September 18 - The Call of Abraham
Genesis 12:1-9
Deborah Laforet
Re-Creating
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by your Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
Last week, we looked at the story of Noah and the Ark, of the flood that un-created all that God had created, except for a remnant that was saved on that ark. Today’s story marks a new beginning. God is re-creating, not working from scratch but working with what is available. And what’s available is Abram and Sarai, two people from whom God decides to create a whole new nation.
Creating something new can be difficult, but it can be even more difficult when you have to work with material that’s already there. It’s not a matter of just throwing out the old and starting from scratch, but using what is there and using imagination and an open mind to see what is possible.
Almost four years ago, our United Church structure went from presbyteries and conferences to regions. Now, many congregations barely noticed the change, but for those who work with the region, ministers, lay employees, lay representatives, and those churches going through any kind of change that needs United Church approval, it was a huge adjustment. Last year, here at St. Paul’s, we also went through a structural change. We went from a Council with numerous committees, to a Board with three teams. This change has been quite the adjustment here too as we live into this new reality and discern how it works.
Any kind of change takes a period of adjustment. Sometimes, things fall between the cracks. Sometimes people feel left out or forgotten. There is grief for how it was done before. Sometimes the changes create more challenges and the decision has to be made to go back to what was, move forward with something new, or even to continue trying to make the change work.
It especially didn’t help that these changes happened during a pandemic. Communities stopped gathering. They were unable to work through the changes. The distance caused estrangement, confusion, and stagnation. There wasn’t an opportunity to live into the changes and unfortunately, were still working through those changes years later. This has been a challenge at the United Church regional level and in our own community of faith.
This pandemic though has helped us to realize how important it is to gather with friends, family, and community. It’s important for our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health, but also for learning and growing, living into promises made, sharing our hopes and dreams, and working together to realize them.
In today’s story, a big change happens, one that involves separation from family and community, physical risk, and a leap into the unknown. In our story, God tells Abram to pack up his belongings, travel across the desert, and relocate to a new land.
Now, in re-reading the story this week, I discovered an interesting detail. Terah, Abram’s father, decided to leave Ur, along with his family, and go to Canaan, but he only makes it part way. They settle in Haran. It makes me wonder whether Terah had the same call as Abram to go to Cannan, but didn’t follow through.
Looking at the map, you can see the route Abram took with his father and then, later, with his wife and nephew. You might notice that it would have been a lot quicker to go straight from Ur to Canaan. Why didn’t Abram’s father originally do that? Because they would have been travelling through desert, which, today, is still a dangerous journey on foot. So they followed the river to Haran, which is about 1250 kilometres or 216 hours by foot and this is where Abram’s father, Terah ,settled the family.
So, in Abram’s life, he had already made one big change in leaving most of his family and his community in Ur. Now, God was calling him, again, to move from this community, a community where he had settled with his father and had buried his father. God tells Abram to move to another land, to Canaan, where he will be blessed and where God will make of him and Sarai a great nation. As with the story of Noah, God instructs and Abram obeys without a word. He packs up all his belongings, including his servants, his wife and his nephew, Lot, and he goes on a second big journey. Haran to Canaan is about 940 kilometres or 160 hours, a shorter journey, but this one without obvious sources of water. They aren’t travelling along a river this time and the Mediterranean Sea to the west would have been salt water. Maybe this is why Abram’s father decided to settle in Haran; maybe it was deemed too dangerous to go further. At this point, Abram has to trust in this call from God. I’m sure others would have tried to persuade him not to go. Abram would have had to insist and demand that this journey be made, and I wonder if telling them that a god had told him to make this journey would have been enough.
There are so many in our world who have to make difficult journeys, and many of them are forced into it. I suppose Abram had a choice whether or not to follow God’s call, but maybe he felt he didn’t. This was a dangerous journey across the desert and I’m not sure he would have done it without God’s call. In fact, maybe the promise to make a nation of Abram and Sarai was the only encouragement he needed, as they had not yet been able to have children.
I have never been forced to move, except as a child. It’s always been a choice. So many are forced to move away from their families and friends, their nation and culture, their job, sometimes only leaving with the clothes on their backs. We’ve recently seen people escape Afghanistan when the Taliban moved in, Ukrainians fleeing a war, people in British Columbia fleeing from fires, or in Pakistan due to floods. Some flee because of persecution of their sexuality, race, religion, or just something they said that went against those in power.
These refugees have to re-create their lives, sometimes learning new customs and a new language, sometimes having lost all their possessions, sometimes alone and without support, sometimes with physical and mental illnesses. But none of this stops the re-creation from what was to what is and what will be. We are a resilient species. We start over again and again, after our own personal traumas, after wars and famines, floods and fires, after new inventions that change the world, and after heavy losses and mass destruction. Again and again, we start over. We re-create.
And none of us re-create from scratch. We bring our physical, emotional, and mental selves, our language, our traditions, our beliefs. We bring what has been taught to us, our experiences, and the stories that have been shared with us. And of course, as people of faith, we know we are not alone. The ark, filled with a remnant of living creatures, was not forgotten. Abram and Sarai did not go into the desert alone. God was their companion, as well as their guide. The Divine is always there, within us and around us. The awesomeness and abundance of creation sustains us. The love of the universe permeates all life. Whenever we are forced to un-create and re-create, whatever changes we might face, whatever the challenges, we go together, as a body of Christ, as one in Spirit, surrounded by the loving arms of the Creator.
May we face change with courage. May we follow God’s call with determination and resilience. May we be strong together, finding hope and love in community. May it be so. Amen.