Matthew 9:9-13, 9:18-26

Matthew 9:9-13 (NRSV)

The Call of Matthew

(Mk 2.13—17; Lk 5.27—32)

⁹ As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.

¹⁰ And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. ¹¹ When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹² But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³ Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

Matthew 9:18-26 (NRSV)

A Girl Restored to Life and a Woman Healed

(Mk 5.21—43; Lk 8.40—56)

¹⁸ While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” ¹⁹ And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. ²⁰ Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, ²¹ for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” ²² Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well. ²³ When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, ²⁴ he said, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. ²⁵ But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. ²⁶ And the report of this spread throughout that district.

Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 (Year A June 5-11) contain the story of the calling of Matthew and the story of the daughter of the leader of the synagogue and her healing and the story of the woman suffering from a hemorrhage. In Jesus’ calling and healings, God’s reign is revealed as mercy that crosses human-made boundaries, inviting decisive discipleship and faith-filled trust—especially for those labeled outsiders. My purpose is to explain how each pericope functions in the Gospel tradition and to move readers toward self-examination and discipleship-shaped action. What I will keep referring to is the following. First, boundary crossing (social, religious, and purity rules) is a mark of the ministry of Jesus. Second, table fellowship is enacted theology, for meals symbolize inclusion, forgiveness, and community, thereby anticipating the reign of God. Third, in the second narrative we see that faith is active trust in present resources. 

Matthew 9:9-13 (Mark 2:13-17, Luke 5:27-32) is a story about Jesus involving the call of Matthew and the matter of eating with sinners. The story shows how the disciple gathering by Jesus relates to the controversy he generated. Part of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee involves the testing and crossing of sacred boundaries in religion and culture. The friendship of Jesus with publicans and sinners was a feature of his ministry that attracted much criticism. Table fellowship is a sign of a broader and deeper fellowship. The emphasis of the story is on the saying.[1] The theme, based upon I Ki 19:19, is the sudden summons from business to following. It portrays an ideal scene with a focus on the Lord who calls.[2] The invitation of Jesus to the tax collector (Matthew, but Levi, son of Alphaeus in Mark 2:14) to follow him in words similar as that to Peter, Andrew, James and John, and the tax collector responding in similar fashion as those disciples, shows Jesus as in Galilee crossing cultural and religious boundaries. It is another way that Jesus proclaims forgiveness, everyone seeing that God accepted these people.[3] These first five responses to the invitation of Jesus to follow him represent an ideal response to this invitation. Jewish contemporaries viewed tax collectors as crooked and unclean since they were the intermediaries of the Roman taxation system. This tax collector profited from his association with the Roman occupiers of Galilee, but he was on the bottom of the system. He was an outsider to both the Roman and Jewish culture, and to this person, the invitation of Jesus comes. Such a story ought to always challenge us as readers to look for the boundaries made by human beings to see if Christ is calling us to cross that boundary. The willingness of this tax collector to leave the job security, home, and other possessions he had may stimulate us to reflect upon whether Christ is calling us to depart from our setting and embark upon something riskier but fulfilling of the vocation given us. These are not easy questions to raise or to answer, but such a story invites us to see and to hear our world and even our lives differently than we did before.

This invitation from Jesus leads to a pronouncement story concerning eating with sinners (verses 10-13=Mark 2:15-17, Luke 5:29-32). The gathering of disciples by Jesus in Galilee contributes to the controversy he will have with religious authorities. It may even seem like a mundane thing, yet the company Jesus keeps generates controversy. Part of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee involves testing and crossing sacred boundaries in religion and culture. The inclusion of tax collectors and sinners at the table shows their participation in eschatological salvation. This act is rescuing the lost. Those who accept the message are no longer outcasts. They share in the salvation of the rule of God. The presence of salvation also relates to the removal of the barrier that separates from God.^[4] The Pharisees condemn social intercourse with tax collectors and sinners because something about it constituted a violation of ritual purity laws. Pharisees and the disciples gathering around Jesus shared common concerns. Both were reform movements within Judaism that challenged the temple system and the ways in which that system had served to confine the expression of their faith. As a domestically based tradition, Pharisaism was very much concerned with table practice, the serving of meals and the extension of hospitality. Mark Twain called it “being good in the worst sense of the word.” They were trying to revive religious observance by making some of the purity rules usually reserved only for the Temple be part of the daily home life of the people, especially regarding meals. Jesus did not seem to look down upon people because he knew they were struggling with something in their lives that brought them to this moment. Jesus is an example of accepting love. Yet, his table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners was part of what surrounded the ministry of Jesus with ambivalence that led to rejection and offense of his person.^[5] The story arises out of the controversy Jesus had with the Judaism of his day and had continuing significance as the church in Israel continued in its struggle with Judaism. The matter of table fellowship remained a struggle within the early church, for even Cephas, who had come to Antioch, ate with Gentiles until representatives from James came into the city. He withdrew table fellowship out of his fear of those parts of the early church who thought that circumcision should still be an important Christian rite (Galatians 2:11-12). When Jesus overheard the criticism, he responded in verse 12 with a secular proverb: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Jesus has taken a secular wisdom and made it his own to defend his own way of ministry.[6] His saving work as physician is to come to the sick and make them strong and healthy, doing so by drawing them into the fellowship of the community he is forming. In this fellowship they see their plight and find in Jesus their savior. The strong or healthy can make nothing of this mission or passion of Jesus.[7] Sinners are like the sick, and the sick need a doctor.[8] Jesus uses the secular proverb to instruct the religious people of his day. There is a parallel in Gospel Fragment 1224 5:2, which says, “Those in good health don’t need a doctor.”  Some scholars think it may reflect an earlier version of the saying than we find in Mark. Such a parable is an apt response to the criticism against an important feature of the ministry of Jesus.[9] Only by being willing to engage those who are considered impure can one reach them with a message of a better way of living. However, in verse 13 (unique to Matthew),[10] Jesus also invites them to learn the meaning of Hosea 6:6: ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice.’ He is placing covenant loyalty to other Jews above the need for ritual purity that was required for participation in Temple life. Jesus then admits that his mission is to call sinners rather than the righteous. His point is that Pharisees are already inside the circle of the covenant, but that he wants to broaden the circle or expand the table. The saying reflects solid early Christian teaching concerning the reason God sent Jesus. Yes, Jesus came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10) and Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (I Timothy 1:15). The contrast between "religious folks" and "sinners" reflects Jesus' social habits: he elects to associate with toll collectors and prostitutes, but not in a way that meant he refused to associate also with the socially respectable. Jesus wants his contemporaries to see that the reality of the rule of God is near and among them, especially in those religious authorities have labeled as outsiders. He wants his righteous contemporaries to see, know, and taste the goodness of the rule of God among us. Yet, Jesus gave offense due to those included in his table fellowship. The meals Jesus held or shared characterized his coming and the conduct of his disciples. When he accepted invitations from others, he made known his readiness to grant fellowship with him to those who issued the invitation. Others felt this to be especially scandalous in some cases because by his participation the table fellowship that he granted or accepted became a sign of the presence of the reign of God that he proclaimed and a sign of the acceptance of the other participants into the future community of salvation. The granting of acceptance of table fellowship by Jesus removed everything that separated people from God and his salvation. It meant the forgiveness of sins, so that table fellowship was a real symbol of fellowship with God and of participation in the future of the reign of God.^[11]

Application

Few people make important life choices with any degree of decisiveness. We backtrack here and compromise there. We lack the courage to stand by our decisions. The result is that many of us remain in a continual state of anxiety. Thus, we may have the attitude of those without a plan for our lives. We have the day-to-day attitude of receiving whatever comes our way. We may have a fatalistic and defeatist attitude. We have no clearly defined opinion of the direction of our lives. We can then cling so strongly and stubbornly to an idea that we become fanatical. Our vacillation is a symptom that we can trace back to our fear of responsibility. Our indecision is the fruit.^[12]

Is the risen Lord calling us to re-evaluate how we are spending our time, our lives, and our careers? Is he challenging us to break down and bust up the barrier between office and vocation, between what we do for a living and what we do to serve God? Is he inviting us to use our time, talents and treasures for more than business building and wealth creation? While we certainly can serve God wherever we are, we may be at a Matthew moment in our lives. We have been going along with what is familiar, but the risen Lord may call us to embark upon a path toward something greater. The greater issue is not so much career, but the call and challenge to become increasingly like Christ.

Where do you see yourself in this story?^[13]

I expect that there are people who would identify most closely with Matthew. I am afraid I am not one of those people. I have been in the church since I was ten years old. Every moment since I have thought of myself as a Christian or at least as someone trying to be one. Mom and Pastor Joe were instrumental in those early years. 

Therefore, I have never thought of myself as among the "lost." Of course, that means I have not thought too much about myself as among the "found." I suppose you must be lost to be found. I cannot point to anytime in my life when I in any real sense of the word was lost from Jesus and the church. I have always been here. 

However, I am sure some people who read this story can identify with Matthew and the lost. When you sing “Amazing grace,” you really mean it when you sing, “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.” 

            I will be honest with you. Something about me envies those of you who were lost and have been found by Christ. I envy you because you have experienced one of the great miracles of the Christian faith, the miracle of the way that God graciously reaches out to seek and save the lost. When Jesus says that he has come to seek and to save the lost, he is exemplifying one of the great claims of the faith of Israel. That is what the Old Testament prophets saw themselves as doing. They were proclaiming God’s word to the lost, the lost sheep of the house of Israel, those within Israel who had forgotten, or perhaps had never heard, the truth that they are chosen by God, selected for a special mission in the world. Jesus is acting like one of those Old Testament prophets, proclaiming and enacting the kingdom of God for the lost.

            I would like to say that I see myself with Jesus, inviting the lost to come to Christ. I am a preacher. I hope I have stood with Jesus to make that invitation more often than I think.

            The challenging word for me is that I may be among the Pharisees more often than I care to admit. I do not need a physician to heal the sickness of my soul. God help me to see that I may well be more lost than I know. In fact, behind the words of Jesus is the implication that sometimes the sickest of the sick are those who do not know how sick they really are. Have I, who speak a great deal about grace, truly experienced it to the depths of my being? When I hear words like conversion, repentance, and change, have I experienced grace in my own life in a radical, utterly life-changing way? 

In May of 1945, American troops entered the German town of Nord­hausen. With them was a young soldier, Stephen Shields. There, they liberated the infamous concentration camp where thousands of Hungarian Jews had been murdered. At Nordhausen, there were no gas chambers. Rather, prisoners were simply worked to death in an ammunitions factory, starved and exhausted, and then their bodies were dumped in ovens and buried in mass graves. 

Battle-hardened soldiers were stunned at what they saw in Nordhausen. A few hundred prisoners were all that remained and these were walking skeletons. The skeleton-like figures had not the strength even to speak. When the liberators opened the doors of the camp, the prisoners silently moved toward the doors and started walking toward the town of Nordhausen. “Hundreds, perhaps thousands of the former inmates were walking toward the town in a great mass, through the fields and on either side of the road. They were silent. The only sound they made was the rustling of their long, ragged coats against the grass of the fields. They looked like an army of scarecrows, a phalanx of living cadavers.”

Despite all the horrible scenes which were encountered at the camp, Shields says that the worst sight he saw was shortly thereafter. On the road between the concentration camp and the little village, two German teenagers encountered the ghostly prisoners, “They were about 15 years old, and each wore the brown uniform of the Hitler Youth. They were blond, pink-cheeked, and healthy looking. As they passed along our column, when they were opposite my jeep, they suddenly saw the vanguard of the starving Jews, who were coming up behind us and were now walking on the highway. The two boys stopped in their tracks, then, incredibly, they began to laugh. They nudged each other, pointed at the Jews, made comments, and continued to laugh uproariously. It was as if the devil himself were hurling a final insult at those tormented people. We were dumb- founded and enraged. In desperation I turned to the lieutenant. “Sir! What should we do? Shoot them?” Shields remembered that incident as the worst experience of all of the war, a vivid depiction of the banality of human evil.^[14]

 

Matthew 9:18-26 (Mark 5:21-43, Luke 8:40-56) is a story of the healing of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of a woman. 

This version of the story has a leader of the synagogue, a respected leader in the community, kneeling before Jesus, as any desperate father would, to say his daughter has died, but still asking Jesus to lay his hands on her, expressing his faith in the power of Jesus to make her live. Jesus and his disciples follow. On their way, a ritually unclean woman, according to Lev 15:25-27. She has been ill for twelve years. Emphasizing her shyness, she touches the tassels (tallith) of the robe of Jesus, depicting Jesus as a Jew faithful to the Torah. She is engaging in non-traditional behavior, for oral tradition forbade a woman from touching this part of the garment of a man who was not a member of her family. She takes this risk because she seeks healing. Jesus turns, sees her, and offers encouragement to her, addressing her as daughter, and letting her know that her faith has made her well, and instantly she was made well. The restorative words of healing and peace finalize her healing. Here is an example of the kind of faith true disciples must maintain. She confronts lingering illness and the personal struggles that entailed, which makes the positive thrust of the story, her faith in Jesus, even more remarkable. Her appearance, gender, and status make her a surprising model of faithfulness. In this context, faith is the conviction that resources are present to meet the needs of this moment. The story becomes personal for the follower of Jesus. Do I believe I have the resources I need to face the challenges in this moment of my life? We know today that faith has certain characteristics, regardless of the content. As the story of the synagogue leader continues, however, Jesus arrives at the home of the man, witnessing the beginning of a funeral, flute playing and public expressions of grief. The sting of death is reflected in such public acts, especially when a young person dies. Such public action allows those affected by the death of this person to say that this person mattered, that something precious and irreplaceable has ended. Funerals close a door that needs to close so that we can move on with the rest of our lives. However, Jesus tells those gathered to leave, for the girl is sleeping. Their response is to laugh, for we live in a world where death is final. However, when the crowd left, he went to the girl, took her by the hand, and the girl got up, with the report of this spreading throughout the district, emphasizing the wonder working power of Jesus that directs readers to the divine authority of Jesus. The faith expressed by two people of different social status and gender become a model for readers.

Application

This woman is desperate and lonely. Do we truly see the desperate and lonely people around us? Do we see ourselves as in that situation? We know that the living Christ responds with compassion because Jesus of Nazareth responded with compassion. The followers of Jesus today are the hands and feet of Jesus as they respond to the desperate and lonely today.

This man is religious, respectable, and educated. He might be like a middle-class person in our world. He is also a desperate father. Beyond the external appearances of security and means, he had an anxious inner life. We know the living Christ turns to similar such persons today with compassion because Jesus of Nazareth responded with compassion. 

In the crisis of the moment, Jesus invites the leader of the synagogue to have faith. It was fashionable to emphasize, as James Fowler, Paul Tillich and others were doing, that faith in its formal structure is the same whether you believe in Buddha, Allah, Moses, Jesus, Big Ernie or even in yourself.  Fair enough, but we must face the content question. Who really can supply the resources for which the human heart aches?  

This story also highlights the great power Jesus had. He will face great adversity in the course of his life that will lead him to the cross. He will remain in relationship with his heavenly Father and he will remain faithful, living out his life in obedience to the call of God upon his life. Yet, his life also exhibits power. Most of us recognize that life is about facing adversity and overcoming obstacles. Yet, if you want to have a test of the character of a person, give the person power.^[15] How will the person use the power they have? The police officer has power. The FBI and other law enforcement agencies have resources at their disposal to exert great power that can destroy the lives of innocent people. The movie “Richard Jewell” (2019) demonstrates such abuse in a powerful way. The politician and bureaucrat have the power of government behind them. Abuse of that power can bring great damage to citizens who have done nothing to deserve it. Jesus throughout the course of his life shows how to use the power one has to give direction to the lost, healing to the sick, forgiveness to the sinner, and liberation to those imprisoned.

---

[1] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958), 18, with the saying originally unattached and the story created for the saying.

[2] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958), 28. 

[3] (Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus, 1971) 116.

[4] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Volume 2, 332.

[5] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Volume 2, 335-6.

[6] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958),104-5, where he admits this is possible historically.

[7] Grundmann, TDNT, III, 399.

[8] (Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus, 1971), 119.

[9] (Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom, 1961), 90-91.

[10] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958), 49, this is a secondary introduction of a scriptural proof into the dialogue.

[11] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 284-5.

[12] Johann Arnold, Seeking Peace (Pennsylvania: The Plough Publishing House, 1998), 140.

[13] Inspired by William Willimon, Pulpit Resource 1999

[14] American Heritage, December 1989, p. 83–93, “Triumph and Tragedy.” by Stephen Shields

[15]   “Nearly all men can stand adversity,” said Abraham Lincoln, “but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

Romans 4:13-25

Romans 4:13-25 (NRSV)

¹³ For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. ¹⁴ If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. ¹⁵ For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

¹⁶ For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, ¹⁷ as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”)—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. ¹⁸ Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.” ¹⁹ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰ No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, ²¹ being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. ²² Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.” ²³ Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, ²⁴ but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, ²⁵ who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. 

            Then, in Romans 4:13-25, Paul begins a discussion of promise, faith, and hope. 

Summary

My central aim is to explain Paul’s argument that God’s promise and justification come through faith (and grace), not through the Mosaic Law, works, or circumcision. Abraham is presented as the controlling example: he is “right with God” because he trusts God’s promise despite impossible circumstances.

This passage delves into Romans 4:13-25, emphasizing Paul's argument that God's promise to Abraham, and thus justification, comes through faith and grace, not adherence to the Mosaic Law or circumcision. Abraham's belief in God's power, even in the face of Sarah's barrenness and his own old age, serves as the ultimate model of faith. Paul connects this "life from the dead" theme directly to Christ's resurrection, highlighting it as conclusive proof of Christ's divinity, the atoning value of his death, and a guarantee of the Christian's own future resurrection. The main themes involve:

·      Promise vs. Law: The promise would cease to be “promise” if it were earned by law-keeping.

·      Faith as receptive trust: Faith is framed as trusting God’s gracious action, not confidence in human merit.

·      Grace as the basis of assurance: “So that the promise rests on grace” is a repeated anchor idea.

·      Resurrection as theological hinge: Resurrection is treated not only as an event but as the interpretive key that confirms Jesus’s identity and grounds justification and hope.

·      Hope against hope: Hope is defined as resilient trust amid contrary evidence—Abraham as prototype for Christian hope.

The text also explores the practical application of this theology, particularly regarding justification and hope. Justification is presented as being brought into right relationship with God, an act of divine grace that mends humanity's inherent brokenness. Hope, rooted in this faith, is not a naive optimism but a profound trust in God's gracious activity, even "against all hope," as Abraham demonstrated. 

Introduction

Paul is continuing his argument concerning the centrality of faith by pointing to the example of Abraham. He is showing that his teaching is a fulfillment of the Old Testament at its basic level, going behind the Torah to Abraham. The promise comes only to the people of faith. He now shifts to the part in Genesis 15 where it refers to the belief in God. The emphasis of Paul on humble trust is in line with the best elements of Judaism. The point of the passage before us is that Abraham was right with God because of his faith, not the Law or circumcision. Thus, it is faith that justifies, and therefore, when God promises that Abraham will be a father, it means his descendants are through faith not circumcision or Law.  Finally, he shows that Christ is the revelation of this plan, or shall we say the clear setting forth of the plan, and it is through him that we receive justification. Such considerations might lead us toward a practical application. Whenever people suppose themselves consciousness of the emotion of nearness to God, whenever they speak and write of divine things, whenever we think of sermon making and temple-building as an ultimate human occupation, whenever people are aware of divine appointment and of being entrusted with a divine mission, sin abounds. Being an heir of the promise, then, must depend on faith, so that the promise rests on grace toward those who share the faith of Abraham, who is father of us all, even as the promise finds its fulfillment.[1]

Verse-by-verse study

In Romans 4: 13-17, Paul sets forth the priority of promise and grace over Law, works, and merit. The justification of the godless and the life that comes of the raising of the dead belong together. In an analogous way, the righteousness of faith and the validation of the promise in the raising of Christ belong together. If the promise is set in force by God, then it confers righteousness by faith. It is of faith so that it might be by grace, to the end that the promise is sure to all the seed, defined as those of the faith of Abraham. The point is that promise would no longer be the promise of God if it had anything to do with the law.[2] ¹³ For the promise (ἐπαγγελία) that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the Mosaic law but (ἀλλὰ forceful use of the adversative conjunction) through the righteousness of faith. Paul is implicitly assailing the Jewish view that all blessings came to Abraham because of his merit in keeping the Law, which he was supposed to have known in advance.  For Paul the heirs of the promise of inheriting the world are not the observers of the Mosaic Law, but the people of faith. ¹⁴ If it is the adherents of the Mosaic law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise (ἐπαγγελία) is void. The Law succeeds only in producing sin. Paul creates a dichotomy: promise, faith, and grace opposed to law, transgression, and wrath. ¹⁵ For the Mosaic law brings wrath (Romans 1:18-3:20); but (δὲ forceful use of the adversative conjunction) where there is no law, neither is there violation.Law means transgression of the law. Where one has no Law, one has no condemnation. Where most of his Jewish contemporaries would prefer to say, “The law brings about righteousness,” Paul has argued resolutely that righteousness comes about through faith. The role of the Law shifts to the production of wrath. The Law has more to do with the situation described in 1:18-3:20 than with its solution in 3:21ff. The Law is more a tool of the wrath of God than of righteousness. Verses 16-17 underscore what Paul has been saying about the gracious divine initiative and the faithful response of Abraham. ¹⁶ For this reason (Διὰ τοῦτο), which can also have the translation of “therefore,” “on this account,” and “for this cause.” The phrase signifies that what follows will address the underlying cause or reason something is or ought to be, is done or ought to be done. The promise depends on faith, in order that the promise (ἐπαγγελίαν) may rest on grace (χάριν). Faith is trust in the gracious purpose of God, not trust in our own capacity to accrue divine benevolence by being obedient. The promise does not rest on some quid quo pro arrangement that has God owing Abraham for being dutiful. God will guarantee the promise to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but (ἀλλὰ forceful use of the adversative conjunction) also to those who share the faith of Abraham. The promise of God to Abraham is a complete act of grace, which means openly extending kindness and mercy to those who do not deserve it. Grace is no longer grace when earning it appears. Abraham does not earn the promise of God for descendants. God grants this promise and Abraham receives it through trusting — having faith — that God will do what God promises. Paul then offers his biblical support by reminding his readers (for he is the father of all of us, ¹⁷ as it stands written in Genesis 17:5, “I have made you the father of many nations.”  Abraham could believe the promise because he was in the presence of the God in whom he believed. Abraham knew that this God gives life to the dead, referring to the childlessness of Sarah, and calls into existence the things that do not exist, connecting childlessness with creation. In the second of the Eighteen Benedictions, Paul would have prayed something like “Remember us unto life, O king, who delights in life. Who resembles You, O King, who orders death and restores life, and causes salvation (Yeshua) to spring forth? You are faithful to revive the dead. Blessed art thou, O L-rd, who revives the dead.” When we think theologically here, in a sense, the essence of God is not available to us apart from this revelation, that God raised Jesus from the dead. We again see the significance of the moment or event in Christian teaching. Here is an area in which neither individuals nor communities can co-operate. Giving life to the dead is an act of God alone.[3] Paul puts the resurrection of the dead alongside creation out of nothing. Paul is suggesting that the Easter event and the resurrection on which sets Christian hope is limitless as creation. Only the Creator can awaken the dead, and resurrection from the dead shows what it means to be Creator. The act of creation finds consummation in the resurrection. Resurrection is the supreme enactment of the will of the Creator that wills the existence of creatures. Indeed, by using this imagery, Paul makes a connection between God overcoming the childlessness of Abraham and Sarah (“gives life to the dead”) with creation (“calls into existence the things that do not exist”).[4] The dynamic of God’s grace and Abraham’s faith operating in 4:16-17 helps substantiate what goes before in the passage. God is present where we wait upon this promise in hope and transformation. The things that are not yet, the things that are future, become thinkable because we can hope for them.[5] In simplest terms, Paul is telling his audience that when it comes to the promises of God, it is not what we do to earn them, but what God does graciously to bestow them. 

¹⁸ Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become, as said in Genesis 17:5, “the father of many nations,”according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.” Thus, contrary to all human expectation, he expressed his faith with hope.  Although Abraham had many motives for despairing of ever having posterity, he believed, confident about what the divine promise inspired in him.  Thus, Abraham became the model of human believing. Abraham believed in something impossible. Hope always leaves room for the gracious activity of God in our lives, families, communities, and nations. Thus, Abraham ¹⁹did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰ No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but rather, he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God. Abraham ²¹ was fully convinced that God was able to do what God had promised. Confession of Jesus as Lord gives hope of deliverance in connection with belief in the apostolic proclamation that God has raised him from the dead, and by this faith, we are righteous before God. This implies on a personal relation of individuals to Jesus Christ, as well as membership in the church founded by the apostolic missionary proclamation and adherence to its common confession of the apostolic faith.[6]  ²² Therefore, in Genesis 15:6, God “reckoned (Ἐλογίσθη, credited) his faith to him as righteousness (δικαιοσύνην).” Paul concludes his midrash by reverting to its staring point. The conclusion is self-evident. It was just this faith that God looked for and accepted in reckoning Abraham righteous, a faith exercised prior to and independently of any work, especially circumcision. ²³Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, ²⁴ but for ours also, uniting Paul with his readers. Paul now addresses the readers and identifies them with himself as Christians, using the first personal plural in doing so.  He has cited the story of Abraham to apply it to himself and his readers.  He thus employs a feature of midrashic interpretation, modernizing the Old Testament story to apply it to a new situation. God will reckon or credit (λογίζεσθαι) us who believe, uniting Paul and his readers in this moment, in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. There could be some justification for connecting the life God brought to the dead body of Abraham and the faith of the Christian community in the one who raised Jesus from the dead. Verse 25 offers a typically Pauline doctrinal summary. It reflects the language and imagery of the "Suffering Servant" portions in Isaiah 52:13-53:12, while its poetic parallelism may also be evidence of its use as an early church hymn or creed. Therefore, he further identifies Jesus as the one whom the Father ²⁵ handed over to death for our trespasses, the death of Christ reminding him of our sin. Paul suggests expiation. Some of us will find it difficult to think that our lives are such that the just consequence of the outcome of our lives is divine judgment. In expiation, the doers are released from the damaging consequences of their acts. No one would want act and consequence removed from human interactions. If we act in an irresponsible way, certain consequences ought to follow. Life does not always work that way, but most of us are glad it does sometimes. Most of us will also have a generous view of ourselves in thinking the good of our lives far outweighs the bad, and thus, we deserve good consequences from God at the end of our lives. We will need to ponder all of this. Paul stresses that the Father giving up the Son reminds us that in the death of Jesus, God the Father acted to reconcile the world. God the Father was at work in this event according to divine providential directing of the course of history. The sending of the Son by the Father aims at the vicarious expiatory death on the cross.[7] The love and grace of God show themselves in the event of the righteous and faithful course of the life of Jesus, but especially in his death and resurrection. Further, in saying that the one whom the Father raised for (διὰ) our justification (δικαίωσιν).

The Greek Fathers understood the resurrection of Christ as the cause of justification.  Many Latin Fathers attempted to integrate the two ideas, death and resurrection, but this attempt unfortunately minimized the causality of the resurrection, for they actually started looking upon the resurrection only as an appendage or even as an exemplary confirmation of the death of Jesus, which they considered to be the real cause of the forgiveness of sins and justification. 

The writings of Paul keep coming back to the resurrection. 

First, it is conclusive proof of Christs’ divinity.

(Romans 1:4)

and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 

(I Corinthians 15:14-15)

14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.

 

Second, it is proof of the atoning value of his death.

I Corinthians 15:17

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 

 

            Third, it is proof of the efficacy of his death, that it was accepted by God, which means Christ took the place of the sinner, thus ending the wrath of God against him (Romans 3:25-26; 6:7-10). 

Fourth, it guarantees the resurrection of the Christian 

I Corinthians 15:20-23

20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. 21 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; 22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.

II Corinthians 4:14

because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will bring us with you into his presence.

Romans 8:11

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

Colossians 1:18

He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

 

Fifth, it proves our resurrection is also moral and spiritual, thus here and now, calling on the Christian to repeat the redeeming acts of Christ in himself (Romans 6:1-11).  

Application

Is justification still relevant?

If a printer justifies the margins it means placing each line in right relation to the page. Justification in the religious sense brings one into right relation with God.[8] Here is where we need to seriously consider whether you and I need the expiatory character of the death of Christ and the resulting justification from God. Humanity is broken. We live out the course of life journey by mending the brokenness. Grace is the glue to that holds it together.[9] We see our brokenness in the way we handle our faults. We tend to exaggerate our depth of character while treating leniently our flaws. We are hypocrites. We put forward a better image of ourselves than what we really are. Outward character and our inner world.[10] Many people, even most of us, want people to think we are better than we are. We want to receive honors we do not deserve. We have a problem with authenticity. Here is another area in which humanity experiences its brokenness. Humanity needs healing. Paul shows that the resurrection reminds him of our forgiveness.

Hope remains important for us modern folk.

Dante envisioned a journey through hell with an angel who showed him what it was like.  He found these words written over its gates: ""Abandon Hope, You who enter."  Reading the news could lead one to abandon hope right here, on earth. Paul is encouraging us to have the hope that Abraham had. In a church at Staunton Harold in Leicestershire, we find the following words.

 

In the yeare 1653

When all things sacred

were throughout ye nation

Either demonisht or profaned

Sir Robert Shirley, Barronet,

Founded this church;

Whose singular praise it is,

to haue done the best things

in ye worst time,

and hoped them in the most callamitous.

 

If our lives were ending, we will bring one thing into the presence of God it will not be good works, religious laws, our legacy, our denominational affiliation, our doctrine, or anything else we can name and in which we might take pride. We will take only our faith in Christ. Luther stated, "faith grasps hold of Christ." Faith does not claim merit. It does not self-justify through good works. For Luther, we grasp Christ, yes, but truly, Christ is grasping us. As a strong arm extended over the cliff edge to one precariously clinging to his endangered life, we grasp at Christ who has grasped and pulled us out of our sin condition and into a new standing in himself.

The only difference between hope and believing trust in the God who promises is that the relation to the self that is implicit in this trust in God becomes a theme in the case of hope. It is oriented to the content of the promise as the future of salvation that concerns believers themselves. Based on faith it is essential that this should happen, for faith itself depends on the promise of God and becomes saving faith only as believers accept the promise as pertaining to themselves. In the act of faith, we first see this relation to the self as the expression of the promise as the word of God addressing and reaching us, and then it becomes a theme in hope as hope looks to the saving blessing that God promises. Hence, Christian hope rests on faith. Further, the example of Abraham points to an important aspect of hope. The promise of God to him for a son corresponds to the desire he had for a long time. His example shows that the divine promise is not always contrary to human desire. The promise of God runs contrary to the hopes that we set on life here. The promise carries our human tendency, which is open and has no definite goal, beyond the incomplete present to the future actualization. The promise of God, who from the very first is our Creator, actualizes the tendency and gives precision to its object, reorienting it but not outdating our nullifying it. An appeal to the promises of God would deprive them of any meaning if they did not respond to our deepest wants and needs. Yet, we cannot accomplish on our own and by our own action our salvation, the wholeness and fulfillment of our existence, its identity with its destiny to be truly itself. No more can we rationally expect the changes and chances of life to do this for us. The hope of fulfillment, of salvation, transcends all that is possible by what we do or in the ordinary course of things. To that extent, we have here a hope against all hope that the one who gives to life to the dead and being to what is not. Paul found this promise expressed in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, for the significance of this event puts the situation the situation of all of us in a new light. In contrast, one could establish the promises in what is attainable in the course of things and by human action.[11]

I think most of us have a tenuous hold on faith and hope. I share just a few examples.

There will always be people who say it cannot be done.  When the first trains were being built critics said that suffocation lay in wait for anyone who reached the awful speed of 30 miles per hour. A distinguished witness who in 1878 had made a study of Edison's plan to work on an incandescent lamp, reported to the British Parliament: "Edison's ideas were good enough for our trans-Atlantic friends but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific people." A Methodist Bishop named Wright declared that humans would never fly.  He had two sons, Orville and Wilbur.  

Abraham believed in something impossible.  Hope leaves room for the gracious work of God in our lives today in conception of our destiny. It leaves room for hope in our friends, neighbors, church, and world. 

Yet we can acknowledge that hope is not easy. Dante envisioned a journey through hell with an angel who showed him what it was like.  These words would be written over its gates: ""Abandon Hope, You who enter."  Reading the news could lead one to abandon hope right here, on earth.  Think of the times we could have read in the paper of the people who might have hoped for something far better, while their dreams were put to death.  Someone says, "We had hoped ... that the tests would prove negative."  Still another says, "We had hoped ... that he would stop drinking."  Another says about the church, "We had hoped ... that in this church there wouldn't be any hypocrites."  Every time we enter the world, there are many temptations to abandon hope.  Will you? 

Michael Weisser, the cantor for the synagogue in Lincoln, Nebraska, became the object of terror by the local Klan Grand Dragon, Larry Trapp.  Trapp harassed, intimidated, and threatened Weisser with the goal of driving him out of town.  Yet his response was not hating or fear, but hope.  He began calling Trapp, getting only the answering machine. Since Trapp was confined to a wheelchair, he offered to take him to the grocery story.  For weeks, Weisser kept at it, leaving recorded messages of offered help for this Grand Dragon.  Finally, Trapp called, wondering why Weisser was harassing him!  It was not long until Trapp called and confessed, "I want to get out of this and I don't know how."  Weisser immediately responded with an invitation to dinner and a talk.  His wife brought over the peace offering.  When they met for the first time, Trapp burst into tears.  Trapp eventually moved in with the Weisser's, as his health steadily declined until his death.[12]

Living with faith and hope recognizes that we live in a world with plenty of darkness to go around, but they also recognize that we live with the responsibility to bring light.

Robert Fulghum says he was in a classroom setting as a student.  The teacher called for any final questions for the day.  Mr. Fulghum jokingly said: "What is the meaning of life?"  The teacher pulled out a small round piece of mirror he had found shattered on the road as a small boy.  He told how he used to delight in shining its reflective light into dark places.  As he continued to grow, he continued his little game.  As an adult, he began to realize that this was not just a child's game.  It was a metaphor for what he could do with his life.  He was not the light or the source of the light, but his life could reflect the light in as many dark places as he reflected it.  His life is only the fragment of a mirror whose whole design he does not know.  But he can reflect the light into dark places.  "This is what I am about.  This is the meaning of my life."^[13]

---

[1] (Barth, Epistle to the Romans 1918, 1921, 1933), 136.

[2] (Moltmann, Theology of Hope 1965, 1967), 146.

[3] (Pannenberg, Jesus -- God and Man 1964, 1968), 130.

[4] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume I, 417.

[5] (Moltmann, Theology of Hope 1965, 1967), 30.

[6] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume III, 232.

[7] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume II, 418, 438.

[8] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking (Harper & Row, 1973), 48.

[9] Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.  --Eugene O'Neill, The Great God Brown.

[10] C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

[11] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 173-74, 176-77.

[12] (Time, Feb 2, 1992)

[13] (It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It).

Genesis 12:1-9

Genesis 12:1-9 (NRSV)

 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. ² I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

⁴ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. ⁵ Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, ⁶ Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. ⁷ Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. ⁸ From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. ⁹ And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.

Genesis 12:1-4a, 6-9 are part, the rest being Genesis 11:28-30, 15:1-12, 17-21, of the J account of the call of Abram, the covenant with Abram, and his journey to the land promised to him by the Lord. Genesis 12:4b-5 is the insertion of the P account into the J narrative.

 

Summary

My main thesis is that Genesis 12:1–9 marks God’s radical new initiative to heal humanity’s post-fall/post-Babel fracture: God elects Abram by grace, calls him into a severing “go” (lech lecha), and establishes a covenant-shaped relationship whose purpose is universal blessing—Abram/Israel (and, by extension in Christian reading, the church) is blessed in order to bless.

The narrative-theological placement supports this thesis. This study delves into Genesis 12:1-9, analyzing the J and P accounts of Abram's call and journey. It highlights how Abram's story immediately follows narratives of human failure (Adam and Eve, Tower of Babel), presenting God's radical new initiative to heal the breach with humanity through one man.

The "lech lecha" command ("Go, you!") is central, signifying a profound separation from Abram's past and future, leaving him solely dependent on God. This was a dramatic call, urging him to abandon his secure ancient household, challenging his identity and cultural norms. His obedience, despite uncertainties, set an example of faith.

The text emphasizes that God's blessings to Abram—a great nation, a great name, and a promised land—were not for his sole benefit. Abram was to become a blessing to "all the families of the earth," a "light to the nations." Such covenant language is the identity engine of Israel, making it not merely a legal contract, but becomes the theological bond that constitutes a people and energize both Jewish and Christian faith and life. This principle extends to every Christian's vocation: God calls each person to sacred work, regardless of profession, to bless others. The journey of faith, like Abram's, involves risk, challenges, and "altar-building" moments of worship, requiring trust in God's guidance even when the path is unclear.

Introduction

In Genesis 12:1-4a we find the J account of the call of Abram. 

Up to this point in the Bible, J has painted history in the broadest possible strokes. He has taken a universal view, showing humanity has failed in relation to the Lord and to each other. Adam and Eve were unable to obey one simple command. They experienced exile, the woman would have pain in childbirth and produce from the land would be difficult. Humanity would continue its course of wickedness to which the Lord will respond with judgment. Most recently, the expression of arrogance in building the tower of Babel resulted in the judgment of the confusion of human language and separation into nations. Was such judgment the final word from the Lord? The story of human origins to this point in J wants to present us with the urgency of this question.^[1]  From this point on, J will view and interpret history through the slim opening of a single social line, the seed of Abram, chosen by the Lord to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. The point of the call of Abram is to heal the breach between the Lord and the nations. In a mere four verses, we have described the creation of an entire people and the establishment of a radically new kind of relationship between humanity and divinity. The “call of Abram” does more than separate a lone herdsman from his ancestral family. This “call” separates the old animistic, anthropocentric notions of the universe from a remarkably new way of viewing the divine/human or creator/creation relationship. Abram’s family was from Ur, a large city and a major center for the worship of the moon-god Sin. The Lord promises to Abram that which we all seek: a place, family, and fullness of life. In the promise that a nation shall arise out of him, a nation not named in the previous list of the nations, we find the Lord willing to do something new. The text does not yet suggest the reason for the choice of Abram. The Lord has decided by grace to work with a family that will be the beginning of a people and eventually a nation. What would have happened if Abram had stayed home? That would have been natural in his culture. Typically, one stayed with the clan and the religion of the clan. Abram, in letting go of his home, liberated himself to create a new home. He became free to worship and serve the Lord in his own way.

Verse-by-verse study

 ¹Now the Lord said to Abram (Ab [or the Divine Father] is lofty, exalted)^[2], “Go (lech lecha, literally "Go, you!").^[3] In this powerful word from the Lord, the Lord is creating something new. It is a dramatic divine summons upon the life of Abram. Direct divine-human communication is presented matter-of-factly throughout much of the Hebrew Bible, with dreams, visions and similar accoutrements of divine-human interaction being depicted as common but not necessary. There are only two instances in the entire Bible where the Lord addresses anyone with direct personal command. The second occurrence of lech lecha, "Go, you!" is also spoken to Abraham -- this time in Genesis 22:2. Although English translation almost invariably fails to reflect this parallelism, both the initial call to Abram in Genesis 12:1 and the Lord’s shocking command to Abraham that he offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice are phrased with this lech lecha, "Go, you!" directive. This parallelism is significant. In both cases, the Lord is asking Abram/Abraham to give up his own identity as a symbol of his commitment to the Lord Yahweh. In Genesis 12:1, the Lord asks Abram to give up his entire past; in Genesis 22, Abraham is asked to give up his future. "Go, you!" severs Abram/Abraham from everything human he would cling to for security and identity. In both cases the lech lecha order leaves Abram/Abraham solely with the Lord -- no past, no future, no family, no land, no people. Just the Lord.  Abram is to go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house (bet `ab) decisively and deliberately. The Lord calls him to leave the home of his father. While it is unclear exactly what prompted the initial move of Terah from Ur to Haran, there is no ambiguity about what inspired the move of Abram. The Lord’s directive to Abram is straightforward, both in its demand and in its promises. Genesis 12:1 does not try to sugarcoat or soft-pedal the things Abram is asked to give up. In fact, the text itemizes them.

We need to reflect upon the significance of this call. One way we can do this is to consider the ancient household. It was the basic domestic unit of the agricultural and nomadic economy. It was a cooperative unit of uncles, aunts, nephews, slaves, and their families. The large group was the primary way they could provide enough food and money for each other. Thus, we can see the dramatic nature of this call to leave the home of the father.^[4] This call suggests that to establish his identity and find his place in the plan of the Lord, he had to leave his familiar surroundings. He must deliberately “Go” to fulfill the call of the Lord upon his life.^[5]  Abram awakens to the call of the Lord. He must pass from a well-known past to a future that is only just opening to him. We can properly look upon this text as analogous to the spiritual journey from the old self to the new self. ^[6] He is to go to the land that I will show you, land being one of the recurring themes of Torah. None of us knows precisely what following the call of the Lord will mean or what places that call may take us. The call of the Lord demands with increasing urgency detachment from strong ties to land as well as from kinship and the family.^[7] 2 I will make of you a great nation, one not yet listed in the J narrative, progeny being another of the themes of Torah, and I will bless you, and make your name great. These promises come unexpectedly as an act of grace. Abram has no merit that we know of that would be a reason for this divine choice. In 11:4, the people want to make a name for themselves by building a tower to challenge God. Here, the Lord will give him a name as he fulfills his calling. Other texts related to David and the sacral kingship seem to have similar language. In II Samuel 7:9, the Lord says David will have a great name. Psalm 71:17 refers to the name of the king enduring forever. The elect community is an anticipation of the future of human fellowship with God and with each other. The full significance of the passing notation of Sarai's barrenness in 11:31 now becomes clear, as Abram is promised not only land, but descendants to fill it, a theme that runs not only through Genesis, but also throughout the patriarchal literature of ancient Israel's near neighbors in northwest Syria-Palestine, the people of Ugarit. The Ugaritic stories of King Kirta and the patriarch Dan'el (mentioned in Ezekiel 14:14) turn on the same problem, and their stories, like Abram's, are filled with irony, tension, surprising turns, and sophisticated suggestions. Two significant differences between the Ugaritic stories and Abram's story, however, stand out. One difference is that in Hebrew narratives of childlessness, it is always the wife who is barren, never a sterile husband (see, for example, the stories of Rachel [Genesis 29:31], Hannah [I Samuel 1:2] and Samson's mother [Judges 13:2]). The purpose is so that you will be a blessing (wahyeh berakah). Abram is to become a formula of blessing with which people in the future will wish blessings upon each other.^[8]  Abram becomes a witness to the Lord as he moves toward the goal. He bears this witness, not only to the people of his hometown and to the inhabitants of Canaan, but also to the estranged Sarah, to the unsuspecting Isaac, and to all those implicated in his history. He is this quite simply by doing what the Lord tells him to do in strict obedience and blind trust. He emerges as one who is called by the Lord to represent and reveal by way of anticipation what the Lord wills to do and will do, even though the Lord begins to do it in great concealment.^[9] In spite of the dramatic effect of the call, the call itself comes naturally, as if Abram has known the Lord throughout his life. The call relies upon what Abram already knew of the Lord.^[10] 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” A second difference within Hebrew narratives of childlessness is that Abram's need for a son (a daughter would not be acceptable, socially or literarily) stems not from personal deprivation or desire (although it would certainly be present), but from his divine call: Abram's offspring is for the benefit of "all the families of the earth." Although it is true that the Ugaritic texts depict the domestic and the political under the concept of the patriarchal, the enlargement of the domestic to the scope of the national and beyond - without losing the essential connection to the domestic - is made more explicit in the Hebrew patriarchal narrative. Here is the etiology of Israel itself, bridging the gulf between the Lord and humanity as the distant goal of the judgment just given toward humanity at the Tower of Babel.^[11] 4a So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.Significantly, Abram obeys this word from the Lord. Abram is consistent with Noah, but different from many other people in the Bible who either objected or went the other way. The narrator dismisses as unimportant any struggle of soul that might have occurred. He portrays the fact of mute obedience in simplicity. With this emigration begins his great alien existence and that of his descendants.^[12] Despite his willingness to go where the Lord told him to go, fight whom he had to fight; despite his faithful altar-building activities and his sacrificial devotion to the Lord, whom he was only beginning to know, Abram could not help but notice that his life lacked a crucial component necessary for him to become the father of this promised "great nation." He had no son, no heir, no one to whom to pass on any inheritance. 

At the heart of Hebrew faith stands the covenant commitment that forever binds together the Lord and the people of Israel. The concept of covenant -- which J presents in several different forms, established, and reestablished at several different points in biblical history -- is not unique to Israel. However, it is in Israel that "covenant" takes on a new life and moves far beyond its legal contractual roots. Covenant theology gives power and identity to an entire nation, and eternal vitality to Old and New Testament faith. 

Application

The Lord says to Abram, “If you go … I will show.” This is the reward of faith. When we step out in faith, the Lord draws the curtain back. When we go on the unknown path, the Lord lights the way before us. When we follow where faith leads us, the Lord shows us what we need to see. Where our eyes fail us, the Lord gives us sight.

It may not be quite so simple in our lives as it was for Abram but responding to the divine call in our lives will involve risk.

 

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.^[13]

Life is a journey, not a guided tour.^[14]

 

We are in the process of becoming who God wants us to be. We become that person by heeding the call of God upon us today. Today, our first calling is to become a follower of Jesus in every part of our lives. Regardless of what we do with our lives, we are followers of Jesus first. After that, we are witness for Jesus in our families and places of work.

The example of Abram and our stories can lead people to see our need to live a called life. We will need to travel. Life with God is a journey. 

 

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.^[15]

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.^[16]

 

The most important journey we make is from the childishness of concern primarily for self to the maturity of concern for what God wants. Based upon the calling of Abram, let us consider “calling” itself. 

In my life as clergy, which extends back to 1978 as a student pastor, we still have some major work to do here. We still have many people who think that God calls clergy to ministry and laity simply does secular work. You might be a lawyer, doctor, farmer, assembly-line worker, office manager, or teacher. You may be a stay-at-home parent. Your first calling is to become Christian where you are. Your primary witness is in that place.  God calls every Christian to a vocation. We have the DNA of Abram’s call: We follow God, God blesses us, and we bless others.

 

Lord,

Take me where you want me to go;

Let me meet who you want me to meet;

Tell me what you want me to say

And keep me out of your way.^[17]

 

Then the Holy Spirit gifts each of us individually, empowering us to live out our own calling. This makes sacred work of being an architect, violinist, mother or electrician. Our calling is sacred because we respond to and engage God in our daily activity. In The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence famously said, 

 

“Our sanctification does not depend as much on changing our activities as it does on doing them for God rather than for ourselves.”^[18]

 

That is where “work” and “calling” collide.

Nevertheless, let us not be naïve about this. We still live out our calling through some deeply challenging experiences. Those who believe do so with passion in the heart, anguish of mind, uncertainty, doubt, and even despair at times. If one does not have these things, one still believes in the idea of God, but not in God.^[19]

 We might learn something from trapeze artists. There is an incredibly special relationship between the person called the "flier" and the one called the "catcher."  The flier, of course, is the one who lets go, and the catcher is the one who hangs by the knees from the other trapeze and catches the flier. When the flier reaches the top of his arc, his one task is to let go, arms reaching out into space, and then to remain as still as possible while the catcher grabs hold of him. It is a skill not easily learned, for it goes against every human survival instinct. "The flier must never try to catch the catcher. The flier must wait in absolute trust. The catcher will catch him, but he must wait."^[20]

Abram had his own crises to deal with. We have ours. 

• The teacher must deal with increasing classroom size, low pay, parental complaints and pressure to produce high test scores.

• The businessperson must lay off two more people. Cost-cutting measures trump her or his passion for innovation. The office worker who labors in a cubicle feels stale and lifeless.

• The stay-at-home mom never feels ahead of the slave-driving to-do list and must battle a tantrum-throwing toddler. She is always a mom and a wife but does not have time to be her own woman.

• Dad feels suffocated when kids and chaos greet him at the front door. The lawn needs mowing. The church needs volunteers. The daughter hates her body, and the son is scared to ask a girl to go to the prom. 

 

These do not stack up to Abram’s crises: circumcision, childlessness and then the call to sacrifice the one child he finally has. Nevertheless, whatever our crises, they belong to us, and no one gets to tell us they are insignificant. Truth is that we feel deep experiential opposition to our calling. Like Abram and like our response to our vocation, life is not roses just because God calls us to something. 

Moreover, if we are not careful, we will die in the details. We will hit the wall. We will burn out on what we do because we have lost sight of why we do it.

Everybody has a calling that we need to take the initiative to recall. We can keep focused on the reason God has placed us here, in this time and this place. Without recalling that call, we are begging for burnout. Do not let that happen to you.

 

Verse-by-verse study

Genesis 12:4b-5 Abram took his family from Ur to Haran, and then to Canaan. The text is an insertion from the P document into the story of the J story of the call and migration of Abram. It shows the obedience of Abram. He becomes a model Israelite. To expect the ancients to leave ancestral bonds was almost impossible. Without cavil, Abram obeys the divine summons. ^4b Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. ⁵ Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran. The inconspicuous detail of mentioning the purchase of slaves in Haran indicates both Abram's growing wealth and power, and the growing diversity of his household; in addition to Hurrian slaves, we will learn later (15:2) that his chief steward is from Damascus (some 300 miles south of Haran), and Hagar, who will bear Abraham's first son, is Egyptian. Abram's household reflects the universality of the blessing originating with it. The narrative passes over in complete unself-conscious silence the fact of Abram's having "acquired" persons in Haran (an important Hurrian city in northern Mesopotamia). Slavery was an accepted practice among the Hebrews. The expression denotes not only servants and slaves. And they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. Abram will function very much like a patron throughout his narrative, and his body of clients began to coalesce around him prior to his migration. When they had come to the land of Canaan, the traditional designation of the area and people along the Mediterranean between the southern end of the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee in the north. (The boundaries given in Genesis 10:19 are representational, not actual.) When Abram is promised this land in Genesis 15:18, the promised area is much larger than the historical area under anything that could be called Canaanite control. That the Israelites never fully conquered the land promised to Abram/Abraham is admitted by the biblical writers in such passages as Judges 3:1-6. The descendants of the Canaanites would become known in classical antiquity as the Phoenicians.

Verse-by-verse study

Genesis 12:6-9 shows the progress Abram makes in his geographical journey. The locations mentioned in Abram's initial journey to Canaan - Shechem, Bethel and Ai - indicate an entrance into northern Canaan and a journey southward, toward the desert region of the Negeb. The willingness to travel physically has long formed an analogy to the spiritual journey.

⁶ Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, one of the oldest Canaanite cities.  Shechem was an ancient city that once controlled a Canaanite city-state whose borders extended to the city-states of Jerusalem and Gezer in the south and Megiddo in the north (a total distance of some 80 miles, north to south.[21] It was also an important Israelite religious center from the time of the patriarchs, through the tribal period (Joshua 24:25), and into the New Testament (John 4:19-24). In the Old Testament, Shechem, which lay in the heart of Canaanite country, the land promised by Yahweh to the Israelites, was associated especially with the family of Jacob (see Genesis 35:4), the eponymous ancestor of all the Israelites. Abram's initial movement through the land of Canaan is located first at Schechem, which is approximately the north-south midway point of Canaan, and later site of the covenant ratification that made a national league of the 12 tribes of Israel, an important step toward full nationhood (Joshua 24:1-28). 

Abram and his entourage went to the oak of Moreh, a sacred tree and cult center.  The "oak at Moreh" is probably the "Diviners' Oak" at Shechem mentioned in Judges 9:6, an important Canaanite cult center appropriated first by the Israelite patriarchs and later by their descendants. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. This indicates a time of writing when the memory of the original inhabitants of the land possessed by the Israelites had faded. In the Bible, the term "Canaanite" designates, always negatively, the undifferentiated religious culture displaced by the Israelites in an area traditionally bordered by the Mediterranean coast in the west, Sidon in the north, Gaza in the south, and the eastern shore of the Dead Sea in the east (see Genesis 10:19). Although occasionally mentioned alongside other displaced peoples, the biblical Canaanites usually included such groups as the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Kenites, and the Rephaim (see Genesis 15:19-21; Exodus 23:23, 34:11; Deuteronomy 7:1).

⁷ Then the Lord appeared to Abram, Christians seeing here a good analogy with the “appearance” of the risen Christ to the disciples, especially as recorded in the Gospels, and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared, see verse 7, to him. Thus, near by the sacred tree at Moreh Abram would build his own altar. Although not the first to erect an altar to the LORD (Noah had already done so, Genesis 8:20), Abram displayed exemplary piety as a Yahweh worshiper (cf 13:3-4, 18; 15:10-11), an identity that, in the story of his trial of the near-sacrifice of Isaac (22:13), would overshadow all other attributes. Abram's fearlessness in the story of his call to emigrate to an unknown land foreshadows his fearless devotion to his god when he is called, in sacrifice, to what appears to be an impossible future. ⁸ From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. This suggests an act of worship that connects the primeval narrative with the patriarchal narrative.⁹ And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb. Abram's sequential journeys past Bethel and Ai, toward the Negeb, indicate a southward route.

The Lord called Abram to travel about 500 miles. To walk that distance with a large entourage would have been a daunting task. One can do it, of course, as long as one remembers that even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. One can reach the destination, but only one step at a time. This is faith that cannot see the finish line but trusts that a blessing is waiting at the end. This is faith that cannot anticipate every obstacle but believes that the Lord is offering guidance along the way. This is faith that cannot always see the big picture but focuses instead on the path that lies ahead. He has a vision of the reward of reaching the end, that of being a great nation, but he also sees that this blessing will occur to become a blessing to the nations. To receive a blessing from the Lord is never the end game. The Lord chose Israel to be “a light to the nations” (Isaiah 49:6). Jesus “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Followers of Christ are “to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last” (John 15:16). The Lord blesses those who engage the Lord in their journey of life, but the purpose of such blessing is never to cling to them as if they are a personal possession. We receive them in that moment, but we also learn to share them with others whose unique journeys overlap with our journey. In this case, for Abram to receive the blessing, the primary obstacle was that the Canaanites were in the land. He might have felt a bit like the bumper sticker said: “I took the road less travelled. Now, where the heck am I?” The Lord promised that while Abram would not live to see it, his descendants will possess the land. Abram marked the promise with an altar and moved on with his journey. Abram had faith that the Lord held the big picture in view, and he became content to entrust himself to and live with the promise. He focused upon what he knew, taking one step at a time. Our journey is similar in that we cannot know a future we have not yet experienced, but we can entrust that future to the Lord who accompanies us in the journey. We will have our moments of altar building and worship as well, but we must not prematurely end the journey. He moved the entire clan away from their home, embarking on a perilous journey to an unknown destination, with sheep, tents and slaves. This happened not once, but twice. First, to Canaan to settle there at the Lord's direction. Later, during a famine, he was forced to move his family down to Egypt. He also found that there would be wars and prosperity, alliances and lies, mistakes and successes, births and deaths, jealousies and laughter, and promises - promises made by the Lord to Abram, that the Lord would make him the father of nations, whose children would number as many as the grains of sand in a desert, as many as the stars in the night sky. He found trouble in Canaan when a famine came. He courted trouble in Egypt with the Pharaoh. There were problems with Lot, his nephew, and the Sodom and Gomorrah thing, and then the time when he got ahead of the Lord by having his first son with Hagar the maid. Abram had his share of troubles, but he had adventures, opportunities, happiness, and possibilities. The Lord gave him the moral strength and the strength of character to face the obstacles his journey would bring his way. Such are the reasons why Abram remains a model for people of faith and hope. We have new possibilities and opportunities, but always with challenges, difficulties, and obstacles to face. 

Application 

Have you ever noticed how often people in the Bible are changing their addresses? It is hard to find anyone who is in a serious drama with God who is not on the move. A word of caution is appropriate. If the Lord calls you to stay home, you must stay home. 

Studies have shown that Americans are physically on the move every 5.2 years. Americans have been on the move for years. Walt Whitman wrote "Song of the Open Road," Jack London penned The Road, and then in the late 1940s, Jack Kerouac took a roaring drive across America and wrote the classic novel On the Road. The heroes of this book, Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise, "were intended as the automobile-age equivalents of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. 'Beyond the glittery street was darkness, and beyond darkness, the West,' Kerouac wrote. 'I had to go.'"[22]  Kerouac's love of the road has inspired a generation of nomads.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous, yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and in the middle you see the blue center light pop, and everybody goes 'Awww!'" Such energy and emotion enliven another of his books, The Dharma Bums, "a vision of a great rucksack revolution, thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to the mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier."[23]

 

Yet, it may well be we are so busy chasing our dreams that we are sacrificing our "sense of place." And what a loss this is, because without a place of belonging, we lack a certain centeredness. Home is a concept that goes back to the dawn of humanity and may even predate religion. For millennia, it has given people a sense of peace, safety, stability and belonging. Is our urge to hop to new nests now destroying the concept of "home," replacing it with the more sterile idea of "housing"? Are we failing to pass the "old homestead" from one generation to the next, and in the process failing to transmit other important qualities to our descendants? Is the breakdown of the postmodern family somehow related to our need to move? Is our wanderlust a cause or an effect of this problem?

As pleasing as it would be to connect all these various societal failures with the "motion sickness" caused by our hops to new spots, this is not quite fair. People have been on the road since the time of Abraham, and somehow the values of home and family have survived their peripatetic passions. 

Why would some human beings wish to live on Mars or on Europa, the moon of Jupiter? The only legitimate and good answer is the one George Mallory gave to the question of why he wanted to climb Mount Everest: “Because it is there.” Travelling to remote places may have an economic, scientific, and even sentimental attraction. People have a variety of reasons for moving from one place to another. Migration is a constant factor of human history, often over huge distances, for reasons difficult to discern. Most of us can imagine a future when emigration from Earth might become inexpensive enough for people to emigrate to another planet. It will require advanced biotechnology and understanding of population systems. Such advances will have a positive influence upon the daily life of people on earth. Exploring and travel are in the DNA of human beings.[24]

Moving - whether to a new neighborhood, new city, new state, new job - although it may involve trauma for kids and spouse, need not be a curse, but can be a blessing. What makes a transition good or bad is not when you hop, but how you hop, and the call of Abram in Genesis 12 can give us some hints about how to make the right moves. When the Lord calls, it will be best to move. Word will come in the deep inner sense you have that a move is going to be right for you and your loved ones, right in the sense that it gives you new challenges, new responsibilities and new opportunities for growth. As the Lord made a wonderful promise to Abram, the Lord has a wonderful promise for each of us to fulfill a destiny uniquely belonging to us. The grass is not always greener on the other side, but it might be, and it will be if we have properly heard the call of the Lord. The symbol of such proper hearing is Abram building an altar and offering worship. We need such altars and such experiences of worship in the spiritual journey that is our lives.

Faith means taking out on a journey which means leaving all that is familiar and secure and gives us identity.  Faith means heading out for destinations we cannot see.  The focus of our attention needs to be on where God is leading and guiding us.  That which motivates us must be much larger than simply “for the sake of family.”  Who we are, what we hope to be, our safety and security, need to be in God. There is a wonderful hymn that reminds us how important it is to experience God as the source of our lives.  

 

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,

pilgrim through this barren land.

I am weak, but thou art mighty;

hold me with thy powerful hand.

Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,

feed me till I want no more;

feed me till I want no more.

 

---

[1] (von Rad, Biblical Interpretation in Preaching 1973, 1977), 23.

[2] Abram’s name means “Ab [or the Divine Father] is lofty, exalted,” a type of name found extensively throughout the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East in general. These theophorous kinship proper names consist of a kinship element — father, brother, uncle, etc. — combined with a verbal (and sometimes nonverbal) element, as here. The kinship term refers to a deity understood as the divine patron of the person bearing the name. In Abram’s case, a subsequent name change will be explained by the Priestly writer of that event as referring to Abraham himself — “ancestor of a multitude” (17:4) — rather than to Abraham’s divine kin. In fact, like many biblical etymologies, the Priestly explanation of Abraham’s name is a Volksetymologie pressed into theological service; both Abram and Abraham were probably originally simply dialectical variants, with the longer form with the internal -h- being especially common in Aramaic names.

[3] a Hebrew grammatical construction sometimes referred to as the reflexive or centripetal dative -- "take yourself" (KJV, "get thee"). 

[4] (For one of the most complete discussions of the Israelite family to date, see L.E. Stager, "The archaeology of the family in ancient Israel," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 260 (1985), 18-23.) We have here a technical term in Hebrew denoting not only a patriarch's immediate family -- his wife (or wives), unmarried sons and daughters and surviving parent(s) -- but potentially many collateral relatives and dependents as well: cousins, nieces, nephews, in-laws, servants and clients. The, "father's house," rather than the nuclear family, was the basic domestic unit in ancient Israel, as a single heterosexual reproductive pair and their offspring were not capable of supporting themselves in the pastoral-agrarian lifestyle of the Hebrews. The subsistence agrarian and nomadic economy of the early Israelites in the hill country of Canaan required more labor than a single nuclear family could provide, and only through the cooperative arrangement of the bet `ab could its members find sufficient economic and social security.

[5] According to T. Muraoka, it "[S]erves to convey the impression on the part of the speaker or author that the subject establishes his own identity, recovering or finding his own place by determinedly dissociating himself from his familiar surrounding." (quoted in B.K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990], 208, and note their example, 34).

[6] (Barth, Church Dogmatics 2004, 1932-67) IV.2 [66.4] 578)

[7] (von Rad, Biblical Interpretation in Preaching 1973, 1977), 24.

[8] (von Rad, Biblical Interpretation in Preaching 1973, 1977), 24.

[9] (Barth, Church Dogmatics 2004, 1932-67) (IV.3 [71.4] 577)

[10] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991) Volume 1, 204)

[11] (von Rad, Biblical Interpretation in Preaching 1973, 1977), 24.

[12] (von Rad, Biblical Interpretation in Preaching 1973, 1977) 25.

[13] — H. Jackson Brown’s mother. See page 13 in Brown’s 1991 book: P.S. I Love You: When Mom Wrote, She Always Saved the Best for Last.

[14] —Unknown.

[15] Attributed to St. Augustine, but in reality, only the first part, in Letter 43.

[16] Often attributed to Cesare Pavese, but see Glenn Clark (1882-1956), The Secret Power in Business, http://self-improvement-ebooks.com/books/tsopib.php

[17] —Prayer of the Rev. Mychal Judge, O.F.M., Fire Department of New York chaplain who died on 9/11 in the World Trade Center collapse.

[18] –Brother Lawrence

[19] Spanish novelist Miguel de Unamuno

[20] Nouwen, Henri. Cited by Ian Pitt-Watson, A Kind of Folly: Toward a Practical Theology of Preaching. St. Andrew Press, 1976, 36.

[21] See G.E. Wright, Shechem [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965], 4).

[22] (Douglas Brinkley, "In the Kerouac Archive," The Atlantic Monthly, November 1998, 50-51).

[23] -Ann Charters, Kerouac (New York: Warner Books, 1973), 292-294.

[24] Inspired by -Freeman J. Dyson, "Warm-Blooded Plants and Freeze-Dried Fish," The Atlantic Monthly, November 1997. I did not mention the silliness of an apocalyptic view of what humanity will do to destroy its home.