Sunday August 7th, 2022 Worship

How many stars are there in the sky? Have you ever gone out to try to count all the stars? To see the constellations light up the night sky? According to my very quick Google search, we are only able to see about 5,000 stars at night, but that does not include the innumerable amount that we cannot see with our naked eyes. Those 5,000 are just a very, very small percentage of the approximately 400 billion stars that our in our Milky Way galaxy. The question of how many stars we can count in the sky also depends on where we are at any given time. The stars seem so much clearer when we are out in nature, far from the copious amounts of light pollution that come from our big cities. I have distinct memories of looking up at the night sky, sitting next to a campfire while camping, and being in awe of all that I could take in. Regardless of how many we can actually count on a given night, we understand that when God promises Abram descendants more vast than the stars in the sky, we know that this is a miraculous promise to a man who has yet to have any descendants, a man “getting up there in age,” as he is often described. My Bible study group at Foss this week groaned a little bit at my pun that the number of descendants was literally astronomical.
I was thinking about that this week as the old Sunday School song , Father Abraham was stuck in my head, when I realized that in many ways the number of Abraham’s descendants does seem as numerous as the stars (at least the ones we can see at night) when we consider that Abraham is considered the father of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Three faiths with billions of practitioners together around the world, yet still only a small fraction of the stars in the Milky Way. When I was in the Holy Land, this sibling like relationship was very apparent between Christian and Muslim neighbors, unlike anything that I had ever seen in the United States. For example, in Bethlehem, the Church of the Nativity was just across the square from the Mosque of Omar, and the neighbors would often look after and care for one another, especially during times of siege. And, in Jerusalem, the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepluchre, known for being the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, tomb, and ascension into heaven, are held by a Muslim family. A sign of trust between Abrahamic descendants. A connection of faiths.
In Biblical Greek, we were taught that what we translate as “faith” could more accurately be translated as “trust.” We have faith in God, the one in whom we put our trust. This connection between faith and trust stands out clearly in the reading from Hebrews this week: “By faith, Sarah received the ability to conceive, even though she was past childbearing age, for she thought that the One who had made the promise was worthy of trust. As a result of this faith, there came forth from one woman and one man, themselves as good as dead, descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sands of the seashore” (Hebrews 11: 11-12). I particularly appreciate that the Hebrews reading acknowledges Sarah’s role in trusting God and the promises God made because so much of our Biblical genealogies ignore the role and lineage of women. Yet, “Father Abraham” wouldn’t have his “many sons” if it were not for God and Sarah. Sarah puts her trust in God, and one could argue that her trust, especially in this promise at her old age, is one of her greatest treasures.
I think about this in connection to today’s Gospel reading because in today’s Gospel we get themes of “Fear not” (Luke 12: 32), and be prepared (Luke 12:35), as well as a potential warning to ourselves that “For wherever your treasure is, that’s where your heart will be” (Luke 12: 34). I hear these as comments about faith and trust, as we explore what those mean for our lives. Like last week’s Gospel about the inheritance and greed, this week’s Gospel welcomes us to consider what are the things that we treasure, because as the Gospel reminds us, that is where our hearts will be. And, while the use of treasure seems to bring to mind, at least for me, the images of pirate ships and gold coins, the X marks the spot, I think about all the ways that we go about valuing and protecting the things we treasure. When our heart is with what we treasure, we do not take those things lightly. They matter to us. The things we treasure are the things in which we put our trust, whether that be our trust that they will bring us happiness or success, fame or knowledge, peace or comfort. We trust that the things we treasure add value to our lives.
Sarah put her trust in the promises of God. Even when she was too old to bear children, God intervened with the unexpected and mysterious. We never know what God is going to be working in our lives, but we are shown through the promises to Sarah and Abraham that God is worthy of our trust. Had Sarah put her trust in her own ability, we would have ended the story with her laughing about the absurdity of her conceiving a child in her older age. Instead, Sarai trusts in the promise, even before she hears it, because yet again God only shares the promise of descendants more numerous than the stars with Abram. Abram is told this promise in today’s story before their names change and before he hears that the newly named Sarah will bear a child within a year. When they get the promise today, it is on a much more cosmic scale; they do not yet know the details of how this will come about, yet, they put their trust in what God is working in their lives.
Not only are they unaware of the specific details about when these descendants will come about, we are told over and over again during the Abraham and Sarah stories that they are at an older age, or as the inclusive Bible so kindly translates today, “themselves as good as dead” (Hebrews 11: 12). So when God promises them these numerous descendants, they have to trust that this will come about because they will not live long enough to see the promise fulfilled. It will take generation after generation after generation in order for the descendants to be as numerous as the stars or the grains of sand. I think this is an important part of our faith, our trust in God, knowing that God’s promises are not always instantaneously completed. There is a sense of futurity connected to God’s promises. And, we are entrusted with patience, as we await the completion of God’s promises in our lives and in our world, as we are often called out of our comfort zones and to unexpected places and situations, just as Sarah and Abraham were.
“By faith, Sarah and Abraham obeyed when they were called, and went off to the place they were to receive as a heritage; they went forth, moreover, not knowing where they were going” (Hebrews 11: 7). We too are invited to go forth following God’s call, wherever that might go, not knowing where it is going all the time, but trusting that the one who is leading and guiding us is trustworthy. Because so much of life is unknown and full of unexpected twists and turns, yet we are invited to trust that God is with us through all the ups and downs of life, for the expected and the unexpected. So, I want to leave us with this prayer today, written by Eric Milner White , one that I find myself praying on almost a daily basis, and one that might be familiar to some of you.
The Prayer of Good Courage: O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.