Wilderness Belief
Genesis 15:1-6
1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, "Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." 2 But Abram said, "O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 And Abram said, "You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir." 4 But the word of the Lord came to him, "This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir." 5 He brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be." 6 And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.
I’ve been thinking a lot about wilderness recently. Specifically Wandering in the wilderness.
It’s a theme that runs through scripture. The idea of wandering in the wilderness.
Hagar and Ishmael are sent away by Abraham into the wilderness where they almost die of thirst.
Moses was wandering around in the wilderness when he came upon God in a burning bush.
After their escape from Egypt the Israelites wandered for 40 years in the wilderness before they were allowed to enter the promised land.
Jesus is driven into the wilderness by the Spirit, and tempted there in hunger and thirst by Satan, the adversary.
In scripture, the wilderness can be bad,
thirsting, starving,
Isaiah predicts enemies coming in destroying from the wilderness,
Sometimes it’s not so bad after all…manna is given to the people Israel in the desert,
but either way it is scary, shadowy, mysterious
you never know what the future looks like for sure,
or how to get there from here
In the wilderness
you never know what is going to happen next
We catch up with Abram this week after a bit of wandering. In the previous couple of chapters,
He’s been called by God and travelled to Canaan, then to Beth’el, then to Egypt, up through Negeb and back to Beth’el, then Caanan, the Hebron, Hobah, back to Hebron,
During this journey God has told Abram about all the families of earth being blessed through him, about his name being great, about the wonderful land he and his offspring were to inherit and those descendants being as numerous as the dust of the earth. But up to now, up to where we pick up the story today…the only thing Abram has experienced is wandering.
So God comes to Abram again in our scripture for today, in a vision.
Do not be afraid, I am your shield and your reward shall be very great God says. And for the first time in all this wandering, Abram argues with God. Yeah, you’ve said all this before, but I don’t see any descendants, do you? No children, no grandchildren. A slave in my house will inherit all I have. You’ve promised a lot, but I don’t see it. So God takes him outside and says, “Look at the stars. This is how many your descendants shall be. As many as the stars.”
Abram understandably has reservations about these promises from God,
BUT after what seem like many unfulfilled promises and years of wandering
we read in verse 6, “Abram believed the LORD and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” or another way to say it, Abram believed and because he believed God called him right, good, correct, basically God says a big loving thumbs-up YES to Abram.
Paul uses this particular verse more than once in his letters to talk about Christians being saved not by what we do but through our belief. Abram was righteous because of his faith his trust, and so are we. In the saving action of God in Jesus Christ we are given that big thumbs up. Not because of what we do, just because we believed like Abram.
In some ways this sounds almost easy.
Just trust right? Just believe?
A couple of times in his ministry when things are looking bad
Jesus tells people, do not fear, only believe.
Have faith. Trust. Just Be certain.
But in the wilderness that can be such a difficult thing to do.
I guess I’ve been thinking about this a lot because
This present moment in time feels pretty darn wilderness-y. Global Pandemic, especially the vulnerable sick and dying, people losing jobs and health insurance. Violence and suspicion, Groups of people bitterly divided not talking to each other, not listening, Wondering who to trust, wondering what is truth….and things just seem to keep getting worse…
Like all those stars God shows to Abram,
I can see the world I want,
a vaccine,
some unity
a little listening, some understanding
real action towards justice for all.
I can visualize it. I can imagine it like God asks Abram to do.
But what I can’t visualize how we get there from here! There’s no map in the wilderness.
God gives Abram a big YES for trusting what he doesn’t have a map for.
Jesus says, only believe. No map, Nothing else, only believe.
Let it go a little. Let the Holy Spirit do her holy work.
But absolute certainty in the wilderness?
….where you never know what’s going to happen next?
Our brains don’t work that way.
When stuff gets wilderness-y around me
I start to worry and stew
then my brain just will not shut up about all the scary stuff
and things I wish I could control…
and how it’s not going to be ok
and if only I knew what comes next
trying HARD to figure out how
HOW we are gonna get from
point A to point B…
Sometimes I have to try to stop thinking with my brain
and instead start feeling with my heart.
We know what a worried and paranoid brain does in the wilderness…
but what does a believing heart do?
What does it mean to do faith instead of think faith?
Maybe it’s just waiting one extra second before running away.
Maybe it’s leaning ever so slightly forward into the mystery
Not knowing where you’re going. Not being sure. Not having control.
Just moving anyway,
against everything your brain is telling you
take a breath and move forward just a little into the wilderness…
where you never know what’s going to happen next…
When I started on this road to becoming a pastor, right from the beginning there was something in the process that scared me silly. Not classes, not preaching, not teaching, not even confirmation class! What scared me was something called CPE. Clinical Pastoral Education. Everyone who wants to be a pastor must complete it. Basically, you train and work at the same time as a chaplain in a hospital. To complete it you must log 100 hours of classes and 300 hours of patient visits.
Now I am not a hospital person. To put it mildly. Actually, I was petrified of nursing homes, hospitals, sickness, trauma. Up to this point I’d been in hospitals to have my daughter, when my grandpa died and when my mother in law was sick and that’s pretty much it.
I tried to tell people around me that I couldn’t do this.
I wanted to be a pastor, but I really really couldn’t do this. Everyone assured me that if I couldn’t, we’d figure something out…but that I would have to try. Just try. One step…
So I applied to the program BELIEVING I couldn’t do it,
Had an interview and tour of St. Luke’s and Texas Children’s Hospital, and then was SURE I couldn’t do it,
was accepted into the program KNOWING I couldn’t do it,
after the first 4 days of training I was CONVINCED I couldn’t do it
and started my first shift shadowing another chaplain on a Friday night
I was absolutely terrified but since for this one shift I would be with a senior chaplain the whole I thought maybe I could make it. She and I met up after class that day and she took me on her rounds.
St. Luke’s and Texas Children’s at the Med center are right next to each other and on Friday nights and weekends the St. Luke’s chaplain holds the pager for both hospitals. We did rounds at St. Luke’s but just answered the pager for emergencies at Texas Children’s.
-So, we started rounds that evening in the St. Luke’s ER
-Room to room
- I thought, I can’t do this
-I started rehearsing the phone call that I’d make the next day to quit.
-With an hour left in the shift I was absolutely decided.
-then the Texas Children’s pager went off. My number one fear. I had gotten a tour of their level 1 trauma center specifically for children, and as a mother and human I prayed I’d never see that place again.
-But we got word a little boy was on his way in, unconscious, maybe a brain injury, so the Chaplain and I hurried over
-lots of people in the room hard to know who was related to who and how, it was loud
-almost immediately the Chaplain’s other pager went off indicating a death at St. Luke’s.
-She turned to me and asked, “Could you stay here…”
-I said yes
-Boy’s mother and grandmother were there but busy, they grateful I was there, but were busy doing and talking and planning
-then I saw a man and woman across the room. It was the boy’s father and stepmom
-Boy had gone to kindergarten just like normal that morning but had collapsed and initial diagnosis looked like a catastrophic brain aneurism.
-I just stayed with them and followed.
-Eventually to the PICU, pediatric ICU, got them settled in the waiting room
-we chatted, I got them waters and directions to the bathroom
-waiting for the chaplain to come back
-she never did
-finally I made my exit
-Walked back to St. Luke’s found the chaplain, clocked out and got in my car to make the hour long trip home
-As I drove I thought maybe I wasn’t going to make that phone call the next day to my supervisor after all.
-I didn’t know why. It wasn’t anything I’d done…I hadn’t done much. I’d been confused and scared the whole time, didn’t know what to do or where to go…But in my car traveling north on highway 45, something deep inside me was changing, turning,
-Following Monday, I was back at St. Luke’s for class.
-Before we left that afternoon a friend and had to go over to Texas Children’s because he needed to pick up some additional paperwork or maybe his badge or something.
-Now, if you’ve ever been to Texas Children’s in the Med Center you’ll appreciate how unlikely it would be to bump into someone you know there.
724 beds, 20 floors, 200,000 square feet
-But as we rounded a nondescript corner
-There in a random waiting room, they were – the boys dad and step mom
-Carrie, they shouted, ran over and wrapped me in their arms
-Thank you for what you did for us
-But I didn’t do anything. I panicked, I worried,
-But you stayed with us, and talked with us
-Two weeks later they put in a request for the chaplain with the purple hair to visit on the day the little boy was being discharged. Good as new. Like it never happened. I celebrated with them, hugs and laughter all around.
I was surely wandering in the wilderness.
In fact I would have taken the wilderness maybe even tempting by the devil
instead of the hospital.
None of it made any sense to me
I didn’t know what I was doing and my brain certainly wasn’t registering any faith or belief or certainty.
I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, took a breath and
just stepped. Out. And the Holy Spirit stepped in.
Thanks be to God
and very much NOT with any powers, talents or skills that I possessed,
I went on and finished my 100 hours of class and 300 hours of patient visits.
Over the next 6 months I visited with about 600 patients.
In the process learning a lot about not managing things with my brain, but just believing with my heart.
So maybe faith/belief isn’t something that happens in your brain.
Maybe faith is more like motion. Motion led by your heart.
Just one foot in front of the other.
Don’t worry about where we’re going yet, just move one foot.
Give up control and take another step.
Take a deep breath, hold a hand and take yet another step.
Because in this place of wilderness the Holy Spirit does amazing things. Miracles you might say.
Things your brain can’t makes sense of. Can’t believe.
But that your heart knows as the action of your loving creator. Working in and through creation in ways you would never know how to ask for and doing things that you couldn’t imagine in your wildest dreams.
Even when you don’t know what to do.
Especially when it’s hard to see how we’re gonna get there from here,
…and like Abram against all odds,
Have faith. God is at work.
Because when it seems like you are lost and alone,
you are never either of those things.
Trust with your heart.
You are always beloved right where you are taking that next brave baby step forward into the wilderness
where you never know what’s going to happen next…
God in Jesus Christ promises, I am with you always, even to the edge of the world and to end of the age. Thanks be to God, Amen.