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Blessed Sacrifices |
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Blessed Sacrifices The sanctuary was so full of tears that Sunday morning that afterward, everyone was sure that they would never recover. Their tears were not so much of grief, for the worship service at which they were shed was not a funeral. It was only a commissioning, after all, a sending forth of two members of the congregation. Melissa and Rob had accepted an invitation to come to India and work in a medical facility, established by their denomination and in need of some extra hands already skilled in nursing and medical technology. The pair had planned and prayed for this day to come, and their friends had supported them every step of the way. But now in this final Sunday at home, as this beloved couple was set apart for Christian service in another country, as prayers were said over them and challenges issued to them to represent Christ and his church in their new ministry and to receive the gifts that Christ would offer them in the faces of Christians in India and elsewhere, it began to sink in that this couple was really leaving. They would never return to live among the people of this congregation in quite the same way. And so, although surely this was a moment for joy — for celebrating God’s call to new mission — one after another, the congregants began to sense loss and its inevitable twin, change. By the end of the worship, as the choir sang the couple out with John Rutter’s “Gaelic Benediction,” no eye was dry. The scene at the airport the next day was even more harrowing. Only a few of the closest family members, parents and siblings, had come to see the couple off. And though no one was angry or blaming, they were nonetheless intensely saddened by the creeping awareness that these two beloved children of their families were about to board an airplane that would take them far from home, far from simple phone calls and spontaneous dinners, far from the casual closeness they had known together. They all clung to one another, tearfully promising always to keep in touch, hugging this one and that just one last time. Finally, as the families watched, the departing two made their way through security. And then, after they had been thoroughly screened and had gathered their belongings, they turned toward the front of the airport, now separated from their families by glass and scanning equipment and security personnel and lines of waiting travelers, and waved one last time. And then at last their loved ones saw them walk away, toward the concourse that would take them to the gate of the plane and their new life. Separated from those we love In light of the sadness of such partings, perhaps it was a good thing that Terah had already died when his son Abram received his own call to leave home and kindred behind. He was spared the emotional religious rituals that set his son apart from him, spared the final scene of separation as Abram, Sarai, Lot and all their households set out from home one fine morning. And he was spared the anguished knowledge that heeding God’s call does not come without cost. Someone will pay; someone always pays. But this time, it was not to be Terah — because he had already died. Nothing, however, is said in this Genesis story about the wife of Terah, Abram’s mother. And nothing is said about his brothers and sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews (excepting Lot), aunts and uncles, not to mention the family of Sarai, the woman who silently followed her husband out of their home. For all we know, all these beloved people were there that bright morning when their son and brother packed up his immediate family and walked away toward the Promised Land.
Commentators on this text often remind us that Terah had already
taken his son, Abram, his grandson, Lot, and their families out of
Ur of the Chaldeans, as it says in But what a glorious sacrifice it was! A man goes out because God tells him to go, and centuries later three great religious families look back and call that moment blessed, as God said they would, and call that man “father,” again as God said. Through Abram, and Sarai, of course, Jews find identity as God’s chosen, Christians find a model of faithfulness to God’s righteousness, Muslims find an ideal of submission to the Holy One. And all three great families see in Abram and his choice to go a declaration that God alone is God, there are no other gods. But before he was all that, before we all called him “father,” a mother called him “son,” and wept when he said, “Yes, Lord, I will go.” Someone pays, someone is blessed The truth is this: When God calls us to go and be a blessing to someone else, which God will do in one way or another to all of us, and when we respond to that call, someone will pay — maybe everyone will pay. The children who go to new schools so we can pursue a new vocation, the parents who live out their last years away from their sons and daughters, the family members who note our absence at every reunion, every wedding, every funeral. And we ourselves will pay as well, every day that we are away from people we so treasure. But God’s truth doesn’t end there. For even as we bear the curse of absence from loved ones, we convey the blessing of God’s presence to others. That’s why God summons Abram to leave; that’s why God summons each of us to go out into the world in some way or another to do the blessing work, even when the sacrifice is great. So children leave home to study the world around them; teenagers leave home to learn new ways of relating to others; adults leave home to join God in creating goodness and wholeness for all in whatever way is placed before them. The commissioned couple, Rob and Melissa, with whose story we started this sermon, made it safely to India. There they found God waiting for them in their new home. And they began the daily health work so necessary in India and everywhere else. Sometimes the patients with whom they worked refused their care; other times patients gratefully received the gifts presented. Sometimes beloved patients died and families grieved this life’s final separation. Rob and Melissa made new friends and reckoned them as family, even as letters, e-mails and telephone calls continued to connect them, however tenuously, to family at home. God’s blessings resounded through their lives — blessings bestowed by the people with whom they served in India, blessings offered through their own skills and talents, blessings arriving in all kinds of disguises. And who knows what other blessings may come in the lives of people in India and in the United States because two people decided to follow the call of God and their friends and families tearfully urged them to go? Counting God’ blessings On this second Sunday of Lent, as we remember Abram’s decision to leave his family and the sacrifice of separation that they all made, let us remember our own tough decisions to follow the dreams God placed in our hearts. Let us honor the sacrifices that others made so that we might follow those dreams. And then let us count the ways that God will bless us — and through us, the world. |
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