MOVING DAY

God's Call to Abram and Sarai

2nd Sunday in Lent, Year A
Genesis 12:1-4a
Prop: A moving box

Good morning!  How many of you have moved from one home to another?  How many of you have always lived in the same home?  When I was young, my family and I moved around a lot.  I was born in Hollywood, California.  Then when I was five weeks old (I barely remember it), my family and I moved to Western Springs, Illinois.  Then we moved to Park Forest, IL, then to Union, Missouri, then back to Park Forest, then to Belleville, Illinois, then back to California.  A few weeks later, I started third grade. 

Moving from one home to another is a lot of work.  You have to go through everything you own, decide whether to take it with you, sell it, give it away or trash it.  You put all of your toys, books and clothes in boxes which often get loaded into a big truck with your furniture and taken to your new home.  Once your stuff arrives, it has to be taken off the truck and put away at the new place.  It’s exhausting!

Many, many years ago—about 3,900 years ago—God asked a man named Abram and his wife, Sarai, to move to a new place.  Abram and Sarai were used to moving.  They were nomads, and their home was a tent.  They would set up camp in a place and live there for a while, and then move to a new place where there was new grass for the animals to eat, fresh water, a different view of the desert.  But God wanted them to move to someplace far, far from the land they called home.  It would be like starting over completely.  They wouldn’t be able to visit their old friends and their family would be far away, too. 

God had an important reason for asking Abram and Sarai to move away from everything and everyone they knew to start over again.  God wanted to do something brand, new.  He wanted Abram and Sarai to be the start of a new nation—a nation of people devoted to God.  God said, ““Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. ² And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”

And do you know what?  They went.  They packed up their tent and all of their stuff, loaded everything onto camels and headed off to a new adventure, a new life, a new relationship with God.  They stepped outside of their comfort zones in faith.  God richly blessed Abram and Sarai and in turn they were a blessing to others.  

Thanks be to God!