Genesis 12:1-9
Now the LORD said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and you father's house to the land that I will show you. . . So Abram went as the LORD had told him. . .
We don’t know how the call came. . . Did it involve sleepless nights? Did a friend make a run-of-the-mill statement only for it to be infused with meaning as it reached Abram’s ears? Did Sarai express a longing to travel beyond what was comfortable? Or did Terah, Abram’s father, offer words of vision upon his own deathbed? Did he inspire his son to act upon a call from God? We don’t know how the call came.
But Terah, Abram’s father, had planned to travel to the land of Canaan himself. We learn this in the previous chapter of Genesis, just before our scripture text begins. And we know even less about that. Details are sparse. We only know that Terah took his family and left their home, Ur of the Chaldeans. The family had planned to go onto Canaan, but at some point they stopped in Haran, pitched their tents, and stayed there. And incidentally, Haran is an interesting name for that place. Haran was the brother of Abram and the father of Lot, and at some point, Haran died in Ur before the larger family set out. Terah, Abram’s father, had planned to go to Canaan, but seems as though he cut his journey short for some reason we can’t really know. Perhaps grief-stricken, he put away all thoughts of traveling into Canaan. Or perhaps struck by scenic beauty or the potential for prosperity, he chose to stay in a place they discovered along the way. Perhaps remembering the child he lost in Ur, he decided to name this place Haran after his son. We don’t really know.
And we don’t know all the details of how the call came to Abram and Sarai either, but it did come, and it came strongly. Abram and Sarai heard God’s voice speaking to them, calling them and some of those closest to them to leave everything that was comfortable. That call came, and it must have shaken up everything they knew, their external world – the comfort and security of their larger family, the economic resources and routines to which they were accustomed, familiar voices of friends that sustained them, scenic views of Haran, and even tastes and smells. It must have shaken up everything. And perhaps even deeper, it must have shaken up their internal world as well– their sense of what could be easily anticipated, the security they felt in their relationships, their fears about loss and grief, and a new, flooding sense of anxiety must have arrived on the scene, anxiety about what was ahead, about everything they couldn’t yet see.
The call came. It came strongly: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land I will show you.” Now that’s not a lot of detail to hang your hat on. But however the call came, Abram sensed and believed that blessing would follow. He heard God’s love and blessing loud and clear – love and blessing for him, for his family, for others, people he couldn’t even begin to anticipate. “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. . . In you all families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Wow. The details of the move – this great uprooting of human lives – could not be fully anticipated. But also, the blessing, the great scope of it, and the particularity of how it would come to be could also not be fully anticipated. It could only be trusted. It could only be hoped for. It could only be leaned into, only experienced one step at a time, looking ahead, putting weight on the words of the call. It had to be stepped into. It had to be lived.
And Abram and Sarai and Lot and others did it. They trusted the promise, though they had no idea where it would lead. They didn’t even have a mental picture of this land of Canaan. They couldn’t simply check out Canaan’s Wikipedia page, let alone have an idea of how to speak the language or engage the local customs. They just had a call. They had a promise. They had a vision.
The text says it simply and powerfully, “So Abram went.” Abram and his family let this crazy-yet-beautiful call disrupt their lives. At age 75 Abram packed up all that he owned and said goodbye to all he had known. And he journeyed to a place he could not foresee.
Just as we have few details about what came before their journey, we also have few details about what happened during the journey. More sleepless nights, perhaps? Sore, dusty feet? Arguments out of frustration and exhaustion? Differences of opinion as to how to act in the different cultural contexts they were encountering?
Again, we don’t know. But our text tells that they arrived. And that process wasn’t general or vague after all. Just like our lives, just like our own day-to-day experiences, Abram, Sarai, and Lot witnessed particular sights, tasted tangible flavors, and breathed in specific air with a variety of scents. There was a place called Shechem. There was a tree called Moreh. There were new neighbors with names, with families.
And in all these particularities, Abram gave thanks. He remembered Who had given him the call. He remembered Who spoke the holy words, “To your offspring, I will give this land.” Abram gave thanks. Abraham worshipped. Abram built an altar to the Lord, the God who would build his name and his future.
But just because they arrived, the journey wasn’t over. Not all was clear. The blessing they were to experience was an unfolding blessing. It seems as though Abram and Sarai were called to pay attention to ongoing calls – to walk day by day in faith to let the larger call emerge and encompass their very lives. It seems as though they were called into a paradox, a paradox of resting into what has been promised while also remaining primed and posed to act, to step out in faith again and again.
I’ll tell you a story from my own life. I was raised in the church, quite literally in fact. My pastor growing up, David Roth, was very much a father to me. Though our connection wasn't biological, he and his wife Amy adopted me into their lives, and always considered me to be their "fourth child", including me alongside their three, grown children.
After I moved from Indiana (where I grew up) to Austin, Texas, David and I would often have meaningful moments as we were wrapping up phone conversations. Those moments - those conversations - often vacillated between the humorous and the profound, and they still sustain me today.
Once, during David's two-year struggle with the cancer that would eventually take his life, he and I had a conversation just like that: Humorous and then ultimately profound. We were wrapping up our time on the telephone, and as we did, he said, "It's been great to talk to you. Now I hope that you have a good week. And remember. . . keep your shoes on!"
There was a pause, and then we both burst into laughter. I had no idea what he was saying, and neither did he! Neither one of us had any idea what that meant.
"What do you mean?" I asked. "I don't know!" he said, roaring with laughter back at me. It was just something he felt the need to say. Who knows why he chose those words?
But as I've reflected upon that silly moment a couple of years later, I've realized that this strangely-worded metaphor has great meaning for me and for all of us.
"Keep your shoes on." Yes, that's how we're called to live. We're called to be primed and posed and postured to follow God's dreams for our lives. We're called to be ready. We're called to listen intentionally and to discern how we might be called to move or to act in any moment. Today. Tomorrow. And a host of day-by-day tomorrows as they emerge for us. We're called to keep our shoes on, ready to follow where God leads, even if the details are sparse, even if God is asking us to take one step at a time and to follow into a land that God will show us.
But this is just one side of the paradox. We're also called to "take our shoes off." Taking our shoes off, of course, is a reference to several scriptural stories, particularly to Moses who was told to take off his sandals, for he was standing in the presence of God on holy ground. Like Abram, who built an altar in an unforeseen land, we're called to see the sacred holiness of what and who is around us - right now! It's not just about the then - the "what's ahead." It's about this moment. It's about the realization that God has taken our yesterdays and brought us here. God is using this place, this moment, this community, this world to form and fashion us so that we can walk ahead, step by step, from faith to faith.
That's our paradox. Keep your shoes on! Take your shoes off. . . That's the picture of the Christian life.
I was a campus minister in Austin for five years, and I had the sacred privilege to walk alongside students from the University of Texas. One of those people is Libby, and in a similar way that David and Amy Roth adopted me into their family, Ian and I have adopted Libby into ours. She recently shared with me that she's looking for what's next in her life, curious to know how God is calling her in this moment. And just as David and I wrapped up our conversations with humor and at times, strange-depth, Libby and I did the same.
After telling her the same story I've just told you, I suggested that at some point in the day, she should just wear one shoe around the house. We laughed about it. But it was a way to embody this beautiful paradox of the life of faith. Later in the day, I did it myself. And you know what? It made me giggle. It also makes me grateful.
I suggest that you take some time today to do the same thing. Let's play in this paradox together.
Where is God calling you - right now, in this moment? Where is God calling us together - right now, in this moment? Maybe we can help each other keep our shoes on. Maybe we can help each other take our shoes off. With the risk of giving us all an image of dirty, smelly feet - (After all, we are fine upstanding Presbyterians and we like things "decently and in order") I might also add that Jesus washed the feet of his own disciples, teaching us humility and servanthood.
Maybe keeping our shoes on means that we pay attention to the mundane moments in our lives. . . Perhaps God is speaking in them. Maybe it means that we remember that it's not only okay, but powerful to be human beings who ask tough questions. . . Maybe it means acting on dreams we've long forgotten. . . Maybe it means stepping out in faith, moving physically across the world. . . certainly it means moving outside our comfort zone.
Maybe taking our shoes off means that we look around us - perhaps we look into the eyes of those who surround us in this moment, and we give thanks. Maybe it means recognizing and remembering that in our life together, we are called to be a congregation that welcomes the outcasts, a congregation that builds a holy place where young and old alike can be nurtured, a family of faith that steps back in awe as we hear God's remarkable gift of music here, a context where multiculturalism teaches us and teaches the world.
So let's do it.
Keep your shoes on!
Take your shoes off. . .
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
-Renee Roederer
Director of Young Adult Ministries
PPC L.I.F.T.
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