Will You?
Genesis 12:1-9
Sunday June 11th, 2023
Rev. Rhonda Blevins, pastor
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.
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Hymn Text of “The Summons” by John Bell & Graham Maule
Will you come and follow Me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?
Will you let My love be shown, will you let My name be known,
Will you let My life be grown in you and you in Me?
Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?
Will you let Me answer prayer in you and you in Me?
Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean and do such as this unseen,
And admit to what I mean in you and you in Me?
Will you the love the “you” you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around,
Through My sight and touch and sound in you and you in Me?
Lord, Your summons echoes true when You but call my name.
Let me turn and follow You and never be the same.
In Your company I’ll go where Your love and footsteps show.
Thus I’ll move and live and grow in You and You in me.
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Today’s sermon title is a question: “Will You?”
As I reflected upon our scripture lesson in which Abram is called by God to go to “a land I will show you,” I immediately called to mind the beautiful hymn we just sang together, “Will You Come and Follow Me,” sometimes called “The Summons.”
“Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?” the hymn asks as if words from God’s lips to our ears. This is one of fourteen times in the hymn in which God asks, “Will you?” of us. The first of the fourteen “Will you’s” is innocuous, “Will you come and follow me?” That sounds easy enough and even has an element of adventure. But some of the “Will you’s” may give us pause if we allow ourselves to think about them for a moment:
· “Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?” Uh, how do we do that, exactly? It seems like wherever I go, there I am. I can’t “leave myself behind” even when I would desperately like to do so!
· “Will you set the prisoners free if I but call your name?” What?!? Let a bunch of criminals out on the street?!? Put myself and those I love in danger?!? What about “law and order?”
· “Will you care for cruel and kind if I but call your name?” Tell you what, God, I’ll care for the kind folks . . . I’m sure there’s someone else who you’re calling to care for the jerks.
· “Will you kiss the leper clean and do such as this unseen?” Ok, God, kissing lepers is a special calling reserved for people like Mother Teresa. My calling? Me? Maybe some affluent beach community . . . yes! Now where might that be?
· “Will you love the ‘you’ you hide if I but call your name?” That part is entirely unlovable, God. That’s why I hide it! You ask too much. Sure, I’ll sing this song in church, but to live it???
Some of these “Will you?” questions are thought-provoking. Others are downright challenging. Some may require a lifetime. I know that I have not fully lived into a “yes” to all these questions. How about you? Now I invite you to take a moment and look over these fourteen “Will you?” questions, pull out a pen or pencil, and circle the “Will you?” question that is most challenging for you. Once you’re finished, keep it handy. We’ll refer back to it a bit later.
Today we read about the call of Abram/Abraham to go God knows where (literally). He is to leave his family (the source of his security) and follow God’s leading—wherever.
Why? Listen again to what the Lord said to Abraham: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”
The purpose of God’s call on Abraham’s life was that Abraham would be a blessing. The Lord goes on to say: “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” The New International Version translates it slightly differently: “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” God promises to bless Abraham, that Abraham might then be a blessing, and that wouldn’t be limited to just his own people, but to all peoples on earth.
I believe that God’s call—at its core—is the same for each of us. God’s call manifests differently for each of us—a unique “Will you?” question for each one—but each of us is called SO THAT we might be a blessing.
Some people use a mirror as a way to illustrate the concept of “blessed to be a blessing.” As blessings come our way, we are to mirror that blessing back to the world. I like that image, but I want to take it a step further.
Consider the prism. A prism doesn’t reflect light like a mirror. As light enters the prism, it is refracted. The light waves are separated into the brilliant colors of a rainbow. Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Indigo. Violet.
When the Lord said to Abraham, “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you,” I think God’s blessing went through Abraham—it didn’t just bounce off of him into the world. In the same way, God’s blessing enters us, interacts with that which is deep within us, that we might transform that blessing into dazzling colors that make the world more beautiful.
But to be fair, Abraham wasn’t always a blessing, was he? When he told two different powerful men that his wife, Sarah, was his sister, basically allowing them to have their way with her. Sarah maybe didn’t think Abraham was a blessing in those moments. Abraham’s offspring weren’t always a blessing to the peoples of the earth, were they? I think about the violence in the book of Joshua, the story of how the Hebrews took the Promised Land by force. I think about how that land is still contested today. And I wonder if truly “all the peoples on earth” have been blessed through Abraham. But then I remember Jesus. In the Gospel of Matthew, the genealogy of Jesus begins with Abraham. Jesus, the greatest gift to humanity—the ultimate blessing to the peoples of the earth.
The Rev. Michael Curry, the presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, tells a story about a young black woman in the 1940’s. The young woman had become an Episcopalian, and one Sunday she brought her boyfriend, who was also black, to church. They were the only two black folks at the predominantly white church. When it came time for the Eucharist, when the young woman and others went up to receive the elements, her boyfriend stayed in his pew. The tradition at that church was to receive the bread, and then drink the wine from the common cup. Remember, this was in the 1940’s; the young man had never seen white folks and black folks drinking from the same cup. Blacks and whites couldn’t even share a water fountain at that time. He watched as many of the white folks received the bread and the wine—then he watched with great anxiety as his girlfriend approached the priest, received the bread, and moved to drink from the common cup. What would happen? Would the priest refuse her? Would someone from the pews cause a fuss? Would the young man have to defend his girlfriend, and where’s the nearest exit if it got ugly? His girlfriend approached the cup, the priest raised it to her lips, and she drank. And white parishioners followed along behind her, and drank from the same cup, all without incident. The man decided right then and there that a church where white and black placed their lips on the same cup—that was a church that understood something powerful and profound—and that was something the young man wanted to be a part of. Well that young black couple would marry, and give birth to a son. You know what the child’s name was? Michael. Curry. Now the presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church. The couple were his parents![1]
Let’s think for just a moment and consider what happened in this story Bishop Curry tells:
1. His mother took a risk, a black woman daring to sip from the common cup in a church full of white folks in the 1940’s.
2. Because she took a risk, she and her boyfriend were blessed, and found a community where black and white were equal.
3. Because she took a risk, and because the two of them were blessed, then they became a blessing to the world around them, in part, by raising their son in the church who would one day be the presiding bishop of the Episcopal church.
Like Abraham, we are blessed to be a blessing. But sometimes the blessing God has for us is on the other side of what is comfortable for us. At certain times in life, God calls us to step out in faith, to take a risk, to “go where we don’t know and never be the same.”
I invite you to look once again at the “Will you?” question in the hymn text—the one that you circled—the one that is most challenging for you. Consider this: why is this challenging for you? What are you afraid of?
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross suggests there are only two emotions: love and fear. 1 John 4:18 says that “perfect love casts out fear.”
What are you afraid of? What is it that’s keeping you from following God more fully, more completely, more whole-heartedly? Can you identify that which is keeping you from living into the last verse of the hymn, the one in which we reply:
In Your company I’ll go where Your love and footsteps show.
It’s about taking a holy risk. It wouldn’t be called a “risk” if not for the fear inherent in risk, right? But remember the formula that we discovered through Bishop Michael Curry’s parents:
RISK ~ BLESSED ~ BLESSING
Now, God isn’t calling all of us to leave our country like God called Abram to do in the story from scripture. And I want to suggest that we must engage ourselves in habitually saying “yes” to many small risks on our way to saying “yes” to some major risk to which God may call.
So here’s the invitation today: take some small risk, this week, for God. Look at the “Will you?” question you circled once again. And consider, once again, what you’re afraid of related to that question.
· Let’s say you circled the “kiss the leper clean” line. What are you afraid of? Well, leprosy, duh! Or a more nuanced fear around this may be that you are often uncomfortable around people in desperate situations because of your own sense of inadequacy. Then the small risk you might take this week would be to reach out to someone in a desperate situation—notice that sense of inadequacy arises in you—and not DO anything. A small risk for God, and who knows what might result!
· Or say you circled the “set the prisoners free” line. What are you afraid of? Losing a sense of security, perhaps? Or having your sense of justice challenged? Here’s a small risk you might take this week: think of someone experiencing a metaphorical prison (like addiction or isolation or a bad relationship or financial insecurity—there are so many!). Reach out to that person, and just listen. And in listening, you might just offer that person a measure of freedom.
One small risk for God this week. That’s the invitation, and t
[1] https://youtu.be/USOMZpGheBc