Out at the prison this week we returned to the book of Genesis. About ten years ago we started a cover to cover study of the Bible, beginning with Genesis and ending in Revelation. It took us a long time! Having finished that journey we're back at the start.
A crucial turn in the story of Genesis happens in Chapter 12, the calling of Abraham. This plotline is the plotline of the entire Bible. God says to Abram:
Go from your land,
your relatives,
and your father’s house
to the land that I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation,
I will bless you,
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt,
and all the peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.
There is here, right at the start, a dialectic between the particular and the universal. From all the families of the earth, God chooses this particular family to be his own special possession. But the vocation of this family is to bring all people to the worship of God. Israel exists for the nations. The universality of this vision shines throughout the Old Testament, especially in the prophets. We also see it here in Psalm 67:
May God be gracious to us and bless us;
may he make his face shine upon us
so that your way may be known on earth,
your salvation among all nations.
Let the peoples praise you, God;
let all the peoples praise you.
Let the nations rejoice and shout for joy,
for you judge the peoples with fairness
and lead the nations on earth.
Let the peoples praise you, God,
let all the peoples praise you.
I'm writing another book right now, tentatively titled The Book of Love, and in writing about the vocation of Israel I've been pondering this interplay of the particular and the universal in Israel's calling and vocation. Specifically, the universal is saved through the particular. All the nations will be blessed through Abraham. Why does it happen this way?
One thing that strikes me is how salvation through the particular means being saved by difference. Were God to save us only through the particular, each of us on our own, we wouldn't have to encounter each other. We could stay in our isolated bubbles and silos of sameness. The same would happen if God saved us in a general and generic matter. But when the universal is saved through the particular we are forced to meet each other. In the language of Ephesians, the walls of hostility that separate us must be confronted. Salvation demands a social encounter.
