As part of my job, I do a lot of funerals. When I first started here at the church, that was one of the things I was most anxious about, actually. Because I had zero experience with funerals. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be any good at it—I wouldn’t have what it takes to console families or eulogize someone well.

Fast forward seven years and (believe it or not) funerals are now one of the highlights of my job. It’s a sacred duty that I take really seriously to come alongside a family in grief. Walk with them. Pray for them. Plan a memorial service with them that’s gonna truly honor their loved one.

It’s especially rewarding to do a funeral for someone who was well-loved. To see the outpouring of stories and memories. Open mics that go on and on, with one person sharing after another. A true celebration of life.

It’s a lot harder doing a funeral for someone who didn’t love well and wasn’t well loved in return. I remember a graveside service early on (it wasn’t a family from our church). But it was clear that there was some baggage around the departed. When I met with the family to plan the service, you could cut the tension in the room with a knife.

All the standard questions I ask when planning a funeral: “What fond memories do you have of the person? What was he like? What did you like to do together?” Total silence. No one was willing to eulogize this guy. No one wanted to speak at the graveside. As his son told me: “Let’s just keep it short and sweet and get him in the ground.”

I suppose that’s how some of us might feel when we come to death of Abraham.

Abraham’s life was a mixed bag. We’ve been reading his story together now for a few months. It’s a story with some incredible highs and some really low lows.

Abraham was the first person in recorded history to worship the God that we worship. A God who is worshipped today by some 4.5 billion people around the world—Christians, Jews, and Muslims. That’s more than half the world’s population that now follows the God of Abraham. That’s significant!

Abraham was a man of incredible faith. He trusted God and followed God, even when God didn’t make sense. He showed incredible hospitality to strangers and foreigners—likely because Abraham was (for much of his life) a foreigner.

At his best, he lived at peace with his neighbors and was a blessing to those around him. But at his worst, it got really bad.

We’ve read the stories. Abraham exploited his wife, Sarah, on multiple occasions. He exploited his enslaved concubine, Hagar. He exiled his oldest son, Ishmael when he was just a child. And he tried to sacrifice his second son, Isaac.

There’s also a lot about Abraham that we don’t know. When we first meet him in Genesis, he’s already 75 years old. That means we know nothing about his youth, his upbringing—those first 75 years of life.

His son Isaac was born when Abraham was 100. And then Abraham dies at the ripe old age of 175. Which means that (if these numbers are correct) he lived a whole other lifetime (another 75 years!) that we know almost nothing about.

During that time, he buried his wife Sarah. He got remarried to a woman named Keturah (who, again, we know nothing about). Abraham and Keturah had six more sons (and who knows how many daughters). And then Abraham died. His two eldest sons, Ishmael and Isaac, buried him in a tomb next to Sarah.

Abraham’s story reminds me of a lot of “great men” (so-called) from history. Men like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton. Men who we remember as heroes and build massive monuments to (temples, really). Individuals who did some incredible things—but also some terrible things. Owning slaves. Mistreating women.

It’s complicated to think about our relationship to these figures. What stories do we tell about them? What stories do we ignore? The ugly aspects of ourselves that they reflect back to us.

There was a movement not too long ago of tearing down Confederate monuments in the South—statues of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis that were put up in the 1960s to counter the Civil Rights movement. A number of those monuments are now being re-erected by the current administration.

As a proud Northerner, I’m all for tearing down Confederate statues. Burn ‘em all, in my opinion. But I’m a lot more conflicted over statues of George Washington. I don’t know how to feel about those—just like I’m not sure how to feel about Abraham.

I got curious this week and started wondering how the Bible memorializes Abraham. Father Abraham is one of the heroes of the Bible—his name comes up again in Scripture. So, I looked into it. I pulled up every occurrence of Abraham’s name in the Bible and read through all of them. And what I found was actually kind of surprising.

If you look in the Old Testament after the book of Genesis—so… from Exodus to Malachi—there are only 43 references to Abraham. His name only occurs 43 times in the entire Old Testament, after Genesis.

To give you a visual for this, I’m gonna take this pew Bible and go to the end of Genesis… that’s right here. Then, I’m gonna flip to the end of the Old Testament in Malachi… which is right about here.

In all these pages Abraham’s name only shows up 43 times. That’s not a lot! By contrast, Moses’ name occurs 716 times—in this same section! Only 43 references to Abraham. I think the biblical authors might be just as conflicted about his legacy as us!

When Abraham’s name does show up in the Old Testament, it’s often in a genealogy—those long lists of names: “So and so begat so and so.” Individual characters will be called “son of Abraham.” Descendant of Abraham. Sometimes God is referred to as: “The God of Abraham.”

But by far, the most common way Abraham is mentioned in the Old Testament is in reference to God’s promise to Abraham. “Remember God’s promise to Abraham.” God was faithful to Abraham—that same God will be faithful to us.

When the Israelites are enslaved in Egypt: “Remember God’s promise to Abraham.”

When they’re tempted to turn and follow other gods—to try their luck with competing deities: “Remember God’s promise to Abraham.”

When all seems lost and God’s people start to lose hope: “Remember God’s promise to Abraham.”

These references to Abraham in the Bible aren’t actually about Abraham—they’re about God and God’s faithfulness. “God was faithful to a scoundrel like Abraham—God’s gonna be faithful to you.”

There’s no effort in Scripture to whitewash Abraham’s story—erase the problematic parts. Indeed, most of the stories we have about Abraham ARE the problematic parts. The Bible doesn’t present this guy as a hero—someone to admired or emulated. The Bible presents Abraham as a complicated, sinful man whose primary function is to serve as an example of God’s faithfulness.

God kept God’s promises to Abraham, despite all his shortcomings. God’s gonna keep God’s promises to us.

God’s faithfulness to us does not depend on our faithfulness to God. It’s not something we earn by minding our Ps and Qs, following all the rules. God’s faithfulness just is. God’s love is a gift offered freely. There’s nothing you can do to earn it and there’s nothing you can do to lose it.

The New Testament talks about Abraham a fair bit too. The latter part of our Bibles (the section about Jesus) has a lot of references to Abraham—72 to be exact, which is more than the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, we find a lot of the same stuff—Abraham shows up in genealogies, there’s callbacks to his story, reminders of God’s faithfulness. But the new idea that gets introduced in the New Testament is that (through Jesus) we are all adopted into the family of Abraham.

This story about God working through one family to bless all the families of the earth—that story gets blown wide open in Jesus to include everyone. All of us who follow Jesus are adopted into Abraham’s family. We are invited to partner with God in restoring the world.

The promise God to made to Abraham 4,000 years ago—“I’m gonna bless you, and give you descendants, and all the families of the earth will be blessed by you.” That promise is now available to us. We are invited to be that blessing.

I see examples of Christians being that blessing all the time. I see it in small churches that run soup kitchens, shelters, pantries. Just last week, I read a news story about a church in Oregon that’s demolishing its sanctuary in order to build a new building, with a smaller worship space, and over 100 units of low-income housing. Every six months or so, there’s a story of some mega church that pays off medical debt for people in their community. So many examples (big and small) of God’s people being that blessing!

I see it here in our church—with the warming center, the food pantry, our Helping Hands fund, families in our church who are finding love and support, people who are struggling with their faith discovering our church to be a safe place to wrestle with hard questions. That’s what being a blessing looks like. That’s like Abraham at his best.

But I also see plenty of examples of God’s people failing to be that blessing. Churches doing harm to people. Christian nationalists trying to strip rights away from women and minorities. Zionists in the Israeli government advocating for the genocide of Palestinians. Radical Islamists declaring jihad—all in the name of the God of Abraham.

The complicated life of Abraham—with all those highs and lows—is a microcosm of God’s people, writ large. At our best, we do amazing things. God shows up in a big way! At our worst—holy crap! Right?

It’s kinda like the Founding Fathers—their complexity is really our complexity. Fights over how we tell the story of Thomas Jefferson have very little to do with Thomas Jefferson. He’s been dead for 200 years! Thomas Jefferson doesn’t care what we write about him in the history books. It’s a reflection of us!

How we tell these stories is really more about we tell our story. Who are we and what is our history? That’s the question we wrestle with when it comes to the Founding Fathers, and it’s a question the church wrestles with when it comes to Abraham. And that wrestling is never gonna stop. It can’t stop! We have to wrestle with this.

Because Abraham’s legacy is our legacy too. And if there’s any grace to be found—any good news for us, the children of Abraham—it’s that God’s faithfulness doesn’t depend on ours. God remains faithful, even when we screw it up. God is faithful to us because God loves us—and thanks to Jesus, that love includes everyone.

A couple years ago, I did a funeral for a guy who lived a really hard life. Made a lot of mistakes. Hurt some people. And in talking to his family, it became really clear that they were worried about him. They came from a conservative religious background. And they knew this guy wasn’t a Christian.

So, one of the questions they asked me was: “Is he in hell? I’m so worried that he’s in hell—and I can’t bear to think of it.”

Now, let me acknowledge—that question is WAY above my paygrade. And I told them as much. I said: “Look, I didn’t know him. I don’t know his heart. I have no idea where his understanding of God was at, if there was a bedside conversion. I don’t know the factors in his life that led him to choose the path he chose.”

“But let me ask you this—do you love him?” They said: “Yes, we love him so much.” I was like: “How much? How would you measure your love for him?” They we like: “It can’t be measured—we just love him so much.”

Then I said: “God loves him infinitely more than you do. However much you cared for him, loved him, worry about him—I guarantee you God loves him even more. Let’s try to trust God with that and lean into that grace.”

I truly believe that God remembers us for our best day, not our worst day. God remembers us for our best day, not our worst day.

When God looks at our lives, I don’t think God sees a record of wrongs—every little mistake we made, every act of selfishness, every time we exploited someone or messed things up. I think God looks at our lives and sees us at our best—our best days, our triumphs, the mountain top experiences, those times we encountered God and were truly changed.

God looks at our lives and sees Jesus, interceding for us, advocating on our behalf, covering our sins with his life.

God remembers us for our best day, not our worst day. That’s the grace I have for us. And that’s the grace I have for Abraham.

Abram son of Terah, was born in the land of Ur. He immigrated with his family to Haran, before leaving his father’s house at the age of 75, on a leap of faith. He was a wanderer, a refugee, a victim of famine, who settled in the Promised Land of Canaan and changed his name to Abraham.

He was predeceased by his parents, his brother Haran, and his wife Sarah. He is survived by his nephew Lot, his concubines Hagar and Keturah, his sons Ishmael, Isaac, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, Shuah, and their families. As well as countless grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Abraham was a man of faith, who leaves behind a complicated legacy. He was blessed to be a blessing, but often failed at that call. He died at the age of 175—old and full of years—and was laid to rest with his ancestors. His life stands forever as an example of God’s radical love and faithfulness. Amen.

Brockport First Baptist

August 10, 2025