Does Your Faith Have Feet?

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Parashat Lech L’cha, Genesis 12:1–17:27

Rabbi Stuart Dauermann, Ahavat Zion Synagogue

Now Adonai said to Avram, “Get yourself out of your country, away from your kinsmen and away from your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, and I will make your name great; and you are to be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse anyone who curses you; and by you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

So Avram went, as Adonai had said to him. . . (Gen 12:1–4a)

Jews, Christians, and Muslims as well call ourselves “children of Avraham.” And in the Christian and Messianic Jewish tradition, when we call ourselves children of Avraham, we usually focus on having the same kind of faith as Avraham. But do we have that kind of faith?

In the shadow of the Reformation, many of us learned to take pride that we believe in faith, not works. We don’t all know exactly what that means, but we take pride in it nonetheless. I observe that many lean toward or fully embrace the idea that we ought to rely upon faith instead of actions. But when people imagine that we are called to rely on faith instead of obedience are we talking about an Avraham kind of faith?

How would you answer that one? My answer is “No.”

Just look at today’s parasha and notice here, and in all the parashiyot about Avraham, how Torah describes Avraham’s characteristic response to the commands of God. One thing’s for sure: he doesn’t just say, “I believe you God!” Even Martin Luther, the champion of salvation by faith, got this, when he said, “True faith is never apart from works.” Let’s look at that.

In Genesis 12, we find this key statement at the beginning of verse four: “Vayelech Avram—So Avram went.” God has spoken, and the very next thing we read of Avram is that he takes obedient action.

This is the faith of Avraham, faith with feet—obedient action expressing trust. That’s what Avraham’s faith was, and is—nothing less, nothing more, and nothing else. And if we are going to call ourselves children of Avraham who share in Avraham’s faith, then we too should be people whose lives are characterized not simply by words of agreement with God, as important as that is, but by something more than mere words: we must respond with deeds of agreement.

Avraham is the icon of faith because, more often than not, he displayed reflexive obedience, faith in action. It’s like what happens when you go to the doctor’s office and he hits your knee cap with that little rubber hammer, and, if your body is not ready for the scrap yard, in immediate response to the stimulus of the hammer, your lower leg reflexively moves forward. And if we are truly children of Avraham by faith, we too will obey as a reflexive habit of life.

Time and again, the Torah records Avraham’s obedience in immediate proximity to his hearing the word of the Lord. In the next chapter, chapter 13, we read that God tells him, “Get up and walk through the length and breadth of the land, because I will give it to you.” In the very next verse, the text says this: “Avram moved his tent and came to live by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hevron. There he built an altar to Adonai” (Gen 13:16–17).

Here again, the word of the Lord comes, and Avraham acts—this is what it means to be a person of faith. It means to hear the word of the Lord and do it.

This reflexive obedience is most strikingly evident in the account of the binding of Isaac, toward the end of Avraham’s life. In this account, we read,  

After these things, God tested Avraham. He said to him, “Avraham!” and he answered, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Yitz’chak; and go to the land of Moriyah. There you are to offer him as a burnt offering on a mountain that I will point out to you.” (Gen 22:1–2)

The very next verse says this: 

Vayashkem Avraham baboker—Avraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, together with Yitz’chak his son. He cut the wood for the burnt offering, departed and went toward the place God had told him about. (Gen 22:3)

Here, as a very old man, as before when he was just embarking on his journey of faith, we see Avraham acting out his faith. That is the only kind of true faith there is. For Avraham or for us.
I like the way Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf put it:

By definition, you cannot freely choose to be commanded. . . If there is a God, there cannot be a fully autonomous human being. . . . How you know God’s will for you, and whether you’re able to do God’s will are difficult question, but they are secondary to the belief that, if you know, when you know, however you know God’s will, there is no choice about performing it. There is only obedience or sin.

I would only add this to what Rabbi Wolf said so well: “When you know, however you know God’s will, there is no choice about performing it. There is only the obedience of faith or there is sin.” As Ya’akov put it, “So then, anyone who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it is committing a sin” (Jas 4:17).

If we are truly children of Avraham, manifesting his kind of faith, it will show in what we do. We would do well to take to heart these words from Hebrews: “By faith Avraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance” (Heb 11:8a). This is what we ought to do as well whenever and wherever we are convinced that God has spoken. Our faith should not just be sitting around. Lech l’cha! Put your faith on its feet. Get moving, just like Avraham our father! 

All Scripture quotations are from Complete Jewish Bible (CJB).