Sermon

God of Three Persons

Good news seems in short supply these days.   And we could all use a good word now and then.  A man went into a diner to get breakfast.  The waitress sauntered over and asked, “What’ll you have?”   He smilingly replied, “I’ll have scrambled eggs, toast and coffee, and a good word.” When the waitress returned with his order, she plopped it down and then turned to leave.  He said, “Wait! How about a good word?”   She stopped, turned around, and said,  “I won’t eat the eggs if I were you!”

Some days that’s about as much good news as we hear, but I want to suggest to you this morning that the words by which God was identified throughout biblical times is good news.  In our first scripture lesson this morning, we read that, when God recruited Moses to go to Egypt to liberate the Israelites, he identified himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Moses knew those persons and their stories. They were the patriarchs of old, the ancestors of his people. The One who had been with them was with him now. That God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was good news for Moses, and, though we are many more generations removed, it is good news for us, too. That God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob tells us something important about God and God’s ways.

It does more than link God to them; it links God to us.

Abraham; Isaac; and Jacob.  They represent three succeeding generations whose stories make up much of the book of Genesis. But this was not a case of like father, like son.

Though they belong to the same family, they were very different persons. If they were alike at all it was that, like us, they each had their strong points and shortcomings.

I once heard a rabbi describe Genesis as a "soap opera about a dysfunctional family." Well, I suppose every family is, in some sense, dysfunctional. Certainly this earliest of families was. And yet God wanted to be their God. It was to them God gave his blessing and his promise. Each one of them had an important place in God's plans. Dissimilar though they were, God needed each of them.

The God of Abraham

Abraham, the adventurer and pioneer, a man of boundless faith, confidence and courage, always pushing on beyond where others settled down in their thinking, believing, and living.  The writer of Hebrews gives us a one sentence biography:

“By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out…  and he went out, not knowing where he was to go." (11:8) Physically, he journeyed hundreds of miles from Haran in what is now Iraq to Hebron in Palestine. Spiritually, he journeyed from a belief in human sacrifice to faith in a God who demands not one's child but one's soul.

Personally, he journeyed from a cold, calculating, and some would say cowardly morality (offering his wife to pharaoh to save his own skin) to a compassion that is amazing so early in the biblical story (pleading with God to spare Sodom for the sake of the handful of good people who lived there).

We honor the brave men and women who fought to defend freedom in the Second World War and label them “the greatest generation.” Abraham had that kind of greatness. He was a man of vision, courage and devotion who never stopped growing; never stopped serving God.

When we are young, we are full of dreams and plans. We harbor a healthy discontent with the way things are. But many of us as we grow older lose that fire, become cynical, complacent, or just plain tired. That was not true of Abraham.

He reminds me of "Jack Rabbit" Johannsen, a Canadian backwoodsman who was still skiing at 94, not something that I would recommend for most 94 year olds by the way or even some of us who are considerably younger. But he had skied all this life and was in terrific shape. His neighbors often saw him swoosh by on the way to town. Asked his prescription for longevity and health, he offered this, "Don't let sunrise find you in bed.

Live outdoors as much as possible; keep busy. Don't just look at one side of the hill. Find out what is on the other side." And that was Abraham.

We still need people like that today.  Persons who, whatever their age, are willing to accept big challenges and tackle tough questions. We need pioneers, men and women of vision and courage. And maybe you are or could be one of them.

If you are or feel that you could be, know this: 

   God will be with you as he was with Abraham—

   God is the God of the Abrahams of the world—

   God will guide you and strengthen you.   

As the prophet Isaiah put it,

            Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (40:31)

The God of Isaac

But maybe you do not see yourself in this heroic mold. Well, note that God was also the God of Isaac.  Isaac was never the pioneer that his father was.  He was a very different person and played a very different role, but he was every bit as important to the story as Abraham.  At one point it almost seemed as though God had forgotten that he needed Isaac. God kept saying that Abraham's descendents would be as numerous as the stars in the heaven, but there was a problem: Abraham and Sarah were childless. Abraham, as we have noted, was a man of enormous faith. But Sarah’s biological clock was not just ticking; it had stopped. After a while Sarah began to think it was all very funny.

But God wasn't kidding, and God had the last laugh.  Isaac -- the name means laughter -- was a miracle baby born to Abraham and Sarah long after it seemed possible.

Isaac, God's child of promise, reminds us that God always keeps his promises but on his schedule, not ours.

Isaac plays a rather passive role in the patriarch’s story.  There is his miraculous birth, his near sacrifice as a boy, his arranged marriage to Rebekah, and, when he was old, his giving Jacob the blessing that rightfully belonged to Esau.  All these stories revolve more around others than Isaac.

Isaac was a good but rather ordinary person.  He was a hard worker and a devoted husband. He was a devoted son who took care of his aging parents. He did the best he could to raise his own two rebellious sons. But there are no memorable deeds to list in his obituary. Nothing very spectacular about his life. Yet God loved Isaac; God needed Isaac. Without Isaac the promise could not be fulfilled. Isaac was the link; Isaac was important.

In a way, Isaac reminds me of Andrew in the New Testament. Andrew, constantly overshadowed by his older brother, Peter. Andrew who says little but in his quiet way accomplishes much. Remember, it was Andrew who brought Peter to Jesus, who pointed out the lad with the loaves and fish, who helped the Greeks who wanted to see Jesus.

Jesus needed the quiet, dependable Andrew as much as the vocal and charismatic Peter.

In a like manner, God needed Isaac and needs all the Isaacs of this world. God loves and needs ordinary persons, not just those with exceptional gifts and talents. God needs leaders, but God also needs devoted followers. God needs generals, but God also needs foot soldiers.

During the Civil War, a prominent Philadelphia citizen sent a telegraph to Lincoln’s Secretary of War offering his services as a general in the army. He received this reply: "Dear Sir: We have five times as many generals as we need, but we are greatly in need of privates. Anyone willing to volunteer in that capacity will be gratefully and enthusiastically received."

However modest our talents, weak our faith, short our time, or few our resources, God loves us and wants us and needs us to do his work and change the world.

The God of Jacob

And what about Jacob? What can we say about Jacob?  Well, Jacob was trouble from the day he was born. If Abraham is synonymous with greatness, and Isaac with unspectacular but steady service, Jacob is synonymous with scheming selfishness.

Jacob was much too clever for his own good. He cheated his brother and conned his father. He threatened, lied to, and out-foxed his uncle. At their parting, his Uncle Laban said, "The Lord watch between you and me, while we are absent one from another."

Gentle sounding but what he meant was: someone had better keep an eye on Jacob, because you never know what he is up to. Jacob, at least the young Jacob, is one of the least appealing characters in the Bible. You all know the song: Jacob’s Ladder. Jacob had a ladder to climb all right, and he started out on the very bottom rung.

Still, God loved Jacob: God wanted and needed Jacob. It would have seemed easier for God to go out and get someone else and forget about Jacob. But God is not like that, …thank God! With infinite patience God went to work on Jacob, and before it was over Jacob became the kind of person few would have thought he would or could become.

Jacob was not a promising candidate for sainthood, but eventually the door to his heart was opened, and God's Spirit flowed into him and changed him, and the world was better off because of Jacob.

It would be an odd Sunday morning congregation that did not have persons in it who needed to be reminded that God is the God of Jacob, either because they see can themselves in him or because they see someone they care about, worry about, and pray about. It is tempting to give up on the Jacobs of this world, but God never gives up on anyone; nor should we. God is a God of infinite patience and unfailing grace.

And because that is mercifully and eternally so, we should never give up on ourselves or others. Jesus said: “I have come to seek and to save the lost.” Paul marveled, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." In Jesus--his life, his teachings, his sacrifice and his triumph-- God revealed to us his incredible love and amazing grace. That this is so should come as no surprise to those who remember that God was the God of Jacob.

These descriptive words--"The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob"—which appear over and over again in the Bible like a litany are a window to the very heart, the very nature of God. That God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob means that God wants to be the God of us all. None of us is so good that we do not need God. None of us is so bad that God does not want us. None of us is so important that we can ignore God. None of us is so insignificant that God ignores us. God comes into our lives in different ways and in response to different needs, but for all of us God is the one who forgives our sins, saves our souls, calms our fears, revives our hopes, and gives our lives eternal meaning.

That God IS the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob reminds us that God wants to be our God, too.

And that, my friends, is good news.

      O Loving God, may we welcome you into our hearts, into our homes, and into our daily lives resolved to live each day as your faithful people. Amen.

PRAYER

Gracious and Glorious God, we are grateful that we can come here this day   to worship with friends and to commune with you, to listen to your Word and to be empowered by your Spirit. So we give you thanks and praise your holy name.

Mercifully God, we humbly confess that we have not always lived as your faithful people. In times of disappointment and distress we have questioned your goodness and caring.

In times of success, good health, and happiness, we have questioned our need of you.     Forgive us and fill us once again with a sense of awe, reverence, and gratitude.

Loving God, we pray now for each other.

     We pray for this church and its outreach. We pray for our marriages and families, for our friends and neighbors and co-workers.

     We pray for those whose needs we know and those whose needs are known only by them and you.

     We ask all these things in the name of our blessed Lord and Savior, who taught us when we pray to say: