A sermon for Tuesday in the first week of the 2023 Chautauqua season. The first reading is Lot’s separation from Abram in Genesis 13.

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After all those years in the bosom of his grandfather and uncle, I cannot imagine how Lot felt about Abram’s invitation to leave. Was he offended, rejected, relieved? Did he worry about leaving Abram and Sarai alone in their advancing years, with no other family to care for them? Nevertheless, he took Abram’s offer, to choose the direction that looked most fertile for him, and he left.

Yesterday morning, introducing and moderating the first lecture, President Michael Hill once more said something that caught my ear. He quoted the proverb, “Blood is thicker than water.” But, he went on to say, it is a matter of debate as to whether the blood in question means biology, or whether it refers to the kind of blood that seals a covenant. Surely both are at work here.

When Abram’s father left Ur, he took Abram and Sarai, and their nephew, Lot, since Lot’s father had died. Nahor, suffering from middle child syndrome, was not mentioned, but he also ended up in Haran (Genesis 11:27-32). After Terah died, Abram and Sarai continued their sojourn into the land that God had promised to show him, and, after the model of his grandfather, they took Lot with them. After some adventures, they arrived once more in Bethel.

But here was where their paths diverged. Abram said, “Let there be no strife between us; for we are kindred” (Genesis 13:8). “Separate yourself from me,” he told his nephew. “Go your own way.”

And Abram and Sarai were left alone, except for all of the livestock, all of the people, and the promises of God, the covenant that God would make with him.

It is rare for relationships to remain static and intact. Karol Jackowski talked about that yesterday afternoon, as the very sky altered and opened up over the Hall of Philosophy. People grow, change, discover new and exciting things about themselves, which may or may not be new and exciting to their friends and family. People acquire needs and desires, or fulfill them, and adjustments are needed, if a relationship is not to wither. Sometimes greater space is needed; sometimes deeper closeness.

Abram assessed the state of his relationship with Lot, and he realized that if they were to remain kindred, and remain kind, something had to change.

He also recognized that if he needed space to remain in relationship with his nephew, then he needed to give his nephew space, too. He invited Lot to choose his own direction. He let him go his own way, the way that seemed best to him. Perhaps he was doing what he wished his father had done for him; we have no way of knowing that.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus advises, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is the sum of the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12) Before the law and prophets, Abram looked upon his nephew, and wanting not to fall into strife with him, did what he thought was best for both of them.

A cynical person might wonder about inviting Lot to choose the richer, more fertile ground. A cynical person who has read ahead might notice that the rich, fertile plain upon which Lot is about to settle will not remain rich and fertile for long. If you travel there today, you will find the salt flats that surround the Dead Sea, stretched out like the skin of the earth to dry. Is this what it means to cast pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6), letting Lot’s greedy eyes tempt him to the greedier town of Sodom, whose sin, according to the prophets, was haughty pride and excess, cruelty to the poor, and contempt for the compassionate provisions of the law of God (Ezekiel 16:49-50)?

But no. This was Abram’s gift to Lot, to let him freely choose what looked good to him. And when Sodom went to war, and Lot was taken captive, Abram went out to redeem him (Genesis 14:1-16). And when it all went down, Abraham still spoke up for his nephew and his neighbours (Genesis 18:16-33), bargaining with God not to give up on the city. His distance did not diminish his care for Lot. This was a decision, not a division, and despite putting some distance between them, Abram loved him.

No, this story, although it is hard, is not one of the breakdown of love, not even of blood, but a parable of the growing pains that accompany true love, and the necessity for kindness even in the midst of them. It is a story about letting go in order to let love grow. Yesterday afternoon, in her description of holy sisterhoods born not of biology but of friendship, Karol Jackowski described sealing a promise with a dying friend by pricking their thumbs and rubbing them together, to bind them together but also to allow them to let one another go where she needed to go.

It is not the story of every family (or perhaps, after all, it is), but it is the story of our biblical family, in which even the dogs eat the crumbs from under the table with impunity.

It is a story through which the blood of the covenant courses, that which has bound us to the family of God through our spiritual ancestors, with all of their ups and downs and sideways. It is the story that continues, through the blood of the new covenant, the generosity of Jesus who has done for us more than we could ever have asked or imagined, who has bound together heaven and earth, however great the distance between us may be.