August 30, 2026 - Starting Again and Again

There is something about a journey.

You can start out knowing exactly where you are going and still have no idea what is going to happen along the way.

You can have the address in your GPS. You can have a hotel reservation. You can have the snacks packed. You can even have an itinerary. And then you get on the road. And something happens.You take a wrong turn. You stop somewhere you didn't plan to stop. You meet someone you didn't expect to meet.You discover something you didn't know was there. And often its those things that make the trip memorable.

In the four stories Ruth and Peg read today we hear three messages.

Abram is told: Go. Moses is told: Go but for different reasons. Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem. And in Acts, the Holy Spirit says:Set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.

In some ways, very different instructions, very different paths, but ones that we can look to see what God is doing around and through these folks.

Let me start with Abram, who was told Go.

This was not an urgent request to Go to the grocery store for a missing ingredient, or a playground race.

It was a leave your country, leave your home, with no claim to housing, or future plan, no calendar, no promised wifi connection.

Just go.

We often tell kids and young adults this right? Go, have fun! Go, Try it! Go, I bet it will be a great adventure. 

But Abram wasn’t a kid. He was a full grown adult. 

He is settled, He has a ancient equalivent of a morgage. He has a rountine. He has stuff that might need to come with him. He has a pharmacy that knows his name and a doctor he likes - both things that can’t be found easily.

Abram had a good life, he wasn’t being asked to leave a bad situation but God still says go.

Sometimes God calls us to leave something comfortable. And comfortable can be much harder to leave. When we are uncomfortable, we are usually looking for the door. When we are comfortable, we have to be willing to believe there might be something beyond the door.

There is another "go" in Scripture that sounds quite different from Abram's. In Exodus 12, the Israelites are also told to go, but this time they know exactly what they are leaving. They are leaving slavery in Egypt. They have been waiting for this moment, and when the time comes, they are told to eat quickly and move immediately. Exodus 12 is a journey out of slavery and bondage. Both Abram’ and this go require trust, but they require different kinds of courage. The Israelites have to trust God enough to leave a familiar place, though a terrible familiar place, and step into an uncertain future. As we know, even very good change can be hard.

In both Genesis and Exodus, the people have to resist the temptation to let the uncertainty of the journey keep them where they are. Sometimes faithful discipleship means looking ahead toward what God is showing us, knowing that the history of what we have been though makes the path for where we might be headed. Which helps us see what Jesus might have been thinking in Luke.

"When the days drew near for him to be taken up, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem."

Unlike Abram, Jesus knows where he is going and he knows the road isn't going to be easy. Jesus doesn't have every detail of what the disciples will experience. But he knows the direction.

So he sets his intention towards Jerusalem, its like he puts the gps setting - “don’t let me wonder from the path, I need the most direct path.”

He will not be distracted, he will not let disrespect that he might experience get him off the path. The disciples in the story get distracted while they are trying to follow Jesus, because they also are trying to honor and follow  their nationality, their history with others, their human desire for others to get punished - they feel those things to the bones.

That's distracted discipleship.

Maybe you have felt that, I sure have. 

We can follow Jesus while also being disciples of our politics, family, culture or our fears, or our need to be right.

Its as if we believe we will follow Jesus, but have a list of things to do first. 

I want to love like Jesus, but first I need that person to feel the depth of hurt that person has caused.

I want to welcome like Jesus, but first we need to put the correct boundaries in place.

And then we get to Acts 13. The church at Antioch is gathered. They're worshiping. They're fasting.They're praying.

And then: The Holy Spirit speaks. "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."

Saul doesn’t get a brillant idea that sets him across the world teaching. The Holy Spirit calls.The church listens. And then the church sends.

Sometimes the question is:

"What is the Spirit already doing? And How can I play into that? We play into that? 

Today, we are celebrating two new members, a new school year, and a new pastor. We get to start on a journeys in all sorts of ways. We have several folks that have started retirement since I arrived here. That is another sort of journey. 

What if the question in any of these journeys - is what is God doing around me?

Because maybe God is already doing something.

And our job is not to invent it.

Our job is to notice it.

Often the shifts we are experiencing in a new journey - a new church home, a new classroom, or a new pastor - lead us to question.

Who likes me? Who doesn’t? What exactly is the plan? 

And we may want the plan, but relationships don't work that way.

You have to learn how to walk together. You pay attention. You listen. You discover. You adjust. You learn something about yourself and the world.

So here we are with Abram, the Israelities, Jesus and Paul. Abram doesn't know where he's going. Moses leads God’s people out of where they don’t want to be into a unknown place. Jesus knows where he's going, but knows the road will be difficult. Paul doesn't even choose the journey himself—the Spirit calls him into it.

And maybe those describe different seasons of our own lives.

Sometimes we're Abram. "God, I have no idea where this is going."

Sometimes we’re the Israelities, “Get us out of here!”

Sometimes we're Jesus. "I know where I'm headed, and I know it's going to be hard."

Sometimes we're Paul. "I didn't plan this, but somehow I think God is calling me."

So What is God doing in your life these days? 

We might be more used to asking or answering How are you? How’s work? What’s school like this year?

But what if we started asking each other What is God doing in your life? 

Imagine asking it when someone starts school.

Imagine asking a new Brethren Volunteer

Imagine asking it when someone joins a church

Imagine asking it when someone retires.

When someone loses someone.

And ask ourselves the same question - 

"God, what are you doing here?"

And then keep walking.

. Because sometimes we aren't actually afraid of the future. We're grieving the past. And sometimes we aren't stuck because we don't know where to go. We're stuck because we keep looking back at where we came from.

We have lots of folks that are starting a new rhythm of school right now. 

A student may walk into a new classroom thinking: "Where are my friends?" "Will I fit in?" "Will I be good at this?" "What if I don't understand?" "What if everyone else is ahead of me?"

After talking to a friend this week, I think we may ask these questions as an adult too. 

And it's easy to start looking backward. Last year was better. My old teacher understood me.My old friends knew me. My old school/church/schedule was easier.

Grieving is important, we should take time for that! And then what if started asking What is God doing in this new season?

Maybe God is creating new friendships. Maybe God is giving you courage. Maybe God is teaching you something you couldn't have learned last year. Giving space for something you couldn’t have imagined in the past. 

A couple years ago, Jim, Ben and I took a trip to Tuscan, AZ where my sister and brother in law were living. This particular day, after visiting the massive cactus’s with arms,  I had planned on introducing my two guys to the Tohono O'odham Nation where I had visited a few years before. We started at the local lunch spot and some holy places. Then, looking at google maps, we decided to head off the beaten path in our rental van. While we were treated to the beauty of the landscape, the roads left a lot to be desired. We headed over a hill that shouldn’t have been labeled a road, and at the bottom got stuck in the washout. We got out and tried to push sand from the tires, We did everything we could think of, but eventually started calling tow companies. No less than three companies said they would be there in one hour, but none showed up. We sat there in the desert for three hours. We ended calling one very local place we had called to start and they said they could get us the next day. So we ended up calling them back and made arrangements to meet with them the next day. We found a fire station a couple miles away that we could walk too and have my sister pick us up safely. So, after three hours of doing the required summer reading for school, some screen time for all of us, and walks in the desert, we started our walk away from the rental van towards the fire station. This walk - while mostly on the highway - was empty except for the wildlife - and in a stroke of momma genius, I started asking for a list of things that went right for us today. The walk to the cactuses, the amount of wildlife we got to see, the good lunch, the amazing scenery, the amount of cell signal all day, gas in the tank so we always had AC, that my sister and brother in law could pick us up, and then take us back to the van the next day and the list went on. 

I don’t share this because I do this all the time. Sometimes parents do the right thing out of despair. I wanted to not leave this vacation and think of this day as horrible - so I asked what God was doing. 

We laugh about that day now - we value the experience, and we see it as a time that God took us and changed us. 

May whatever journey we are personally on, may we collectively be able to ask -

What is God doing around us?