Out Our Way:

Genesis 12: 1 - 3

Out our way we see different breeds of cattle - the charolais, the red Angus and the black Angus and now and then a few Herefords. In Wyoming, I once had the "pleasure" of working with Texas longhorns, which was a unique experience. Indeed, each breed has its own distinctive traits, aside from color, and now and then mixed breeds show up that offer the rancher a hoped for improvement in his/her sale prices.

As Americans, we are generally somewhat of a mongrel people - few of us are "pure blood" anything. While I am proud of my Scottish and Irish ancestory, the DNA indicates I am also Welsh and - shudder - English! But in other cultures and other times, a person's genealogy was critical to their identity - and no more so than the people of Israel.

The Bible has many accounts of people able to trace their lineage back to Abraham and Sarah - even Christ's biographers make that point - because, as we see, God's plan of redemption began with those two.

The story of the Bible - from Genesis to Revelation - is the history of the Covenant God first made with Abraham and Sarah. The entire outline of Biblical history as well as the present and the future, is laid out in three verses and three promises.

The first promise is that of the Promised Land. [Genesis 12: 1 an 7] If you look at a world map you discover the land we now call Israel is in a unique place. It is between Africa, Europe and Asia, and, indeed, the major trade routes of the ancient world all converged in this area. Although as the late prime minister of Israel Golda Meir joked, Israel is the only place in the Middle East without oil, it was a good land. And because of its placement, it was and, in a sense, still is the "center of the world."

The second promise is that of the people - the descendents of Abraham and Sarah. [Genesis 12:2] A new people are to be created for the primary purpose of bearing witness to the one true God. Human beings are by nature religious. It is instinct to believe in a Supreme Power, and we find evidence that, from earliest times, human beings understood there was indeed a "Higher Power." As far as I know, there has never been a culture or race or nation in which God in some form was not known and worshipped. But, usually, the god or gods were crated in our own image - super heroes with magnified powers and failings. Just read Greek and Nordic or many Native mythologies and that becomes clear. Like children, human beings had to grow in maturity and wisdom to move past the fantasy world of myths and legends into the actual knowledge of reality. Thus God's people, chosen for this purpose, began in Abraham and Sarah, just as all humans began in Adam and Eve. And the Chosen people are not chosen for their own sakes, but for the work they had been created to do - to share with the world the true nature of the one God.

Now, the Old Testament tells us the story of these first two promises, for reading forward is the history of the people growing from a small family into a mighty nation - and of their being formed as a people, taken to the Promised Land and establishing the worship of God before all the world in that holy place.

But there is a third promise: a universal blessing (Genesis 12:3) This is the Gospel Message - the " Good News" of the New Testament. From Israel, the Chosen people, is to come both the knowledge of God and the blessing of God: the blessing of God's healing and restoring all people to His loving care. When we come to the Book of Acts and the letters of Paul, the theme is the restoration of all people to God - Jew and gentile, male and female, slave and free, civilized and barbarian. 

In a sense, the Book of Acts is still being written, for the story continues as generation after generation of God's people continue to share the good news and the word spreads. While we may feel there has been a sense of dullness in spiritual growth in the U.S.A. and in Europe, Christianity continues to grow in Asia and Africa and throughout the world. Despite some attempts at censorship by powerful secular forces in this nation, the word is getting out of a new reformation of the Church in eastern Europe, in Africa in Asia, and South America.

The human race is coming together, is being reconciled to God and therefore to each other. The blessing is happening.

These three promises of the Covenant are all in evidence to any who will take a look. We may be quite a mixture of folk, but we all belong to the same spread and are part of the same herd. And more and more of us are sporting the same brand.

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John Bruington and Goliath ride for the same brand as all the other Christian congregation in the world. See ya at the round up!