It all starts with Abraham and his journey

Of all the people who have lived on earth, there is none more influential than Abraham. Judaism, Islam and Christianity all claim Abraham as their spiritual father. As we all are forced to see ourselves as one humanity in one world, we need to look for our common denominators. For about half of the world’s population, that means Abraham. How can a person who lived his journey at least 3,500 years ago be so important to us in 2009? His shadow hangs over all of us.

This man of destiny rises out of a long list of descendants in the 11th chapter of Genesis. Old genealogies pay no attention to mothers and so Abraham is only identified as the son of his father, Terah. Moses identifies his relationship with Abraham by confessing, “A wandering Aramean was my father,” (Deuteronomy 26:5). Abraham was a shadowy figure at best and would have remained as such except for a reported incident with a God named Jehovah.

Jehovah approached Abraham and gave him a strange command. “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to a land I will show you.” Abraham’s country was Mesopotamia, today’s Iraq. God’s call promised Abraham that he would use him to found new nations. God had asked Abraham to do a very difficult thing. Leave your father.

In that day a son did not leave his father. In today’s world, a son is expected to leave his father. In the simple words of the Genesis writer, “Abraham went out not knowing where he was going.” Incredibly, Abraham left his father at the call of God.

In setting out on a journey into the unknown, Abraham set a precedent. God comes first. God comes first before family, clan and nation.

The affairs of people in the time of Abraham were governed by covenants. A covenant was an agreement between two parties, usually a dominant party and a submissive party. Terms of the covenant were spelled out. There were responsibilities and rewards. Consequences were also laid out.

Abraham was unique in that his covenant was not with another human being, clan or nation. Abraham made a covenant with Jehovah God. God was the dominant party. Abraham was the submissive party. Abraham was probably not a monotheist in the sense in which we use the term today. Abraham was surrounded by people who had many Gods. Abraham was a monotheist in a crucial sense. He served only the God named Jehovah.

Abraham had left home and family with only a wife, who had proven to be barren. His only son was by a slave woman named Hagar. The name of the son was Ishmael. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, got a message from God that she was going to have a son. She laughed. After all, she was 90 and Abraham was 100. Indeed she had a son and they named him Isaac.

As a young boy, Isaac became the center piece of a testing to see if Abraham really was committed to God, first, last and always. God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son. Child sacrifice of children was common at that time in that area, but Isaac was a special child, a child of promise, a child of destiny. Abraham took Isaac to a mountain site and built an altar. He was prepared to sacrifice his son in his covenant promise to obey God.

I have a Jewish friend in Chicago, who is a devout practitioner of his faith. He is theologically trained. I visited him in his home. Two entire walls of his home are covered with artistic renderings of Abraham with Isaac bound to the altar. I listened a long time to my friend as he plumbed the depth of a commitment to God that was total.

Total commitment to God is the great gift of Abraham to the ages. Moses had it. Jesus had it. Muhammad had it. I am a part of the branch of commitment that is tied to Jesus, the prophet and teacher from Nazareth. In the ministry of Jesus I find the same themes in his teachings that I find in the Abraham story. He called people to leave family, profession and wealth to follow him. He reminded us that God was to be loved with heart, mind and soul. He calls us to leave every form of self-interest to follow the call of God.

When I visited my Jewish friend in Chicago, we had no problem understanding one another. I do not have a close relationship with a devout Muslim. Sometimes I think such a relationship is a missing link in my spiritual journey. I can imagine sitting at a round table with Jew and Muslim and sharing the essence of our faiths. I suspect that the most fertile soil for the conversation would be found in Abraham, the wandering Aramean, who dared to leave clan, family and father and go out on a journey not knowing where he was going.

The Rev. Howard Bess is an American Baptist minister living in retirement in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.