I’ll remind you that I like to take July and August to preach on Old Testament text because I deliberately preach mostly on the New Testament the rest of year. I decided that since we have a new Sara among us that I would preach a sermon series on Abraham and Sara. Ok? Now Sara reminded me this week that the word Sara in Hebrew means Princess.

As we look at the story of Abraham and Sara what I will remind you of is several things. Sara and Abraham are the patriarch and matriarch of the biblical faith. It’s from them that the Hebrew people spring. And it is the primary stories of their lives that lock in the basic notions of what it means to have a biblical faith. A faith based upon the God who is the God of all things and of all people, and the special covenant and relationship that people of biblical faith have with that God.

And so as we look over the next few weeks, at some of those primary dramatic stories, what we see in them, as I remind you often aren’t just the Sunday school stories we were given. That it is a wonderful story full of knowledge. It’s the significant things about who God is and who we are because of who God is.

I want to tell you just a little about Abraham and Sara and kind of set things up. How many of you know that Abraham and Sara were from Turkey? Can you raise your hand? Anybody? The land of Ur was in Turkey. So where we begin the story of the holiest people of the holy land is that they start out, and somewhere that they are is not even in that place. Isn’t that interesting? And that what God called them to do was more extraordinary when we understand the circumstances of their lives.

(A hint from your webmaster: Check out the sermon for July 13 regarding Abraham and Sara living in Turkey).

We know that Abraham and Sara were very wealthy people. Now the bible does say they were, like many of the things the biggest clues in the bible that comes from second hand statements in the bible not from directness. We know that because Sara’s name meant Princess that she was someone with some stature. We also, as we read about Abraham and his entourage everywhere they went, that he was a man who possessed many things. And because of that, he would have been seen as a fairly decent player in the things of life.

It’s interesting as we celebrate the birth of our country today that if your family is like mine they were not Lords and Ladies from whatever country they came from when they moved to this country. As proud as I am of my Scotch/Irish heritage let me tell you my family was basically scrub farmers. Don’t tell anyone in my family that I told you that, but it’s true. They came to this country for the same reason that many people came to this country, which was, that they had the hopes and dreams that the dreary life they were living would end, and there might be something better for them in the new country. And if Abraham and Sara had been simply scrub farmers or of people of lower means, we might understand when God said there might be some things better off in another land, why they would pick up and go.

But when we understand that they were people of privilege and that they had possessions and that they had a secure lifestyle, the question is why in the world would they have risked all of that status in order to simply follow God, to go where? The question that is asked over and over again by people of faith is what drove those two matriarch and patriarchs of our faith to go somewhere not knowing where they were headed? And the answer to that, and there again, it can be subtle in Genesis.  So you have to watch close as you read the text, which I hope you will for the next few weeks. Somewhere from about this chapter and about 6 chapters forward. But when you’re reading those texts, the subtle message that you’ll hear if you listen ever so briefly, is that the themes from one story to another is that Abraham and Sara put their trust in God. That as they went from one place to another, that it was their faith and trust, not in themselves, but in God that got them through. And they kept a covenant sustained between them and God.

We live in a day and age in which narcissism, that is reflective upon thyself, what I want, what I need, and how right is it going to be for me is the center pivot in our lives. And in the consumer culture that we live in, it has simply amplified that way in how we live our lives.

We often expect that when we come to church, that we actually come to the church because coming to the church is going to do something for us.  We are here in order that we might get something for ourselves. Isn’t that true? And if you read all of the church ‘grow’stuff, they tell you we need to figure out what people want so we can give them what they want.

Now I’ll tell you something about that biblical faith inherent to Abraham and Sara, no one was concerned whether or not they got what they needed from God. That faith centered on God and on God’s will not only for Abraham and Sara but also for the world. And part of what Abraham and Sara remind us of this morning is, that we are a people of faith, not because we are going to get something. 

We come to this place of worship gathered as the living body of Christ every week the same reason Abraham and Sara followed God so long ago. And we might discover who God is first and foremost. And that because we are searching to discover who God is we might discover whom God is calling us to be in response to that. It’s a little different than coming to see what it is we want and making sure the church gives it to us isn’t it?

We know that if we live to be 110, that we will still have money to live on right? I know that some of you have seen this past year with the stock market going crazy wondering about the security of that retirement, when stocks aren’t secure. We want to buy our homes, and we want to feel secure that we are in a place where we can know what is going to happen to us.  We want everything to be predictable. Sometimes we make a mistake, those are natural, human desires that are an intricate part of a faith that God has called us to live.  Yet when Abraham and Sara begin their journey, they give us the paradigm of biblical faith. Abraham and Sara gave up their loyalty to the country they were a part of. They gave up the security of their upper class lifestyle. They gave up relationships with people that mattered to them, because in the ancient world your connections with a long string of family members was paramount. Now we read later on in Genesis where they send sons back to find wives back that way, but for the most part they sacrificed everything that they might journey where were they going? That’s part of the catch. God never really lets them know about that. Just tells them to get out and go.

Now what does that say to us today? Where is God calling you? The scary thing is where ever God is calling you its not to sit in your cocoon or your room and be protected by whatever makes you feel secure. I don’t care whither your 5, 50 or 110. That God is telling you that your life and your faith is a journey and God is telling you to go somewhere, but He’s not telling you where. The key to the story of Abraham and Sara is that God said, “Go. I’m not telling you where, you’re going to have to trust me.” And we will see in the weeks ahead of how the challenge of learning to trust becomes a major issue for them.

I look at this congregation. I showed someone yesterday I had in my office a communion platter and a communion picture of it first being used in 1873 by this congregation. By the way, those of you that didn’t know this, this is the oldest Protestant church in the state of Arizona. Now as I look back about where the journey is that God has called this congregation to I think that this place we are worshiping in here is the 4^th or 5^th place of worship this congregation has had on the same property.

I’ll tell you how that differs from a lot of downtown mainline churches. Most of them have built a church back somewhere in the early 1900’s. They decided that the building was to be worshiped. They don’t say that out loud, but that is how they practice things. You know you have to be careful about architecture and about maintaining it.  And by the way, don’t forget that God called you to call more people than that sanctuary will hold because the sanctuary is what’s important. Because after all it is the stability that may stay the same. That means life is ok.

One of the wonderful things about this congregation is that buildings no longer become capable of producing the ministry that God has called this church to.  Because they tore buildings down and moved on. Some of you don’t know how strange that is, because you haven’t hung out in other churches like I have. What I’m trying to say to you is that what I’m seeing in the roots of this congregation is an understanding of that Abraham and Sara journey. An understanding that says we don’t stay where we are as God has called us somewhere.  We simply have to take God’s hand and trust that God leads us where we need to go. Abraham and Sara remind us that our faith is about trusting and taking God’s hand to go, even though we may not know where we are going. Because you see we are not relying on our own ability, we are relying on God.

And now we are going to have our new Sara pray the communion prayer for us for the first time.