Into the desert . . again. When two guys in power suits showed up at Abraham’s tent one day he knew instinctively that they were not just another set of Jehovah’s Witnesses. First of all there were no bicycles; there weren’t any camels either, they just appeared out of nowhere like extra-terrestrials or perhaps spies. Abraham began bustling around like a crazy man giving orders to the servants and asking a series of hysterical questions like a Junior Leaguer entertaining her spouse’s boss for dinner. When Abraham finally has a chance to sit down and have a welcome beer the visitors ask him: “Where is Sarah, your wife?” Other men had asked Abraham similar questions and his answers would not have made the FBI happy. In this case Abraham waved vaguely in the direction of a bunch of tents and said “She’s in the tent?” Of course the men did not want to know where Sarah actually was, they wanted to know why she wasn’t right there in front of them. Even as an old lady Sarah could still turn a few heads and Abraham wanted her out of sight. The men then began to tell Abraham this incredible fairy story about how he and Sarah were going to have children real soon and that after a while they would be the parents of a great nation. Now Sarah was actually in the closest tent and she heard this whole bunch of jive. After she picked herself up off the floor of the tent from her laughing fit she asked herself a sensible albeit rhetorical question: “Shall I have pleasure with my husband, me an old lady and he a sorry old geezer?”             I suspect that when Abram first heard of God’s plan he chuckled too. If we are of a certain age we chuckle with him. God is asking a lot of an old man and his spouse. But Abram comes around, and in a burst of credulity believes that this monstrous joke of God’s is actually the truth. It is so hard to believe that it is no wonder that God reckoned it to him as righteousness. Both the Epistle to the Romans and the Epistle to the Hebrews make a huge deal of Abraham’s act of faith. Somehow Abram was empowered to see over the horizon of history and trust God. Ah, here it is. Abram knew God, and knew that God was trustworthy so Abram is willing to stretch the limits of the credible and invest his faith in God. It is hard isn’t it? I took my son Andrew to the chiropractor a couple years go. I don’t believe in chiropractic. Reading the chiropractic magazine in the doctor’s office did nothing for my cynicism. But his back was hurting and there is a significant minority of people whom even the AMA admits can be helped with chiropractic. It could be a non-invasive place to start. This is where faith begins, at the beginning. There is a difference between faith and stupidity however. Andrew’s chiropractor was allowed a month’s worth of my money before we would try a different approach. We were not promised the world as it was promised to Abram, but we had been led to believe that Dr. Aching Back is the answer to Andrew’s problem. We could only hope that our faith is reckoned as righteousness.   Our problem with the chiropractor is the problem of faith. Are we placing it in the right place and at the right price? For Abram the question is: “Is this God speaking or is it another, an imposter? Is the man manipulating Andrew’s back the solution or a man behind the screen pulling wires and levers telling us to ignore the man behind the curtain. We chose to act in faith, faith that there is a good outcome available; a good outcome in the face of some real implausibility. We could easily have been wrong. Happily we were not. The chiropractor helped. Stuff like this happens throughout life. It keeps happening to all of us all the time. It is happening to Debby and me right now as we, like Abram and Sarai, return to the desert. We are not going back to the desert from which we came, that is, the Mojave Desert in Nevada. We are going into a desert that has not even been revealed to us--we don’t even know where it is. We are not the only ones going into the unknown. Yesterday we participated in the ordination to the diaconate for Peggy Newman. As you know, Peggy has been outrageously faithful in her pursuit of deacon’s orders. I am sure that God reckons it to her as righteousness. 40 years ago next Sunday I was ordained a deacon in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Whatever it was I thought I was going to do and wherever I thought I was going to do it turned out very differently than I imagined. Twelve of those years were here at Emmanuel Church in downtown Kempsville. Both the bishop and I thought I would be here for two. Wrong. Again. Debby and I have chosen to trust that God will guide us to the right place. So far we have no regrets, not a one. Our mission continues to be fruitful for us and others. Sure there are things left undone and things that could have been done sooner or better. Still, we have no regrets. We wish this for you too. That you have no regrets, no second guesses. We pray that your listening to the voice of God will take you places you might not have chosen on your own. For this is the promise of scripture. John 21:18“I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." I know this scripture is true for me and I pray that it is true for you.