June 7, 2026
William G. Carter
Now
the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and
your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a
great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will
be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses
you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
So
Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram
was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his
wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot and all the possessions that they had
gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to
go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram
passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At
that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared
to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there
an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved on
to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on
the west and Ai on the east, and there he built an altar to
the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. And Abram
journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.
It is one of the great moments of the Bible. God speaks up after a long silence and a few extended genealogies. The Lord approaches a single individual to announce a new plan of salvation. God says, “From you I will make a great nation. You will be a blessing to every family on the earth. So, leave your country, leave your relatives, leave your father’s house, and I will show you where to go.”
As somebody described it, “Abram packed up a You Haul and moved across Mesopotamia.” Everything he owned went with him. His wife and all her servants went with him. Even his nephew Lot went with him, which would later be a questionable decision. And he went because God said so. It was a supreme act of faithfulness, especially for a man who was seventy-five years old. And as we would say these days, he relocated.
People do that, sometimes. They don’t always take everything with them. A friend is departing Knoxville for Tampa, so yesterday, she and her husband had an enormous garage sale. They were even ready to sell their garage. From the pictures she posted on Facebook, there were great deals on knickknacks, fancy dresses, pocketbooks, and at least fifteen pairs of shoes. Unlike Abram and Sarai, she wanted to travel light. But she’s making a move, like any of us makes a move. There is an enormous cost and the promise that it will be a blessing.
In so many ways, God continues to invite us to move from where we are to where he wants us to be. As we heard from the prophet Isaiah last week, we have a God who calls us, who summons us. Sometimes it’s an invitation, sometimes it’s a commandment. The good news is that God engages in our lives – and wishes for us to move in his direction.
I’ve always been interested, for instance, in those moments in the New Testament when Jesus calls somebody and they drop everything to follow him. Like today’s Gospel story, where he summons a tax collector. Just two words: “Follow me.” And that’s it. Now, you know there has to be more. If you’ve ever watched the cable show, “The Chosen,” there is always a back story. Matthew and Jesus knew one another. Everybody hated Matthew. Jesus summons him, in no small part, to protect him from the crowd that despises him. Maybe that’s how it happened. We don’t know.
What intrigues me about the story from Genesis is how unfinished it is. There will be more to follow. The call of God initiates the journey = and the journey will go on. God leads him to the land that his descendants will receive, but there are other people living there, so, not yet. Abram moves on, pitches a tent.
In the story right after this one, there will be a famine in that Promised Land. Abram and Sarai move down to Egypt for a while. The Pharoah develops a crush on Abram’s pretty wife and disturbed to discover Abram lied in calling her “his sister.” And on it goes. So, it always goes. As someone put it, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward.”[1] Forward means unfinished.
The book of Genesis understands this. In the last verse of our text, we hear “Abram journeyed by stages.” It’s a phrase used a few various times in the Bible. Israel traveled in stages.[2] We always travel by stages. We answer the call of God in stages. The life we have with God does not get finished in one quick decision. When God calls, sometimes we have to shake it down. Make sure it’s really God speaking, not ego, ambition, or more money.
I think of a public official, elected to office a few years ago. He’s tall, good-looking, and a former professional football player. The election was won; the oath of office was taken. He did it for a while. And then he felt the tug to do something else, to answer the invitation to become a high-profile sport coach. So, he resigned from the public job before his term was over. He announced the new position. Then his family said, “You’re going to do what?” Oh my, what a mess. Somehow it wasn’t God’s invitation to take the new job. But something else could open up. Keep listening for what God sets before us. That’s the trick.
Thirty-six years ago, feeling restless in the church that I was serving, I went home and said, “There’s this church in Scranton that looks interesting.” She said, “Scranton? We’re not moving to Scranton. People drive through Scranton. They don’t stay there.” I said, “Well, technically it’s not Scranton, but maybe it’s worth a look.” That was a lot of miles ago. A lot has changed, in me, in the church, in the wider community.
In fact, when somebody discovers how long I’ve been here, especially a minister friend, they blanche and recoil. One of them actually said to me, “How long are you going to stay in that town that nobody can find.” And I smiled. Then I often tell them, “I am serving the fifth congregation in the same building, within the same zip code.” Because the church itself continues to journey in stages. Everything that lives evolves. God calls us forward.
There is nothing glamorous about this. Every stage is demanding work. Every change requires adaptability and commitment. Given the rapid changes facing congregations like ours, churches that are thoughtful, artistic, and engaged in the community, we must stay nimble and open to changes. It’s not 1991 anymore. And it’s certainly not 1957. There is deep truth in that biblical phrase, “they journeyed by stages.”
This is true for all of us. Think about your own career tracks. How many jobs have you had? Ever make a list? Maybe you’ve had more jobs than I have, though I wouldn’t be so sure. Starting as a teenager, people paid me money to mow the lawn, flip hamburgers, bag groceries, and diddle around on a computer in a corporate cubicle. Along the way I sold men’s clothing, filled in potholes for a county highway department, and done a spot of college teaching.
There isn’t always a direct line through all the things we’ve done, but there are plenty of changes. At each moment, we have to stay on our toes. And we affirm: sometimes the job is the calling. Other times, the job makes the calling possible. Either way, the call of God is always inviting us forward. If we were certain where we were going, we might not take the trip.
So, three things are essential to answer the call of God. The first is courage. Well-informed courage, if we can muster it, but still courage. God said, “Abram, I will show you where to go.” There was no map. No GPS. No certainty. No assurances beyond the great big promise – namely, you have a future and you will be a blessing to others. That was enough to initiate the journey.
Abram didn’t know anybody at the next destination. He didn’t have the journey charted in advance. He was not in control of his own future, because none of us are ultimately in control of very much. He had to step forward with the little bit he knew, and it was enough. Call it faith, if you will, but his was faith with a You Haul and a whole lot of camels. I call it courage.
And there’s a second essential for answering the call of God. It’s mentioned twice in our story. In Shechem and in Bethel, Abram built an altar. He put together the stones, got the wood, ignited the sacrifice. It was his way of blessing the God who called him on the journey. He thanked the God who stayed with him in every stage. He answered the God who said, “Go… and I will show you where.”
This is essential, too. It affirms God is with us – but more, it declares that our journey is God’s journey through us. We choose to cooperate with his call. We step into God’s invitation. We thank God that we are on this journey, that we were not left to our own devices, that we are part of a greater purpose for the world. It doesn’t get any better than that.
We respond with courage. We bless the God who calls us. These are two essentials for answering the call upon our lives.
There is a third essential, but you
will have to return next Sunday to learn what it is. See you then.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
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