All God’s children – Genesis 12:1-9, Psalm 33:1-12
Perhaps I shouldn’t confess this, but it was only this week, as I was reading commentaries on Genesis 12 that I realised what a crucial passage of scripture this is; how – although the biblical story begins in Genesis – the story of human beginnings with Adam and Eve – the story of God’s faithful, loving and ongoing relationship with the human family begins here – with the call to Abram and Sarai.
It is here in Genesis 12, as commentator Frank Yamada notes, that “the narrator’s focus moves from the broad landscape of world history in Genesis 1–11, [the expulsion from the garden, the flood, the tower of Babel], to the particularities of one family’s story.” And yet while God’s great goodness, God’s steadfast love, God’s blessings are funnelled down to this one family they are also intended, to fan out from this one family, to all the families of the earth. In Genesis 17, God renames both Abram and Sarai – Abram becomes ‘Abraham’, the ‘father of multitudes’ and Sarai becomes ‘Sarah’, the feminine of ‘prince, chief or captain’.
But why, of all the people on earth, is this person, this particular family, chosen?
Perhaps God did call others! Perhaps Abraham’s story is the one in our Bibles simply because he was the one to respond! I have a delightful story to share with you in a few moments by a Jewish rabbi – a story about the story or midrash – which suggests that this was the case.
Why did God call Abraham? We might never know, but there are three reasons we can draw from this text and from our understanding of how God works throughout history and continues to work in our lives!
Firstly, God chose Abraham because Abraham was prepared to go. Verse 4: “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him….” He was both prepared to go and prepared to leave behind what he had. The parallelism of country, kindred and father’s house, emphasise what it will cost Abraham to respond to God’s promises. And this specific list of what he leaves behind is contrasted with the inexact nature of the journey he undertakes, “to the land that [God] will show [him]”. Abraham journeys from the known to the unknown, from security to insecurity, from familiar to foreign. But because he does, he is celebrated, in Hebrews 11:8 as a person of faith, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.”
And as a person of faith who journeys from the known to the unknown, giving up much, but knowing he goes with God, he models for us the Christian journey; what we might give up – Mark 10:29; house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields – for the sake of the gospel.
Perhaps we do not identify with leaving country or kindred or father’s house – or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields – but for all of us, in different ways, faithfully following Jesus involves leaving behind old sources of strength, old sources of security, and discovering that God is only encountered as the journey proceeds into the unknown. There is a giving up – and there is a receiving – as Jesus says in Mark – a hundredfold.
I have been thinking this recently, in light of what our Association is going through, that in order to keep faithfully following Jesus, going where we faithfully believe Jesus is calling us to go, we must leave behind some of what was familiar to us in the past and journey on , discovering that God goes with us into the future; that the future is bigger than the past.
David Livingston, the famous Scottish physician, missionary and campaigner against the slave trade wrote: “People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. …. Is that a sacrifice which brings its own reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny? It is emphatically no sacrifice. Rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, danger, foregoing the common conveniences of this life–these may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing compared with the glory which shall later be revealed in and through us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which he made who left his Father’s throne on high to give himself for us.”
God calls those who are prepared to follow and to count the cost.
Secondly, God calls Abraham and Sarah – not because they are up to the task – they are clearly not – but because God wants to work with them.
In verse 2, Abram is told, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you…” but in verse 4, we hear, “Abram was seventy-five years when he departed from Haran.” Seventy-five years old! We identified a few septuagenarians at church camp this year and asked them, “Is this a good time to start thinking about starting a family?” You can guess their answer! And not only is Sarai of a similar age, but in Genesis 11:30, before God promises all these things to them, we are told, “Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.”
If you know the story, you know the drama from this point onwards focuses on how first Abraham and Sarah, and then Abraham, Sarah and God, bring this promise of children and descendants to fulfilment.
We can talk about how the child that is eventually born, to a ninety-year-old (and barren) woman and a 100-year-old man is a miracle. Or we can emphasise that none of this was possible – apart from God – apart from God and these two people working together.
Perhaps that’s the same thing! And that what miracles look like in our lives as well! None of us are called to follow Jesus because we are up to the job. We are clearly not. We are not brave enough, not bold enough, not giving enough, not forgiving enough, not loving enough, but we are called because God wants to work in us and through us – the life of Jesus now pulses in us – and God wants to do this with us. That is the real miracle!
As Paul reminds the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 1): “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no onemight boast in the presence of God.He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, [he] who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”
God chooses us to work with because God loves us.
Finally, God chooses Abraham because Abraham was family oriented.
Let me you share with you this story from Rabbi Marc Gellman:
Most people, he writes, do not realise it, but God put in calls to other people before finally putting in a call to Abram.
First God called Eber and said, “Eber, leave your country and your neighbours and your family and go to a land I will show to you, and I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and you will be a blessing; all who bless you will be blessed and all who curse you will be cursed and through you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.”
And Eber said, “Who are you?” And God said, “God.” And Eber said, “The god of what?” And God said, “The God of everything.” And Eber said, “Don’t be ridiculous, there is no god of everything. There is a god of the sun and a god of the moon, a god of the night and a god of the day, a god of the mountains and a god of the valleys, a god of the forests and a god of the deserts. If you ask me, you are a little late. Everything already has a god, and there is no god of everything.”
….Eber and God never talked again.
The next person God called was Peleg. [God gave him the same message.]
“Who are you?” asked Peleg. And God said, “God.” And Peleg said, “Where are you?” And God said, “I am everywhere.”….Peleg roared on the ground with laughter. “Now let me get this straight! You are the invisible god of everything with no statue, and you want me to leave my home and follow you to a place you will show me? Do you think I am crazy?”
…God and Peleg never talked again.
Then God went to Serug [and gave him the message].
“Who are you?” said Serug. “God.” And Serug said, “But what will you give me?” “I just told you,” said God. And Serug said, “You don’t understand. I am not interested in moving anywhere or doing anything just so that my great-great-great-grandchildren will be a great nation. I want to know what is in this deal for me right now…”
But God said nothing. …That was the last time Serug ever heard from God.
By that time God was not sure about finding the right person. But God went to Abram and said, “Abram, leave your country and your neighbours and your family and go to a land I will show to you, and I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you…” [and you know the rest].
And Abram said, “I will go, but there is just one thing I want.” “Is it to know what I’m the God of?” asked God. “No,” said Abrahm. “Is it to have a statue of me?” asked God. “No.” “Is it to get something out of this for yourself?” “No.” said Abraham, “I want to take my family with me.”
Right then God decided not to ask any more questions, and God let Abram gather his family and pack their things for the journey to the place that would show to them.
Right then God knew that the right person was going to the right place at the right time for the right seasons. God also knew that such things hardly ever happen.
Abraham was family oriented – not only to his immediate family and his extended family but beyond that – the blessing God gave to him and Sarah, would extend to bless, “all the families of the earth”.
As I mentioned earlier, this passage marks a turning point in the text between the primeval history of the world in Genesis and the story of what follows. In that primeval history what we are told is that human beings, choosing deliberately to go about things by themselves, muck them up, sometimes in terribly tragic ways, but that God continues to come alongside us, to bless us, to restore us to ourselves and to Godself.
There are a series of such stories, the story of Adam and Eve, of Cain and Abel, of violence filling the earth before the flood, of the erecting of a tower to the heavens… And in each of these stories God comes and finds a way to heal and restore and bless human beings. In all of these stories except one – the tower of Babel. At the conclusion of this story human beings are simply scattered across the earth.
The promise of God to Abraham then comes as the conclusion to this story. The story of the people of Israel from this point onwards comes as the conclusion to this story. The coming of Jesus to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, setting the oppressed free comes as the conclusion to this story. The sending out of Jesus’ faithful followers – as we read last week – by the one with all authority to restore our world, to make disciples of all nations, to teach them all Jesus taught, knowing God is with us always – this is the conclusion to the story.
We are the conclusion to the story. We are called to be God’s family of blessing for all the families of the earth.
We do this as those who are called to leave behind what we have known and God into the unknown, knowing God is there. We do this as ordinary men and women, young and -definitely – old, so frail and so flawed, because God wants to do this with us. And in us and through us our family-oriented God seeks to heal and restore and bless all families – because we are all God’s children.