Thought for Today
Genesis 11:31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there.
Nehemiah 9:7 You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham;
Matthew 25:40 And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'
Acts 16:33 At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay.
Family is important. Psychiatry, psychology, medicine and theology all recognize the importance of familial connections. Much of the Old Testament, especially the Patriarchal narratives, tell a story of the family and family origins of our ancestors-in-the-faith. There are certain words and phrases frequently encountered in the Old Testament. For me, one of my favorites has always been Ur of the Chaldeans. Archaeology confirms that Ur was a very ancient city. “Ur of the Chaldeans is generally identified with modern Tell Muqayyar in southern Iraq, about 160 km (as the bird flies) northwest of the modern city of Basra.” (christianstudylibrary.org)
The Patriarchal narratives in Genesis relate a number of similarities in the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. One of the most interesting for me is that understanding of a strong connection to what is known as the Fertile Cresent. “The Fertile Crescent . . . is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, together with northern Kuwait, south-eastern Turkey, and western Iran.” (Wikipedia) Abraham migrated from the Tigris-Euphrates Valley in that Fertile Crescent. When it was time for Isaac and Jacob to be married, their brides were brought from “the old country,” that same region.
DNA was first identified in 1869. By 1944 it was confirmed to be the basic substance of genes. By 2003 scientists had completed an accurate and complete sequencing of the human genome. Since that time, there have been a number of studies done on tracing DNA from our earliest human ancestors, including geographic mapping of humanity’s migration from sub-Saharan Africa all across the globe. The scientific study of our origins and our movements is, of course, very complex. The archaeological evidence indicates that the earliest organized, deliberate utilization of agriculture, farming, was in the Fertile Crescent, the area the Bible identifies as the homeland of the Patriarchs. It is not coincidental that all 3 of the world’s monotheistic religions trace their ancestry to a single area of the globe.
For much of my own lifetime, that theologically significant area has been embroiled in warfare. Historically it always has been. Much of the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible, relates ancient warfare in that region. The area is still a seething hotbed of wars and rumors of wars.
Lost in all the science, lost in all the religious and economic strife, is the amazing fact that all of the evidence, scientific and theological, indicates to us that we are all related. Irrespective of our faith, totally disregarding our ethnicity, language and customs, we are all related. No matter how different we might look, no matter how different our worship traditions are, no matter whether or not we even believe, we are all merely (very) distant cousins. At the most basic level, all the wars in the Middle East, all the wars everywhere else, all are family feuds.
I wonder, what would happen if all diplomatic discussions, all treaty negotiations, all truce parleys began with a simple statement that we are all members of the same family? For Christians, it would be a reminder of Jesus’ words, “Mark 3:35 Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."
Many families do squabble. My own brother, sister and I sometimes disagreed. But, we were always family. Maybe humanity needs to widen its horizons, expand the family dinner table, and all sit down together. Can we? If we do, might peace ‘break out’ everywhere? It is certainly worth the effort to try!!
Stay safe, act like part of the family of God, trust God,
Pastor Ray