Abraham: Father of Faith of the Feet
Parashat Lech L’cha, Gen. 12:1–17:27
Rachel Wolf, Congregation Beth Messiah, Cincinnati
Lech L’cha means “Go! Leave!”
In Hebrew, when emphasis is desired, the same root word is stated twice in slightly different forms. God is presenting Abraham his mission, a mission with eternal consequences.
To paraphrase a popular TV show of the 60’s and 70’s that presented agents with wildly impossible missions, God (though he does not reveal all the details), essentially tells Abraham:
Good morning, Abram. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go to the land I will show you. When you are 99 years old, you are to populate this land with a nation that will come from your body, in order that the world may come to know me and serve me in truth. Though the land’s true nature is hidden now, this is the Place where the heavens meet the earth, and from there all the earth will be healed. My eternal plan for the restoration of the world, worked out in human history, depends on you and your descendants.
Perhaps if Abraham had heard all of that he would have stayed in Haran!
Like the events of epic significance in each of the first two Torah portions, Lech L’cha, the calling of Abraham, is one of only a few major turning points in the Big Story of the Bible. This is essential to grasp, because how we understand the overall big story of the Bible (sometimes called a canonical narrative) will determine how we interpret all of the stories and details in the Bible. If we think of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the people of Israel, as a background story to the main story told in the New Testament, our theology will be off-track. As one Christian ministry leader said to me: some Christian theologies seem to see the Jewish people as merely a delivery truck to bring Jesus to the Church.
There are two aspects of this epic portion I want to bring out.
In my reading this year of Lech L’cha, I was struck by just how many times God appears, or speaks directly, to Abraham! At every turn, at every juncture in the road, God is personally instructing Abraham on where to go and what he should do. Yes, Abraham takes a few detours along the way (Egypt, war with Kedorlaomer) but comes back to “Go” (Bethel) to seek the Lord’s direction. Even with the advantage of all this personal revelation, Abraham, like us, is still pretty clueless about the big picture. Nevertheless, he follows God’s instructions.
“Go to the land” is the calling and the goal, and remains so throughout the Torah. This second point intersects with the first. We see continued instructions about the land, and then, a little later, about a covenant of flesh for Abraham’s descendants. This covenant connects with the land of their inheritance.
Why would God appear to Abram/Abraham so many times unless God sees Abraham’s actions to be of primary importance in “His-Story”?
The eternal role of “The Land” to which Abraham is called cannot be overemphasized. It is not a passing phase of “covenant history,” but the heartbeat of God’s future blessing for humankind. Here are some examples of God’s personal instructions to Abraham. Notice how the land is the central part of the instructions:
Now the Lord said to Abram:
“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.” (12:1–3)
Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” (12:7)
And the Lord said to Abram . . . “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever.” (13:14–18)
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. . . . Then He said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.” (15:1–9)
On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: . . . “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.” (15:17–21)
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him . . . “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” (17:1–22)
Arise! Walk Through the Land: Faith of the Feet
Many theologians highlight 15:6, “Abraham believed in the LORD and rightness (tzedakah) was accounted to him” (my translation) as the epitome, the keystone, of Abraham’s faith, and, indeed, the decisive model for our own faith. They say that believing is what justifies us. While this is a potent and important verse, when taken out of context it distorts the powerful example of the faith of Abraham. Believing in the conceptual sense is only a part of faith. And many times, even weak mental faith can be shown to be strong when we act on it “by faith.”
Hebrews 11 makes it clear that faith in its mature outworking is faith of the feet. The men and women in the so-called “Hall of Faith” were not mystics with great conceptual belief in God. They were ordinary men and women who did their best to walk in obedience to what they understood God wanted them to do. Sometimes this involved great suffering. If we believe in our heart, it should come out in our feet.
Jacob (also called James) states this explicitly. In fact, he says (contrary to public opinion):
Was not Abraham our father justified by works [my emphasis] when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect [or complete]? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. (James 2:21–24)
Often we struggle to believe in our minds, which are subject to so many diverse influences. The key is to stop thinking that our faith should defy gravity! Try letting your faith slide down into your feet! Just start walking, one foot after the other, in the direction you best discern God’s leading. And, remember – being corrected here and there along the way is part of the journey! Your faith will be strengthened as you learn to practice foot-faith!
Scripture references are NKJV.