[Gen. 15:1-12, 17-18; Philip. 3:17-4:1; Lk. 13:31-35]
Peace to all of you who are in Christ. Amen.
“It started with a voice on the wind.
“At first I thought an evil spirit was trying to trick me. There are many trickster-spirits, you see, but the voice claimed to be El, God, and he insisted I move away from Haran, where I had buried my father. I had heard of this God before, but I hadn’t worshiped him; in my family we worshiped other gods.
“God swore to me he would bless me and protect me as long I would trust in him.
So, I gathered up all my belongings and the people of my extended family, and I travelled to the land of Canaan, which God promised to give to me and my descendants, even though my wife and I had no children.
“When famine hit Canaan and we were forced to relocate to Egypt in order to survive, I started to wonder about the voice, if indeed it had come from God or some trickster.
But while in Egypt, I witnessed first-hand how powerful and knowing God really is.
“We moved back to Canaan, and God reiterated his promise that I and my descendants would own the land. He hadn’t forgotten me.
“One of the priest-kings came and blessed me in the name of the Highest God, as he called him. It was then that I realised that others knew God as well.
“Over and over, God reaffirmed that my descendants would be like the number of stars, like the grains of sand: too many to count.
God called this promise a covenant. History would call it the Covenant of the Pieces.
“Then a slave-girl bore me a son. I loved him very much, but I longed for a son by my wife.
God repeated his covenant and changed my name and my wife’s name.
As a sign, all the men of my tribe were circumcised.
“I had settled at the oaks of Mamre and by that time our family had expanded into a large and prosperous group.
It was there that the Lord appeared to me. I had encountered him before, and I had built an altar at each location where the presence of the Lord had been very real to me. Three men visited my camp and the Lord had never felt so close.
They promised me a son and my wife had laughed.
Many in my tribe had their doubts but out of respect for me they obeyed and followed me to the land the Lord had shown me.
My wife bore me a son, and I had to send away his half-brother and his mother, but the Lord looked after them and his descendants too became numerous. The Lord is generous and faithful.
“It came as a real shock when one day the Lord commanded me to sacrifice my son.
My wife and I had waited for so long and now that we had been given an heir, the Lord was going to take him from us. I was confused but I obeyed. As I bound the boy and laid him on the altar, I felt numb.
The Lord however intervened and provided another sacrifice.
“When my wife died, I buried her near Mamre, where the divine presence had never been stronger. It’s a pity she never got to see our boy grow into a man, get married and become a father himself.
When I died, my son buried me next to her.
“My story is one of an ongoing conversation with the Lord God. It’s the story of a God who’s always there.
During my lifetime I’ve been blessed to experience his grace and care and love without fail.
“From that very first time I heard his voice on the wind, he has never stopped calling me.
It’s important to discern the different voices vying for our loyalty; it’s important to listen to God in prayer, even if sometimes we would prefer not to listen, or we think we’re listening when in fact we’re replacing his voice with our own.
“I had never thought that I would be considered the archetype of a man of great and unshakable faith. God’s friend. The compliment is greatly exaggerated: I’m a human being who has led his life to the best of his abilities. There’s good and bad in all of us.
“I will admit, there were times when I thought about returning to Ur of the Chaldeans, to leave behind this endeavour with a god I had never worshipped before. There were times when I just couldn’t believe that he would fulfil his promise, when my soul was heavy with darkness.
Yet, God has kept our conversation going, he has kept our covenant alive, at every step he has rekindled hope for my own and my tribe’s future. To me, he has proven his holiness and righteousness, even when he was testing me.
“I was to become the father of many great nations and three world religions, which proves that for the Lord nothing is impossible.
God answers prayers, even if it doesn’t seem like it, even if he does so in his time and according to his will, not ours.
The Lord defends those who call on him, who turn to his care, to his fatherly arms, and he does so without us asking for it or deserving it, without us realising his mercy is acting in our lives.
“There have been many signs from God.
The most intrinsic characteristic of a sign is that it serves as a reminder that the Lord remembers his promises and that he stands firm on them.
Whether these signs are from long ago or they’re new symbols in a new time, they’re gifts to cling to.
“God doesn’t trick. God doesn’t forget. God fulfils all he says.”
May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance. Amen.