Go Beyond Being A “Good Person”

1 March 2026  Genesis 12:1-4

Second Sunday in Lent

“Go from your country, and your kindred, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you….” (Genesis 12:1)

Abraham was not the first in his family to set out for Canaan – his father Terah was (cf. Genesis 11:31-32). Nobody knows why Terah left Ur of the Chaldeans, the Bible doesn’t say. We do know that Terah never made it to Canaan – he stopped at Haran, and settled there. Haran was a significant commercial and cultural center. Later it had strategic significance for the Roman and Parthian empires. It is possible Terah stopped there because it was “good enough.”

There is a kind of believer, a “basically good person”, who stops at Haran and says, “Jesus was a great moral teacher.” That’s true as far as it goes, but Jesus wasn’t interested in making “basically good people”.

We don’t know enough about Terah to say whether he was especially good, or infamously bad. We know him only as a guy who set out for a place and stopped before he got there. In that sense, perhaps, Terah is a kind of emblem for people who start out Godward, we don’t know why; and stop, we don’t know why.

He is the prototypical “basically good person” who lives an unobjectional life, whose loyalties are not wicked, but never come quite into focus; the kind of person who, if you were to ask him, “Why are you the way you are?” would say, “Oh, you know…” and never finish the sentence.

Perhaps Terah stands for all those believers who stop short of the promise. Why do they stop? “Oh, you know….”

There is a kind of believer, a “basically good person”, who stops at Haran and says, “Jesus was a great moral teacher.” That’s true as far as it goes, but it is Haran, not Canaan, and Jesus never stopped there. Jesus wasn’t interested in making “basically good people” – if He were He might have been a philosopher on the level of Plato, but never Savior or Son of God. “Basically good people” make few demands, maybe none, because their goodness is basic – it’s just getting started. The Rich Young Ruler (cf Matthew 19:16-22) was a “basically good person” who walked away from Jesus when He found out where Jesus meant his goodness to go, and that destination was the life of God Himself. Jesus was full of the life of God – top to bottom, front to back: “In Him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:19). That’s goodness with some real edge, the kind that makes “basically good people” back up a step or two. It’s more than they want, a little threatening, a lot uncomfortable: “This is a hard saying, who can listen to it?” (John 6:60).

It is why Jesus was crucified. Also why He rose.

Jesus means to make us just like that. It is the whole purpose of the most sacred things we do. Augustine said that the bread of the Eurcharist is not like regular food – regular food becomes what we are. The Bread of Heaven makes us what He is – full of the life of God, top to bottom, front to back (cf. Confessions 7:10). Bishop Fulton Sheen said that Jesus was no Humanitarian, but a Divinitarian (Peace of Soul, p. 253). He meant, and means, not to improve our life but to give us God’s. Not a metaphor – the real thing.

Well, that’s a little more goodness than “basically good people” want. Maybe Haran is good enough.

We can maybe imagine Abraham in Haran, standing at the edge of town wondering, “What am I doing here?” A lot of “basically good people” wind up at the edge of town like that, wondering if “basic” is all there is, unsatisfied with answers like, “Oh, you know….” It disturbs them to hear God say, “Go from your country, your kindred, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (cf. Genesis 12:1).

And they go, because Haran is not good enough.