Genesis 12: 1-5
12 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
12 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
The human
body is comprised of more than 640 skeletal muscles, which, attached to
bones and connected to joints, to enable us to move our limbs. If you’ve ever
sat for a long period of time, say, taken a 14 hour bus ride as Millie and I
did recently, you know that this period of sitting still causes muscles to
constrict, causing stiffness in our joints. If you ever had to wear a cast or
otherwise have had a limb be immobilized for an extended period of time, you
know from the lack of movement, that limb becomes weak – there is a muscle
wasting or wasting of the muscles that in extreme cases causes it to lose its
function all together. The medical term
for this is ‘disuse atrophy’.
What repairs this atrophy? Exercise. Therapy. Vigorous movement.
Segments of our community are suffering from this condition and have become stiff from lack of movement. While we sit here today joined with other organizations and church fellowships wearing our black as a show of solidarity, there are still too many of us laying on the proverbial couch weakened from chronic immobilization. If this doesn’t apply to you, there’s no need to say ouch. If you are doing the work, this sermon is not for you.
In
today’s climate, there is nothing more important for our community to do now
than to MOVE. Looking to Abraham’s experience, how can we connect then, with
what is going on now? What can we learn, what lesson can we glean from the
example presented here? How can we make this applicable to our current
situation?
Let’s begin with Genesis 12:2
In other words, he wanted Abraham to MOVE. To leave all that he knew, to leave the land he grew up in. To leave the place where he had formed connections and forged relationships. To leave the place where he was popular and familiar. Abraham was fully acclimated to his surroundings and environment. From the scripture we know that Abraham was 75 years old. He’d lived a full life. He had his wife. He had family. He had friends. He had possessions. He had servants. He had land. Abraham had it made. He had slowed down. He was comfortable. But how many of you know that God cannot use you comfortable. We are ineffective when we are comfortable. A comfortable person leaves the work for others to do. A comfortable person takes the easy way out. A comfortable person makes excuses! And so, God shifted Abraham into a world of uncomfortability, because it was there that he needed to be to accomplish God’s Will.
“… leave your people and your father’s household…”
Abraham had to disconnect from his friends
and family that were with him in the comfort zone. He had to separate himself. Not
everyone can do this work. The fight for justice sometimes requires that we
separate from people, even those we hold we hold near our hearts. Under the
guise of caring they may not understand why we must march, why we must spend
countless hours making phone calls to our senators and congressmen. They may
not be able to comprehend why we must risk being arrested, why we must protest,
why we must let our voices be heard. These are the people who have become an
atrophied part of the body. Their lack of movement have caused them to murmur
and complain instead of joining us on the field. In their atrophied state, they
act as deterrents to the movement we must make.
The work also requires us to separate from mental attitudes that plague
our community. Too much of us are stuck in a mindset of oppression, of
victimization and warped theology. Because of this, we are only able to show up
for a fraction of the body and not the whole. We can show up for men of color,
but only if they are heterosexual. We can show up for women, but only if they
are cis gendered. We can show up for our young people but only if they are not a
part of the LGBT community. As long as we are only showing up for part of the
body, the whole will continue to suffer.
“…to the land I will show you…”
“…to the land I will show you…”
Cross referencing - Hebrews 11:8 By
faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his
inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
Abraham didn’t yet know where he was going. God was calling him to go to a place that he hadn’t yet revealed. But he faith, he obeyed, and took the step. We, the whole body of the community, must the take the step, even if we don’t know where we will end up. God is calling our community go to places we have never gone before, and do things we have never done before. We cannot and must not be afraid of the outcome. We must have faith and trust God that if we but take the step, he will show us the land and we will receive our inheritance. If we take the step, we will inherit justice. If we take the step, we will inherit liberation. If we take the step, we will inherit victory!
Jumping down to verse 5 in Genesis 12 -
There are two things we see here. First, Abraham didn’t take the journey alone. While he had to separate from others, God made sure that he was still connected to the people he was meant to walk with. Again not everyone is called to walk with you. God will divinely orchestrate the individuals that are meant to be a source of encouragement and support to you! He will place the right individuals for the particular season you are in If God has called you to the work of social justice, He will make sure that you are not doing it by yourself!
Second, Abraham had everything he needed for the journey. Understand that God will not send us out
empty handed. He will make sure that we have provision for the mission! Don’t
worry about the money, don’t worry about the resources, and don’t worry about the
training components – the God who has always provided for our every need will
continue to do it. Further examining the essentiality of movement, we must understand that
it isn’t all about us!
Let’s go back to the 2nd verse -
2 “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
Let’s focus on the “a” clause of verse 2 and the “b” clause of verse 3 –
(1) God would make Abraham's descendants a great nation.
(2) God would bless all the families of the earth through Abraham.
The covenant moved through Abraham to his descendants and it is the same promise that God makes to us. In answering the call to move, we have the assurance that those connected to us currently…our sisters and brothers in the struggle and especially the generations coming behind us will be blessed. Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, Dr. Martin Luther King organized a 13-month mass protest of the Montgomery bus system, which ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional. Had he not moved, we would still be sitting on the back of the bus. Had Martin not moved, we would still be drinking out of separate water fountains. Had Martin not moved, we would still be entering establishments through back door kitchens. The future of the survival of our community is contingent on what we do, TODAY.
We are living in uncomfortable times which require us to become an uncomfortable people and to do uncomfortable things. Uncomfortable people, move. We must risk coming out from behind a wall of safety. We must be willing to go to places we have never been, to do things we have never done before. We must be willing to stretch our minds to think differently and to respond proactively. None of us have the luxury of turning a blind eye to ALL of the atrocities that plague the entirety, the whole body of our community. We must reverse the atrophy that has taken hold. We must get moving. And most of all, we must trust God in the process.
Until next time, be blessed!
Sue
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