Katherine Paterson wrote a book entitled, The Same Stuff as Stars. As in many of her other books, the main character is in a tough situation. Angel Morgan has been abandoned by her mother. Her father had been put in jail years earlier. Angel finds herself living with her aging grandmother in a house that is falling down around them. They live in the rural area where the stars shine brightly at night. Many clear nights, Angel climbs out of bed and sneaks outside to get a look at the stars.

Maybe you’ve experienced those nights too, when the stars seem close enough that you could just reach out your hand and gather a handful of stardust. The nights when the moon seems to hang just out of reach and if only you were a little taller and could reach a little higher, you might be able to grab hold and ride away from the troubles pursuing you.

I wonder if it was one of those nights for Abram. When God led him out to look at the stars, I wonder if Abram reached out his hands to see if he could gather a little stardust. God challenges Abram with something that even our modern technology fails to do: count the stars. Just when we think we’ve accounted for them all, we invent a telescope that can see farther or a new star pops up and we count again.

On that clear night long, long ago God makes a promise to Abram that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars. He will be unable to count them.

2010 is the year for taking a census here in the U.S. Every ten years, the government takes a count of how many people live in our country. But even with the census takers following up with people who don’t turn in the forms and meeting with the homeless, the tally still has a margin of error. Somewhere someone will not get counted. Everyday, people are born and die so an accurate count at 5am is incorrect by 5pm. Even our modern technology is unable to count the people on earth.

Abram was standing there looking at what seemed to be an infinity of stars and began to wonder. In a time where a gathering of more than 1000 people would have been hard to imagine, Abram stands with his neck craned up at the stars and tries to imagine that many people. Maybe he even had to lie down on the ground to get a good look. Maybe the sheer number of stars just pushed him down to the ground. Maybe he felt as though the stars might take him away if he didn’t feel something solid beneath him.

This whole thing started when Abram asked how God would make him the father of a great nation when he didn’t have any children. God’s answer was to show Abram the stars. And as this 80-year old man stood there looking at the stars, he believed that God would make good on God’s promise. This 80-year old man believed that his 70-year old wife would give birth to their child and that Abram’s descendants would truly become innumerable, like the stars.

In Katherine Paterson’s novel, Angel Morgan sneaks out of her grandmother’s falling down house one night. On that night, she noticed that she was no longer alone as she looked up at the stars. This lonely child who had been abandoned by all who were supposed to care for her was not alone. A character she would call the Star Man brings her over to a telescope to take a closer look at the stars. She looked through the telescope and saw more stars than she could with her naked eye.

That night looking up at the stars burning brightly millions of light years away, the Star Man tells Angel something important. Stars are not made of some exotic material. In fact, much of the same material we find in stars can be found in the human body.

He says, "The same elements, the same materials that make those stars up there is what makes you. You’re made from star stuff."

I wonder if that is part of God’s sense of humor showing. God takes Abram outside to show him the stars and we, descendants of Abram, have within us the same stuff as stars. We don’t have to reach up to those stars to gather some stardust because we already have it within us.

We have the advantage of knowing how the story turned out for Abram and his descendants. We know that God would make good on the promise of a child because we know that about 20 years later, Sarah would give birth to Isaac. But Abram didn’t have the advantage of knowing the future.

And yet, all it takes is a night of stargazing to convince Abram that God will make good on God’s promises. Verse 6 reads, "And [Abram] believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness." But that isn’t the only way that we could translate this verse. It could also read, "And [Abram] believed the Lord; and Abram reckoned it to the Lord as righteousness." Now that difference may have been hard to hear and you may be thinking that this is just some insignificant difference in the translation of an archaic language.

But the question is, "Who is reckoned as righteous: God or Abram?" Now righteousness is one of those church-y words that we don’t hear a lot except from the pulpit. The only time we really hear it outside of the church is when we hear someone called "self-righteous."

So what do we mean when we talk about righteousness in the church? Righteousness means to be in a right relationship with someone, or to do the right thing. So if we were to say that Abram was a righteous man then we would mean that he does the right thing or he is in a right relationship with God. But is it really Abram’s relationship with God that is being questioned in this passage?

The root of this passage began back in chapter 12 when Abram had been promised by God that God would make a great nation out of Abram. Now here we are many years later with no great nation in sight for Abram. So has God related rightly to Abram? Is God in a right relationship with Abram? Is God righteous?

In essence Abram is saying to God, "show me the money" or, in this case, "show me the children." In answer, God shows Abram the stars and from looking up at the immensity of creation that surrounded him, Abram believed that God would make good on God’s promises. Maybe it was looking up at those stars God created that made Abram believe that God would still be able to make a great nation out of an old man.

When we look up at the stars we can realize just how small we are. Thinking about all the light years that separate our small blue planet from the stars that shine in our night sky can make a person feel rather small. Maybe Abram just needed to be reminded of his smallness so that he could trust in God’s largeness.

Think about it this way. If there was a star that started shining on the night that God showed Abram the stars, we still have not seen the light of that star. That’s how big this amazing creation is. That’s how big God’s creation is.

So on the night of the stars, Abram believed that God would follow through with God’s promise of a great nation. God and Abram were in a relationship of righteousness – they were in right relationship with each other.

As Katherine Paterson’s novel progresses, Angel Morgan continues to suffer from being abandoned by those who should have been taking care of her. The one constant thing in her life is her nightly adventures looking up at the stars. Sometimes the Star Man joins her with his telescope but many nights she sits sit out there alone with her head tilted back looking at the stars.

Angel checked out a book from the local library, which helps identify the different stars and constellations. One night she reads this passage:

"Polaris is the only star that never changes its place in the sky, at least not so that you can notice it. It always stays put while the other stars and constellations are moving." Angel looked up from her book and thought, "That’s was what she needed – a Polaris, a North Star, that never moved. Something steady so that she could always find her way."

Maybe that was part of what Abram was looking for that night under the stars. Maybe he was looking for something to stay steady, something that he could depend upon to point him in the right direction. Something that would remain firm when all the world is moving and constantly changing. Maybe Abram needed the assurance of a Polaris – a constant, that doesn’t change.

Genesis doesn’t go into the details of what Abram saw up in the sky that night. Abram was going through a time of questioning. He was wondering how and when and maybe even if God would follow through on those promises made years ago. And God showed Abram the stars and Abram believed that God would make good on the promises.

One of the refrains people use to describe our current culture is that it moves so fast. From the speed of the cars on the road to the speed of information on the internet, our society is always moving. Things are constantly changing all around us. The second you plug in your new computer at home, there’s already something better and faster out there. By the time you text your first text on your new cell phone, there’s already a new and better version.

In the midst of all this change and movement around and even within our lives, maybe we need our own Polaris. Maybe we need something that will stay put when all the other parts of our life are moving. Maybe God could be our Polaris, our anchor in our ever-changing world.

May we believe that God is trustworthy. We can trust that God will follow through on all God’s promises. The amazing God who made the stars above, made us too, sprinkling in some stardust in the process.