Don Friesen
Centuries ago my ancestors left the Netherlands for Prussia, eventually settling in the Ukraine. Who knows where they came from before they moved to the Low Countries? Perhaps they were Huns, or Visigoths, or Ostrogoths! The Ukraine didn't hold them for long. In the nineteenth century my paternal grandparents emigrated to Canada, settling in Manitoba. They were there long enough for my grandfather to become the mayor of Plum Coulee — which now holds little more than an MCC warehouse — but within only a decade my grandparents moved on to Saskatchewan, in search of the Promised Land — or at least some arid land that was promised to them. There my grandfather built the first windmill in what was then the Northwest Territories, and he and his large family kept moving around, living in several different places. My father seemed to share this wanderlust. My parents also moved about — from the Prairies to the West Coast and then back to the Prairies, where I was born — and though my parents were old enough to become sedentary by the time I was born, they kept moving on to something else. By the time I was fifteen I had lived in nine different homes!
Genesis 12: A Pivotal Passage of Scripture
Our Old Testament lesson from the book of Genesis is a key passage of Scripture — a pivotal passage of Scripture — and I have a feeling that my parents and grandparents liked this passage, for it embodies a wayfaring spirit. Genesis 12 tells the story of Abraham and Sarah, whom God called to leave Haran, their home, and to move on to something better! "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you," said the Lord. (Genesis 12:1)
The journey of God's people — traced throughout the Scriptures — begins with a simple, two-letter word: Go! — Go! Go! Go! It set in motion a journey that has had a profound and enduring influence on the biblical story, and on the world. Nearly one-fourth of the book of Genesis is devoted to Abraham. There are over forty Old Testament references to Abraham, and seventy-five New Testament references. Paul chose Abraham as the finest example of one who is justified before God by faith apart from works. (Romans 4) James refers to Abraham as one who demonstrated his faith by his works. (James 2:21-23) Hebrews points to Abraham as an illustration of one who walked by faith, and devotes more space to Abraham than to any other individual in his catalogue of saints. (Hebrews 11:8-19)
Abraham is remembered as a great man of faith, not only by Christians, but by Jews and Muslims. He is revered by over one-half of the world's population! Jews identify Abraham as their founding father, Christians trace the lineage of Jesus back to him (Matthew 1:1), and Muslims revere him as a friend of God, a father of the prophets, and an ancestor of Mohammed. (Koran 37:109)
The call of Abraham and Sarah, as recounted in Genesis 12, is not told in great detail. In fact, one may wonder about its attraction, for it can only be described as a call to emigrate to an unknown destination for incomprehensible purposes in what seems like an impossible future.
It's also important to recognize that the journey Abraham and Sarah embarked upon was not an individualistic, lone-ranger type of journey, where one travels to heroic destinations with few encumbrances. The call recounted in Genesis 12 implicates an entire clan, complete with relatives and livestock!
The pilgrim motif is indelibly imprinted upon the biblical story by the story of Abraham and Sarah. The pilgrim motif is formalized in Old Testament worship, where the liturgy begins with "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor...." (Deuteronomy 26:5) The pilgrim motif is rendered most eloquently in the New Testament, where Hebrews recounts, "By faith (Abraham and Sarah) stayed for a time in the land (they) had been promised, (as strangers in a foreign country [NIV]), living in tents.... For (they) looked forward to the city ...whose architect and builder is God." (Hebrews 11:9-10, NRSV).
Is Terah my Spiritual Father?
God called Abraham and Sarah to exchange their Haran townhouse for a tent! Now, I've never really enjoyed tenting. Sleeping on a lumpy mattress, laid out on rocky terrain, with rivulets of rain water running through the tent is not my idea of a good time! With apologies to those of you who are avid campers, I prefer my own bed, in my own home, with my own considerate and even-tempered neighbours.
My wandering parents and grandparents may have enjoyed a journey, but I'm rather partial to the destination! I've heard many Christians talk blithely about how the Christian journey itself is the important thing, which I find a rather flaky notion. It's true that the pilgrim motif is a recurring theme in the Bible, but there is a destination to that spiritual journey!
Whereas my forebears looked for the Promised Land in Saskatchewan, I left Saskatchewan, thinking I might find my own version of the Promised Land in Ottawa. I'm not sure it's here, but I've stayed, for I wanted to give my own children a more settled existence than I had known as a child. The first irony, of course, is that two of my children left home at the first opportunity, and the second irony is that the membership of this congregation leaks like a sieve!
Genesis 12 may be a pivotal passage of Scripture, but that doesn't mean I have to like it! I may be out of sync with over half of the world's population, but I find Abraham and Sarah's decision to bolt out of Haran rather frightening! In fact, I find my spiritual father in Genesis 11, where we read, "Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, ...and his daughter-in-law Sarai, ...and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there." (Genesis 11:31)
Abraham's father, Terah, is my spiritual mentor. He started out on this journey to the Promised Land, but when he got to Haran he said, Enough's enough! This may not be the Promised Land, but it's good enough already! I discovered that the name, Terah, means "loiterer," which sounds rather derogatory for someone who valued stability. Another source I consulted says that the name means a "station" or "delay". It carries the idea of a stopping place, a rest area, even a roadblock. My spiritual mentor is viewed by the Bible in a negative light.
Haran Was Meant to Be but a Rest Stop
I may not like the pilgrim motif so prominent in the biblical story, but I need to hear it, for I know that I find it much easier to accept second best than the best if the best includes any measure of risk! The biblical story tells us that settling down in Haran is stopping short of fulfilling the biblical dream. Imagine, for example, that you received the promise of a dream job in Toronto as well as an opportunity to live in a dream home there, and so you set out on Highway 416 and then the 401, and along the way you pulled in at a rest stop. If you were Terah, or one of his spiritual offspring, you might say, I think I'll settle here. What more do I need? There's food here, a Tim Horton's, bathrooms, gas. We've even got community here. Oh, sure, they come and go every twenty minutes, but that's much like the congregation we left in Ottawa!
Settling down at a 401 rest stop sounds ridiculous. You'd rather sleep out in the parking lot than in that nice home waiting for you in the city?!? That's exactly what Terah did. He was on his way to Canaan, the Promised Land (Genesis 11:30), but he found Haran good enough and left it to his son to complete the journey.
Haran was meant to be but a rest stop on the way to the Promised Land, but something held Terah back from completing the journey. He loitered in Haran, even though there appeared to be no future in Haran. Terah settled for something far short of his intended destination. Maybe the station wagon broke down in Haran. Maybe the vague promise of a Promised Land had lost its allure. Maybe the present in Haran seemed more real than the future in some unknown land. Maybe a bird in the hand in Haran seemed more of a sure thing than two birds in some strange bush in Canaan. Whatever the reason, the dream of Canaan was traded in for the "good enough" of Haran. Haran is on the way to the Promised Land, but it's only half-way there.
It's a Question of Desire
We are talking about the geography of the human heart, of course, and the formative experience of Abraham and Sarah challenges us at the point of desire. Hebrews tells us that Abraham and Sarah and their clan kept moving on because they "desire(d) a better country" (Hebrews 11:16), or as other translations render it, "they were longing for a better homeland". (JER; NEB; PHL)
When we settle for "good enough," we're essentially loitering in Haran. We settle for Haran. Haran is making peace with the "here and now," or Haran-now, I suppose we could say. Lingering in a spiritual Haran, we have essentially decided to work with "what is," instead of being drawn by "what could be".
While on the one hand our economy caters to our superficial desires and leaves no stone unturned in trying to stimulate them, our nobler desires are muted and suppressed. There is no shortage of people convinced of the intractable "common sense" of the way things are, but our biblical tradition begs for a holy restlessness. When, like Abraham and Sarah, we sense the emptiness of "what is" and what is "good enough" and experience a desire for more — for the abundance that God offers — we set out from Haran. There was something in God's call to Abraham and Sarach that aroused desire in them for more than Haran could provide. (I am indebted to Michael Peers for this discussion of desire)
I know that it's not fashionable to trumpet the life of the Church — even in Christian circles — but the Church is one of the few communities in our society that speaks to this desire, this longing. We may know only fragments of this longing, but they nudge us toward the life of the church. People content to settle cozily in Haran are discovering that it cannot sustain their spirits. That discovery, and the longing and hunger it arouses, begs the Church's response. The cracks in the fabric of "the way things are" represent fissures of hope through which the Spirit of God can enter and find residence. People of faith take this desire seriously. We work at understanding this hunger. We work at finding language to describe it and fashioning liturgy and ritual to give a name to our restlessness and to awaken the desire that runs like a thread through our dreams. The Church is a place to explore this desire. It is my dream that the Church be a place where our dreams and desires are taken as seriously as the constraints of our circumstances.
Set Out on a Journey with the One Who Is the Way
Abraham and Sarah set out on a perilous journey because they desired something better. They encountered all kinds of difficulties along that journey — failures, lies, quarrels, detours, all sorts of twists and turns — but the pull of their faith was stronger than the sting of their failures. They shared an eagerness to be on the way and to reach their destination. Abraham and Sarah were advanced in age when they set out, yet they shared the spirit of children who on road trips never tire of asking, "Are we there yet?"
Jesus calls us on a similar journey — to take the hand of the one who is "The Way" and embark on a journey of faith. It's also a relationship — a relationship I find analogous to marriage. From time to time I sit down with couples who plan on marrying each other. Some people think that the purpose of pre-marital counselling is to warn a couple about what "they're getting into". To tell you the truth, I have no idea what some of these couples are getting into. Few of us who are married had any idea what we were getting into when we vowed to cherish each other. When Dorothy and I got married some thirty-two years ago, I don't think Dorothy had any idea of how good it would be to be married to me — no idea! It was an act of charity on her part. Who knows where life will lead us, or how we will change? The important thing is to commit ourselves to a journey with another person, wherever that journey may lead. Our vows of commitment are compelled by the alluring promise of marriage — the promise of love and fidelity, friendship, and all those other things we enjoy.
Jesus invites us to embark on a journey with him. We are invited to entrust our lives to the One who will stop at nothing — not even a tortured death — to ensure our ultimate safety and eternal well-being. Jesus invites us — as he invited Nicodemus — to commit ourselves to a life led by the wind of God's Spirit. In our obedient response to that invitation, that call, lies our ultimate blessing. AMEN
All quotations of Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version.