RESPONDING BY FAITH
Text: Genesis 12:1-9
It is truly interesting that the last Sunday before moving day in the South Carolina Methodist Conference corresponds to this text of Genesis 12:1-9 that is a suggested text of the lectionary. It was thirteen years ago that I first entered the ministry as a student pastor as I was then leaving from the Rock Hill District. Here it is thirteen years later and I am leaving the Rock Hill District as an ordained Elder. Like my first appointment and the appointment where I am going to have three churches. Like Abram, I am leaving the familiar and going to a place that I not so familiar with. I have an advantage that Abram did not, and that is that I used to live near where I am going when I was a child. I have also been through areas close by to where I am going many times since my childhood. Abram was called by God to walk in good faith and to go where God was sending him. He was going where he had not been before.
LEAVING THE FAMILIAR
It is truly frightening to leave a place or a part of our lives with which we have become familiar. In clinical terms, they label this kind of fear as Separation anxiety. Anxiety is the fear of the unknown. Separation anxiety then describes the kind of feelings that we have when we are leaving the familiar and venturing into a place that we have not been before. I am sure that Abram must have felt something of this kind of fear when he was leaving the place that he had called home. But, there was one thing that Abram did that made the experience bearable. He responded by faith to God’s call. Oftentimes, we find that leaving the familiar is easier said than done.
We tend to play "what if" when we are leaving what has become familiar. We say to ourselves, "What if this… ?" or "What if that…?" as we leave. We do not see in the scripture any where recorded where Abram played the "what if" game. There are both joys and uncertainties about facing a new situation. The joys are the positive things. The uncertainties are the unknown things. There is the story of a man who was on his horse galloping swiftly along the road. An old farmer standing in the fields seeing him pass by called out, "Hey, rider where are you going?" The rider turned around and shouted back, "Don’t ask me, just ask my horse!" (Henri Nouwen. Creative Ministry. Garden City: Image Books, 1978, p. 3).
There is also the element of grief about leaving the familiar. I remember after I graduating High School back in 1983, a bunch of my peers were standing outside after the commencement (graduation) ceremony was over. They were sobbing. I was sad also. Whether we wanted to admit it or not, we were all on our "proverbial horses" wondering where our horses would take us. We were sad because we had graduated and could not go back. We were excited about the challenges of life that awaited us. And at the same time, we were suffering from separation anxiety. Life teaches us that there will be many times when we will graduate from one thing and get ready to take on another.
For Abram, the promise of a great life was ahead of him. Abram had graduated from his youth. He had also graduated from his mid-life era. But, now he was older in age, he was in his seventies and was about to go where it was that God was sending him. His graduation in this case required him to relocate. All of his life he had done all that he had done in one location. He was older in years and he and his wife Sarai were childless. That was the one thing that he had not graduated from. At his age, he and Sarai should have been parents, grandparents and maybe even great-grandparents by now. Yet, Abram went RESPONDING BY FAITH that he would one day become the father of many nations.
There are times when God sends us to another location for one reason or another reason. Sometimes the reason might be to heal. Other times, the reason might be to grow. Still, other times the reason might be a place of preparation for the place that will follow. Sometimes the reasons might be mixed. Today is my last Sunday in this pulpit as your pastor. God has His reasons for all of those of us who are moving.
Soon you will be receiving Mary Nichols, your next pastor. God has plans for all of us ministers who are moving. God also has plans for the churches that are receiving new pastors. God has plans for the ministry that the churches and the pastor will share. We do not always know where that "proverbial horse" will take us. Nevertheless, God wants us to follow His lead. It is like a one-sentence-sermon that I saw on a church sign, just recently, "God provides where He guides".
GOING WHERE GOD LEADS
We learn from our past. I once read about a curse that the native people of a certain island will say as a curse to another person. Their curse goes like this, "May you stand in one place forever". When we live in the past that is exactly what we end up doing, "we stand in one place" and the forever part is up to us. God does not desire for us to stand in one place forever. Occasionally, we will find that God has plans for us in other places which is why God does not want us to be complacent and be happy with the current standard in other places. God has goals for us. I told you when I first got here at Epworth in a sermon that "There is the gap between where we are and where God wants us to be. And that we can only close the gap when we walk with God". This is my last Sunday with you as your pastor and I am saying this again because God wants us to close the gaps that hinder our progress and His will.
CONSIDER Philipians 3:12-16: "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing" (KJV).
God wants us to learn from the past and not dwell on its failures. This is where the Serenity Prayer comes in handy. The Serenity Prayer complements in one way or another what Philippians 3:12-16 tells us.
The Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.
If there was any thing that I as your preacher would ask of you as a congregation it would be this one thing. Make it a point not to say, "That’s the way we did this or did that when Rev. so and so was here". That is the past and we are living in the present and pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14 NKJV paraphrased) which leans to the future. What would God have us all do now?
I know Mary, your next preacher who is coming. She is a wonderful lady and will do well. If there was a second thing that I would ask of you as a congregation, it would be this. "Pray for Mary as you have prayed for me". You will never know how much your prayers have meant to me while I was here.
I hate to go, but the time has come to say goodbye. Yet, I am not really saying goodbye. Let me explain as I say "goodbye" in three languages. Goodbye is a contraction of the Old English for "God be with ye". So in English I say, "goodbye" meaning "God be with you". Now I want to say "goodbye" in German. "Auf wiedersehen" which translates "Until we meet again". Finally, I would like to say "goodbye" in one of the ways that they say "goodbye" in Spanish. Via Kondias which translates "Go with God". RESPOND BY FAITH as you "Go with God" and press on for the prize. I bid you Godspeed as we part.
