Today’s Scripture Reading (July 6, 2018): Genesis 15
“I
live in my own little world. But its ok, they know me here.” With these words,
Lauren Myracle describes home. I have to admit that I understand the feeling. I
live in a major city, and I have friends that like to rail against city life.
But the truth is that, no matter where we live, we usually find a way whittle
down the city to a more manageable size. For me, there is probably a sixteen to
twenty block area, the size of a small town, from which I rarely wander. (I am
definitely lucky that I work within that radius.) This is my home.
Psychologically,
we make that world even smaller. Well, at least some of us do. I am decidedly
an introvert, sometimes performing and extroverts job. But we tend to keep the
true contacts a lot smaller. My twitter account may number my friends in the
thousand, but there are probably less than a dozen people outside of my family
who I truly trust and with whom I really
want to spend my time. Some I know number those with whom they are truly
comfortable at far fewer. Sometimes, and I can number even among this group, we
are happiest when we are alone. It is then that we probably understand the true
import of Myracle’s words. “I live in my own
little world. But its ok, they know me here.”
Home
is a bit of a strange concept. The adage
is that “you can’t go home.” And the adage is probably true. I graduated from a
small rural town school. I have been back a few times, but now it is just a
small town. I have great memories, but while it was home, it is home no longer.
I was born just outside one of the great North American cities. Again, I have
great memories, and even have some relatives who still live in the area, but it
is not really home. When I am there, I
still experience a yearning for that place we call home.
But
home is more than a place that we live. It is the people who we love and who are
important to us, but it is even more than that. Home is the place that we live,
combined with the people who we love and trust – it doesn’t matter if that
number is one or a hundred, and then added to both of these things home is the
idea that it is a place where we feel safe.
The
descendants of Abraham were given a small piece of land just on the east side
of the Mediterranean Sea. But they would not always be able to live there.
There would be a time when they would have to leave. (Just a note, I have
always struggled with the mention of the fourth generation in this verse. The
time indicated seems to be much closer to the time that the descendants of
Abraham would leave than the time that they would return, which was earlier
mentioned to be four hundred years. Maybe there is a transmission error here,
or maybe I just don’t understand the
concept the way that Abraham did.) The children of Abraham would leave, and for
a while, they would make their home
somewhere else. But that place, while it might have been home for a while,
would not always be home. It would not always be safe. But the time would come
when Abraham’s children would once again return to that small piece of land by
the Mediterranean Sea – to a place that is home; a place that is safe.
And
Abraham’s children would live in this place for generations. But they would be
exiled again and then come back, only to find themselves exiled once more.
Following the Second World War, the exile of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob would once again become a
problem. They needed to come home once more, to a place where they could be safe.
The problem in the Middle East is far from being solved, but the hope and the
goal are that it can become home; a place
among friends that is once again safe for all kinds of people.
Tomorrow’s Scripture
Reading: Genesis 16
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