The Jesse Tree: How to Leave Home and Find God

Advent 2021 – The Jesse Tree 

This is a series of reflections on daily readings designed for families during the season of Advent.  

I got off the train in Penn Station and lost myself in the crowd.  Despite the crowd, the smell of urine and body odor, panhandlers, drug dealers and the rest of the seedy population of Times Square in the mid 80’s, I felt strangely at home.  I think a part of me knew, even back then, that New York City would become home.     

Still, leaving home is difficult.  Disconnection from space and place takes its toll on us, even if our departing from home was full of blessing.  (How much more if it is fueled by crisis, violence, political instability, divorce, death, or loss?).      

Day Five – Leaving and Blessing, Genesis 12:1-7

The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1).

This is no small command. In a highly mobile and individualized culture we’re prone to miss how significant God’s call to leave home was for Abram.

For Abram the call to leave home also meant he would be an exile, cut off from familiar people, language, custom, and even family. In traditional cultures family is everything. Ask my mother-in-law who she is, she will not tell you about her presidential award, ongoing charity work, faith, or children. Instead, she will tell you about her parents, their parents, and the overlapping family network spanning back generations. This is how she describes others in the family as well.

In Genesis 11 we’re introduced to nine generations of Abram’s family. This is ancient storytelling 101. The reader or hearer of this genealogy knows that at the end of this list of names we’re going to be introduced to someone who is going to move the action or story forward in a particular way. The reader or listener knows that this character’s actions will bring either honor or shame to the whole family. Nobody expects that next line to be “Go . . . from your kindred and your father’s house

God continues his call to leave home with a promise.

I will make you into a great nation,and I will bless you;

I will make your name great,

and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,

and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earth

will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:2-3)

As dramatic as it is, leaving home launches Abram’s life with God, and ours.  Everything changes.  Abram’s long journey of friendship with God is the means through which God expands his partnership with human beings, for the sake of blessing the whole world. 

What ways have you “left home” in order to cultivate friendship with God?

How have you experienced blessing? 

How might you offer welcome to others?