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Foundry United Rev. DeeAnne Lowman, Associate Pastor |
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Places and People
Sunday, June 17, 2007 |
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Genesis 12: 1-3 |
Yahweh/God is talking with Abraham and telling
him about an extraordinary promise.
This promise included a place where people could live and worship, a
group of people (a nation) that they could be called and be in community
with, and the promise that all the families in that nation would be blessed,
not just some. This seems like a
mighty big promise for a rag-tag horde of refugees that didn’t have much to
their names. But this was the promise,
along with the promise that Abraham would have many more descendents who
would also receive this same promise.
This promise was for those yet to be born and even those yet to be
conceived! Thank
you to our two youth, Matthew and Efayomi, who shared their testimony with us
today. They, too, are heirs of the same promise and have begun to live into
that promise. Before them, many, many
people received a similar promise; rather, they lived into a promise they
anticipated from God. There would be a
place called Foundry – a place where we could live and worship. There would be a community that would receive
those who entered, either by birth or by chance encounter or intentional wrangling. And those people who entered, regardless
of their origin or their own personal history or the makeup of their family
would receive blessing untold. There
would be single parent families, single people; young married folks; young,
married folks with children; older, more mature people who came here in their
later years; and people and families that fit all manner of the mold of a
family. All these would be blessed,
and all would be welcomed. This is the
historical blessing that Foundry received so many years ago. So what
is our role in living into the blessing now, at this time and place in
history? The obvious answer is
“keeping the church going for future generations.” Yes, that is an obvious answer, and an
important one. But how do we do
that? How can we possibly anticipate
what the needs of the community will be in years to come? We can’t
completely, but we can take some hints from the promise to Abraham’s
folks. “The
Land that I will show you…” God will provide for us and for those who come
after us a vision, a sense of hope for the future. Not only will God provide for them a place,
all the available resources for guiding God’s people will be there. Remember
that later in the story God provided manna – sustenance. According to Scripture
it was collected before sunrise, before it melted in the
sun. So there was an “expiration date”
if you will on what God sent to sustain God’s people. What is it that we need to collect before
its time passes here? I’m not sure,
but I imagine it may have something to do with the blessing of the gifts of
the new members in our midst as well as the wealth of gifts within those who
have been here a while longer. Perhaps we need to begin to collect the
sustenance that God had blessed us with right here, now. So many gifted people – here to provide a
future for God’s church here in this place.
Perhaps we need to continue to pay attention to the blessing here
right now, so that there will be in fact be blessings for the future. This is the way we bless well into the future; use the
gifts and money and manna that God has provided now for the expectations and
hope for the years to come. What will
our “land that God will show us all” look like? We need to be open to what our What a blessing we have with the presence of young
people, children and sages all together here at Foundry! We must live into the future; we must trust
into the future. While we do need to
live here and now, our blessing comes when we leave where we are right now
and accept the promise of a new land, living into the newness of God’s
people, and remembering that we, too, are the people who have received the
blessings of Yahweh. www.foundryumc.org |
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