I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to go into something new and leave the something old behind. I am in the middle of a ministry transition. After about 9 years on staff at my current local church (a church I also grew up in for about 9 years before being on staff), I am stepping out into something new. I don’t know what that means just yet. There are still a lot of unanswered questions. But I do know that I sense the Lord directing me to a new season of ministry – whatever that looks like.
So I have been contemplating transitions. Several images and characters from scripture provide kindling for a fire of meditation: Jesus talked about new wine and old wineskins (Matthew 9:17); Paul wrote about how the old has gone and the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17); Ruth left her native land to stay with Naomi; and we could go on. But one character sets the tone for leaving and going in the biblical story, and that is Abram.
In Genesis 12, we read of God’s famous call to Abram.
Genesis 12:1–3 (NIV)
(1) The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. (2) “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. (3) I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
As I read and re-read that passage, I brought this question to it: why did Abram have to leave his people and land? There are many answers to that question. The most obvious one is that, well, God told him to. Fair enough! But as I explored more, I came across some interesting things. For example, in Joshua’s final speech to the Israelites (Joshua 24:1-28), Joshua provides a glimpse of why Abram had to leave his land.
Joshua 24:2 (NIV)
(2) Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods…”
There you have it: Abram had to leave because his people were worshipping other gods. There was something bad, toxic, or corrupt about where he was, and so he had to leave in order to follow God into a place of blessing. I think that is one part of Abram’s story, but it is not the whole of it. Yes, there were aspects of Abram’s people and homeland that were idolatrous and bad. In that sense, Abram broke with all that was behind him. But there are also hints that everything that was behind him wasn’t all bad. Read just a few verses before God’s call of Abram:
Genesis 11:31 (NIV)
(31) Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there.
What is the implication here? It seems that Abraham was continuing a journey that his father Terah had already begin.(1) Rather than the transition being a complete break and act of discontinuity with his father and past, this hints at a level of continuity. As one scholar notes, Abram eventually arrives in Canaan in part “because Terah decided to move this family from Ur.”(2)
So which one was it? Did Abram leave as a statement of discontinuity with his father, or as a statement of continuity with his father?
Despite the differing portrayals of why Abram decided to leave and go, there is a profound realization that could bridge the gap. And the image of children leaving the house might be the ticket.
This insight must be credited to Jonathan Sacks. He notes how Abram’s story recognizes both continuity and discontinuity, and how “childhood itself has the same ambiguity.”(3) Sacks writes:
There are times, especially in adolescence, when we tell ourselves that we are breaking with our parents, charting a path that is completely new. Only in retrospect, many years later, do we realize how much we owe our parents — how, even at those moments when we felt most strongly that we were setting out on a journey uniquely our own, we were, in fact, living out the ideals and aspirations that we learned from them. And it began with God Himself, who left, and continues to leave, space for us, His children, to walk on ahead.”(4)
For me, as someone who has spent roughly 18 years in my local church, I reflect on it as a childhood of sorts – filled with great, amazing childhood memories, but also awkward teenage years of growth, maturing, failure, and opportunity. Now, as I seek to follow God’s call to “leave the house,” it doesn’t have to be a break-up story. It doesn’t have to read as a transition of complete discontinuity. My past at my local church has been a spiritual monument in my spiritual journey. In many ways, the people there have nurtured me into this transition. They’ve helped me to grow, not only through wise instruction, but also through my bumbling around as I seek to find a fresh expression to the faith that we share.
And “the fresh” does not always have to be a criticism of “what has been.” The new does not need to be the enemy of the old. For anyone making a transition, especially in ministry, my prayer is that this image of “leaving the home” could supply an honest and redemptive hermeneutic for the story. Yes, God often calls us into something new, but perhaps this is fulfilling, not abolishing, what came before (cf. Matthew 5:17).
If you want to hear more about this idea, check out Episode 31 of the Learning Laborers podcast where we dive a little deeper: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6M5ghVnOdVsgUO5oXrs4yC?si=KJz9QeGuSvGNdiFBauiMHQ
1: Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation, A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible: Genesis, The Book of Beginnings (New Milford, CT: Maggid Books & The Orthodox Union, 2009), 83.
2: John Goldingay, Genesis, ed. Bill T. Arnold, Baker Commentary on the Old Testament: Pentateuch (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020), 199. Emphasis added.
3: Sacks, 85.
4: Sacks, 85.
Leaving the House: Meditating on Ministry Transitions & Genesis 12
By Taylor Terzek
