I’m going to date myself now, but you might recall a musical called Promises, Promises with its title track written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. The song tells the story of promises being made that can destroy and take all the joy out of life, but for the teller of the story – hear it in their words: Oh, promises, promises, my kind of promises can lead to joy and hope and love. Yes, love!!
I like to think that God’s promises are like the 
teller of the story’s – God’s promises can lead to joy and hope and love – yes love! But sometimes I hazard a guess – God’s promises can feel empty, made but not kept. Have you ever felt that way?
This is why I wonder why and how Abram, who gets renamed by God later in Abram’s story to Abraham, trusts God enough to believe the promises made to him if he leaves his home and all that is familiar to him. Promises of land, of descendants which I think of as a community of people, and blessing. What do these promises mean?
Hmmm – who is Abram that God would come to him? We know a couple of things – he is descended from Shem, son of Noah. His father Terah moved them from the land of Ur to the land of Haran. He is married to Sarai and he and his wife have no children. He also has a nephew Lot. He is wealthy and has both material things and people as possessions. No mention of being a faithful member of any congregation or a faithful follower of God. So why make this promise to Abram anyway? He hasn’t really done anything to deserve it. This ask and these promises are an act of pure grace on God’s part.
Now we might not think it is grace to ask Abram to leave all that is comfortable to set out on an uncertain journey. What will happen? Where will this land be? What risks am I taking and accepting as part of this journey? Abram is about to enter a wilderness/desert season – a time of uncertainty, of feeling lost maybe, of having to rely more deeply on God and God’s covenantal promises. Sound familiar?
So let’s look more deeply at this first promise – leave it all – your country, your family and your father’s home for a land that I will show you. Land – a place to call home. Eventually they will land in Canaan, but the only land that Abram will own is the burial cave when Sarai dies. But a place to call home, Abram is given.
Though he breaks the rules and takes his wife, his nephew and his possessions with him, Abram’s journey takes him to many places where he sets up home and makes the most of where he is. He also builds altars to God worshiping God wherever he lands. Promises made and kept? Maybe not in the way Abram originally thought of the promise, but in a way where Abram could live and live well.
The second promise is that God will make Abram a great nation! That implies Abram will have many descendants, but that isn’t what happens is it. He has Ishmael through Hagar (we’ll hear her story next week), and then Isaac through Sarai, and after she dies, he has a couple more children with his next wife.
That doesn’t seem to be a great nation, does it? Now he does have servants and slaves and people who have joined them on this journey. So perhaps we can take from this promise, the promise of a community of people that Abram can rely on and be part of. Community is extremely important isn’t it.
We all want and need a place to belong. We need people we can rely on. Loneliness still exists as the number one issue facing all age groups all across the U.S. How is this promise made and kept? For Abram and for us? How is our community of faith, of people expressing the love of God and caring for one another a beacon for those who need community and a place to belong just as they are and just as they come?
That leads me to this third promise – that Abram will be blessed but more importantly Abram will be a blessing and all the families of the earth will be blessed through him! That is some kind of promise, isn’t it? Sounds like the kind of promise that doesn’t destroy life, but gives it, doesn’t take away joy, but creates joy and hope and love for all that Abram will encounter through this long and circuitous journey God calls him to.
Maybe that is Abram’s work during his wilderness season – to embrace and live God’s promise to bless him and make him a blessing so that all the families of earth are blessed. What will those families do with that blessing? I don’t know – it often feels like there isn’t much blessing in the land today.
But those promises made to Abram – the covenant made with him – that lives on through all the generations that come after. We are one of the three Abrahamic traditions that still live today – Christianity, Judaism and Islam. All have core tenants to serve others, to pray, to do works of charity, to pursue justice.
And, the promise to Abram that he will be a blessing to others is a promise made to us today? How are we living that out? How are we a blessing to each other and to this wider Bethlehem community? How can we dream big about being such a blessing? And will that kind of blessing be a testimony to God’s great love to all?
Maybe the question we need to ask ourselves is do we still believe in God’s promises? Do we believe a wilderness/desert season can bring us closer to God, Jesus, Holy Spirit so that we can be a blessing to others? Do we believe that there is a place for us? And, that there is a community of faith we can belong to and open up to all those who need a place to belong?
What can Abram’s faithfulness and his very real human story of not always living up to that faith teach us? Lots of questions, but important ones as we travel in an uncertain time. But the one certain thing we can hold onto: God’s promises bring joy, hope, life and love. Yes love! May it be so. Amen.