It’s nearly impossible to get
lost these days. Even for those of us with absolutely no sense of direction,
there are all kinds of helps so that we don’t end up wandering in circles. If
we need to go somewhere very far away – another country, perhaps – a travel
agent will be happy to help us navigate the maze of travel options. If we are
traveling a bit closer to home, we can use a GPS system like Garmin. These
systems guide us along the best roads to our destination. Some newer cars even
come equipped with one of these systems already installed in the console! And
we can always use a good old fold-up map of the area where you’re driving. It
may be low-tech, but they have always worked just fine for me!
Then there are some people
who never need any kind of travel help at all. These folks seem to have an
internal compass that guides them unerringly to their destination. I’m married
to someone like that. “I’ll know where I am when I get there,” he’ll say; and
to my disgust, he always does. He knows what roads to take and where he should
turn, whether or not he has a GPS system talking to him from his smart phone. Now,
me, I’m a different story. If I’m ever silly enough to state, “I’ll know where
I am when I get there,” I am going to get lost. I was traveling to Columbus
recently with a good friend, going somewhere that I had been many times before;
and so I didn’t bother to program my destination into my GPS system. I said
what I shouldn’t have said – “I’ll know where I am when I get there!” Famous
last words. When we hit the outer belt on the far side of Columbus, it was
evident that I didn’t know where I
was. When we finally stopped for directions, it turned out that I had taken the
wrong road entirely! We did get there eventually… an hour late. So, fair
warning, friends. If you are ever travelling with me, and I say, “I’ll know
where I am when I get there,” please shove me in the back seat and insist that
someone else drive!
We all do what we can so that
we don’t get lost. But sometimes we simply have to travel without any
directions. That happens a lot as we travel through our lives. Interstate
highways may be full of signposts, but the highway of life… not so much. There
are times when we simply have to put one foot in front of the other and trust
that God is leading us where we need to go. This morning’s scripture (in
Genesis 24) tells the story of a time like that. It’s the end of the story of
Abraham finding a wife for his son Isaac. Abraham doesn’t want Isaac to marry
any of the local girls – not one of those Canaanites! And so, he sends his
servant to find a wife for Isaac from Abraham’s ancestral tribe. The only
trouble is that Abraham’s tribe lived far, far away! Do you remember where Abraham
was when God called him away from his home? He was living in Haran in northern
Syria, just south of the border of modern-day Turkey. That’s nearly 400 miles
north of where Abraham had settled in Israel. How in the world did Abraham
expect his servant to find his relatives when they lived so far away? Why, they
could be anywhere! Today, we’d look them up in the local phone book, or even
Google their address. But those options weren’t available 4,000 years ago!
Abraham’s servant had to travel without knowing exactly where he was going, or
even how long it would take to get there.
We’re not all that different
from Abraham’s servant. We, too, are called to travel when we don’t know
exactly where we’re going. Isn’t that the situation of our congregation today?
We can’t stay where we are. Our congregation is aging. We have only a few
children for our Sunday school program. The softball teams who once used our
recreation park are no longer in existence. We can no longer confidently state,
“If you build it, they will come.” Fewer and fewer people are interested in
coming, regardless of what we build.
Our congregation needs to do some things differently if we want to continue to
proclaim the good news of the gospel to people who need to hear it. But… how
are we supposed to do that? We don’t have any GPS to follow, no map to guide
us. We have only the faith that believes if we follow God faithfully, step by
step, we’ll end up where we ought to be. We’re like the people in the musical
“Paint Your Wagon” who sing, “Where are we going? I don’t know. Where are we
bound for? I ain’t certain. All that I know is I am on my way!”
But don’t despair! When we
get where we’re supposed to be, we’ll know it. Abraham’s servant did. One day
after months of travel, he stumbled upon an oasis in the middle of the desert.
And he prayed to God for a sign. If a young woman came to the spring and
offered him a drink, he would know that woman was the one he was searching for.
Sure enough, Rebekah appeared, water jar on her shoulder. She immediately
offered to give a drink not only to the servant, but to his camels, as well.
And when he asked her who she was, it turned out that she was a distant cousin
of Isaac, just the one who would make him a good wife. Although Abraham’s
servant didn’t know where he was going or how long it would take to get there,
he recognized the end of his journey when he got there.
I think that we’ll recognize
it, too, although it might look different than we expect it to look. We’ll recognize
it not because the people around us look different or because our church
building has changed or even because our worship is new. No, in the same way
that Abraham’s servant knew Rebekah, we’ll recognize the end of our journey by
what the people around us are doing. The prophet Micah told us what God wants
of us – to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. When we are
surrounded by a growing community of faith who is eager to do all those things,
we’ll know that we’ve arrived at our destination.
But there’s another person
who undertakes a journey in this story, isn’t there? Rebekah travels, too.
Let’s not focus so much on Abraham’s servant that we forget Rebekah. She
doesn’t know where she is going any more than Abraham’s servant did when he
went in search of her. In fact, she is asked to begin an unknown journey to
marry a man she has never met. And she has a choice. Did you catch that, right
in the middle of the story? “So they called Rebekah and asked her, ‘Will you go
with this man?’ And she answered, ‘I will go.’” (24:58) What a gutsy answer!
Rebekah had no proof that Abraham’s servant was who he claimed to be. He might
have turned out to be a slave trader, ready to sell Rebekah to the first
caravan going in the other direction. But Rebekah trusted in God’s guidance,
just as Abraham’s servant had done. We know the happy ending to the story.
“Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah…
and he loved her…” (24:67)
We have a choice, too. We can
begin to do some new things, to move away from where we are now, and to trust
God’s guidance; or, we can stay put, and go nowhere. Are we ready to answer,
with Rebekah, “I will go”? That’s the beginning of our journey, after all. We
have to decide to take the first step. Because without the first step, we don’t
need a GPS, we don’t need a map, we don’t need guidance from God or from
anybody else! And that first step into unfamiliar territory is the hardest one
to take. Once we’re on our way, we’ll get used to seeing different scenery.
We’ll get used to relying on God for guidance, and we’ll start to anticipate
what our destination might look like. But we won’t do any of that if we don’t
decide to go in the first place! Let’s trust God and step out in faith! We
don’t have to be afraid of where we’ll be going, because God will be traveling
right along with us. Oh, we might wander a little bit, but that’s not
necessarily bad. Think of it as an adventure! And even though we don’t know
where we’re going, God will be guiding our steps. And believe me – even for
those of us with no sense of direction at all – we’ll know it when we get
there!
No comments:
Post a Comment