June 5, 2005: Extravagant Promises
Genesis 12:1-9, Romans 4:13-25, Psalm 33:1-12
Eileen Parfrey,  Springwater Presbyterian Church.

 

I wonder how the apostle Paul, in writing to the church at Rome, got from the original promise to Abram of inheriting a land, to his inheriting the whole world. You've gotta wonder if Paul is the king of hyperbole. God's promise is for posterity, place, and presence. Abram's posterity (his children) will inherit a place (the land currently occupied by the Canaanites). Some promise! Considering Abram and Sarai are long past retirement age and still don't have any kids. Considering they're nomads and never actually live in the land promised to the children they don't have. Paul says the promise is to his offspring to "inherit the world." His audience is a church made of Abram's blood and faith descendents. A church trying to negotiate the old way of becoming God's family (blood) with the new way (grace).

Smart consumers develop a jaundiced eye for product claims too-good-to-be-true. We might well be skeptical of too-wonderful promises, especially when they are a little vague in the details. When I was growing up in the 1950s, America was wide-open to the future. We felt on the verge of things not even imagined yet, and the Jetsons were just the beginning of what we thought lay in the future. My school teachers urged us to study, reminding us that what we were going to be when we grew up hadn't even been invented. In those days, no one had heard of webmasters, sonogram and MRI technicians, cable guys, or telemarketers. Librarians still concentrated on books.

Abram and Sarai heard a similarly futuristic message. When God said, "Go!" it was enough for them to know, "I'll let you know when you get there." Faith apparently held down the backseat cries, "How many more miles?" and "Are we there yet?" We don't know they begged to stop at the Dairy Queen in Canaan, but we do know that once they got there, they stopped everything to give thanks. Twice. This is faith-taking God at God's word, believing God will keep promises. And, boy, are these extravagant promises! Posterity (to old people without children to whom to pass on the future), place (to nomadic folks who never settled down in one spot long enough to paint numbers on the mailbox), and presence. God's presence. Even when they're on the move.

It's hard for ordinary mortals (such as ourselves) to believe we've got what it takes to live as if a promise-maker that extravagant will be that extravagant a promise-keeper. But God uses the same principle used by your piano teacher or baseball coach who promises you'll play better if you practice. So you do, and it turns out to be true. Party invitations are an implicit promise of fun if you show up, and they're usually right. Abram and Sarai left home in the same spirit. By leaving Haran, they as good as said they accepted God's promise. That doesn't mean it was easy for them to believe God's promises. Even Paul acknowledges that. He calls it, "hoping against hope."

The leap (for us) is to believe the promises to Abram are promises to us-and it's a scandalous leap! We are the posterity, promised a place among God's people. Why is that so hard to figure out, this extravagant promise? We recognize the gifts of an athlete-the sports-minded, sports-bodied, sports-occupied young person who plays three sports in high school, who grows up to avidly follow sporting in the news and coaching as a parent. We recognize artistic gifts-the art-minded, art-hearted, art-occupied and pre-occupied kid who uses every spare penny to buy art supplies, drawing day and night, always decorating something.

But there are others who, at any age, are aware that God's gift to them is to be part of a family that includes everyone in the world. The person kind to everyone, who sticks up for those who are picked on, who won't laugh at jokes that hurt others, who contributes to One Great Hour of Sharing. This person's gift-being part of the family of God-holds more extravagant promise than even athletic and artistic abilities.

My friend, Dorothy, told me a story this week about a mule that fell into a well. The mule's owners-its family-was distraught when he disappeared, and even more distraught when they discovered that his sad, frightened cries were coming from the bottom of their dried-up well. Calling their friends and neighbors, they did everything they could to pull him out, but nothing worked. Finally, as the mule's cries got feebler and their hopes of rescue grew fainter, they decided that the most humane thing would be to bury him. At least his suffering wouldn't last. They got their shovels and began to throw in dirt. At first the mule was shocked. The people he had trusted and served so faithfully had not only abandoned him, they were betraying him with this horrible insult, this withdrawal of hope. Dirt raining down on him, the mule did what mules do, and shook off the dirt as it fell onto his back. As the dirt fell, he trampled what was on the bottom and stood on top of it. Shovel after shovel continued to fall on his back, and each time he shook it off and stepped a little higher. Finally, the exhausted mule stepped over the edge of the well to the applause and hugs of his family and their neighbors.

Sometimes it feels as if something good and faithful has died. As if, as we respond to a call to move to a new place, we must leave behind a perfectly comfortable place (our Haran). Maybe we don't know where this new place is. Maybe we feel like the mule at the bottom of the well. Maybe the threats of the new place are so terrible it feels like someone is trying to bury us alive. Take a retreat guided by a spiritual director. Go back to school and train for a new profession. Volunteer your time to the Resource Center. Cancel a weekly breakfast date to make time to read with an ESL student. Write the letter of apology or the note of thanks. Use a different devotion book. Pray out loud at the next committee meeting.

Sometimes when a hope dies it is wise to bury it. Leave the job you've worked for twenty years, put together a resume or serve notice of your intent to retire. Give away the clothes you'll never be able to wear again. Pack away the photo albums, sell the truck, get rid of the books you'll never re-read, the records you can't listen to without a turn table. These represent something, they carry memories, but maybe it's time to give them up. Go ahead and mourn, but not too long. God's intention for us is abundant life, and that's mighty hard to receive when we can't make room for it.

Ours is an abundant God, and God's promises to us are extravagant. Not as if God's promises come from a pie, with only so much good to go around, so that what someone else gets is that much less for us. God is abundant, and God's extravagant promises are the same for us as they were for Abram and Sarai-posterity, place, presence. Even when, from our point of view, there isn't even room for hope against hope. Posterity-a future in which the current lack of offspring (the apparent bleakness of the future) is only a technicality. Place-maybe right now only available as something to visit in giving thanks for its potential future. But a place where you really belong. Presence-so intimate, even nomads can't outrun God's companionship. Extravagant, yes, but promises with your name on them. Promises we proclaim every time we share this meal. Promises we claim in this meal. Receive the hope of your God and Savior, the host who invites you to share in his Body around this table. Amen.