At the end of Genesis chapter 11 after creation and the fall and all sorts of shenanigans and the flood and the Tower of Babel we are told this:
This is the account of Terah’s family line. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milkah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milkah and Iskah. Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive. Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.”
God often uses families or sometimes individuals to begin a new journey. And today we hear the story of Terah’s son Abram. What do we know about him? He was a man of some wealth and influence in his community. He worshipped a different God to everyone else there. And how old was he? Abram was 75 and he was told by God to go camping. I did a survey of my congregation yesterday. Most were over 75! A question was asked “how did Abram get off the ground every morning at 75?!”
We need to know something about Haran. It is located in the southeastern part of modern-day Turkey. There Abram was located living in a world that was extremely delightful. This city has been occupied 1000 years before Abraham all the way to the present world. It was a well-watered place, a place so habitable. They had invented writing by now. Historians say there was a library in Haran with 2000 stone tablets. They had a detailed understanding of astronomy and mathematics. They are the ones who invented the wheels and arch. Pottery began with them. Some 500 years before Abraham the pyramids had been erected in Egypt. Abraham came from a developed world.The mountains and valleys in Haran are so lush green, well-watered, and well-occupied by people. Haran was the business capital of the world. They had imported goods even from India. Haran was the epitome of an ancient civilisation.
Abram journeyed says Genesis 12 toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent. Abram left his permanent house structure and stayed in tents.Abram had to move away from posh city accommodation and a permanent dwelling to the life of that of an outsider and that of a pilgrim. The New Testament tells us: By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the Promised Land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
When God called Abram, he left. He just knew God. He lived in the Promised Land like a stranger and waited for the other world which was permanent. Some people like to travel from place to place, and country to country. Abram was not like that. He left his country because God told him to go. What did his neighbours say? It was utter madness in human terms.
Abram not only left his country. He is being asked to leave his roots. Not just the geography and his settings, but leaving his people. All his natural connections are going to be gone. Sarai means princess. She may have been royalty from a noble family. Remember, Abram is addressed by the Hittites in Genesis 23:6 as Prince. Abram and Sarai were extremely well connected to people and society. They were royalty. They had a lot to gain staying in Haran. This is the kind of cost that God required of Abram. From being upper class to no class; from somebody to a nobody; from familiar territory to uncharted territory.
He is told to leave his father’s household. Already Abram and Sarai had some involuntary family separation. Abram already had a loss in the family in Ur, his brother Haran had died and he had added responsibility of his brother’s son, nephew Lot. When they moved on to Haran there was Terah the father of Abram who died. It is usually when there is a death in the family there is more bonding that happens which gives people support. But now after the death of his father Terah, God asked him to move out of all connections. God is working here as the great interrupter of a good life. God is the one who knocks us when life seems to be going great and smoothly. Why all that cost to follow God? Why is God asking all this in our life? Is God interrupting us to punish us or is it to protect us? Is it too real to deprive us of physical comfort or is it rather prepare us for eternal comfort, something much better? Are you going through interruptions in life? Remember God is in it.
God, be for us our companion on the walk, our guide at the crossroads, our breath in our weariness, our protection in danger, our refuge on the Way, our shade in the heat, our light in the darkness, our consolation in our discouragements, and our strength in our intentions. So that with your guidance we may arrive safe and sound at the end of the road enriched with grace and virtue may we return safely to our homes filled with joy. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Many years ago in our leavers service in college these words were used. When we are compelled to move on we need to remember God is ahead of us and there are people and circumstances there that could be exciting…
When we lift our pack and go, when we seek another country, moving far from all we know, when we long to journey free --God is in the other place, God is in another's face, in the faith we travel by, God is in the other place.
Abraham believed God and it counted unto him as righteousness, says Romans. Sometimes, we are scared to journey, clinging onto the safe and familiar. But Abram, later named Abraham, shows us reckless trust is the first step to divine blessing. So where are we being asked to go, to leave, to trust and to believe there is another country we cannot but travel to?
I like how the Authorised Version of the Bible describes Abram’s future: he went out not knowing whither he went. But without his obedience and absolute trust in God’s wacky and almost unbelievable providence, the story of God’s people would have been very different.
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