February 2, 2025 – Seeds of Faith-Week 1 - Pastor Kate Murphy

Scripture: Genesis 11:30-12:4

Dear Church,

Abram was 75 years old the first time he heard from God. And that first (tiny) word God said to Abram is a seed out of which the Spirit grew salvation. That word?

GO

Go from your country and your family and your father's house...to a land that I will show you. Move past all you know, all you understand, toward an unknown future for no other reason than...faith.

We expect our faith to comfort us, soothe us and settle us. We've been told that faith is the way we can ensure that we get what we know we need and deserve.

But faith is what sends us out into the unknown, beyond what we have settled for. We expect faith to make us respected and honored by those around us. But what do you think Abraham's family and community thought about his choices?

Biblical faith is wild and disruptive. It is God interrupting life, upending comfortable entrenched existence, and leading people beyond their own hopes and dreams. Faith is a seed dropped in our hearts that grows us into the life of Jesus, the living hope through whom God is redeeming and reconciling all creation.

In these tumultuous and uncertain days, we are exploring not the what, but the way faith: how it is like seeds scattered on fertile, fallow ground, how it makes us new in ways we neither seek, nor control, nor comprehend. Faith isn't doctrine or ritual or assenting to orthodox theology. Faith is hearing God say 'go,' and then deciding how you will respond.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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