Today
I want to concentrate on the Genesis reading. You will have noticed that I am
not writing about every reading each day – nor am I giving a history lesson or
a sermon – or even a homily about these readings. It isn’t my intent to do
that. (Nor am I qualified. I am reading them as you might – with an eye and a
prayer. My prayer each day is “what, Lord would you have me see, and what would
you have me learn and do each day?” If you find this a helpful idea you can do
this as well.)
OK,
so back to Genesis. Today we first read of the Tower of Babel, where all the
people of the earth spoke the same language. This is easy to understand from
our readings – as they were all from one large family group weren’t they? Yes,
I expect they did speak each other’s language – and knew just where all the
buttons were installed to get on each other’s nerve-but that’s another story.
What
stands out at me is this section is that it says they wanted to “make a name
for themselves.”
Well,
that sounds a lot like what any of us might wish to do, eh? Aren’t we all
trying to make a name for ourselves, to be known – or to be famous? (Even if it
is for only 15 minutes.) What I think about here is all the way back in the
Garden when Adam and Eve decided to ‘be like God.’ Here we find the people are
all about doing it themselves and making themselves great – in their own eyes;
no longer do they care or consider what might be right in God’s eyes. Nope, let’s
just make a name for ourselves. When I look at it that way, I can see why God
decided that we were just up to no good and would do whatever we could to walk
further and further from Him; no wonder He disperses us.
After
this interlude we read of Shem’s descendents – and there at the last is Abram,
who leaves Ur with his father and his wife and his nephew and his family,
including Lot who we will hear about later. I spoke the other day about a
little book called Does God have a Big Toe, and in that book the title
story is this of the Tower of Babel. (You’d have to read it to see the
connection but I found it fun.) And in this little book is the story of the
importance of choosing the right man; this is the story of the calling of
Abram. In this story, God is looking for someone and asks first one man after
another to go to a land He will show them so that He might be their God, and
one after another the men say no. They say no in various ways; by asking what’s
in it for them, by asking for proof that God is God, or asking where His little
statue is, and finally God comes upon Abram and when he asks him, Abram asks
one thing only – that he can take his family. God grants this request. For
Abram says yes, he will go to a land that God will show him; he will go where
he hasn’t been and be directed by a God he doesn’t know – and without getting
to far ahead of our story today we can see a difference between this response
and the opening story at the Tower of Babel.
The
take away for me is that we can say yes in the same way – without knowing the
outcome or the destination, but yes to journeying with God as our God.
The
reading from Luke today has Jesus among the people and healing, giving sight
and raising from the dead – when he does these things the people say “God has
visited his people!” (Luke 7:16)
I
do indeed want to be on the look-out for God when He visits His people.
Today’s
readings: Psalm 10, Genesis 11, 1 Chronicles 11, Luke 7:1-35
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