A Blessing in God’s World

“The Turning Point.” That’s what these verses might be called. Or “The Crossroads.” Until this point, things have gone steadily downhill. Our story, this scriptural history of humankind—the forbidden fruit in the garden, Cain’s murder of Abel, Noah and the flood, the tower of Babel—has been one of increasing disobedience, widening and deepening rebellion against God. Scholars sometimes call the biblical narrative “the history of salvation,” and this history takes a dramatic and decisive shift in today’s passage as God chooses Abram and sends him on a journey. That journey will eventually lead to Egypt and Jerusalem, to Babylon, to Bethlehem and Nazareth, and on to Rome, Constantinople, Canterbury, and beyond.

God promises destination and destiny to Abram, and Abram’s obedient response sets in action a chain of faithful and unfaithful descendants—folk who go forth in trust, as Abram did, to play their part in the divine plan until that plan reaches another crossroads, another decisive turning point, on a cross and in a garden tomb.

On a more intimate scale, each of our individual lives has its own turning points, its own crossroads and decisive moments when much—maybe even an entire life—hangs in the balance: the choice of a vocation or of a spouse, the birth of a child, a response to some ethical challenge or dilemma. From an even more concentrated point of view, each day can have its decisive moments, when we are called to answer God’s summons to trust and obey as Abram did. In the familiar routines of daily existence and in times of testing and trial, this passage reminds us to watch for the crossroads and listen for God’s call.