Monday of the Twelfth
Week in Ordinary Time
(Genesis 12:1-9; Matthew 7:1-5)
In order to appreciate God’s call of Abram from Genesis
today, one has to note the context.
Babel has just fallen and with the illusion that humans left to their
own devices can do much good. Although God has scattered the peoples all over the
earth, He intends to bring them together in peace. His plan is to establish a new nation with
Abram as its founder to be an exemplar of loving obedience. This nation’s virtue will draw all peoples to
it.
Abram is an unlikely candidate to engender a new nation. Although his name means exalted father, he is, in fact, childless at seventy-five years of
age! He is also homeless and nation-less. He does have a wife, the beautiful Sarai,
whom he loves – a fact that does offer him some recommendation. He also has ambition as he responds to the
unlikely call to greatness.
God directs Abram to leave his father’s house for a new
land. There God will give him the first
lessons in nation-building. Abram will thus
become the greatest of the biblical patriarchs, but not the kind which
feminists love to hate. God will teach
Abram to be conscious and fair, not arbitrary and self-promoting. He will lead Abram to a consistent respect
and tender care for women, not to hardness and domination. He will cherish his children, and not neglect
them. These are lessons for all men to
note as we listen to the story of Abram unfold.
