First Friends Meeting
Genesis 12:1-3
‘Going the Distance’
Doug Gwyn

This past week, I was present for two memorial services for Gene, ‘Duke’ Ellington. The first was in Eaton and the second was at Friends Fellowship. Both services were beautiful outpourings of love and appreciation. Gene clearly touched many lives as a teacher, a coach, high school principal, husband, father, friend, mentor. Our own Phil Johnson spoke beautifully at both services of his long association and friendship with Gene and Carolyn. Particularly at Eaton, where the Ellingtons spent most of their lives, we heard one story after another. Some had a touch of humor, others revealed a bit of wisdom – all were infused with love and gratitude for Duke, and the way God’s grace worked through his life.

It is both a pain and a pleasure to be involved in these times of remembrance and thanksgiving. I share in that painful sense of loss, especially when I’ve gotten to know someone. But it’s also a privilege to accompany families and friends through these losses, and to hear more about the one we have lost. The stories and reflections, the sense of fellow humanity, the gratitude for God’s grace in someone’s life – these are privileged moments to share together. They’re inspirational – they make us want to make the most of whatever time we still have, be it great or small. And after all, none of us knows how much time we have.

But along the way, of course, each of us is a work in progress. We’re far from perfect, and still capable of going completely off the rails – morally, spiritually. The thing about stories is that the ending can redefine everything that came before. It’s true – people make decisions, change directions, get beyond themselves in ways that redeem the failures of the past, or that turn terrible tragedy into real triumph. Each of us has some experience of this, at any age. We’ve been able to come back from serious mistakes we made, or overcome hardships that befell us. We may still feel burnt or wounded or recovering, but we have come back, at least part way. That’s where we get to know God’s grace – both the inner strength God gives us, and the forgiveness or help we receive from others.

The Hebrew and Christian Scriptures of the Bible are unique in the way they teach their greatest truths through stories. Some of the stories are inspiring. Others are really terrible and morally disturbing. The Bible is no collection of fairy tales, folks. This Bible is about humanity at its best and its worst, and a God who will work with anyone, a God who starts over with us on a daily basis. The four gospels of the New Testament take this emphasis upon story to the ultimate. Each gospel tells the story of Jesus from a different angle. But they all testify that the story of this Jesus is the key to knowing who God is, and who we are in relation to God. Yes, Jesus was a teacher, and the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, the Golden Rule have much to teach us. But even Jesus preferred to teach using stories. His little parables say so much in so few words. We can learn from them in different ways all our lives. Now, if you’re just looking for a teacher of moral and spiritual truths, Confucius and the Buddha probably have larger and more systematic bodies of teaching to learn from. The teachings of Jesus are certainly great in their own right, but his life story is the real teaching.

Eunice read for us from the beginning of the story of Abraham and Sarah. She read the original call of Abram, to leave his home and start wandering, start walking toward an unknown land. God not only calls Abram but makes a great promise. He and his wife Sarah will become a great nation. Now, they were already 75 and 65 years old, respectively, and they had no children. So this was quite a promise. But the greatest promise to them was not that they would have a family, and that that family would become a great nation. But somehow, in them, all the families of the earth would be blessed. This is almost a joke – it piles the greatest unlikelihoods upon sheer impossibility. Abraham and Sarah are like two obscure actors who are offered roles in a movie by an even more obscure director. The director tells them they will be stars in a film with a wonderful ending, but gives no details about the plot. In drama school they would call it improv – the actors have to improvise their way along, make it up as they go, with only general ideas of who they are and where they are going.

Now, the New Testament always extols Abraham and Sarah as the very models of faith. But when you read the chapters of Genesis that follow this call from God, you definitely see two Abraham and Sarah as works in progress. They are not such great heroes of faith. They are wracked by insecurities and doubts. They come up with schemes to fulfill God’s promises by their own means. For example, twice Abraham passes Sarah off as his sister. When they are sojourning in Egypt and again near Beersheba, Abraham is anxious. He thinks, Oh, Sarah is so beautiful and these heathens are so immoral, they’ll just me, her husband, so they can take her. So he passes Sarah off as his sister – which is half-true. She is his half-sister. But when the Pharoah and later King Abimelech discover that Sarah is Abraham’s wife, they are shocked. These supposedly immoral heathens scold Abraham for doing such an immoral thing. What kind of hero is this?

Both Abraham and Sarah are tormented by God’s promise of children. The torment grows as the years pass. First Abraham has an idea. Look, Lord, this children thing isn’t happening – that’s OK – my servant Eleazar is a good boy – let him be my heir. No, answers God – your heir must be your very own son. Later, Sarah is desperate and she has a bright idea. OK, I’m not thrilled about this, but I’ll give my handmaid Hagar to Abraham and she can have a child on my behalf, sort of. But after Hagar bears a son, Ishmael, Sarah hates her and casts Hagar and her baby out into the desert. Abraham doesn’t think it’s right, but he accedes to Sarah’s demands. These are our heroes of faith!

But as it turns out, faith is not really something we manage by our own heroic efforts. Faith is what God works through us, especially when we have exhausted our own ideas, schemes, and energies. God saves Hagar and Ishmael from dying in the desert and starts a whole different story line with them – what will someday become the story of Islam. And God finally gives Sarah and Abraham that child of promise, so far beyond their own efforts and schemes, they can only laugh. And that promised land – well, they never receive that. Abraham and Sarah merely live there as sojourners. So much of God’s promises will remain beyond their horizons, beyond their lifetimes. But in the end, it is enough.

At your memorial service, we’ll only tell the stories that make you look good. I hope you will do the same for me. But I’m glad that Genesis portrays Abraham and Sarah warts and all. And I’m glad that Genesis tells their stories so tersely. It’s not like a modern novel – it rarely tells us what Abraham and Sarah are thinking or feeling. It leaves room for us to fill in our own sense of what they were thinking and feeling. That way, we can recognize our own stories in their stories. Yes, in the final analysis, Abraham and Sarah are great models of faith. But not by God’s grace, not their own efforts.

Abraham finally becomes not only the father of Isaac, but the source of three great faiths – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Recall that God promised that all the families of the earth will be blessed through him. Certainly, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam together include a lot of the world’s families. But the call of Abraham always extends the blessing further. Perhaps it is the call of every seeker, everyone who senses a greater promise in their heart, who lives and moves toward a horizon they may never reach. But that horizon beyond all horizons becomes the meaning of our lives.

You know the story of Thomas Edison inventing the light bulb. He tried about a hundred substances as filaments before he found tungsten. As he put it, he found a hundred ways not to make a light bulb, before hitting on one way to make one. We just remember that one. Each of us could probably tell a hundred stories of the ways we have found not to be good women and men of faith. But by God’s grace, like Sarah and Abraham, may each of us find one way, the way God shows uniquely to each one.