Go From Your Country and Your Kindred, a sermon based on Genesis 12: 1-4a and John 3: 1-21, preached on March 1, 2026

I was blessed to have two grandmothers. I also had two grandfathers, but my grandmothers treated me with near-celebrity status, and today, I’d like to tell you a little about them in the hopes of reminding you of those people who, to use the words of Mr. Rogers, “loved you into existence.” My paternal grandmother, my father’s mother, was a painter. Still, to this day, when I smell oil paints and paint thinners, I am teleported in memory to her house where I often spent afternoons. There, she not only painted, but made blackberry jelly, served me Capri Suns, and encouraged me to go explore her yard. In her yard, I would bend sticks into bows and sharpen others into arrows. Once, while I was patrolling her front yard with bow and arrow in hand, headband with a feather on my head, she stopped me so that she could paint my portrait. That portrait still hangs in my parents’ house, and my sister brings it up sometimes: that there are photographs of us all but there is only one portrait, and that’s of Joe. I was beloved by my paternal grandmother, and my mother’s mother loved me just as much. One baseball season, a photographer took our team photo, then individual photos, and turned each of our individual photos into our own baseball cards. Had you looked on the back of my baseball card for my batting average, you would not have been impressed, but my grandmother was, so she took my little baseball card to the print shop and had it enlarged to poster size. Surely for Abraham, there were such people, yet God said to Abraham, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house.” I just hope he was able to carry the memory of his grandmothers’ voices with him, for in this world of ours, such love seems to be in short supply. The journey is hard, and the people who loved us into existence cannot journey with us forever. We all leave the safety of home. We all step out on the road towards salvation, reading headlines of war and the rumors of war. Whose voice do you wish you could hear this morning to reassure you that everything is going to be alright? That’s part of why I come to church. I want to hear again the promises of God. I want to hear the reassurance that God is in control. Last Thursday, I went into the barber shop, and it was my barber who reminded me: There’s less hair for me to cut than last time, Joe, but God is still in control. I hope and pray that this church is like that barbershop, that here you’re surrounded by acceptance, love, and affirmation, along with the assurance that God is in control, yet years ago, a new pastor came to our church. His wife and four children sat in a pew near the pulpit. Just as they were settling in, a longtime member of our church greeted them with, “You’re sitting in my pew.” That just can’t happen, so yesterday I emphasized the need for hospitality to our church officers. The new class of elders and deacons will be ordained and installed just after this sermon. Yesterday, they attended a training, and every year for the past couple of years I’ve been telling the deacons the same thing: Each Easter, we’ll have as many as 100 first-time visitors to our church. Each Christmas Eve, the number is just as high. And every Sunday, we have between five and 25 people walk through the doors of our church for the very first time. They don’t know where the bathrooms are. They don’t know where they’re going to sit, but what they’re really looking for is a safe harbor. A place to rest. A sanctuary from our broken world where they’ll feel valued, wanted, loved, and respected. Where they’ll hear again that while the world is falling apart, God is in control. Perhaps that’s what Nicodemus was looking for. In our Gospel lesson for this morning, we heard about Nicodemus, who went to Jesus looking for answers. Perhaps he was called by God to go as Abraham had been called. Perhaps he was looking for light as the shadow crept into his heart. Whatever it was that pushed him towards Jesus, I give thanks to God for Jesus today because when Nicodemus knocked on His door, Jesus welcomed him in. Would he have received the same reception if he came knocking on your door? Would he have felt the same welcome if you found him sitting in your pew? My friends, Nicodemus went out one night looking for the light. Do you know how many people in our dark and desolate world are looking for the light today? Do you know how many are looking for hope? Think with me about how much it changed you to be loved by your grandmother. Or if your grandmother was a dried out old witch, then think with me how good it felt to finally feel loved and accepted by someone in your life. Who was it? What was her name? What did he do for you that made the difference? This is the power of Jesus, not just that He did miracles, turning water into wine, but when people sought Him out, He assured them that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Would you allow Christ’s light to shine through you? I tell you, you don’t have to save the world, you need only remember that we have a Savior. You don’t have to welcome everyone into your house, just those who knock on the door. You don’t have to be a hero to change someone’s life. Just two weeks ago, a man wandered into our church on the worst day of his life. He walked into our church, and he wept, and I sat there and I listened, and finally I said, “This may seem like the end of the world, but it’s not. Everything is going to be alright because God is in control.” Halleluia. Amen.