Risk Management
Genesis 12:1-10
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
January 18, 2026
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiKGv9IjGaE
I have a new appreciation for Abraham. I have, of course, read the Bible stories about him many times. I am aware that three major world religions trace our beginnings back to him. Even so, as recently as last Sunday, if you had asked me to name my most favorite people in the Hebrew Bible, I don’t think Abraham would have been in top five. And frankly, I don’t know where he ranks, but it’s much higher than it was a week ago.
It's because I spent some time this week putting myself in his shoes. When the call of God first comes to him, Abraham is 75 years old and childless. He is facing an arduous journey to an unspecified land. He and Sarah, his wife, are unlikely to beget children. In fact, God is telling them to abandon the home and most of the family they do have.
What does it take for them to pick up and leave?
A strong conviction that it is God’s voice that Abraham is hearing. And deep trust that God will do what God promises in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. Being able to recognize God’s voice and trust it with his life. Yeah, I have new appreciation for him.
Every scholar I read this week agreed that the transition between the end of chapter 11 and the beginning of chapter 12 is important. One called it the “lynchpin of the whole Bible.”[1] Another called it “pivotal” saying “it is perhaps the most important structural break in the Old Testament and certainly in Genesis.”[2]
Chapter 11 tells us that Abraham’s father was Terah. Terah lived in a place called Ur. One of his sons died there, leaving a grandson named Lot. Some years earlier before chapter 12, Terah took his son Abraham and his daughter-in-law Sarah and his grandson Lot and left their home in Ur with the intention of going to Canaan. They made it as far as Haran, which was maybe a bit more than halfway, and then they stopped. Haran becomes the place where Abraham grows into adulthood and the place where Terah dies.
Chapter 11 also tells us that the family of Abraham is about to die out. Abraham and Sarah have no children. It doesn’t say why. It does not say whose fault it is, whether this is some kind of punishment or curse. It is simply given as a fact that “this family has played out its future and has nowhere else to go. There is no foreseeable future.” [3]
But then, in chapter 12, God speaks into the situation. God speaks a word about a future spoken to a family without any expectation or hope of having a future. God says “Go. Go from your country and your family, from the house that your father built, to an unknown place that I will show you.”
In his commentary on Genesis, Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann explains that this story is the first in the Bible where we find an important theme that will appear again and again. The theme is this: to stay in safety is to remain lifeless; to leave in risk is to have hope. [4] It is a theme of letting go for the sake of life.
Perhaps it is not too extreme to suggest that we at Emmanuel find ourselves in place that parallels that of Abraham and Sarah. A year ago, you voted to sell this building, to move out from this settled place into a location that we hoped God would show us. It has been a year of tension as we have simultaneously embraced and resisted change. We are committed and willing to go, but also we want the trip to be as smooth as possible please.
When I was a child, my father was a hospital administrator. I remember so many dinner table conversations in which he shared his day with my mother. And this week, a phrase came back to me. It’s a phrase I don’t really understand now and I certainly did not understand it when I heard it as a child. The words are Risk Management. Risk Management was one of the hospital departments under my Dad’s supervision.
Risk management is defined as identifying, evaluating and prioritizing risks, followed by the minimization, monitoring and control of the impact or probability of those risks occurring.[5] I dare say that for many of us risk management is a way of life. I get a covid vaccine and a flu shot every year. I wear my seatbelt. I buy insurance. I stand by those choices.
And yet, the Bible is full of stories of people who don’t seem bound by that kind of conventional wisdom. Abraham and Sarah moved from the known to the unknown, from the safe and familiar to the strange and unpredictable. They left not knowing where they were going or even why.
Biblical scholar Dan Clendenin writes “This Abrahamic call from God can feel counter-intuitive. It's a call to move beyond three deeply human and unusually powerful fears — fear of the unknown that we can't control, fear of others who are different from us, and fear of powerlessness in the face of impossibilities.”[6]
“To stay in safety is to remain lifeless; to leave in risk is to have hope.” But we want to be wise stewards and also our fears are powerful. So, we seek to manage the risks.
Beyond our church community, we live in a wider context which is also fraught. Are we witnessing the death of American democracy? In light of that bigger picture, can we even justify the time and energy we are investing in seeking God’s future for our little church? Perhaps our efforts would be better spent elsewhere. But to Abraham and Sarah, God’s voice said “keep going into the future you cannot see” and on our best days, some of us still hear and trust that same voice.
Among the many vigils held in memory of Renee Good, was one in New Hampshire. Remarks by the Episcopal Bishop Rob Hirschfeld went viral. Speaking of Renee Good as a martyr, someone who died for her faith, he said “We are entering a new era of martyrdom.” He also mentioned Jonathan Daniels, a white Episcopal seminary students and civil rights activist who was killed in 1965 while shielding a black girl from a shotgun blast fired by a racist. He said that faith leaders today may end up in similar situations as they resist the actions of ICE. “I have told the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness,” he said. “I’ve asked them to get their affairs in order, to make sure they have their wills written. Because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us — with our bodies — to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable. . . . . Those of us who are ready to build a new world, we also have to be prepared. If we truly want to live without fear, we cannot fear even death itself, my friends.”[7]
The bishop was surprised by the attention given to this message. He said he has been issuing similar warnings for years. We have also heard this before. It was Jesus who said “If any want to become my followers, let them take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will save it.”
The thing about Jesus is he doesn’t seem to know a thing about risk management. “To stay in safety is to remain lifeless; to leave in risk is to have hope.”
This has always been our call. Perhaps, like Abraham’s father, Emmanuel Baptist Church has gone a good ways on the journey. We found a comfortable place and settled into a familiar pattern but now God is again saying “Go. Move into the future I will show you.” It falls to us to continue the task which our Baptist ancestors in Albany began so long ago. First Baptist Church was 23 years old and doing very well when they had a vision to plant a new church in part of the city where there were no Baptists. Our history records their conviction that duty “demanded something more than the tranquil and indolent enjoyment of the divine blessing.” [8]
They also had a national picture to consider. When they built the first building in 1833, back when Emmanuel was called Pearl Street Baptist Church, they said “In spite of the financial difficulties arising from President Jackson’s policies with respect to national banks and currency, the work was pushed forward.”[9] Believe it or not, there was a crisis that year over federal tariffs. Some of you will be interested to know that the Pearl Street Baptist Church cost $40,000 to complete. That is about 1.5 million today. They raised $28,000 right away and paid off the remaining $12,000 mortgage in 15 years. If I have new appreciation for Abraham, I am even more grateful for the courage of those early Baptists in Albany.
One of us has the star word “Courage” this year. Courage doesn't come from the root word for analysis, or for strategic planning or goal setting. Courage comes from the French word for heart. The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that the best interpretation for us of what the Bible means by faith is our word, "courage." When your heart opens, courage can rise, sometimes in the most unexpected ways, enabling you to do things you had never imagined. Faith is not about managing risk. It's about where passion lies in your life. " Where your treasure is, there is your heart." Where your heart is, there is your courage.
As a Christmas gift, I received one of the last books Walter Brueggemann wrote. It’s called Alphabet of Faith: Prophetic Prayers for a Chaotic World.
The entry “F is for Faith” grabbed me this week. The whole thing is beautiful, but let me share just a bit from the middle. Brueggemann says
We are glad to stand in the company of the great performers of faith, as their names easily roll off our lips:
By faith, Abraham. . .
By faith, Jacob . . .
By faith Moses. . . .
And then a whole procession of the faithful:
By faith Martin [King] with his dreams,
By faith Walter with his auto workers [Walter Reuther, founder of the United Auto Workers]
By faith Eleanor [Roosevelt] with her UN votes
By faith Norman with his relentless socialism [Norman Thomas was a Presbyterian minister and political activist]
By faith Jim [Wallis] as leader in the company of sojourners
By faith Desmond [Tutu] with his joy in justice
By faith Shane [Claiborne] with his habitat at the edge
By faith Angela [Merkel] with her passion for viable world order,
I love that he names the ancient faithful and the more recently departed and those still living all together.
Then he goes on
And by faith all the company of those
Who refuse to let our unjust world go unchallenged
Who run risks and dare disruption for the sake of the neighbor,
Who live lives of unseemly joy amid a world of violation. [10]
Last month, I met a woman who has lived in Albany for a long time. She is a member of one of the FOCUS Churches. Someone I had not met before. In our conversation, she told me what she knew about and admired about Emmanuel. If I were to insert her words into Brueggeman’s pattern, she would say “By faith, Emmanuel Baptist Church with your creativity and passion, your willingness to create a plan for vitality, to risk in hope.”
It seems like this has been our call all along.
[1] John Holbert, https://www.patheos.com/resources/additional-resources/2011/03/lynchpin-of-the-bible-john-holbert-03-14-2011
[2] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis: Interpretation A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), p. 114.
[3] Brueggemann, Genesis, p. 116
[4] Brueggemann, Genesis, p. 118
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_management
[6] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3637-20080602JJ
[7] https://www.nhepiscopal.org/blog/2026/1/11/bishop-robs-reflection-from-the-renee-good-vigil-in-concord-nh-january-9-2026
[8] 125th Anniversary of Emmanuel Baptist Church Booklet, Robert G. Blabey and Maragret Ellis Blabey, editors, 1959, p .4
[9] 125th Anniversary Booklet, p. 4
[10] Walter Brueggemann, Alphabet of Faith: Prophetic Prayers for a Chaotic World, Conrad L. Kanagy, ed, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2025), pp 39-40