Abraham Leaves Home

Rev. Stephen Milton
Lawrence Park Community Church
July 6 2025
Genesis 12:1-9

This month, we will be spending each Sunday hearing parts of the story of Abraham,
who lived just ten generations after the Flood. Why give Abraham so much time? Well,
because he is important. Islam, Judaism and Christianity all consider him to be the
father of their faiths. Over half of all humanity belongs to a faith that begins with
Abraham. He is counted as the first person to believe in the one God. Jews count him 1
as the first Jew. Muslims count him as the father of their faith because he was a 2
prophet, and an ancestor of Mohammed.3
Dome of the Rock

Brian Maclaren, Finding our way again, p.21. 1
https://www.washingtonjewishweek.com/who-was-the-first-jew/ 2
https://habib.camden.rutgers.edu/islam/abraham/#:~:text=The prophet Abraham (AS) has,the 3
prophet Muhammad (S).

When Abraham is told to sacrifice his second son, Isaac, he does it on a rock which is
now under the gold domed-mosque in Jerusalem . And as we will see, Christians, both 4
Catholics and Protestants, see him as critical for understanding what faith means.

So who was Abraham? He appears in the book of Genesis, ten generations after the
Flood . His distant ancestor is Shem, one of Noah’s sons ( Genesis 11). Abraham was 5
born in the city of UR, in what is now Iraq, in one of the world’s first advanced
civilizations. According to Jewish and Muslim tradition, his father makes idols to the
pagan gods . For reasons unknown, his father decides to move away from Ur, taking 6
his family with him. They move to a place in what is now Turkey. It appears that they
are wealthy, and make their money from large herds of animals.
Abraham’s name at this point is Abram. He is married to Sarai. She has been unable to
bear children, a source of deep shame at this time. Nonetheless, Abram is devoted to
her for he doesn’t divorce her or seek any other wives. When his story begins, he is 75
years old, so he’s had lots of time to leave her, but he decides to stay. Still, they both
wish they had had children.
Now, it is tempting to think that Abram is an old man, being 75, especially back then.
He must be pretty close to death. However, in the previous chapter, Abram’s genealogy
lists many men who live for hundreds of years. Is it because they were herders and get
their steps in every day? Hard to know. But within this story, Sarai is too old to have
children, but they are not at death’s door yet.
The reason Abram is important is that one day, out of the blue, he hears a voice. It is
God’s voice. God tells him that he should drop everything and bring his family to a new
land south of where they are living. It is already occupied, but not to worry, God will
take care of Abram and his family. This is the voice of the one God, the God we
worship. However, Abram has never heard of this God. He isn’t one of the ones his
father and his society knows. This strange god speaks promises to make Abram the
father of millions of descendants. It’s a promise that sounds impossible. His wife is
barren. It’s a promise that means leaving everything he knows behind - his father, his
homeland, his culture. But despite all of this, Abraham says yes. He decides to take his
wife and his nephew Lot and all their herds to this new land, following the voice of this
unknown God.
Why does he do it? Good question. The text doesn’t say. You’ll note that there are no
miracles here, no burning bush or pillar of fire to prove that this strange God has
enormous power. There’s a promise of millions of descendants, but if that was really

Bruce Feiler, Abraham, ( New York, 2002), 4. 4
Bruce Feiler, Abraham, ( New York, 2002), 23. 5
Bruce Feiler, Abraham, ( New York, 2002), 33. 6

important to Abraham, he could have just married other women. As we’ll see later,
Sarai wants children, but Abraham doesn’t seem too fussed about it. So his decision to
follow God’s voice is not motivated by intimidation or a deep desire for children. So
why does he go?
Have you ever had this experience? When a voice in your head makes a suggestion,
out of the blue? When you have wondered whether that voice was yours or someone
else’s? From our modern perspective, it seems strange that a new faith starts with a
man who obeys voices in his head. In our time, that is often the first hint that a person
has serious mental health problems. Schizophrenics suffer from insistent voices in their
heads that won’t let them alone. They often end up either raving on the streets, or
suffering silently before they get treatment through drugs. Incidentally, if you know a
young person who is starting to show symptoms of this, there are very good
treatments if this condition is caught early which can preempt a lifetime of serious
metal illness.
But as a minister, I can tell you that it is not only schizophrenics who hear voices.
Ministers refer to our vocation as a call, rather than a job. When we interview to
become ministers, we are asked about the nature of our call, when did we know that
God was calling us to be ministers. Some people say that they have always know they
should enter ministry. Others report a time when they heard a clear voice telling them,
“try this.” They believe that was the voice of God. In my case, the call was more subtle,
more of a slow seeping in rather than a big announcement. Still, I have had times in my
life when a quiet voice has said, “look over there” or “look into this.” It wasn’t an order,
more of a nudge.
You may have had similar experiences. A time when an idea or voice pops into your
head with a message or suggestion that is not what you would have come up with on
your own. But how do you know if the message is authentic? That you are not losing
your mind? How do you know if it is God calling or some more malevolent voice,
coming from inside your mind or outside?
Today’s scripture reading gives us a good clue. When God speaks to Abram, he
doesn’t suggest that Abram harm anyone or commit violence. This isn’t like those
people who blow themselves up saying that God told them to do it. No, God says that
Abram will be blessed.
That sounds good, but God adds that all people on Earth will be blessed through him.
That’s the sound of God. A promise of blessing, not just to Abram and his family, but to
everyone. That’s how Abram knows that this isn’t a mental health breakdown. God isn’t
making this one man a deal. God is thinking of the welfare of everyone.
And this appears to be what convinced Abram to follow God. He wasn’t swayed by
promises of great wealth, or intimidated by a miracle. He just had faith, without any
proof, that God would make his life better, and make the lives of others better.

Abram’s first step has proven critical to the Christian faith. In the early days of
Christianity, there was some debate about how to be a good Christian. The people who
had come from Judaism to Christianity felt that they were pious because they
worshipped in the temple, they said their prayers, they were circumcised, they gave
alms. They followed the rules and worshipped properly. But this meant they had a beef
with the pagans who came to Christianity. Those people weren’t circumcised, they
didn’t go to temple, they didn’t do many of the things Jews associated with piety. So a
dispute broke out - how do you know if you are being a good Christian if you aren’t
doing the obvious work?

In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul talks about this, and he invokes Abraham
to settle the dispute. He points out that Abram wasn’t circumcised when God came
calling. Abram wasn’t worshipping like a jew since he was a pagan, and Judaism didn’t
exist yet. We’re not told that Abram did anything impressive to get God’s blessing. The
only thing he had, Paul said, was faith. Here’s what Paul says about Abram’s faith:
Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many
nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without
weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—
since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also
dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but
was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that
God had power to do what he had promised. ( Romans 4:18-21)
Abram acts based on faith. He’s done nothing to deserve this, he didn’t earn it. If he
had, he would have received God’s promises as fair payment for his good works. No,
Abram is chosen without knowing why, and he becomes pious through his faith, which
is only later expressed through good deeds. He is subject to God’s grace, the
undeserved help, and he keeps that grace by having faith, long before he can make
any burnt offerings or get circumcised. Faith came first Paul says, as it does for all of
us. We cannot do anything to earn the grace offered by Christ. He died on the cross for
every human alive, regardless of whether they had ever heard of him or not. And that is
still true.
Or, to put this another way, the Abraham story shows that God had faith in us first, then
Abram follows God through faith. A faith that sounds more like trust than faith in some
idea about the divine. God believes in us enough to offer this man a new path. A God
who will show that all the idols are just pieces of wood, people following themselves
rather than the God who created the universe. God has faith that we humans were
ready for a new stage in our understanding of the universe and ourselves. God starts
with Abraham, who is promised so much with no proof any of it is possible. And he
accepts. Through faith alone. He trusts in God, even though he has done nothing to
deserve what God promises.

And often, when life gets tough for us, it is only our faith - our trust - that provides any
glimmer of hope. Everything around may seem in ruins, and we don’t see a way
forward. We may feel like we are unworthy, that we’ve failed in too many ways. At that
time, let us remember that we are the children of Abraham. We are always offered
God’s grace, it is not something we can earn or deserve. All God asks is that we have
faith in God’s blessing. That we trust in God’s love for us. And that is sometimes all we
have to hang onto, and all we need to go forward into the strange land of the future.
Amen.