Will You Be the One?

May 13, 2009

Genesis 12:1-8

“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.”

As we come to this story we come with knowledge that Abram is not unfamiliar with picking up, moving and settling elsewhere. His father, Terah, had done it before. We also come knowing that Abram’s wife, Sarai, was barren. And then we hear these words that God will make Abram a great nation (but his wife is barren! She can’t bear children! How is God going to accomplish that one?!) Abram is no spring chicken when God asks him to do this. Yet, you’ll notice that there is no balking at the request that God makes of Abram. There is no self-doubt, no doubt of God, just faith, patience and obedience. Abram just gets up and goes and along the way he worships.

In 1877, the dean of the college at Yale University, Henry Parks Wright and his wife Martha Burt Wright, welcomed their baby boy Henry Burt Wright into their family. Little Henry would grow up in the shadow of Yale, first being home schooled until time for high school and then graduating from New Haven High School somewhere around 1894. It’s no surprise that he got his BA from Yale in 1898 and his PhD from Yale in 1903. While there he founded a YMCA chapter, was a member of the famed Skull and Bones and distinguished himself as a scholar and as a faithful Christian. He began teaching at Yale in 1903—teaching Greek, Latin, Roman History and Latin Literature and finally winding up as the Stephen Merrell Clement Professor of Christian Methods in the Yale Divinity School. He was a prolific writer and among my favorite work of his is The Will of God and Man’s Lifework.

If I had the chance to go back in time and meet someone, Henry Burt Wright is one of the people I would like to know. I would love to have sat at his feet in tutelage, if only for to hear him speak the words with which he closed every class: “The world has yet to see what can be done by, with and through . . . one person . . . totally committed to doing the will of God. Will you be that one?”

Faith doesn’t come easy to us. Upon God’s calling, we automatically say “no way, Jose!” I can’t to do this! And . . .therein rests the lesson. WE are right when we say that. We can’t do this. What we can do is let go and let God work in us. Henry Burt Wright, even in the protective shadows of Yale academia, must have learned that lesson of letting go to seek God’s will—of surrendering himself so fully that he was able to just be and to live his life as God desired.

The scripture suggests that Abram got it pretty easily. Abram was one person totally committed to doing the will of God and a whole nation and three religious perspectives have been formed around his name.

As a church family, you stand on the precipice of making a significant mark on the world. You will not be successful if you rely upon yourselves. The possibilities will be endless if you let go and trust God. I amend Wright’s words only slightly—“The world has yet to see what can be done by, with and through . . . (one church) . . .totally committed to doing the will of God.” Will you be like Abram and walk in faith? Can you answer Wright’s question with your hearts, hands and feet? “Will you be the one?”