Parsha #3: “Lech L’Cha”
(Maftir: Genesis 11:27-32 and Genesis 12:1-17:27)
Edition: 14k01
“Another New Beginning”
Greetings Sojourners, Friends and Other Readers! Welcome!
Some Background first:
Once again, so as to bring you ‘up to date’ as it were, I am going to back-track slightly to the ending verses (the Maftir) of our last parsha. Parsha Noach closes with a list of generations which descended from Noach. Note: The descendents of Shem are listed last even though Shem was first born to Noach. This is because we are now going to “narrow in” to some extent and focus on Shem’s off-spring in particular. Just as a passing point of interest, it is from the name Shem that we get the modern term Anti-Semite or Anti-Semitism, which of course is the prejudicial hatred of the descendants of Shem, especially including the Jewish people.
Today’s reflection will be about Avram (Abram), but I wanted to start with his father Terach (Terah) so as to give some points of reference. The Scriptures don’t enlighten us too much about Terach, but there are Midrashic accounts of him based on oral traditions recorded for us in the Talmud. We know that Terach began his family in the land known as Ur [of the] Kasdim, near the land of the Sumerian nation, where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers converge, before flowing into the Persian Gulf. Traditionally, we believe that Terach was a maker of idols for the pagan people of the region. We are not told if Terach himself worshipped these idols, but subsequent evidence indicates that it is quite likely. Avram’s father was born in the year 1878 post creation, and eventually fathered three sons – Avram, Nachor and Haran. Haran is noted in particular because he had a son (Lot) and two daughters: (Milcah, and Yiskah). Nachor (in a very minor role), and to a greater extent, all three of Haran’s children figure large in the history of the Chosen People about to unfold. After Haran’s children are born, he dies “in the lifetime” of his father Terach. This death is important to our understanding of two events which are about to transpire, and carry forward the story of Avram.
The first of these events, we are told in Genesis 11:29, is that Nachor and Avram took wives unto themselves. Nachor takes Milcah and Avram, (according to Talmudic tradition), takes Yiskah. [Note: according to Genesis 20:12, Avram married his half sister, Sarai, daughter of Terach. Because there is no previous mention of Sarai in Terach’s offspring, and because it is difficult to know which is the most reliable ‘story’, I choose to side with the marriage to Yiskah, whose name indicates both beauty and aristocracy, but is changed to Sarai upon the marriage, and later to Sarah, names which also infer royalty, in fact they can be interpreted as ‘princess’.] Both Milkah and Yiskah, being the daughters of Haran, would be the nieces of their husbands. [“One has to be careful here”, as Dr. Harrison of Wycliffe College, Toronto would say, “to avoid our tendency toward ‘Cross-Cultural Extrapolation.” I still love that phrase! It means to “impose our modern, more ‘civilized’ standards upon the peoples of other times, other situations”. Harrison would point out that there were reasons for everything a culture held dear.] In this case, the desire was 1) to honour their brother Haran, 2) to carry on his memory and to 3) “assuage the grief” felt by Terach at his loss. I believe that God also permitted such customs so as to preserve the purity of the family tree in these early days.
The second major event is also a result of Terach’s grief, which must have been over-whelming for him, because following the death of his youngest, Terach packs up his family and all their belongings and heads north west from Ur-Kasdim. [Scripture does not indicate at this point, whether Nachor goes with the others, in fact the silence, the lack of mention is almost deafening. However, it is possible that Nachor and family did accompany the pilgrims, or at the very least he and his family followed later. We know this because of up-coming events and stories.]
We are told Terach is headed for Canaan, but he never gets there. The journey takes them along the route of the Euphrates River upstream, and they settle in a village, coincidently called Haran, in an area known as “Paddan-Aram” about 280 miles n.n.e of Damascus. The small Arab village continues today as “Harran”. In terms of whether Terach had worshipped the idols he made, it should be noted that the people of Haran, worshipped the same moon-god as did the Kasdim, and perhaps this is why Terach settled his family there. We also know that Avram settled for a while in Haran with the family. We know, from Midrashic teachings in the Talmud, that Terach lived a further 60 years after the departure of Avram from Haran. I think it would be safe to presume that the family lived here as a unit for some time, perhaps as much as 25 years, but this is strictly a guess at this point.
At any rate, when Avram was 75 years of age, while still living in Haran, God approached him somehow – in a vision, a dream, or as a theophany, (we aren’t enlightened as to how) – and commands him to pack up his family and leave Haran, and continue the journey to Canaan; and so it is we come to the major point of our parsha today. Avram obediently packs up and leaves the family so as to follow God’s instruction.
What would it mean to have to leave one’s family in this manner? There are many instances in which a family member leaves home. Sometimes they are not pleasant situations, such as having to leave due to problems in the home – a son or daughter going off to fight in a war, parental abuse, marital breakdown, behavioural troubles, health concerns - especially around aging, etc., but these are not the case here, so let’s just leave that aside for now.
There are many instances however, when departures happen under positive circumstances – a child going off to college; a new marriage and thus a new home for the couple; a move necessitated by one’s work situation; or simply the coming of age of a child. People leave home all the time – it can, and is, part of life. But that doesn’t necessarily make it any easier. Joan and I have had to face this situation several times, and two of them involved our response to God’s call on our lives to go into ministry. The first time it involved a long period of prayer and waiting on God. I remember resisting as strongly as I could, and often arguing with God over what I was perceiving as God’s call on my life – in fact I fought it off for almost 5 years. But eventually the time came when I no longer had a choice. My prayers were all leading to the same conclusion – “It’s time to ‘Act’”.
When the realization became ‘real’, I had to discuss it with Joan, first. Then, together, we talked it over with the kids. I knew it would mean a lot of changes in each and all of our lives. While it meant leaving our home of several years, it was harder for Joan, and this was her family home in which she had lived all her life, and her parents for several years before that. It was also the home in which our children had grown and it held memories for them as well. To add insult to injury, we had just spent several thousand dollars to upgrade it to “make it our own”. Our kids would have to leave the school and teachers they knew and loved (for the most part at least), and then face new schools at an inopportune time, their friends would be left behind which is always hard. Of course Joan and I had to say good bye to many of our own friends. We knew that our families supported us, and that our church family had been praying for us, and would stand with us in this new life. Our Bible study group, which also had been praying for us (for guidance, etc. in this matter) would never be the same. We knew that had the love and support of almost all those we were leaving behind, but that only made our going all the more poignant.
And none of this even begins to address the challenges that lay ahead. We were venturing out into unknown, uncharted territory, at least for us. Three years of study may have helped build up our courage, but we were, all the same, stepping out into something the likes of which we just could not ‘know’ ahead of time. We were excited to be responding to God, but at the same time, we could not help but feel apprehensive of what lay ahead.
This is one reason why Lech L’cha is one of my favourite parsha sections. I can identify with Avram and his family in so many ways. Granted I had left my parent’s home after marrying Joan, and we had a created a home of our own, but for us, family was always near-by. For Avram, Haran (like our new home) had become their ‘centre’ as a family. It may not have been their birthplace but it must have been familiar and comfortable to them. When the time came, they had to leave that home and their family. In their case, it would be even more permanent than in ours. We could jump in a car and be back home in a few hours – not so in Avram’s case. It would have meant days of travelling on foot over rough terrain and maybe in the midst of robbers and cut-throats. For all intents and purposes, Avram must have figured he would never see his birth family again.
Avram had to leave his aging father behind – idol-maker or not, there was still the “family connection”. Being accused of abandoning his father in his old age must have weighed heavily on Avram’s heart. The concept of honouring one’s parents would have existed, even if it wasn’t codified at the time. The Sages report that Terach lived another 60 years after Avram’s departure, but Avram wouldn’t have known that at the time. Furthermore, Sarai also had to leave her family members behind, adding to the burden the couple must have felt. While Avram took his nephew Lot along with him, if Nachor had come to Haran, Avram would have been leaving his brother behind as well. [Spoiler note: we can assume that Nachor’s family eventually gets to the Haran area, because Yitzchak’s wife comes from Paddan Aram (Gen 24:38) and Jacob returns there to Laban’s household at the suggestion of his mother, Rivkah (Rebecca) after his deception of Esau (Genesis 28:2) ]
Before leaving to go into ministry, of course I had to attend Seminary. The day before I was to begin my Greek studies, My father died in hospital. It meant that I never got to share with him any of the challenges, nor any of the joys of my studies, none of the challenges and successes of my ministry could be shared with him, it meant never having the opportunity to tap his wisdom about how to go about various aspects of my work and life. Indeed, Avram would have been just as cut off from his family. I can actually empathize with his loss of camaraderie. Similarly, I can identify with losing touch with one’s brother. When I was ten years old, my older brother (aged 16) left home to join the navy. Now we had always fought with each other – tooth and nail, sometimes. Jon got exasperated with me, and I resented his over-sight (I suppose) or something like that. But I distinctly remember crying myself to sleep every night for the first week after his departure, and I can recall the joyful anticipation of seeing him come back “on leave” at various times.
There are other similarities as well. If I had left home to do almost any other job, it might not have been so “touchy”. In spite of the support we felt from so many of our friends, unfortunately, the fact that I left in response to a perceived call from God to go into ministry, aided in the putting up of walls in some ways. It’s not so bad now, I can honestly say, but at first, there seemed to be an uneasiness amongst some family members who maybe didn’t quite understand what or why we were doing this. Perhaps it was imagined, perhaps it was all in my own head, but to me, it felt real, and of course there was always ‘evidence’ to back up my feelings.
By the same token, the second instance of going through the pains of departure came up when I changed from ministry within the Anglican church to ministry in the Messianic community. This time, it wasn’t so much with ‘blood’ family that we experienced the ‘separation’ (though there was some, there at first), but rather it was in our “faith family”. Many of our closest friends did not understand about our new call to the Messianic life, because frankly they didn’t understand the Messianic Life, itself. Many thought we had abandoned our relationship with Y’shua and actually accused of this. Others thought we had “slipped off the edge”. In a couple of instances, friends felt betrayed by the changes we were making in our lives. The majority of people we felt had been close to us for years turned away from us, and so we, in turn, felt betrayed. We became a sort of “pariah” within church circles. There was no pastoral care for us as we had to leave so much behind (again) and move out into strange areas. No clergy contacted us to see how we were doing. It was as if we left Haran and were searching for the promised land all on our own, with only God, a few very close friends, and the new Community of Messianic believers encouraging us. Again, I can say it is getting better now. Clergy friends are re-connecting, slowly. People are at least civil with us, but still few of our old friends (except the ‘die hards’) have even shown any care for our situation. Only in a few cases have we been asked to share how or why we made the changes we did in our lives… so yes, I can certainly feel the struggles that Avram and Sarai must have felt as they pulled away from their home and family on that awesome day.
So it is that the second aspect of this reflection comes up here…. Why would anyone go through all that pain and suffering? Why would Avram subject his family to such torment? Why leave home and venture out into the great unknown? What drives a person to make such tremendous changes in their lives?
If you have never ‘heard’ / ‘felt’ or ‘experienced’ a Divine Call in your life, I may not be able to satisfactorily explain this predicament to you. On the other hand, if you have experienced this Call, then likely no explanation is required. I love the simple way in which Avram’s obedience is noted in Genesis 12:4: “So Avram went as Adonai had said to him, and Lot went with him. Avram was 75 years old when he left Haran. Avram took his wife Sarai, his brother’s son Lot, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, as well as the people they had acquired in Haran;’ then they set out for the land of Kena’an (Canaan).” It’s all just so matter of fact, isn’t it? God said it, Avram gets up and goes.
When God puts a call on your life, you can fight it for a while, (as did I), but eventually you will go wherever God says. This kind of obedience as displayed by Avram, as displayed by others throughout the Scriptures right up to Kefa (Peter) and Sha’ul (Paul) and indeed, right up to today, as missionaries respond and head out to new and strange lands and people depends on a secret, a secret ingredient that lies within our hearts and souls. That secret involves knowing and trusting God, a faith which is so deeply engrained that all doubts and questions are simply set aside. It is a faith which is so strongly held that following God is the only ‘natural’ response. It is the faith that lies within every person who hears and responds and enters into ministry, whatever that ministry may be.
This is the faith that Avram held. This is the faith that God saw in Avram. This is why, Sha’ul, in quoting the author of Genesis, says of Avram that his “faith was credited to him as righteousness.” A true disciple of God puts obedience to God first. His own will is sublimated to the will of God, and a true disciple is able to do this because he (or she) knows on faith that God will accompany the faithful servant, even to the ends of the earth.
None of us knows what the future holds. This is a given. But those who are responding to God, as Avram does in this story, are able to trust that God knows where they are headed. Similarly, no person, even of the strongest faith, can know ahead of time how he or she will be used by God either. Look to the lives of the prophets. Many of them suffered greatly at the hands of others, but they persevered. Avram was not just being called to move from one home to another, from one village to another, from one country to another. He was being called to an entirely new life. God had a specific goal for him, for his family. Avram didn’t know what it was, just like none of us can know what God intends to achieve through us. But Avram trusted God, and he made himself available to be used. What a lesson lies in this truism.
In fact, God was, once again, about to start over through Avram. From Adam to Noach, ten generations had passed. As we noted last week, with every generation, the evil and corruption not only persisted in the minds and hearts of humankind, but it had grown exponentially. When one man, Noach, stood out above all the others, God acted, bringing an end to the perversions of the time. From Noach to Avram, another ten generations had passed. Perversions have returned and darkened the soul of creation and humanity. It was once again time for God to make some changes. Just as Noach ‘stood out’, so God sees the righteous heart of the son of an idol-maker. God makes the decision to put Avram to work for his kingdom. There would be no Ark this time, however. This time a different approach was called for. In Avram, God sees new possibilities. Avram was a teacher, a leader of men. As the leader of what was basically an early form of “Yeshiva” (School), Avram had won souls over to faith in God before, and God needs him to carry that work on still longer. With that in mind, God uproots Avram and plunks him down in the midst of some of the worst characters around, the Kena’ani (Canaanites).
God was putting Avram to work in a mission field. Instead of flooding the land with water; through Avram, he will flood the land with teaching – the passing on of knowledge based in Avram’s walk of faith in one true God, THE One, true God. Avram doesn’t know how it will happen, but God has promised something unique to him. He will be the progenitor of an entirely new people. From him will come kings and sages, from him will come a nation which will cover the earth, from him will come the means of salvation needed by every man, woman and child that had ever lived, or that lived at the time, or that would ever live.
There is in all this, something called the “Messianic Funnel”. In simple terms, it describes the narrowing down of God’s selection until we come to the single, most important off spring of the Chosen People, through whom all the blessing and saving power of a merciful God can be realized by Humankind; from the many to the One. How patient and merciful is our God. He has waited through twenty generations for Avram to be born. He will wait in the neighbourhood of another two thousand years to complete his plan to bring a Messiah about. And God’s plan is to begin that with Abram, soon to become Avraham.
It was “Another New Beginning”
Shavua Tov!! - Have a Great Week!!
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Some Background first:
Once again, so as to bring you ‘up to date’ as it were, I am going to back-track slightly to the ending verses (the Maftir) of our last parsha. Parsha Noach closes with a list of generations which descended from Noach. Note: The descendents of Shem are listed last even though Shem was first born to Noach. This is because we are now going to “narrow in” to some extent and focus on Shem’s off-spring in particular. Just as a passing point of interest, it is from the name Shem that we get the modern term Anti-Semite or Anti-Semitism, which of course is the prejudicial hatred of the descendants of Shem, especially including the Jewish people.
Today’s reflection will be about Avram (Abram), but I wanted to start with his father Terach (Terah) so as to give some points of reference. The Scriptures don’t enlighten us too much about Terach, but there are Midrashic accounts of him based on oral traditions recorded for us in the Talmud. We know that Terach began his family in the land known as Ur [of the] Kasdim, near the land of the Sumerian nation, where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers converge, before flowing into the Persian Gulf. Traditionally, we believe that Terach was a maker of idols for the pagan people of the region. We are not told if Terach himself worshipped these idols, but subsequent evidence indicates that it is quite likely. Avram’s father was born in the year 1878 post creation, and eventually fathered three sons – Avram, Nachor and Haran. Haran is noted in particular because he had a son (Lot) and two daughters: (Milcah, and Yiskah). Nachor (in a very minor role), and to a greater extent, all three of Haran’s children figure large in the history of the Chosen People about to unfold. After Haran’s children are born, he dies “in the lifetime” of his father Terach. This death is important to our understanding of two events which are about to transpire, and carry forward the story of Avram.
The first of these events, we are told in Genesis 11:29, is that Nachor and Avram took wives unto themselves. Nachor takes Milcah and Avram, (according to Talmudic tradition), takes Yiskah. [Note: according to Genesis 20:12, Avram married his half sister, Sarai, daughter of Terach. Because there is no previous mention of Sarai in Terach’s offspring, and because it is difficult to know which is the most reliable ‘story’, I choose to side with the marriage to Yiskah, whose name indicates both beauty and aristocracy, but is changed to Sarai upon the marriage, and later to Sarah, names which also infer royalty, in fact they can be interpreted as ‘princess’.] Both Milkah and Yiskah, being the daughters of Haran, would be the nieces of their husbands. [“One has to be careful here”, as Dr. Harrison of Wycliffe College, Toronto would say, “to avoid our tendency toward ‘Cross-Cultural Extrapolation.” I still love that phrase! It means to “impose our modern, more ‘civilized’ standards upon the peoples of other times, other situations”. Harrison would point out that there were reasons for everything a culture held dear.] In this case, the desire was 1) to honour their brother Haran, 2) to carry on his memory and to 3) “assuage the grief” felt by Terach at his loss. I believe that God also permitted such customs so as to preserve the purity of the family tree in these early days.
The second major event is also a result of Terach’s grief, which must have been over-whelming for him, because following the death of his youngest, Terach packs up his family and all their belongings and heads north west from Ur-Kasdim. [Scripture does not indicate at this point, whether Nachor goes with the others, in fact the silence, the lack of mention is almost deafening. However, it is possible that Nachor and family did accompany the pilgrims, or at the very least he and his family followed later. We know this because of up-coming events and stories.]
We are told Terach is headed for Canaan, but he never gets there. The journey takes them along the route of the Euphrates River upstream, and they settle in a village, coincidently called Haran, in an area known as “Paddan-Aram” about 280 miles n.n.e of Damascus. The small Arab village continues today as “Harran”. In terms of whether Terach had worshipped the idols he made, it should be noted that the people of Haran, worshipped the same moon-god as did the Kasdim, and perhaps this is why Terach settled his family there. We also know that Avram settled for a while in Haran with the family. We know, from Midrashic teachings in the Talmud, that Terach lived a further 60 years after the departure of Avram from Haran. I think it would be safe to presume that the family lived here as a unit for some time, perhaps as much as 25 years, but this is strictly a guess at this point.
At any rate, when Avram was 75 years of age, while still living in Haran, God approached him somehow – in a vision, a dream, or as a theophany, (we aren’t enlightened as to how) – and commands him to pack up his family and leave Haran, and continue the journey to Canaan; and so it is we come to the major point of our parsha today. Avram obediently packs up and leaves the family so as to follow God’s instruction.
What would it mean to have to leave one’s family in this manner? There are many instances in which a family member leaves home. Sometimes they are not pleasant situations, such as having to leave due to problems in the home – a son or daughter going off to fight in a war, parental abuse, marital breakdown, behavioural troubles, health concerns - especially around aging, etc., but these are not the case here, so let’s just leave that aside for now.
There are many instances however, when departures happen under positive circumstances – a child going off to college; a new marriage and thus a new home for the couple; a move necessitated by one’s work situation; or simply the coming of age of a child. People leave home all the time – it can, and is, part of life. But that doesn’t necessarily make it any easier. Joan and I have had to face this situation several times, and two of them involved our response to God’s call on our lives to go into ministry. The first time it involved a long period of prayer and waiting on God. I remember resisting as strongly as I could, and often arguing with God over what I was perceiving as God’s call on my life – in fact I fought it off for almost 5 years. But eventually the time came when I no longer had a choice. My prayers were all leading to the same conclusion – “It’s time to ‘Act’”.
When the realization became ‘real’, I had to discuss it with Joan, first. Then, together, we talked it over with the kids. I knew it would mean a lot of changes in each and all of our lives. While it meant leaving our home of several years, it was harder for Joan, and this was her family home in which she had lived all her life, and her parents for several years before that. It was also the home in which our children had grown and it held memories for them as well. To add insult to injury, we had just spent several thousand dollars to upgrade it to “make it our own”. Our kids would have to leave the school and teachers they knew and loved (for the most part at least), and then face new schools at an inopportune time, their friends would be left behind which is always hard. Of course Joan and I had to say good bye to many of our own friends. We knew that our families supported us, and that our church family had been praying for us, and would stand with us in this new life. Our Bible study group, which also had been praying for us (for guidance, etc. in this matter) would never be the same. We knew that had the love and support of almost all those we were leaving behind, but that only made our going all the more poignant.
And none of this even begins to address the challenges that lay ahead. We were venturing out into unknown, uncharted territory, at least for us. Three years of study may have helped build up our courage, but we were, all the same, stepping out into something the likes of which we just could not ‘know’ ahead of time. We were excited to be responding to God, but at the same time, we could not help but feel apprehensive of what lay ahead.
This is one reason why Lech L’cha is one of my favourite parsha sections. I can identify with Avram and his family in so many ways. Granted I had left my parent’s home after marrying Joan, and we had a created a home of our own, but for us, family was always near-by. For Avram, Haran (like our new home) had become their ‘centre’ as a family. It may not have been their birthplace but it must have been familiar and comfortable to them. When the time came, they had to leave that home and their family. In their case, it would be even more permanent than in ours. We could jump in a car and be back home in a few hours – not so in Avram’s case. It would have meant days of travelling on foot over rough terrain and maybe in the midst of robbers and cut-throats. For all intents and purposes, Avram must have figured he would never see his birth family again.
Avram had to leave his aging father behind – idol-maker or not, there was still the “family connection”. Being accused of abandoning his father in his old age must have weighed heavily on Avram’s heart. The concept of honouring one’s parents would have existed, even if it wasn’t codified at the time. The Sages report that Terach lived another 60 years after Avram’s departure, but Avram wouldn’t have known that at the time. Furthermore, Sarai also had to leave her family members behind, adding to the burden the couple must have felt. While Avram took his nephew Lot along with him, if Nachor had come to Haran, Avram would have been leaving his brother behind as well. [Spoiler note: we can assume that Nachor’s family eventually gets to the Haran area, because Yitzchak’s wife comes from Paddan Aram (Gen 24:38) and Jacob returns there to Laban’s household at the suggestion of his mother, Rivkah (Rebecca) after his deception of Esau (Genesis 28:2) ]
Before leaving to go into ministry, of course I had to attend Seminary. The day before I was to begin my Greek studies, My father died in hospital. It meant that I never got to share with him any of the challenges, nor any of the joys of my studies, none of the challenges and successes of my ministry could be shared with him, it meant never having the opportunity to tap his wisdom about how to go about various aspects of my work and life. Indeed, Avram would have been just as cut off from his family. I can actually empathize with his loss of camaraderie. Similarly, I can identify with losing touch with one’s brother. When I was ten years old, my older brother (aged 16) left home to join the navy. Now we had always fought with each other – tooth and nail, sometimes. Jon got exasperated with me, and I resented his over-sight (I suppose) or something like that. But I distinctly remember crying myself to sleep every night for the first week after his departure, and I can recall the joyful anticipation of seeing him come back “on leave” at various times.
There are other similarities as well. If I had left home to do almost any other job, it might not have been so “touchy”. In spite of the support we felt from so many of our friends, unfortunately, the fact that I left in response to a perceived call from God to go into ministry, aided in the putting up of walls in some ways. It’s not so bad now, I can honestly say, but at first, there seemed to be an uneasiness amongst some family members who maybe didn’t quite understand what or why we were doing this. Perhaps it was imagined, perhaps it was all in my own head, but to me, it felt real, and of course there was always ‘evidence’ to back up my feelings.
By the same token, the second instance of going through the pains of departure came up when I changed from ministry within the Anglican church to ministry in the Messianic community. This time, it wasn’t so much with ‘blood’ family that we experienced the ‘separation’ (though there was some, there at first), but rather it was in our “faith family”. Many of our closest friends did not understand about our new call to the Messianic life, because frankly they didn’t understand the Messianic Life, itself. Many thought we had abandoned our relationship with Y’shua and actually accused of this. Others thought we had “slipped off the edge”. In a couple of instances, friends felt betrayed by the changes we were making in our lives. The majority of people we felt had been close to us for years turned away from us, and so we, in turn, felt betrayed. We became a sort of “pariah” within church circles. There was no pastoral care for us as we had to leave so much behind (again) and move out into strange areas. No clergy contacted us to see how we were doing. It was as if we left Haran and were searching for the promised land all on our own, with only God, a few very close friends, and the new Community of Messianic believers encouraging us. Again, I can say it is getting better now. Clergy friends are re-connecting, slowly. People are at least civil with us, but still few of our old friends (except the ‘die hards’) have even shown any care for our situation. Only in a few cases have we been asked to share how or why we made the changes we did in our lives… so yes, I can certainly feel the struggles that Avram and Sarai must have felt as they pulled away from their home and family on that awesome day.
So it is that the second aspect of this reflection comes up here…. Why would anyone go through all that pain and suffering? Why would Avram subject his family to such torment? Why leave home and venture out into the great unknown? What drives a person to make such tremendous changes in their lives?
If you have never ‘heard’ / ‘felt’ or ‘experienced’ a Divine Call in your life, I may not be able to satisfactorily explain this predicament to you. On the other hand, if you have experienced this Call, then likely no explanation is required. I love the simple way in which Avram’s obedience is noted in Genesis 12:4: “So Avram went as Adonai had said to him, and Lot went with him. Avram was 75 years old when he left Haran. Avram took his wife Sarai, his brother’s son Lot, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, as well as the people they had acquired in Haran;’ then they set out for the land of Kena’an (Canaan).” It’s all just so matter of fact, isn’t it? God said it, Avram gets up and goes.
When God puts a call on your life, you can fight it for a while, (as did I), but eventually you will go wherever God says. This kind of obedience as displayed by Avram, as displayed by others throughout the Scriptures right up to Kefa (Peter) and Sha’ul (Paul) and indeed, right up to today, as missionaries respond and head out to new and strange lands and people depends on a secret, a secret ingredient that lies within our hearts and souls. That secret involves knowing and trusting God, a faith which is so deeply engrained that all doubts and questions are simply set aside. It is a faith which is so strongly held that following God is the only ‘natural’ response. It is the faith that lies within every person who hears and responds and enters into ministry, whatever that ministry may be.
This is the faith that Avram held. This is the faith that God saw in Avram. This is why, Sha’ul, in quoting the author of Genesis, says of Avram that his “faith was credited to him as righteousness.” A true disciple of God puts obedience to God first. His own will is sublimated to the will of God, and a true disciple is able to do this because he (or she) knows on faith that God will accompany the faithful servant, even to the ends of the earth.
None of us knows what the future holds. This is a given. But those who are responding to God, as Avram does in this story, are able to trust that God knows where they are headed. Similarly, no person, even of the strongest faith, can know ahead of time how he or she will be used by God either. Look to the lives of the prophets. Many of them suffered greatly at the hands of others, but they persevered. Avram was not just being called to move from one home to another, from one village to another, from one country to another. He was being called to an entirely new life. God had a specific goal for him, for his family. Avram didn’t know what it was, just like none of us can know what God intends to achieve through us. But Avram trusted God, and he made himself available to be used. What a lesson lies in this truism.
In fact, God was, once again, about to start over through Avram. From Adam to Noach, ten generations had passed. As we noted last week, with every generation, the evil and corruption not only persisted in the minds and hearts of humankind, but it had grown exponentially. When one man, Noach, stood out above all the others, God acted, bringing an end to the perversions of the time. From Noach to Avram, another ten generations had passed. Perversions have returned and darkened the soul of creation and humanity. It was once again time for God to make some changes. Just as Noach ‘stood out’, so God sees the righteous heart of the son of an idol-maker. God makes the decision to put Avram to work for his kingdom. There would be no Ark this time, however. This time a different approach was called for. In Avram, God sees new possibilities. Avram was a teacher, a leader of men. As the leader of what was basically an early form of “Yeshiva” (School), Avram had won souls over to faith in God before, and God needs him to carry that work on still longer. With that in mind, God uproots Avram and plunks him down in the midst of some of the worst characters around, the Kena’ani (Canaanites).
God was putting Avram to work in a mission field. Instead of flooding the land with water; through Avram, he will flood the land with teaching – the passing on of knowledge based in Avram’s walk of faith in one true God, THE One, true God. Avram doesn’t know how it will happen, but God has promised something unique to him. He will be the progenitor of an entirely new people. From him will come kings and sages, from him will come a nation which will cover the earth, from him will come the means of salvation needed by every man, woman and child that had ever lived, or that lived at the time, or that would ever live.
There is in all this, something called the “Messianic Funnel”. In simple terms, it describes the narrowing down of God’s selection until we come to the single, most important off spring of the Chosen People, through whom all the blessing and saving power of a merciful God can be realized by Humankind; from the many to the One. How patient and merciful is our God. He has waited through twenty generations for Avram to be born. He will wait in the neighbourhood of another two thousand years to complete his plan to bring a Messiah about. And God’s plan is to begin that with Abram, soon to become Avraham.
It was “Another New Beginning”
Shavua Tov!! - Have a Great Week!!
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