Loving God, you call us to come and follow, allowing you to lead us by the power of your Spirit.  Grant us the faith not only to believe your promises, but also to follow your direction; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    Have any of you noticed that things are not like they used to be?... Particularly in the churches, we have felt the effects of many cultural changes.  Now, there are many different things that compete for people’s time and attention on Sunday mornings – in fact, not only on Sundays, but all week long.  People’s lives seem to move at a far more frantic pace, trying to fit in numerous different activities that didn’t seem to occupy people’s time years ago.  At the same time, many in the younger generations have a mistrust of anything that seems like an institution, and few, if any, will attend worship simply out of a sense of duty.  In most cases, you will only find people here if it suits them, and most have no trouble choosing something else if it seems to them to be more worthwhile.

    The result of many of these changes has been a lot of anxiety in congregations.  Even for pastors, there is a sense that now everything needs to be done differently than what we were trained to do.  That is never a really good feeling, and nobody quite seems to know what the church of the future will look like.  In some ways, it is like setting out on a journey without a road map (which I tried recently in Calgary, and it didn’t work out very well!).  However, could it be that it is a totally different experience when you set out on a journey with no road map, but know that God is leading?

    There are at least two different stories in today’s readings that help us to think about this.  First of all, Abraham: Today’s reading from Genesis is the first time that we hear about God’s call to Abraham (or Abram, as he was known then).  At the age of 75, God comes along and tells Abram to leave his home and his relatives behind and to go to a land that God will show him.  We are not told how, exactly, God speaks to Abram.  We are also not told how, exactly, Abram knows where to go.  What we are told is that Abram believes God’s message, and leaves his home, and travels to the land of Canaan.

    This seems to me to be a lot like setting out on a journey without a road map.  Abram goes in response to God’s call, but he also goes having received some pretty amazing promises from God.  Abram is going to be blessed in order that he can be a blessing for others.  Abram is going to be the ancestor of a great nation.  And through Abram, “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3).

    As it turns out, it is with Abram that the story of salvation begins.  It is of particular interest, it seems to me, that all of the references to Abraham in the New Testament speak about him in glowing terms.  Always, the focus is on his great faith, and how God considered him to be righteous simply because he had believed God’s promises (Rom. 4:3).  When we consider that this faith in God’s promises also involved setting out without a road map and going to a foreign land, we, too, can be amazed that Abram actually believed what God had promised.

    However, it is also important to read all of the stories about Abraham that are recorded in Genesis.  While it is true that he had great faith, Abraham was far from perfect.  There were also many times that he doubted God’s promises, and he proposed his own solutions when he and Sarah continued to be childless.  He even lied about his wife, Sarah, when they were in Egypt, and she was taken in to be part of Pharaoh’s harem.  Yet, in spite of these things, God’s promises won out.  God had promised that all the families of the earth would be blessed through Abraham, and God kept that promise, in spite of Abraham’s sinfulness.

    And so, our first story about setting out on a journey without a road map involves Abraham and Sarah.  God does, in fact, lead them on their journey, and keeps God’s promises of blessing even when they falter along the way.  In similar fashion, our gospel today also contains some amazing promises, as well as a description of what it is like to be led by the Spirit (also without a road map).

    It is an image that might, perhaps, be disturbing to those who would like everything to be all mapped out ahead of time.  For, the image that is used to describe life in the Spirit is the wind.  “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (Jn. 3:8).

    Once again here, there is a call to step out of our comfort zone and to embark upon life in the Spirit – a journey that may not always have a road map, but where we know that God is leading.  The journey begins when we are born from above – born of water and the Spirit – called by God through our baptism.  Once again, as well, there are amazing promises attached to this call from God.

    There is the promise of eternal life and salvation.  There is the knowledge of God’s amazing love for the world, which did not end in the past, but continues even now.  And there is the promise that Jesus did not come to condemn, but to save.  At the same time, just as with Abraham, God does not change these promises or withdraw them when we falter.  For with God, we always find mercy and forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

    And so, what of this journey without a road map – this life in the Spirit?  It is a journey that some will experience as a scary thing – especially those who like to be in charge and in control.  However, it is also true that there is quite a bit of freedom when we are born of the Spirit.  The thing is that when God is leading, we are not confined to the way that we have always done things before.  We are free to try new things, and perhaps even to be led in directions that we had never imagined before.  While we might not know what our final destination might look like, God does – at least, God knows where he would like to lead us!  The only question is whether we are willing to let God lead, and continue to work in us and among us by the power of the Spirit.

    As with Abraham and Sarah, the journey will not always be smooth, and sometimes it might even seem like God’s promises will never come to fruition.  However, in the end it is God’s purposes that will be served – and God’s purpose is to save and to bless.  For “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (Jn. 3:17).  Amen.

Lent 2(A)                                John 3:1-17
March 16, 2014                            Genesis 12:1-4a
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church                    Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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