I have to confess, I don't normally follow the foreign travels of Pope Francis, but I was intrigued over the last few days to see details of his visit to Iraq. When I caught a news report about the visit, my first thought was "He's brave" and then as the film report went on, it became apparent that he wasn't hiding away. There he was in his usual while robes, surrounded by all the Muslim clerics and political leaders all dressed in black. He couldn't have stood out any more, even if he wanted to! What a remarkable visit!
The report went on to tell us of his visit to Ur and how this was the birth place of Abraham, a central figure in 3 world religions. He also went on to visit the province of Nineveh (I was left wondering hat the news report would have said if he'd decided not to go to Nineveh! ????). It was quite cool to be reminded that many of these places we read about in the Bible are real and can still be visited today.
The report set my mind thinking about Abraham's call to leave and to travel to Canaan, but I was a little fuzzy on the details, so I went back to Genesis 11 to get the story straight.
“This is the account of Terah’s family line. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milkah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milkah and Iskah. Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive. Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there. Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Harran." Genesis 11:27-32 NIVUK
What struck me On rereading it was that the decision to leave Ur and to travel to Canaan was actually Abraham's fathers idea. I'm sure, though scripture isn't clear, that this wasn't some fanciful idea he suddenly got, but was as a direct result of a prompting from God. He took his immediate family and left everything they knew and set off for a distant land. So why is Abraham held in such high esteem as the patriarch of 3 major religions rather than his father Terah? He had received a calling on his life, family and future which initially he enthusiastically set out to follow, but on the journey, at one of the many stops they must have made along the way, he found that Harran was somewhere comfortable to stay. It probably started as, let's stop here for a couple of weeks to rest, that turned into a few months and then let's stay until the spring. Soon the familiarity of staying in Harran outweighed the call on his life. He gave up his calling for a little bit of comfort and stability, he gave up travelling for a permanent home.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to compromise like Terah did, to give up my calling and long term God given dreams for short-term, fleeting comfort. I want to keep pressing on!
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