You’ve probably noticed that superhero films are all over the place right now. I like the genre in general, but there’s a sub-genre of superhero films that I really like: origin stories. Learning how a superhero receives her or his powers and determining how they use them is fun to watch. I like watching Wonder Woman leave the island of Themyscira (don’t worry – I had to look up the name of the island…) in search of justice or Bruce Wayne determining that the best use of his wealth is to fight crime.
While Abraham is not a superhero, he is certainly an important patriarch in our faith. Genesis 12:1-9 is his origin story.
At the core of this origin story are three promises from God that become a theme for the rest of Genesis: 1. The promise of descendants (Gen 12:2), 2. The promise of land (Gen 12:7), and, perhaps most importantly, 3. The promise of blessing (Gen 12:2-3).
This week’s sermon focused on the third promise. God tells Abram, “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” (Genesis 12:2-3).
“I will bless you…so that you will be a blessing.”
“I will bless you…and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Simply put, God blesses Abram so that Abram will bless others.
God blesses us to do the same.
We may not be called to be a blessing on the same scale as Abram is called (“all the families of the earth”), but we are certainly called to bless others as a response to receiving God’s blessing. This response takes sacrifice. We may be called to sacrifice certainty and comfort to bless others. We may be called to place others before ourselves. It may be different for each of us…but we do know this: God blesses you “so that you will be a blessing.”
In the sermon, we discussed the stories of four of my “heroes of the faith”: Abraham, Fr. Greg Boyle (whose book Tattoos on the Heart we are reading for our Wednesday Book Study), St. Catherine of Siena, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Each of these folks left behind comfort and certainty so that they could respond to God’s blessing by blessing others. Abraham left his home to become a nomad among foreigners. Boyle turned down a university position to become the priest of Los Angeles’s poorest parish. Catherine stayed in Siena during a deadly wave of the Black Plague when everyone else well enough fled. Bonhoeffer returned from the U.S. to Germany to resist Nazism and rebuild Christianity after Germany was liberated. They have all blessed many, including me, in this sacrifice.
Read the sermon here: “You Will Be a Blessing” – Genesis 12:1-9
Discussion/Reflection Questions:
- How has God blessed you?
- How could God’s blessing be used to bless others?
- Has God’s blessing ever led you to sacrifice any certainty or comfort?
- The stories of Abram, Catherine of Siena, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Greg Boyle all contain aspects of leaving behind comfort and certainty to bless others. Which of these stories speak to you? How can you learn from these stories? I certainly encourage you to learn more about any of these heroes!
Pastor Drew's Desk 