It
is commonly said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a
single step.  It seems, in this story of Abram, that this is true.
God says “go” and Abram takes the first step.  By the accounts of
the Bible, it will be about 2000 miles, this journey he goes on.
Which is about the same distance as walking to Atlanta, Georgia –
and back.  

Or,
its the same distance as walking the Appalachian Trail (AT) as it
wanders from Maine to Georgia.  Thru hikers on the AT are able to
make the hike in 5-7 months.  Abram and Sarai will take quite a bit
longer than that.

Thru
hikers on the AT, however, usually have lives to go back to.  They
take time off, hike the trail (with food mailed to them along the
way), and then return to their houses, jobs, families, friends, and
former lives.  Its said that 3 in 20 people who start out on the AT –
usually with the best hiking boots, water sanitizers, backpacks, and
tents – will complete the journey.

Abram
and Sarai will eventually complete their journey, albeit with
different names by the time they are done. They and Lot and their
servants and their animals traveled for 2000 miles and even when they
“arrived” where they were going, they would never settle.  The
story claims that Abram was 75 when he left on the journey, and 175
when he died. The land where he and Sarah were buried – purchased
at Sarah’s death – would be the only land they would call their own
again.  There were no more houses that they lived in.  The rest of
their lives would be lived in the tents of a nomad.  Once the journey
moved them from the city of their home, they wouldn’t hear their own
language ever again.  And, maybe it was important, and maybe it
wasn’t – but the religion of his birth – the gods that the people
worshipped in the Land of Ur – were left behind as well.  Abraham
left on this new journey called by a God who, as far as we know, had
not spoken to him until God said, “Get up and go.”  And he left.

Abram,
Sarai, and Lot model listening to God’s call and trusting that God
goes with us on our journeys.    That said, sometimes God calls us to
stay put too.  God’s calls can’t be predicted, we aren’t all Abrams
and Sarais.  And while God will call where and how God will call, we
all also have yearning for both journey and for stability.  (Which
sometimes matches God’s call and sometimes doesn’t.)

We
want stability (like
Psalm 121): to have a routine, to have deep connections to people
we see on a regular basis, to know and understand the systems and
institutions around us, to have some predictability to life, to sing
songs we KNOW, to eat familiar food, to have our view of the world
unperturbed.  I have been in Schenectady longer than anywhere else
since I graduated from high school, and I can assure you that there
is a magic and a wonder to knowing where you are going without
needing a map, to learning a grocery store well enough that you can
make a shopping list in the order of the store’s aisles, to having
your doctor actually know your medical history, to having colleagues
with whom you’ve built deep trust over time.  

We
also want change though: we want new experiences, we want to travel
and see new things and learn different ways of being, we want to meet
people who teach us about seeing the world differently, we want
better than what we’ve already known – systems that WORK for
everyone, we want to sing new songs that resonate with our beings, to
eat new delicious food, to have our worldview expanded.  We want to
grow, and change, and become.  We want things to be BETTER.

The
tension between stability and change, between journeying and staying
put is a major tension in life.  Immigrants and refugees live lives
of the journey, Abram and Sarai among them.  

Years
ago I heard this poem, and its been playing around in my head ever
since:

The
Call of Abraham by Kilian McDonnell¹

(“Now
the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country.’” Gen 12:1)

Talk
about imperious.
Without a by-your-leave,
or, may I presume?
No
previous contact,
no letter of introduction,
no greeting,
just
out of the blue
this unknown God
issues edicts.

This
is not a conversation.
Am I a nobody
to receive decrees
from
one whose name
I do not know?
And at our first encounter!

I
have worshipped my own god.
To you I had addressed no
prayers,
offered no sacrifices.
asked no favors,
but
quick,
like sudden fire in the desert,
without the most
elemental ritual,
I hear “Go.”

At
seventy-five,
am I supposed to scuttle my life,
take that
ancient wasteland, Sarai,
place my thin arthritic bones
upon
the road
to some mumbled nowhere?

Let
me get this straight.
I will be brief.
I summarize.
In ten
generations since the Flood
you have spoken to no one.
Now,
like thunder on a clear day,
you give commands:
pull up my
tent,
desert my home,
the graves of my ancestors,
my friends
next door, leave Haran
for a country you do not name,
there to
be a stranger,
a sojourner.

God
of the wilderness,
from two desiccated lumps,
from two parched
prunes
you promise to make a great nation.
In me all peoples of
the earth
will be blessed.

You
come late, Lord, very late,
but my camels leave in the morning.

I
love the tension in the poem, the anger, the annoyance, the worry,
the fear, the humanity of it.  The ending is perfect, because despite
it all or because of it all, he goes.  Abraham is the father of
faith, the beginning of the monotheistic tradition.  Christians,
Jews, and Muslims look to him as father.

I
looked at Genesis chapter 11 this week, and noticed something
important. Abram’s father, Terah is the one who starts the Journey.
We say that Abram went from Ur to Shechem, BUT REALLY his father
seemed to make the decision to go from Ur to Haran, which is the
longer part of the journey.  Abram heard the call and left Haran for
Shechem.  That changes things.

See,
if Abram was called out of no where and nothing to do this, with no
prior relationship with God, and he did… and he is the father of
faith, then we might conclude that we’re called to do that too.  But
really it wasn’t like that.  Whether or not Terah knew it, he started
the journey.  Whether or not Terah knew God, he started the journey.
Abram had already experienced migration, and move, he had already let
go of some of the things you have to let go of to leave.  Further,
despite the poem, we don’t really know how long God and Abram had
been talking, it may have been a lot longer.  

The
scripture says, “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.  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.  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.’”

But
it actually doesn’t say, “Suddenly, out of no where the LORD
said….”

If
Abram hadn’t done it, would we be here today?  I don’t think so.
BUT, if Terah hadn’t gone, we also wouldn’t be, and if Isaac hadn’t
been faithful we also wouldn’t be….

Abram
was ONE PART of a journey.  His part was spectacular and still
startles us today with its faithfulness.  But the journey started
before him, and it was 500 years or more before the promise he heard
was fulfilled.  

Its
not ALL on us, my friends.  We’re called to do our part, but God is
patient, and has long range plans. We aren’t going to solve world
hunger or bring world peace, or even just transform poverty in
Schenectady by ourselves.  We’re just a part – an imperative part,
but not the only part.  The calls to stay, and the calls to go,
they’re all a part of a larger picture – and when we are faithful,
we enable God’s work in the world to grow ever more complicated and
beautiful.  

So,
I couldn’t help but counter the Call of Abraham poem.  I just don’t
buy that it was sudden, as beautiful as the first poem is.  Nor do I
think Abram’s version is the whole story. So, having considered it
from another angle, here is the Call of Sarah.

The Call of Sarah by Sara Baron
(“Now, the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country.” Gen 12:1)

When you’ve been a failure, an outcast, a useless lump,
an ancient wasteland, like I have -which is to say:
a barren woman –
for your whole life, you learn the things others do not.

You learn how to hold your head up,
when there is no reason to be proud.
You learn how to find peace,
when there is no peace to be found.
And ever so slowly,
so slowly indeed that you don’t notice it coming,
you learn that your value is not
what everyone else believes it to be.
You learn that you are not just a failed child-bearer.
You learn that you are alive and good and loved and worthy as just a person, even without being a mother.

I heard it first.
I heard it many decades ago.
I heard it when we were still in Ur.
It took me a decade to admit it to myself.
And another to admit it to Abram,
sweet husband though he is.

After I told him, he looked at me strangely for a while.
Then, a few years later, he started to hear it too.
He looked at me even more strangely after that.

That was 20 years ago.
The call has become louder every day.
It has started to seems reasonable to us,
which just proves that we’re crazy.

We’re too old.

But then again the rituals of worship feel like lies now.
We’ve come to know this one who talks to us, this One-God.
The rest of them fade away as if to nothing in the light of the One-God.

I’m not sure when we decided,
it took so long, and we went back and forth and back and forth….
and then back and forth some more.
It was about when Terah died, that the back and forth line moved so we talked a bit more about going than about how crazy we were.
Then, later, we slowly eliminated our excuses.

After all, we’re old.
What do we have to lose?

I’m ready to leave the pitying eyes,
and move to the desert where I can be free,
To worship and to love the One-God,
To love and connect to my Abram,
To be a blessing, even without being blessed.

We come very late, One-God, very very late.
But our camels leave in the morning.  

Remember
dear ones, there is more to the story than meets the eye –
including the ones who started the journey and the ones who complete
it.  Our parts are imperative, but they’re just a part of what God is
up to.  Thanks be to God.  Amen

1http://www.saintjohnsabbey.org/mcdonnell/poetry.html#The%20Call%20of%20Abraham