Wayward and Rooted

Are you more of a wayward person or more rooted? 
I am definitely a rooted person.  I have lived within a very small radius for most of my life.  I can't imagine packing up, moving, and leaving the familiar place I call home.   I am certainly not adventurous or seeking out places to begin again.  

What does it mean to be wayward?  Think about GPS.  We travel now without always knowing exactly where we are. A calm voice tells us where to turn, when to merge, and when to continue straight ahead. Our sense of identity is often shaped by how we locate ourselves in the world.  By how we name where we are.  To be wayward is to trust that, even without perfect clarity, you will get where you are going.

But what does it mean to be rooted?
In ancient Hebrew tradition, human beings are understood as soil that is divinely animated. We are creatures of earth and breath. Rooted beings who find place, identity, and purpose in the land where we settle.   Rootedness gives us belonging.  It grounds our story in a particular place.

But what happens when we have to begin again? What happens when rooted people are called, or forced, to become wayward?

Right now, across our world, many people are uprooted. They carry what they can: medicine, technology, documents, the essential tools for survival.  Anything that might help sustain life on the journey ahead.  Their lives are packed into what can be carried across borders.

Our scripture (Genesis 12:1-4) tells the story of Abram, whose beginning again looks a bit different.
Abram was wealthy.  He was called, not forced.  He traveled with an entourage of family, servants, livestock, and all that sustained his household.  He traveled with a tribe. 

Still, I find myself wondering what path did they take? What did they carry across the borders they crossed?  Did they bring tools for navigation? Knowledge of the stars and shadows?  What did they bring that would help them re-root themselves? What did it mean for Abram to leave what was known and begin again?    And what does it mean for us?

Faith formation is, in many ways, learning to listen through the haze, through clouded realities and uncertain paths for the quiet call of God.    A call to begin again, to navigate, to adjust course, to persevere, to become a blessing where we take root. 

God’s promises were expansive at the first awakening of faith, and they remain expansive still.  They unfurl before us whenever and wherever God calls us forward.  To begin again is to respond to the wayward call and to trust in being rooted again.

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Genesis 12:1-4 (NRSVUE)
Now 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.  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.  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.”
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.