RIGHTEOUSNESS, NOT BLIND FAITH - A: 2nd Sun of Lent

First Reading: Gen 12:1-4 (5 March 2023)

“The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you” (Gen 12:1).

The call of Abram is dubbed as the beginning of the Israelites’ faith in Yahweh. It is the first time when God in the Scriptures chose a particular people to be his own. It commenced with his direct call of Abram to go to a foreign land with the words: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you” (v. 2-3a).

Abram was admired, here, for his so-called blind faith in Yahweh, believing God’s promise without second thoughts. It is shown by his decision to leave his family/clan behind to pursue an unidentified land (vv. 4-7).

However, the expression “blind faith” may not be the best term that correctly describes Abram’s actions here. It is because his migration was predicated by his logical following of the Fertile Crescent—the crescent-form rich vegetation and land in the Middle East—in the face of the pastoral and agricultural setup of the Ancient Near East. In Bronze Age (ca. 2,000 to 700 BCE), the majority of the movement and habitation of peoples centered around regions where rivers were flowing and herbage was consequently abundant. This phenomenon paved the way to the rise of various civilizations around dependable and stable bodies of fresh water, viz., the Sumerians around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; the Egyptians around the Nile river; and the Canaanites around the Jordan river. With this information, it can be said that God’s voice and calling of Abram is not something detached from the situation of the world. Rather, it is very much rooted in the socio-economic contexts and needs of Abram’s clan and neighborhood.

With this mindset, faith is essentially a result of a series of discernment of the “signs of the times” (cf. Mt 16:3; Lk 12:56; cf. Pope John XXIII in convening the Second Vatican Council) that are observable in mankind’s day-to-day living. In the narrative of Genesis, Abram was not actually given a concrete roadmap on which way to traverse to reach the Promised Land, which is presented in later biblical books as “flowing with milk and honey” (Exo 3:8; Deut 31:20; Josh 5:6; Jer 32:22). Rather, it was Abram who figured out himself on how to accomplish the migration process.

But he was never mistaken with his concretization since he is a person grounded into the realities of his time, open to the divine prodding, and righteous in his ways.

In this regard, God does not necessarily present his will extraordinarily, neither in a private revelation, a spectacular vision, or a supernatural experience (though such can exceptionally happen to some). This observation stands true in the life of Abraham in the succeeding events, when his conversations with God had diminished. The ironical thing, however, is that he was tested several times, despite being highly favored by God, viz., his wife Sarah was about to be taken by the Pharaoh as wife (Gen 12:10-20); his kinsmen were captured by four kings (14:1-12); he was childless with Sarah for a long period (16:1ff.); the clan of his nephew Lot was bound to be annihilated (18:16-33); his son Isaac was sought to be offered (Gen 22:1-19).

But Abraham continued to believe, garnering himself the moniker “father of the faith” because of his admirable righteousness (Rom 4:1-12; Gal 3:6-9). Accordingly, “[h]e did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body as [already] dead (for he was almost a hundred years old) and the dead womb of Sarah. He did not doubt God’s promise in unbelief; rather, he was empowered by faith and gave glory to God and was fully convinced that what he had promised he was also able to do” (Rom 4:10-21). With this accentuation of Abraham’s righteousness, the Lenten season demands not only the listening to God in private encounter/prayers, but listening to his voice vis-à-vis the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of our day-to-day living.

- Rex Fortes, CM