“Leave your country, your people, and your father’s house and go …” (Genesis 12:1).

Abram left everything, but he didn’t leave alone.

We had one of the most significant “leave and go” moments of our lives about two years ago.  Our pastoral assignment in Massachusetts was drawing to a close.  And we were experiencing those hard-to- capture but also hard-to-ignore nudges and shoulder-taps from the Holy Spirit: time to leave … time to go. 

As we walked towards and through what was the end of everything we knew and loved (33 years in the same house, and 45 years with the same church), we determined that we did not want to undertake any kind of journey on our own.  So we gave the members of our congregation and other close friends our permission to make our decision with us.  

Not for us.  With us.  The responsibility for our lives would always belong finally to us.  But we didn’t want to go alone, so we gave our community voice and vote in the biggest decision of our lives. (Ours was a small, tight-knit congregation; had it been a larger church, we would have changed some aspects of our decision process, but not the foundation of deciding in and with community).  

So while we were the only ones from that church who hit the road for North Carolina on November 10, 2018, we did not journey on our own.

We tend to see Abram is a heroic, solitary figure, hearing and obeying the voice of the LORD all by himself. 

But as he prepares to leave country, people and familial home, “He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot … and the people they had acquired …” (Genesis 12:5).  It is a journey-in-community.

Scripture offers little support for “American individualism.”  Yes, God knows and calls and loves us by name.  Yes, each one of us is to know the Lord, each one is called into a life of faith, obedience and love, each one must embrace Christ’s call, “Come, follow me!”  

But each of us, all of us, are called to learn and to do all these things as members of a community.  “I Did It My Way” is not one of the songs of Zion.  Nearly every you in the New Testament is a y’all.

For all the trials and challenges of “doing life together,” to attempt to “go it alone” doesn’t occur to anyone in Scripture. To go it alone is a recipe for disaster and death.

Even though our world is so very different from theirs, we have at least this in common with them: we were designed by God in community, for community.  None of us is an island unto himself or herself; none is the sole “master of my fate.”  

As we—each of us in our households, all of us as members of Chatham Church—continue on our way into the unknown world of a pandemic and beyond, we will be invited by the Holy Spirit to learn more about journeying-in-community, journeying as a community.  May our hearts be postured to learn!

What triggers your “go it alone” reactions?  Have your go-it-alone tendencies ever gotten you into trouble?  What might a specific step into a life that is a bit more “life together” look like for you?