The white cloths in the sanctuary tell us it’s still the season of Easter (third Sunday). Which makes it very appropriate to say: He is Risen! (He is risen indeed). Let’s not forget whom we belong to.

This morning we start a new sermon series which I’ve called: Scoundrels, Doubters and Saints: Stories from Genesis. As several of you have mentioned, that means we switch from the end of the Bible to the beginning, from the last book of the New Testament to the first of the Old Testament, from Revelation to Genesis.

We’re not actually starting at the very beginning of Genesis, but in chapter 12. A few years ago, we studied the first 11 chapters, so we’re not repeating them again. But those first 11 chapters had a lot of foundational theology in them.

• 1) Creation of everything, heavens and earth.
• 2) Creation of human beings in God’s image.
• 3) Paradise, humanity in relationship with God.
• 4) Entry of sin and rebellion into world.
• 5) Presence of evil.
• 6) God’s response to this, and some hints of salvation and what God would do.
• 7) Babel- Humankind’s continual attempt to be independent and play God.

All of that was in the first 11 chapters…theology, origins, general foundations. But now in chapter 12, we begin to get some specifics.

Beginning of God choosing a people.

Beginning of upside down story.

Beginning of people you’d least expect…ending up on center stage.

Real people. Salt of the earth people.

Sometimes Adam and Eve strike me as more distant, like people out there in a play. But now, as we begin with people like Abram and Sarai…they’re clearly real folks. You can imagine Abram (Abraham later) and Sarai (Sarah later)…sweating, doubting, arguing, worrying. Real people.

We start with Abram, who grew up the son of a man named Terah in the city of “ Ur of the Chaldeans,” in present day southern Iraq. Terah moved his family, including his son Abram and Abram’s wife Sarai to the north and west, to Haran ( Turkey).

Before read what follows, we need to understand 2 things:

• Abram & Sarai were settled in. Abram & Sarai were in a community: family, house, 2-camel garage, job, in-laws, they were there for long haul.
• b) Abram & Sarai were sad. In this story, that sadness is called being “barren,” or unable to have children. That was such a hard thing. It’s been a hard things for a number of you here in the Bethany community. Very, very difficult. And it was maybe even harder back in those days when so much emphasis was put on the “continuation of one’s line.” They were at a dead end in this regard, hopeless. Abram and Sarai were living out their days, now well past mid-life.

This morning, this sermon has a very simple structure, three parts: Go. So. and Oh No! We’ll spend most of our time on the “go.”

Read Genesis 12:1-9

GO. Such an abrupt beginning: Go. You have to wonder why the writer didn’t work into this a little more? Why not “A long time ago in a galaxy far away…”? Why not ease us in? Nope. “The Lord said to Abram: “Go.”

It may be abrupt, but how many times have you wished you could get a word like this? We go through these huge spiritual exercises, we strain and stress and struggle and pray. We say “Lord, shall I move? Lord, shall I take this job?” We agonize. How many times would you have died to hear God say something so clear and simple, “Go?”

Should I stay or go? Go.

Shall I take the risk? Go.

What if I don’t know what’s on the other side? Go.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could hear that? I wonder why Abram was able to? What was his technique? We have not idea. This story uses so few words. But one way or another I think we can rest assured Abram was paying attention to however God would speak.

It’s hard for us to pay attention to God’s voice, especially when we don’t know exactly how might come to us. Hard. Getting harder. We’re busy people. We have important things to do.

- Great story in Washington Post 2 weeks ago. The Post set up an experiment in the Metro, the subway system in DC. They arranged for a 39 year old man named Joshua Bell to show up and play his violin, and open his case to ask for money there in the subway area, like any other street vendor.

Except…Joshua Bell is one of the very most renowned musicians in all of the world. He fills concert halls. He is a musical genius. People pay top dollar to hear him, he just won the Avery Fisher prize as the top classical musician in America.

Joshua Bell showed up with his Stradivari violin (1710, worth about 3-4 million dollars). He opened his case. He played for 43 minutes at morning rush hour time.

1,097 people walked by, hurrying to and from jobs, daycares, appointments. Out of all those people, aside from one person who recognized Bell…really only one person stopped to listen, for about 9 minutes.

A few people threw in money…he earned about $34. The Washington Post filmed the whole thing secretly, and did follow-up interviews. Most people didn’t even remember hearing the soaring sound of a premier violinist playing a premier instrument, absolutely filling the station.

Some never even saw him. Some walked within 2 feet of him and remembered nothing. (Those included people with iPODS and headphones plugged in).

Interestingly, the one part of the population that noticed and tried to stop to listen and watch was the children. And invariably, the parents stood in their way and hustled them along.

Now, these were not bad people! Normal, hardworking folks. They had important things to do. Had appointments to get to. They were just really, really busy people. Too bad, isn’t it? They missed something so filled with beauty and passion, it’s hard to describe. Missed something remarkable. We do it all the time. We’re busy, busy people and we can’t figure out why God is difficult to hear. We miss Him.

Abram didn’t miss God. Abram heard the Lord, one way or another.

Go. Uproot from all you know, family, house, land. Leave all the security, all the knowledge you have acquired of your culture, what is normal, polite, safe. Go, Abram, and something will happen.

Like what? Here is God’s great promise to Abraham. GO Abram, and you will receive:

• Land.
• Many offspring.
• You will bless all families of the earth.

Wow!

Land to someone who would be wandering like a nomad, no place to be home.

Offspring to a couple who were barren and hopeless.

God would use them to bless many people across the earth…little old Abram & Sarai. This is what Abram heard when God said GO. God did not say that Abram would bring these things about by his good behavior, his powerful personality or his spiritual gifts. In fact, it is GOD who says HE will bring it about.

Listen to the pronouns: “Go to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great. I I will make you a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.”

So. “So Abram went…” Again, very simple. So…Abram went. Abram and Sarai headed south, down into Canaan, or Palestine. So Abram went…and passed through to Shechem. So Abram went and moved to the hill country near Bethel. So Abram went and journeyed slowly south to the Negeb.

It’s such an interesting thing, that Abram ends up touring the whole country, north to south. The very country, in fact, which God says he will give to Abram. It’s like he’s touring his new house, “oh look at this room, and this room.” At each stop, he built an altar and worshipped. So…Abram went.

But this is amazing stuff. Abram is not stupid. He’s done his market research.

God said Abram would receive the land, but Abram knew there was someone living in the land! “Here’s the keys to your new apartment…oops, did I mention someone is already living there?” God said Abram and Sarai would have a big family…but Abram knew this was now a physical, biological impossibility! God said little ol’ Abram and Sarai would bless all the peoples of the whole earth. What delusions of grandeur!

God said GO. SO…Abram went. Abram went in spite of all the indicators, all the signs, all the data, all the research. Everything says “disaster.” So…Abram went.

Now, I believe in taking risks, I think they’re generally healthy and especially in our faith. But my risk-taking doesn’t look like this. I make sure there’s a place to land on the other side. In 1993 we moved from Seattle to New Jersey to go back to school.

That felt very risky. But you know what? We knew where we were going. We told the moving company what day we’d arrive. We had the address we would live at. I knew when school started. We had registered our children ahead of time in schools. We did our homework, we had the data, it all looked favorable.

Not Abram. Nothing looked favorable. Nothing. God said “Go.” So Abram went.

In the church we spend a lot of time these days practicing discernment, looking for direction about our future. I do it. I preach it, talk to homegroups about it, teach on it. Part of our discerning is making sure things pretty much line up. And that’s all good.

But I wonder sometimes if we miss God because we’re too busy discerning. I wonder if we are too concerned with figuring out the next pieces that we miss seeing the guy playing the violin in the subway.

In the passage Suzzanne read from Hebrews 11, Abram is portrayed as the early “father of faith.” Faith is the conviction of things not seen. Abraham is not held up and honored because everything lined up, in fact “he set out, not knowing where he was going.” On faith. He believed God would give him as many descendants as the stars. On faith. Faith seemed to operate NOT when it all lined up, but exactly when it didn’t.

God said GO and some amazing things will happen. So Abram went.

Now the “Oh no!” We don’t have time to read the second half of chapter 12, but let me tell you what happens.

Abram and Saria are in Canaan, and there’s a huge famine. They end up in Egypt, where there is food. As they enter Egypt, Abram (remember, “father of faith,” “obeyer on blind trust”) says to Sarai,

“Honey, you’re gorgeous. In fact, you’re so gorgeous, I’m afraid for myself. I’m afraid the Egyptians will see your beauty, kill me and keep you. So let’s do this. Let’s say we’re brother and sister and that way I’ll be spared.”

I wonder what poor Sarai thought?! “Abram, you worm! Have some guts! Where’s your faith, man?!

They go to Egypt. The Egyptians see Sarai’s beauty. They take her to the Pharaoh, who takes her as part of his harem, one of his many wives, and by the way compensates Abram handsomely. Until the Pharoah is hit with a bunch of plagues, and puts two and two together and figures out why, and he calls Abram on the carpet and says “Why did you do this to me? Why did you not tell me she was your wife?!”

The Pharaoh of Egypt has much better morals that “the father of faith.” The Pharaoh operates with far more integrity than Abram. Abram fails miserably.

What’s going on? This is the same chapter! The Father of Faith! The weak coward who will sacrifice his own wife to save his skin. God gives them a land! They immediately leave it. Same guy. Same chapter. From great faith to disgusting Failure.

We’re going to find this all over Genesis. Abram’s family is a dysfunctional family…that God will use to bless all the earth. They are weak people…that God chooses to call his own. They fail dismally…but God will not abandon them.

And what I think we’ll figure out along the way is that this story is less about Abram and his descendants than it is about God. This is a God story first. Abram is trying to find his way to fit into it. God chooses. God sends. God meets along the way. God loves. God acts. God redeems. God stays with them.

If we see it in Abram’s story, we see it even more clearly in the much later descendant of Abram, in Jesus Christ. The gospel of Matthew starts out “Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” And in that story, Jesus chooses us, comes to us, loves us and even in the darkest hour, will not leave us.

Jesus takes a bunch of people who are both people of great faith and people of great failure, and uses them to literally change the whole world. “Oh, no!” is not the last word. When faithful and faithless Peter met Jesus on the beach, Jesus did not say “well, you sure screwed that one up.” He simply asked a question: “Peter, do you love me?”

I want to leave you with four questions this morning:

1) Are we really paying attention, trying to hear God?

2) When we do hear, are we willing to go?

3) Can we acknowledge that it’s God’s story that we fit into…not our story that we need to wedge God in here and there?

4) Do we understand that God knows our small faith and our great failures, and calls us anyway?

When we can reflect on questions like these, we just might be getting to a place where we would stop to hear a violin player in a subway station. And find something remarkable.

Let us pray.