’s from God when it’s a paradox… the paradox is disturbing for peace. Jesus steps away from what his family and society tells him about his neighbors like the lepers, Samaritans, and “sinners.” He eats with them and gets to know them and discovers that God loves them, too.

Before I die, I want to meet my neighbor. Not who people say my neighbor is, but my neighbor, Before I die, I want to hear the voice of the Living God speaking to my soul again. I’ve heard it in the past and yearn to hear it again.

Neighbor, O neighbor. Everybody is God’s somebody. Every person bears the image and likeness of God in some form or another. Each person has a lesson we can learn if we but question and observe. If we step away from what we think we know, we just might discover something new. We just might discover our neighbor, ourselves, and the Living God.

Neighbor, O neighbor. It is my hope that before we die, we begin to see that “everybody is God’s somebody.” Amen.

Works Cited

[1] Rob Bell, What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything. Audio book version. Heard by Pastor Luke in May 2019.

[2]Genesis Rabbah 38:13 found at https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/stories-of-our-ancestors/

[3]Genesis Rabbah 38 found at https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/stories-of-our-ancestors/

[4] Vicki Marty, “Politics of Change by Dr. Marcia McFee” review for Medina UCC,C Worship Team, June 4 2019 meeting.

Comments

  1. Your message this week spoke to me on several levels. Suffice it to say I am having some personal issues right now with worship at my church. I appreciate what you have said and will spend time thinking about it. Thank you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *