Becoming Like Christ: You Already Belong
Tuesday, March 2
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You Already Belong
Genesis 22:1-19
Rev. Kristen Koger
Have you ever wanted to fit in so badly that you would have done anything to be included?
A few years ago, I read a book called “American Girls: Social Media and the Life of Teenagers.” The author of the book talks to hundreds of American teenage girls (ages 13-19) about their experiences online and off. She talks to them about the pressure that they put on themselves, but also the pressure that is put on them by their peers and society.
One example she gives comes from a teenager talking about the number of “likes” she gets on a photo on Instagram. If the picture didn’t receive something like 200 likes within a couple of hours of being posted, the girl would take it down. The assumption was that if no one was liking her photo then they didn’t like her.
In these conversations, there were many stories of how teenagers felt pressured to do things online just to keep from being made fun of or not fitting in. They were willing to compromise their self-worth, values, and belief in themselves just to belong.
Abraham and Belonging
In the book of Genesis, we read the stories about the very beginnings of our faith. In chapter twelve, we are introduced to Abram (Abraham) and his wife Sarai (Sarah). For the next twelve chapters, we journey with Abram and his family as they trust in God and go where God leads.
While they don’t get everything right along the journey, they do their best to trust in God. Their trust pays off and results in this elderly couple finally receiving what they’ve always wanted: a baby.
A few years later, God tests Abraham. We read in chapter 22, our focal passage for today, that God calls out to Abraham and Abraham immediately responds, “Here I am!”
This isn’t the first time that God has called out to Abraham. Over the course of Abraham’s life, we’ve read that God calls him to the edge of the desert to reveal things to him or to tell him what God would have Abraham do next. “Go to the land that I will show you.” “Look at the stars. You will have more descendants than there are stars in the sky.”
While none of these revelations led to easy journeys, the journeys eventually ended with good things. I wonder what Abraham was thinking when God again called his name this time.
I’m not sure Abraham expected what he heard. “Take your son, your child, and go to Moriah. And there, you will sacrifice him.” Now, the text doesn’t tell us what happens between Abraham hearing this command and the next morning, when he takes Isaac and they begin their journey. It might seem that Abraham is a willing and dutiful follower, but I can imagine that he had a sleepless night.
The next day, Abraham and Isaac journey to Moriah; Abraham gets all the way to the moment right before he sacrifices Isaac, and then God calls out to Abraham. “Here I am,” says the likely terrified father. And God releases Abraham from his worst nightmare.
I wonder what made Abraham decide to follow through with God’s incredibly difficult request. I wonder if he would have gone through with it if God hadn’t intervened. I wonder if Abraham thought that in order to still be close to God and counted as one of God’s “chosen” people that he had to anything God said. After all, up until this point following God resulted in being blessed.
Maybe Abraham was so desperate to show God that he would do anything to be included that he was willing to sacrifice the thing most important to him. But I don’t think God asked Abraham to make this incredibly difficult sacrifice in order for Abraham to remain “in the club.”
I think God presented this challenge to Abraham so God could show him that he was already in the club. All along, God has been saying to Abraham “trust me, and you will always have a place to call home; you will always have a seat at the table; you will always be a part of the family of God. You belong.”
The message God had for Abraham is the same for us today: “You belong. I have made you the person you are. I have given you gifts and call you my beloved. I love you as you are. All I ask is that you trust and follow me. The world will ask you to sacrifice what makes you, you, in order to belong. But all I ask is for you to trust. You belong.”
How much different would the world be if we shared this message of belonging and love with all we met? What if the main expectation we had for ourselves was to be true to ourselves and to trust and follow God? What would our individual lives and the lives of those around us look like then?
Reflect on these questions:
What are some ways that you find yourself sacrificing who you are for the sake of someone else’s opinion or approval? Did you consciously make this choice or not?
What are some ways that you ask others to sacrifice themselves in order to get your approval? This is a hard question to ask, but spend some time thinking through it and be honest with your answers.
What are ways the world asks those who are Christian to sacrifice themselves or their faith?
Now, write a prayer asking God to help you be aware of the ways that you ask others to sacrifice themselves; write a prayer asking God to help you be aware of the ways you sacrifice yourself for others. Keep this prayer in a place where you can easily access it for the times you find yourself doubting your belonging or your place as a child of God.
About “Becoming Like Christ” (Weekly Lenten Reflections)
In 2019, we developed a 7-week long series packed full of devotions called “Exploring Humanity and Divinity.” It was about wrestling with our humanity as we seek to be transformed into the likeness of Christ.
After a tumultuous last year, and with tensions high on political, cultural, and social levels, it seems that “wrestling” is just as relevant today as it was two years ago.
In that spirit, we believed it would be healthy to resurrect a similar theme to this year’s Lenten devotional series: Becoming Like Christ.