A Wandering Aramean (Genesis 11-15)
Ryan Scott Carrell - August 31, 2025
Over the past few weeks, we've been exploring the stories from the Bible that emerged because of a moment in history that we call the Babylonian Exile. During that time, about 2,500 years ago, the people who wrote much of what we call the Bible were taken from their home in Jerusalem and forced to move to a city called Babylon, about 900 miles away.
In that displacement, they began to wrestle with fundamental questions: Who is our God? What does it mean to follow this God when everything familiar has been stripped away? And perhaps the biggest question they faced: Does God still have a future for us?
Today, we see that question answered in the next story in our journey through scripture.
In this story, we encounter two people, Abram and Sarai. These two people would become the ancestors of the Jewish people, the very people sitting in exile who were telling this story and wondering if their story was over. But before we meet them, we need to read how Abram and Sarai’s story began, because it sets up everything that comes next and leans into questions of fate and the future that the people telling this story were feeling.
Genesis 11:27-32 (NRSVUE)
27 Now these are the descendants of Terah. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran was the father of Lot. 28 Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29 Abram and Nahor took wives; the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah. She was the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. 31 Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot son of Haran and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32 The days of Terah were two hundred five years, and Terah died in Haran.
To be totally honest, genealogies are a part of the Bible I used to always skip over. The lists of names just didn’t seem that compelling. But digging deeper, we discover, for the ancient people who told these stories, that these genealogies served a huge purpose. These genealogies were like time-lapse photography, showing the passage of generations and the continuation of family lines. If a family line ended, so did that part of the story. And that’s why this genealogy is so important. It creates all the tension, particularly this line:
Genesis 11:30 (NRSVUE)
30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.
In a culture where your children were your legacy and where your family tree meant everything, this single sentence was devastating. Immediately, the question would have been, Why are we telling a story that has no way of continuing? But in many ways, this was what the people telling the story wondered about themselves and their story.
You see, they were cut off from their land, their temple, their normal way of life. It seemed like their story had ended, too. So, as they read this, they would have connected with that feeling and that tension. Into that tension in the story, one that seemed to end before it even started, came a bizarre promise that simply seemed too impossible to comprehend.
Genesis 12:1-3 (NRSVUE)
1 [Then] the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Now, let’s pause to allow the audacity of this promise to sink in. God looks at the childless couple of Abram and Sarai and says, "I will make of you a great nation." The promise is not just a child. It’s not just a family. It’s a great nation. And not just any nation, but one through which "all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
But here's where the story gets even more interesting. Abram and Sarai believed God's promise. They left everything. They left their country, they left their families, and they set out for the land God would show them. The fact that they believed this promise is almost as audacious as the promise itself. These two people stepped into the unknown based on words that defied every piece of evidence in front of them. Why would they do this?
Again, these are the kinds of questions the people in exile who told this story were asking as they wondered if it was worth believing in God. Based on everything we’ve experienced, they asked, should we trust? As the story continues, that's what Abram and Sarai did.
Genesis 12:4-8 (NRSVUE)
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak[a] of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord.
So, Sarai, Abram, and now his nephew Lot arrived in the promised land. When they got there, they built altars and they worshipped. But notice what doesn’t happen. There’s no miraculous pregnancy. There are no children. The promise seems empty. So, they wait, and wait, and wait. And years pass. A lot of years. But the story still doesn’t end.
Genesis 15:1-3 (NRSVUE)
1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”
So, it’s been years since the original promise, and nothing has changed. If anything, time has made the promise seem even more impossible. With all of that frustration building, this interaction occurred. And can you hear the frustration in Abram's voice?
At the height of his expression of his frustration with God, Abram made a statement that feels harsh on a bunch of levels. The statement shows that if God doesn’t fulfill his promise, Abram believed his legacy would be left in the hands of someone he considered beneath him, someone whose humanity he refused to fully acknowledge. In God’s response to Abram, he revealed something that is easy to miss and points back to his original promise.
Genesis 15:4-5 (NRSVUE)
4 But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” 5 He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
Now, notice that God doesn't get defensive. God doesn't lecture Abram about patience.
First, God, in a subtle moment, corrects Abram by calling Eliezer a man, not a slave. Now, I know we wish this would go further, and it’s a tension we find in scripture, particularly these ancient stories. But even in this small correction, we see God refusing to participate in this dehumanizing language. God refers to Eliezer as a man, not as a slave. I think this is to show us that God sees Eliezer's full humanity even when Abram doesn’t, inviting Abram to see all of humanity through the eyes of God. And this takes us back to the original promise.
Genesis 12:2-3 (NRSVUE)
2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
God is saying, someday, because of you, Abram, all of humanity will flourish. And even later on, as Abram expressed his frustration, God took Abram's doubt and transformed it into an even grander vision of all the families on the earth blessed through his descendants.
For the Jewish people in exile, this story wasn't ancient history. This story leaned right into the questions that they were asking. Their temple was destroyed, their land was gone, and they were surrounded by people who didn’t share their faith. It seemed as if their story as God’s people was over. But in the story of Abram and Sarai, they heard something different.
These people in exile heard about a God who makes promises that seem impossible, who calls people to step into the unknown, and who specializes in creating futures where a future doesn’t seem to exist. Most importantly, they heard that God's ultimate purpose wasn’t just to bless one family or one nation, but to bless all the families of the earth. God would work through them for the good of all others.
Genesis 12:2 (NRSVUE)
2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
Now, this is where the story should take on even deeper meaning for those of us who have chosen to be followers of Jesus because we find that a man named Paul, who started Jesus-following communities, wrote to several of them and made this claim about Jesus followers, connecting them to this promise to Abraham.
Galatians 3:26-29 (NRSVUE)
26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
Paul was saying that the promise God made to Abraham, that through him all families of the earth would be blessed, found its fulfillment in Jesus. Through Jesus, the blessing that began with Abraham continues and extends to everyone, to all nations, and to all people.
Abram and Sarai were told they would have a future when they thought their story was over. Not only was it not over, but they could never imagine the implications of their faith and how that faith could impact the entirety of humanity. And that's the invitation for us too.
Faith is about opening ourselves to what God can do in us, not just for our sake, but for the sake of others.
And that is why these people told this story.