Genesis 12:1-9 (The Call of Abram and Sarai)
The song, Blessed, by Lucinda Williams was played as part of the prelude to worship today. You can listen here.
Barbara Brown Taylor, an author I love to read, says this about blessing: A blessing will have more power to transform the blesse, although transformation is not required. There is no impressive logic behind this reasoning. The only logic is that all life comes from God, and for that reason, alone we may call it blessed, leaving the rest to God. (An Altar in the World p. 204)
Blessings are an interesting thing. The video we are about to watch was a part of a series musician Lucinda Williams put together a few years ago when she released her album entitled “Blessed.” The pictures and her definition of what being blessed looks like was reflected in the people and every day stories she encountered in L.A.
The woman who speaks in this particular video doesn’t include religion in her definition of what it means to be blessed. Listen to where her musings of blessings go.
Religion is horrible, she laughs, and has nothing to do with being blessed. Then. Then! She names life as tragedy not because of horrible people and what they do, but because people don’t realize they are forgiven. She names the ultimate blessing.
The Lucinda Williams you heard played earlier song is a litany of blessing with no comfortable chorus to take refuge in, but instead, line after line of how it is you and I and she can be and are blessed in this life. Through tragedy and just life in general. And, at first blush, they don’t always look like how we’d traditionally define blessing — what it means to be blessed. Often, we’d list our blessings asfFamily, health, a job, a home. Listen to this litany from the song:
We were blessed by the minister Who practiced what he preached
We were blessed by the poor man Who said heaven is within reach
We were blessed by the girl selling roses Showed us how to live
We were blessed by the neglected child Who knew how to forgive
We were blessed by the battered woman Who didn’t seek revenge
We were blessed by the warrior Who didn’t need to win
We were blessed by the blind man Who could see for miles and miles
We were blessed by the fighter Who didn’t fight for the prize
We were blessed by the mother Who gave up the child
We were blessed by the soldier Who gave up his life
We were blessed by the teacher Who didn’t have a degree
We were blessed by the prisoner Who knew how to be free
We were blessed by the mystic Who turned water into wine
We were blessed by the watchmaker Who gave up his time
We were blessed by the wounded man Who felt no pain
By the wayfaring stranger Who knew our names
We were blessed by the homeless man Who showed us the way home
We were blessed by the hungry man Who filled us with love
By the little innocent baby Who taught us the truth
We were blessed by the forlorn Forsaken and abused
We were blessed
So today, Abram brings this Lucinda Williams song to life. Or maybe, I should say, Lucinda Williams brings to life this story from Genesis of Abram and Sarai to life.
Because Abram was blessed. God made 3 promises of blessing to him: land, descendants, that he would be a great nation.
At first glance it seems pretty great, but when you take a closer look we realize how unusual these blessings are. Take the first one: land. This was not a blessing of his homeland. It was of land that God would show him. Not now, but later. So God blessed Abram (not yet named Abraham) by making him a nomad. And, he’s an old man, not a young whipper snapper. Although he’s married, has servants and possessions. So it’s a pretty big entourage that would set up camp as they moved across the land into the unknown. The blessing of land comes with the command – GO.
The next blessing? Descendants, you know, so he can be a great nation. You’re gonna have kids, old man. And, not to blow the ending or anything but it takes 25 years for Isaac to be born with lots of missteps as Abram tries to control the situation of just how God is going to bless him. Yet God continues to work with and through Abram and blesses him.
And finally, the blessing that Abram will be a great nation for the sake of all the other nations. Blessed to be a blessing, so to speak.
None of these blessings are obvious. None of them are on Abram’s time table. And none are to be private and personal blessings, but always a blessing that serves to bless others. And time and again, Abram doubts the blessing and the direction God has sent him and tries his own ways and always, always, always gets into trouble. Yet God still follows through on those blessings. Following Abram in his missteps, backtracking with Abram, and working out the blessings in his life.
What does it mean to be blessed – now that you’ve peeked into Abram’s life and heard this litany of every day blessing?
One thing is for sure, blessings are often unexpected and don’t always look the way we imagined them. We can be blessed through terrible times and absolute tragedy just as we are in the deeply joyful times. It seems our lives, just gathered together in this room, are reflection enough of the deep complexity of what it means to be alive and to be blessed. Sometimes a blessing starts out in the roughest most hidden way. After all, all Abram and Sarai were told was go. And it wasn’t a smooth, direct path of going.
I hope you can see that we are involved in this work of God. We are involved in going out to be a blessing in the name of God to all the world. To all nations of the world. We are sent to be a blessing. And because we are blessed by God, we are well equipped to bless others. I want you to hear just how well equipped you are to be a blessing from these words from Barbara Brown Taylor:
Excerpts from the chapter The Practice of Pronouncing Blessings in An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. The following link more or less covers what I read in worship.
http://www.oprah.com/spirit/An-Altar-in-the-World-Excerpt-Barbara-Brown-Taylor_1
Blessing from God is felt and experienced in the heft of a stone, as Abram built an altar in thanksgiving to and praise of God’s faithfulness and love. Blessing from God is felt in the light touch of frail and aged flesh, resting on a head with whispered and raspy blessing. Blessings are given at the end of things so that new things can begin in God’s name. You are blessed by God to bless others. Each and every one of you. It is a mighty thing. It is a common, every day thing. It is a God thing. It is a you thing.
Thanks be to God.
Amen
Post Sermon Connection –
In today’s story, Abram builds an altar to the Lord as they move into new land. To do such a thing in the ancient world was a way to signal praise and thanksgiving for what God has done. Today, you were given a rock as you came into worship. There should be sharpie markers scattered throughout the congregation too. Take a moment and talk with those next to you about the blessing God has given to you. Maybe it’s the blessing of faith or family. Or, how is it God has used or is using you to bless others in this life? Write it on that rock and talk about it together.
In a few minutes, we’re going to sing Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. During this song, we sing a peculiar line, “Here I raise my Ebenezer. Hither by thy help I’ve come.” Ebenezer (which means “stone of help”) is a reference to 1 Samuel 7:12. After the Lord had given a great victory to Israel, “Samuel took a stone and … named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far has the Lord helped us.’ ”
We’re going to raise an Ebenezer together today, piling our stones as a marking point of God’s help. As evidence of blessing from God. As an altar of thanksgiving, made up of God’s blessing in our every day lives.
