"The Future Is Now" - Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Future Is Now
Pentecost 18 – Narrative Lectionary 3
September 18, 2016
Grace, Mankato, MN
Genesis 15.1-6

After my mother died in 1983 at the age of 57, my dad seemed to do all right for a while. He traveled to Texas during the winter and came out to Northern Virginia after our first daughter, Angela, was born. He also did some part-time work for the local American Legion, bookkeeping for the pull tabs. However, something happened at the American Legion, a change in commanders I think, and he was told he wasn’t needed any longer. It may have been a coincidence, but his health steadily declined after that.

Just as my sister and I were going to intervene, a friend couldn’t get a hold of him and called the paramedics. He was hospitalized with pneumonia and we were somewhat relieved because now we thought he would get the help he need. However, he died later that night. All in all, he just seemed to just give up on life. I think he couldn’t imagine a future for himself or, at the very least, a future compelling enough to give him reason for living. In religious terms, he lost hope.

In our lesson, Abram—later to be called Abraham—can’t imagine a future either. A lot has happened since last week’s story about Adam, Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden. There is the first murder, a fratricide. People have indeed been populating the earth as God commanded. However, this people are so corrupt that God does a dramatic reboot through a massive flood, saving animals and a handful of people. This doesn’t work and God is forced to create a separation of languages peoples following the tower of Babel incident. God still won’t give up and comes up with the interesting idea of setting aside a people who will draw the rest of humanity to himself. In doing do, God makes an audacious move: 75 year old Abram and his 65 year old wife Sarai will not only have a child, they will be the beginning of a people who will be countless as stars in the sky and sand on a beach.

This promise to Abram and Sarai is not just an issue of who inherits his estate. In Middle Eastern cultures, it was expected that children would look after their parents in their old age. There weren’t any assisted living or long-term care facilities. Also, it was believed that people lived on through their descendents. People without offspring didn’t just die; with no one to remember them they ceased to exist. Yet, at this point, God’s promise of descendents seems cruel. Not only were they past childbearing age, it’s been more than ten years since God’s promise was first given to them. In fact, it will be 25 years before they do indeed have a child. When they do, Sarai won’t see their son Isaac married and Abram will not see any grandchildren. So, can you blame Abram for being unable to imagine a future?

Fast-forward almost 2,000 years: the followers of an itinerant rabbi have their future shattered. As they see Jesus dying on the cross, they can’t imagine any kind of positive future. In fact, they are afraid and go into hiding. This promised savior who was going to restore God’s relationship with humanity is dying a slow, horrible death. Yet, where we can’t imagine a future, God can and does promise one. Three days later their world gets turned upside down as God raises Jesus from the dead. The Holy Spirit will light a fire under them and the good news of God’s love through Jesus Christ will spread throughout the world, often when the future looks bleakest.

We tell these stories time and again because we need to know that God has a future for us just as much has God has had for those who have come before us. It’s not just a future resurrection or consummation “someday,” but a future that comes into the present. At Grace, we are in the process of preparing for God’s future through building renovations. Six years ago when I came to Grace, we spent time discovering God’s future for us and, with the prompting of the Holy Spirit, made some bold changes how God’s mission and ministry are carried out here. Now it’s time for us to build for the future that God is calling us into with facilities that support mission and ministry. Some of us may be wondering, “How can this be?” We may be like Abram and not see how this can happen.

I believe that Grace has a future. I believe that God has put us in this place and will give us what we need, even if we can’t see it now. Our community needs places to connect with one another, to have folk willing to serve them. People are hurting physically, mentally and spiritually and need to know God’s tangible love. Families are stressed more than they have ever been and need us to support and care for them. Abram believed and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. He didn’t always do it perfectly and neither will we, but he gives us the courage to believe. God has a future for us and the future is now. Amen.