One for All
Genesis 12:1-9
History has always been an interest of mine. When I’m doing the morning cat chores, I often listen to one of several history podcasts. With something like fifteen cats—seven in the house, one temporary boarder in the basement, and another seven outside, the chores take the better part of an hour, so I can listen to an entire episode. One podcast I like is called The Bowery Boys and features two amateur historians who delve deeply into the history of New York City. Their most recent episode tells the story of how the New York Knickerbockers got their unusual name. But my favorite history podcast is The Rest Is History, on which two actual historians discuss everything from Ancient Greece to the Napoleonic Wars to Walt Disney.
What both podcasts generally avoid is the Great Man Theory of history. That was a concept developed in the 19th century that argued that history was shaped primarily by the lives of extraordinary individuals, i.e., great men (and women), whether heroic or antiheroic or a bit of both.
Beginning in the 1960s the concept of social history arose as a response to the Great Man theory. Rather than focusing on extraordinary individuals, social history looks more broadly at social structures and the everyday lived experience of ordinary people. While the Great Man Theory views history from the top down, social history looks at history from the bottom up. Either method can be used as a lens through which we read the Bible.
Now, the Bible is not meant to be read as pure history, but at the same time it does describe historical events, such as the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 586 BC and the crucifixion of Jesus around 30 AD. And while the Old Testament in particular features a handful of great figures who shaped the course of Israel’s history—for example, Moses, David, and Solomon—the overarching story of the Old Testament is the history of the people of Israel, people whose names are not recorded and who remain anonymous to us.
…the story is not about [Abram’s] greatness but about the great things that God will do through him.
While the reading from Genesis today centers upon one man, Abram, the story is not about his greatness but about the great things that God will do through him. Abram, as we’ll see today and in the coming weeks as we read more of his story, does nothing that historians would regard as great. He doesn’t lead the armies of Israel to victory in battle. He doesn’t reign as king over Israel, ushering in a golden age. All he does is trust in the promises of God. Leave your country, God says to Abram, and go to a foreign land that I will show you. I will make a great nation out of you. Trusting in that promise, Abram goes.
Today we begin a lengthy sermon series in Genesis that will take us through much of the book, beginning with the story of Abram’s calling here in chapter 12 and then continuing the family story through Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Every story has to begin somewhere, and this family saga begins with Abram. At the end of Genesis 11, just prior to today’s reading, we’re given a little bit of Abram’s backstory. He’s the oldest of three brothers. For reasons not explained, he migrates from his home in what’s now southern Iraq with his wife Sarai, his father Terah, and his nephew Lot. Their destination is Canaan, what will one day become the Promised Land of Israel, but before reaching Canaan they settle in Haran, in what is now southern Turkey. There Abram’s father dies.
Haran had much to recommend it: fertile land for agriculture, pastures for herds to graze, and abundant water from two rivers. Perhaps that’s why Abram chooses to stay there into his old age, as he’s now 75 years old by the time we meet him in chapter 12. But at an age when he ought to be well into retirement, collecting Social Security and taking vacation cruises, Abram hears the call of God. “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
The question you might be asking is, Why? Why Abram? And why now, at 75 years of age, would God call him? Wouldn’t it have been better to call him 40 years earlier when he had more pep in his step? Seventy-five! Seriously? Wasn’t anyone younger available? I’ve heard of late bloomers, but come on!
Besides, what has Abram shown in his 75 years that would inspire such confidence from God? If he did anything of note, the Bible doesn’t tell us. What does God see in Abram that makes God think, “Yes, this is the one through whom I will bless all the families of the earth”?
If you think about it, God has a lot riding on Abram. God intends to bless everyone on earth through this one man. But what if Abram lets God down? What if he’s not up to the task of being the vehicle through which God will work? It doesn’t appear that God has a Plan B. God is all in on Abram.
But what if Abram lets God down? What if he’s not up to the task of being the vehicle through which God will work?
The reason for that is found in the first eleven chapters of Genesis. There we learn that human beings have been an unruly lot from day one. In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve are given everything they could possibly want and are told they may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden but one. But the prohibition only makes the forbidden fruit more desirable, and they do the one thing they were specifically told not to do.
Things don’t improve with the next generation. In fact, they get worse. Cain, the elder child of Adam and Eve, is consumed with envy and murders his brother Abel.
Following that, humanity only descends into deeper darkness, such that God regrets having created human beings and starts all over by cleansing creation of sin with a cataclysmic flood.
Generations later, their numbers having been sufficiently restored, human beings aspire to make gods of themselves by building a massive tower into the heavens that God destroys.
The history of humanity, as told in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, is a tale of disobedience, depravity, violence, and hubris. God wipes the slate clean and starts over again, but nothing changes. If anything, things only get worse. Humans are unwilling and unable to change their ways. If God wants to be in relationship with us—and for some reason that is what God wants to do—and if human beings will not and cannot change, then God will have to change.
And that’s precisely what happens. God changes tactics. Rather than dealing with humanity writ large, God will work through one man, Abram. Imagine being told at age seventy-five that God wants you to pack up your belongings and leave home for a faraway land that you’ve never heard of! Don’t worry, it’s all going to be worth it. God is going to make of you a great nation. Generations will be born because of you, and everyone on earth will be blessed through you! What do you say? Are you up for it?
I’ve mentioned before in Bible study that the Bible is not written like a novel. In a novel with a third-person omniscient narrator, the reader knows what all the characters are thinking. We know why they take the actions that they do.
Not so with the Bible. You may remember that in last week’s passage we were not told what went through Matthew’s mind when Jesus called him to leave his tax booth. So, too, here in Genesis, we don’t know what Abram thinks of this outlandish command to pack up and leave home at age seventy-five. We’re simply told what he did: “So Abram went.”
Those are three of the most remarkable words in Scripture. So Abram went. Upon those three words hinges the hope of the whole fallen world. Abram trusts in God’s promises and goes where God calls him. And because Abram went, we have come. Because Abram went where God called him, so we have come here where God has called us. Think about it. If Abram doesn’t trust God’s promises then, none of us would do so now. Abram’s faith makes our faith possible.
So Abram went. Upon those three words hinges the hope of the whole fallen world.
Without Abram’s trust in God, the Promised Land is a promise unfulfilled, and all the families of the earth do not know God’s blessing. Without Abraham’s trust in God, there is no Isaac, no Jacob, no Joseph, no people of Israel. Without Israel there is no Jesus. Without Jesus there is no life, no hope, no salvation. Sin and death would continue to hold dominion over us. We would be subjects of the forces of empire rather than citizens of the kingdom of God. Rather than blessed are the poor, we’d have greed is good. Rather than blessed are the peacemakers, we’d have might makes right. Rather than the last shall be first, we’d have everyone for themselves.
That is the power of what God can do through one person. Through one person God can work blessing for all people. Through one person, Abram, God can build a nation. From one nation, Israel, God can send a Savior for the entire world. Through that one Savior, Jesus Christ, God can redeem all the pain, all the suffering, all the sin, and all the death that have plagued humankind from our earliest days.
And through the power of Christ at work in each one of us, God can send forth blessing into the world. All you have to do is trust in God’s promises and go where God is calling you.
Yes, I know many in this room are in the vicinity of Abram’s seventy-five years, but I’m not talking about going to a foreign land and starting over as Abram did. That was Abram’s call. Yours probably looks a bit different. God may not be calling you across the world but simply across the room, across the street, or across the aisle. In a society as divided as ours, God needs people willing to leave the comfort of the familiar to engage with those we regard as other.
But make no mistake, no matter your age, God is calling you and has every intent of using you to bless—maybe not all the world—but certainly all those in your world…your family, your friends, your coworkers, your neighbors, your church family, the stranger on the street, and everyone you meet. Through Christ at work within you, sharing his mercy, compassion, joy, and love, God will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.