“Go forth!” A sermon of following
Inhabitatio Dei http://networkedblogs.com/Vm1iM (Genesis 12:1-4a; Romans 4:1-4,15-17; John 3:1-17) Preached on 3/16/14 at COSK in Portland, Oregon “Go forth!” We could say, and we would be right to do so, that this is the first call to the Gospel recorded in the Scriptures. Abraham, the father of faith is called by God to go . Abandon what is known to you, depart from the familiar, the secure, the solid, the sensible, the self-evident, and go . The call of the Gospel, when it comes to Abraham, begins, as the Gospel must always begin, with a break . Just as we heard a few weeks ago from Jesus in the sermon on the mount, the Gospel always begins with a rupture, a radical disruption: “You have heard that it was said . . . But I say to you . . .” These words come to Abraham in Genesis no less than they came to the disciples from Jesus, no less than they come to us again and again in the course of our lives, which so easily slip back into the pattern of this wo...