In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

5-year old Johnny was in the kitchen as his mother made supper. She asked him to go into the pantry and get her a can of tomato soup, but he didn’t want to go in alone. “It’s dark in there and I am scared.” His mother asked again, and the young boy persisted. Finally, his mother said, “It’s okay. Jesus will be in there with you.” So Johnny walked hesitantly to the door of the pantry and slowly opened it. He peeked inside, saw it was dark, and started to leave when all at once an idea came, and he said, “Jesus, if you are in there, would you hand me a can of tomato soup.”

Ah, the fear of the dark. I am sure all of us have been there at some point in our childhood. I remember when I was a child and my father would send me out the barn alone at night into the darkness. Going there my steps were slow as the barn loomed in the distance. My imagination ran wild with what I might encounter once I got there. Perhaps because I had run into too many racoons in the feed room when I had turned on the lights in the past. But once my task was finished I ran home as fast as my little legs could carry me.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University reported that 50 years ago, the fear of the dark was one of the greatest fears of grade school children. Other fears included animals, high places, and loud noises. Today, kids are afraid of the following; nuclear war, environmental destruction, and cancer.

In a short fifty years the fears of grade school children have taken on a  dimension that little ones should never have to worry about. And yet sadly as adults, we share these fears as well. The recent “sabre rattling” between the United States and Iran is centred on Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Reports on global warming tell us of the natural destruction that has taken place because of human folly. And each of us have been touched directly or indirectly by cancer.

These fears are of a magnitude that cut to our very core because they make us starkly aware of our own finitude, our limits as human beings. It is true. We have a beginning and an end but nuclear war, environmental destruction mark the very end of the future itself. They are cause for fear and anxiousness for our fear becomes one in which there is no future at all both individually and collectively. The future then becomes barren and without hope.

It is this fear of the future or fear of the no-future that figures so prominently in our reading from Genesis chapter 15. It is a story of Abram’s encounter and dialogue with God as he feared for his own future. You will notice that his name is still Abram. It is not until a couple of chapters later that his name is changed to Abraham. In today’s story he is just plain old Abram, an elderly Jew without a male heir, standing in the midst of a barren present afraid for his future.

But then the divine word breaks into Abram’s barren present in the form of a mystical vision. “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” And yet Abram meets the divine word not with rejoicing but rather with protest. He is depressed by his lack of offspring and complains to God. Abram displays a “courage to be” pointing out to God his present reality in all of its barrenness.

Then the word of the Lord comes to Abram once more and the promise of an male heir is given once again. And in order to confirm the promise Abram is shown the starry heavens above, “So shall your offspring be.” This time Abram does not protest and point to his reality but rather Abram believed – he took a leap of faith, trusting in God’s promise that his future will not be barren like his present. A leap of faith marked by divine possibility. And the covenant is sealed between Abram and God through the a strange ritual involving dismemberment of animals and birds.

This haunting story, so far from our own experience, is nonetheless the story of our own beginnings with God as his resurrection people, and it is full of real things: blood and guts, faith and doubt, fear and promise. And as Abram’s heirs we too are wed to a God we did not choose but who chose us through Christ.
We too make the journey filled with a mixture of faith and doubt, fear and promise. But how do we continue to trust solely in the promise when evidence against the promise is all around?
In our fear for the future of the church, our denomination, the very planet earth itself, how do we continue to wait on the Lord?
For in many ways this waiting is one of the most difficult parts of our journey of faith. Faith – this trust in God comes easy when God feels present whether in good times or struggles. But our faith is pushed too the limits when we find ourselves waiting…waiting for the Lord to grant us peace in the midst of turmoil,
waiting for the Lord to grant us healing, waiting for the Lord to fulfill the promise in the midst of a barren present and a hidden future.

It is in waiting in the midst of the sacred void that doubt assails us. Perhaps this faith business is all a sham maybe God really is a symbol for our highest ideals, a figment of our imagination. To wait on the divine promise seems to indicate to us that the promise will not be fulfilled.

But it is to the divine promise that we cling in faith – so often a weak and fragile thing. And in the midst of our waiting, the table is set, bread and wine made visible, the promise proclaimed once more – “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again”, elements shared for nourishment on the journey of faith.
And we echo the words of the psalmist, “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage.”
THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN.