Plan B — Sermon for Second Week of Lent, March 5, 2023

(Sermon in response to Genesis 12:1–4–1The LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 4So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him.)

Last Summer we took an amazing three week trip out west as a family. We are one of those families that likes to plan out details of what we are going to do in advance, and at the same time, we are flexible enough to just go with the flow and change course if we have to. Our original plan was to drive to Yellowstone, then the Grand Tetons, and then up to Banff and Jasper Parks in Canada. We spent months planning this trip.

Abby, my wife, likes to say that half the fun is in the planning and anticipation. We made a binder laying out options, day plans, print outs, maps, descriptions, you name it. The entire trip was laid out in a binder — it was our vacation Bible. And we started on our journey. And somewhere out in Missouri we started getting messages from friends and family telling us that Yellowstone was having historic flooding and was closed. Ut oh. What would we do? We didn’t know. That wasn’t part of the plan. Yellowstone doesn’t close. Except when it has historic once in a century rain storms that wash away portions of the road in the park and cause flooding.

We were still a couple of days away, and so we decided ok, we’ll need to come up with Plan B. And what was Plan B? We didn’t know yet. But we would figure it out.

Well, Plan B turned out great. We shifted our original plans, stayed a bit longer at our first destination, found a few new places to go to, and then proceeded with the rest of the trip. It turned out to be wonderful and it was an amazing adventure. And we had no idea going in that we would be doing any of that.

When I hear our first reading in Genesis all I can hear is God saying “Abram — Go.” And Abram responding “Ok. Where?” And God says. “You’ll find out…” And Abram whispers to his wife, “God just sent us on Plan B. I haven’t got the slightest idea what’s going to happen next.” And his wife just says, “oh boy.”