Letting go and going

A Sermon on Genesis 12:1–4a, Romans 4:1–5, 13–17, and John 3:1–17

"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." (Genesis 12:1-2)

Today's readings begin with a call.

The call of Abram. The call to go. The call to a new vocation. The call that will lead to a new name.

But it is, in the first place, a call to let go.

To let go of all the things that brought Abram comfort. To let go of familiar surroundings. To let go of familiar friends. To let go of familiar family.

Abram is asked to let go of what was to him beloved and familiar, to let go of these three circles that hold up all of our senses of self and identity: place, community, family.

God is asking Abram to let go in order to become something new. In order to take up a new vocation. A vocation to become a people that will be a blessing to all peoples. A vocation that leads to a new name: Abraham, the father of a nation.

But before Abram can become Abraham, before he can go, he must first let go.

He needs a sense of what Ignatian spirituality calls spiritual freedom, a holy indifference to the things that have constituted his orientation in the world, his sense of self, and his relationship with others. God's call is a call to go, and that requires a letting go.

We all have things in our lives we cling to, things that bring comfort, things that are familiar, things that bring a sense of orientation in our world. Like Abram, they can be places, communities, even families. And these things are not bad things. They are gifts of God.

But there is a danger in every good gift. And the danger is this: when a good gift becomes an inordinate attachment, when a good gift becomes an anchor that prevents us from acting on God's call to go. To receive a new name. To become someone new.

Sometimes in order to go, we need to let go.

And there is more at stake in Abram's decision than his sense of comfort.

God is not calling Abram out of these good gifts to deprive him, but to bring him from good to better, a place that is better not just for Abram, but for the world.

Abram becomes the father of the Jewish people, and it is from that people that God, in Jesus, comes to us. In the words of our Gospel reading,

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him." (John 3:16-17)

Abram's letting go—and going—prepares the path of salvation that leads us to Jesus.

In a way he could not have imagined, Abram helped to prepare the foundations for the salvation of all peoples. His living out of his vocation was God's working out of salvation through him.

Our vocations, our sense of who God is calling us to be, are also a gift. A gift God gives to us, and a gift that we, by taking it up, give back to God. God can use us, as God used Abram, to be a blessing,

"to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine." (Ephesians 3:20)

Abram becomes Abraham, and though he cannot see it from where he currently stands, his faithfulness in letting go and going will be a blessing for generations to come. Abraham is one of the reasons we can worship Jesus today.

We all have a call. We all have a vocation. We all have a name that God has given us, a name through which we can be a blessing to all creation.

Where is God calling you to go? And where is God calling you to let go first?

It's hard to receive a new name when we cling so hard to our old ones.

Perhaps that is why Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night, when nobody is watching.

Nicodemus is a man who already has a name, a name with honour, a name with respectability. He is a man who does not want to lose that name by being associated with Jesus. But the name into which he was born, into which he has been raised, is perhaps not the name that the Spirit gives. Jesus tells him:

"The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

Jesus invites Nicodemus, as Jesus invites us, to let go of the reputation and position he arrived with, and trust where the Spirit might be taking him.

That is something each one of us needs to look into our hearts to discern: Where is God calling you to let go in order to free you to go?

Like Abram, letting go and going is an act of faith—faith in a God who, in St. Paul's words,

"gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist" (Romans 4:17).

I imagine Abram was pretty nervous letting go of the place, the community, and the family that constituted his identity. We should not diminish how hard letting go can be.

But here's the thing.

Abram was called out, he was given a vocation. He had to go. And he had to let go. And this letting go was an act of faith that, as St. Paul says, was credited to him as righteousness. He received his new name—Abraham—and he became a blessing to all nations.

What new name might God be giving you?

And what might you need to let go of in order to receive it?