Sermon. "Go Ye"

Sermon. St Mary’s Great Ilford. 8 March 2020  

Lent 2 (Year A)

Genesis 12.1-4a

In today’s first reading, from the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, we are introduced to Abraham. Actually, that is not true, in two ways. First, Abraham is not yet Abraham; he has his earlier name of Abram (or Avram), meaning something like High Father. Second, if we were reading through the book of Genesis, we would already have met Avram. In the preceding chapter, we are given his family tree. We are also told that his family, led by his father, Terah, already intended to move from Ur to Canaan, but had settled in Haran instead, where Terah died.  

  

In today’s reading, then, we move from the big picture, of the clan of Abram and their movements as a family, to the detail of Abram himself. The movement of the narrative is slowed right down. And something really dramatic happens. Something momentous, miraculous even, happens. And we can miss it. What do I mean?  

  

I mean that Gd speaks to Avram. Gd addresses Avram. Gd uses - so the story tells us - human language to give Avram a message, a command. This, as far as we can tell, has not happened before. It is a radically new thing in Avram’s life. Indeed, it gives his life its purpose. It is the beginning, in more ways than one, of his life’s journey.  

  

If we missed altogether how astonishing this is - that Gd speaks to Avram - we need not be critical of ourselves. The text itself presents Gd’s speech as perfectly natural, normal even. The Hebrew is as normal as the English: “And the LORD said to Avram…” And Avram is apparently unperturbed by being spoken to by Gd, and simply responds, simply obeys. We may well want to ask exactly what happened. How did Avram know it was Gd, for example? But we are not told.  

  

So we may well want to conclude that this is deliberate. That the message here is that Gd is intimately involved with us, and, when Gd speaks, we need not be bowled over by fear and awe, we can simply respond. We can say yes to Gd.  

  

There is something unusual about the Hebrew which the English does not convey. The expression “Go” in English does not capture the Hebrew well. The Hebrew is literally: “Go to yourself” or “Go for yourself”. It is one occasion when the King James Version actually does it: “Get thee out” it says. “Go ye” is another translation.  

  

This expression is rare. So it is likely to be telling us something important. It may be that Gd, who is always intimately involved with us, and who can speak quite naturally to us, can issue commands to us, and those commands may be difficult to obey, may involve risk and loss and hardship, but they will also be “for us”, they will be about going with the grain of our truest selves. They will be about us becoming more ourselves. “Go for yourself”.  

  

By the way, the only other time this Hebrew form is found in connection with Avram is when Gd gives Abraham another command, the hardest command of all, that he prepares to sacrifice his son, Isaac. So the expression is surely a solemn one, and not a throwaway line.  

  

Avram then is to go, is to leave his country, and his kindred, and his father’s house. Notice how the intensity of what Avram has to leave behind grows. He is to leave not only his country (hard enough) but his wider family, and not only his wider family, but his more immediate family too. 

  

And/but but/and if Avram does this, then he will be blessed and blessings will abound. He will be blessed and blessings will abound. Any who bless him will themselves be blessed. And in him all the families of the earth will be blessed. Except it is not quite that simple. The Hebrew may indeed say that in Avram all the families of the earth will be blessed. But it can just as naturally be translated as in Avram all the families of the earth will bless themselves. You know, like a parent saying to a child: “May you grow up to be like Avram, rich in blessing”. Unfortunately, the context doesn’t really help settle the matter here. We simply have to make a choice. But in any event Avram stands for blessing.  

  

So in these few verses we are told important truths. The truth is expressed in story form, as so often in the Bible. It is, then, more an invitation to ponder, and take to heart, than it is a lesson to be learned like an equation or spelling. The truth in question says that we need to remember that Gd is close to us, is intimately involved with us, and can even speak to us, can command us to act, that the action Gd command us to take can be hard and costly, but that at another level it will truly be “for us”, but it will never be wholly for us, it will always be so that blessings abound in the world around us.  

  

Now, you and I know how the story continues with Abraham and Sarah. It is involved. There are hard times. Abraham certainly makes some mistakes along the way. It would be very wrong to think of Gd as always obviously alongside Avram simply offering reassuring words. That is not how life was for Avram, and we know full well it is not how life is for us.  

  

So, what do we do with this story? We can indeed treat today’s first reading as an invitation, a call to draw us in. It may resonate with us strongly, but even if it does not, we can still ask ourselves, well, how would life be, if it really were true that Gd is close to us, is intimately involved with us, and can even speak to us, can command us to act, that the action Gd commands us to take can be hard and costly, but that at another level it will truly be “for us”, but it will never be wholly for us, but it will always be so that blessings abound in the world around us? How, then, to live?  

These surely are questions that take us close to the essence of this still-young Lenten season.  

  

Amen.  

  

Sermon. On (Mis)Hearing the Voice of Gd.

Sermon. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford. 12 March 2017.

Lent 2 (Year A)

Genesis 12.1-4a

John 3.1-17

I'd like us to spend some moments attending to the first reading, the reading from the Old Testament. People who like short sermons – I catch no one's eye - should not be too reassured by the fact that this reading is so brief. It is actually one of the most evocative passages in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. In part, this is because there are special features in the Hebrew, which get lost in translation. Let me refer to just one.

The English has Gd saying to Abram (who is Abraham, a name he is given a bit later in Genesis): 'Go'. That is perfectly standard English, as in 'Go and get a bag of chips'. But the Hebrew is unusual, indeed very unusual. It is Lekh Lekha, which means literally something like 'Go to yourself' or 'for yourself'. Sometimes it is translated 'Go ye'/'Go you'. It may mean 'Go for your own sake', or it may mean 'Gather yourself together and get gone'.

It is actually such a rare form that it only occurs one more time in the whole of the Hebrew Bible. Any ideas where? Well, again, Gd is speaking to Abraham... It is when Gd seems to ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. 'Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering...' [Gen 22.2]. 'Go you to the land of Moriah.'

The story of the near-sacrifice of Isaac is the climax of the story of Abraham, and today's passage is the very beginning of that story. (We only know the barest details about Abram's family at this point.) So this phrase, 'Go you', 'bookends' the story of Abraham. And it is hard, very hard, to resist the idea that the phrase is found in these places - and in these places alone - because it tells us something momentous is about to happen.

Indeed, something momentous is happening here (make no mistake). Abram is told to leave his country, and his kindred, and his father's house. To flee. To desert. To leave behind all comforts, and points of identity, in increasing intensity.

Think of it for yourself.

• You are to leave your nation. That troubles most of us, as we know of the uncertain lives of migrants and refugees.
• You are to leave your clan. Think of it. The equivalent for some of us would be: 'Take yourself far from the West Ham grounds'.
• And you are to leave your own family. Think of it. By far the most painful for many of us. Even when we don't feel especially close to our family, we do want them 'sort of' around. 'Go you'. Gd demands something truly momentous. Gd, being Gd, is free to do that.

But! But I want to suggest there is something even more momentous in the passage which we can easily miss... It's actually those first words. 'The LORD said to Abram'. Nothing dramatic about that, you might say. But that's my point. That's the difficulty. I mean: what does it mean?

Remember, before these simple words, we know virtually nothing about Abram. We might well ask: why did Gd single him out to speak to? And – how? What actually happened?

• If it was something dramatic, like to Moses at Sinai, why do we not hear of that?
• If it was perfectly undramatic, what made Abram think or know that it was Gd speaking?

The text tells us nothing at all at all about this. Just '[And] [Gd] said the Abram.

This created a problem, or, better, a challenge, for later Jewish readers. They told stories around the story (something which, to be fair, they loved to do anyway). They told a back-story, which is not found or implied in the text, about how Abram's father was a maker of idols, and Abram through his prayers got a sense that idolatry was wrong, and one day smashed all his father's handiwork, the idols. In this way, the Jewish story-tellers and story-hearers would build up some sense of why Gd spoke to Abram: why? Because Abram was himself seeking after the one true Gd, and was rewarded.

But still nothing on the how. How did he know it was Gd speaking?

This is not a problem for Abram alone. It can be said to be the theme of today's gospel too. Nicodemus meets Jesus, and Jesus speaks with his own authority, and upsets Nicodemus' ideas radically. Nicodemus doesn't get it (like pretty much everybody in John's gospel). But note that Nicodemus does have a real problem. Is he here to recognise in Jesus' words the voice of Gd, or not? Is Jesus's new message from Gd, or is he just another young upstart? How to tell?

And the difficulty that Abram may have had, and the difficulty that Nicodemus truly did have – in wondering whether or not this is the voice of Gd – is the same difficulty we all have. We have it in two ways.

• It is a problem when we wonder how any biblical character heard the voice of Gd (what that means);
• it is also a problem when we wonder whether our own intimations and intuitions, our dreams and hopes, might themselves be the voice of Gd.

Bluntly, however special the message seems, however dramatic the form of delivery, there just is no automatic, or self-evident, or guaranteed way of knowing that this is actually Gd speaking. How could there be?

One response to this in the Bible is indeed from Jesus, though it is an idea that is found in earlier parts of the Bible too. Jesus says this:

'You will know them by their fruits' [Matt 7.16].

You see, we cannot really recognise Gd by insightful messages or dramatic moments. We recognise Gd when the message we are given points to, and helps us inhabit:

holiness,

forgiveness,

compassion,

awe,

love,

rejoicing,

service,

feasting,

connectedness.

Whenever we find ourselves better oriented towards holiness, forgiveness, compassion, awe, love, rejoicing, service, feasting, connectedness,

then we can say we have heard the voice of Gd.

And that is surely a huge, and proper challenge, for us, in Lent. It is a timely reminder that, if we want to convince others about Gd, there may, from time to time, be a place for arguments and debates and discussions. But vastly more important is the question of what fruit we are bearing. How are we living? By our fruits, others will know whether we ourselves are taking Gd seriously. That is what will count.

But note: that does not mean we have to be perfect, or free of sin. No. Actually, some of the best fruit we can bear is our repentance, which is itself a journey, and our self-forgiveness and our self-acceptance, in our imperfection. But fruit - fruit - we must most surely bear. By Gd's grace. Some echo of – some whisper of - some aroma of - holiness, forgiveness, compassion, awe, love, celebration, service, feasting, connectedness.

Amen.