Give God your hand

Jun 11

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of the entire worship service is available here.

What are we talking about? View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: Proper 5, Year A

*St. Savin - Calling of Abraham, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.*

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Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 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. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Genesis 12:1-3

Edited Transcript

May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated.

Today is our Recognition Sunday. We are recognizing the Sunday School kids who have completed a year of learning about the love of God. We're also recognizing our graduating seniors. We are so grateful they have grown up here among us at St. James', and we're wishing them well as they begin a new chapter of life. And so I have a poem which I have found helpful in new beginnings. The author is Rainer Maria Rilke.

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

This poem resonates with our reading today about Abraham, who at the age of 75—proving it's never too late in our lives to hear a call from God! ...Abraham and his household, who are very well settled in the place where they are, receive a call from God to go somewhere new. And God is very clear about the magnitude of what God is asking. God says, leave your family. Leave your kin. Leave everything you know. Leave your land and go to the place that I will show you.

God doesn't even give Abraham a specific destination or a specific promise about what that place will be like, but just invites Abraham to pack up everything and take off and follow God. Not unlike Jesus, who in his life on earth would walk by and say to this one or that one: "follow me." In today's reading, he picks the tax collector Matthew, who is sitting in his toll booth collecting his portion from the people who are bringing their goods into the city. Jesus says, "Follow me," and Matthew does.

God is always inviting us to leave what we know and to do something new. If this is my comfort zone, God is always inviting one step outside, and then another. God is always inviting us to life. As Rilke says: God speaks to us as God makes us. Because God's call is always making us new.

Last Sunday, we heard the creation story. God forms humanity in God's own image and then says to humanity, go forth, fill the earth, be fruitful, multiply! And now the story of Abraham, which we'll follow for several Sundays, begins right after the Tower of Babel: another story about God finding humans in their comfort zone and sending them outside of it. The human beings build a tower, and they're very happy because they're all in it, united, speaking the same language and on the same page. It is quite comfortable and familiar. They feel secure. And God comes along and says, this is not my dream for creation. God scatters the tower, scatters the people, causes them to speak different languages and sends them to the ends of the earth.

The very next plot point in Genesis is God finding Abraham in his comfort zone with his family and saying, it is time to move. It's time to go forth: because I'm going to make of you not just what you already are, but a great nation! All the peoples of the earth will be blessed in you. (And it's because Abraham says yes to this new call from God that a new relationship is created between God and the people of God. And it's because of that yes that we have Jesus later. And it's because of Jesus that we're here today.

The beginning is always God inviting us: Here you are, and here's what you know. Now: take one step beyond. And then another, and then another. And whether you're 18 years old or 75 years old or older, that call from God is always to come out from where you are. To come out a little bit farther. To bring God's love somewhere that it hasn't been known before. Or to discover how you can be part of building the dream of God.

I'm going to read this poem one more time. And as we hear it, I want us to remember the words of Jesus in last Sunday's Gospel. He tells the disciples to go forth and to bring the good news to every corner of the earth. And do you remember what he promises? "I am with you always."

So it's not just that God is sending us out, but that when we take each step, God is stepping right alongside us. When we go forth, God takes our hands to go with us.

Whatever new journey you are about to take or are taking: if you're beginning a new stage in your spiritual journey, if there's a new season of your life coming with a graduation (or as you witness one of your children graduating), God is with you. As you step out, God is with you always.