The lectionary text for today is the brief recounting of Abraham's calling to leave his home and head out on a journey into an unknown land. All he has to guide him is the promise of God's blessing and his own trust in this enigmatic God.

It's ironic that in the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, the book of origins or beginnings, a collection of so many creation stories, we find this story of Abram, a seventy-five year old man who has been unable to create any progeny of his own, now being chosen as the one whose descendants shall be a great nation. This just sets up the miracle to come, however, when this infertile couple eventually do have a son long past the time Sarah is capable of bearing children. This seems like suspiciously appropriate work for a God who revels in creating life where there seems to be no possibility for life.

But the story of Abraham and Sarah is about the birth of a nation more than it is about an individual person. The call to leave home begins a journey that will lead through the centuries to the nation of Israel. It would lead Abraham's descendants into Egypt and Slavery, through a great exodus and eventually into the Promised Land. It would bring to power a mighty King, King David, who would unify the nation, and later it would go on to bring foreign occupation and exile to the people. But perhaps the greatest accomplishment of all this would be the development of a monotheistic religion in which their One God, whose name was unutterable and whose way was the way of social justice and liberation, establishes a covenantal relationship with the people. All of this begins here, with this humble call to leave the comfort and safety of home.

Later stories, which are not in the Biblical canon, would tell of Abraham's commitment to the One God. These stories depict Abraham challenging, criticizing, even rebuking the wood and stone idols that people worshiped as gods. These stories don"t have much to recommend them as history, but they do reveal what later generations considered to be at stake here as this migration toward the world's first known monotheistic religion begins.

Before we look at the significance of all this, we need to put into perspective some of our own assumptions. Today we often view the distinction between monotheism and polytheism as being much more cut and dried that it actually was. We also have a tendency to look down on polytheism, or paganism, and with a holier than thou attitude think that we don"t need to know any more about this subject. These assumptions and prejudices don"t serve us very well.

1) Polytheism usually sees the many gods as each being representative of the one, ultimate, sacred reality of the divine. (i.e., Hinduism)

2) Polytheism is alive and well in Christianity (trinitarianism, veneration of saints, bibliolatry, traditionalism, etc.)

3) The historical relationship between monotheism and polytheism is long and complex. The development of monotheistic religion was gradual and has always included a good deal of interplay with polytheism.

So what is going on here that we should care about the emergence of monotheism? It has to do with the nature of your God or gods. For the ancient Hebrews it had to do with justice. There are many texts in the Hebrew Bible that speak to this, but perhaps the most telling is found in the poetic writings we call the book of Psalms.

Dominic Crossan considers Psalm 82 to be the single most important scripture in the Bible, because it reveals the character of the Jewish God. In this text Yahweh is portrayed as taking a seat in a council with all the other gods and judging them, dethroning them, because they have failed to do the very thing a god or goddess is supposed to do.

Psalm 82

The gods have failed to bring justice to the vulnerable, the weak, the oppressed and the poor, and this is what makes them unfit to be gods. Crossan writes,

Today we are eight years into a new millennium. The peoples of the world still suffer under the weight of human oppression, exploitation and injustice. Yet there is a new theological migration I believe we are called to undertake. Our earth itself is suffering. Human activities have spread toxic pollution to every corner of the globe. Human overpopulation has destroyed ecosystems, distressed others, and brought us one of the most rapid extinction of species in the history of our planet. Global warming as a result of our energy consumption and burning of fossil fuels has already put into motion climate change that will continue for decades if not centuries, changing the face of the earth more rapidly than most species will be able to adapt.

I agree with Thomas Berry when he writes that;

One of the challenges that confronts us on this journey is our own mindset that all too often views human and non-human modes of being as separate and unequal. The Biblical call to justice for all people must be extended to include all creation as well. Berry writes,

This will require leaving the comfort and safety of our familiar routines. This will require traveling into a new way of being on this planet, a way of being the will bless the Earth and the entire Earth community.

May we have the trust that Abraham had and respond to God's call for today. May future generations look back upon us and remember our faithfulness as we took our part in the great work of our time.