God made room in his family for the fallen lot of us and God’s people were supposed to be in the business of making room too.Įven the eventual set of events that land Abram’s descendants in Egypt for 400+ years got rolled into this identity. But if so, it would be because God established his people in a way that was supposed to ensure that radical hospitality toward outsiders would be a hallmark of Israel. All the nations of the earth will be blessed through Abram’s descendants we read here in Genesis 12. Why did God decide to found his chosen people by displacing the father of the faith? Why turn Abram into an immigrant, a wanderer, a man without a home or country? Hard to say.īut maybe it was in part to show what was necessary to save this fallen world. “A wandering Aramean was our father” the saying would go eventually to describe Abram/Abraham. Fast forward a dozen chapters from Genesis 12 and you read the story of the only piece of property in Canaan Abram ever officially owned before he died: it was the 6×6 plot of ground he purchased as the burial site for his beloved wife.Īnd that’s it. Oh, God will show him the land of Canaan eventually and assure him his descendants will inhabit the land but that would not being to happen for a long time. Truth is, he would never again be as settled as he had been for all his long years in Ur. But if Abram had concerns or doubts, they were well founded. We are told only that God said “Go” and Abram went. If he had a hard time selling the crazy plan to his wife Sarai, the text does not tell us. If Abram wrestled with all this, the text does not tell us. to a land I will show you.” Kind of vague. What’s more, he certainly had no desire to leave all that he knew to set out for a place that initially at least was a mystery destination. And no regrets.”Ībram could surely have said the same about Ur. I was born here, I lived here, I’ll die here. Once a place touches you like this, the wind never blows so cold again. “This is my most special place in all the world. Graham to come with him to a magical baseball field in Iowa where his old dreams might come true.
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But at one point Kevin Costner’s Ray Kinsella shows up and asks Dr.
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He had settled in Chisolm, Minnesota, and was a highly respected member of the community. He had hoped to be a professional baseball player once but only played half-an-inning back in the day before giving it up to become a doctor. It reminds me of a lovely scene in the movie Field of Dreams in which Bert Lancaster plays Dr. He and his wife Sarai had, as we like to say, settled down. His life was likely highly comfortable there in Ur. Have you ever been struck by how unattractive this must have sounded to Abram at his advanced age? Why would he want to go anywhere? He had his home. Have you ever been struck by the fact that this is God’s very first word to Abram? Go.