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     That simple line would have a great influence on St. Paul and, much later, on Martin Luther!  It has a great impact on each of us, even if we don't think about it or realize it.  Faith is something that only we humans can do.  In its most important form, it is really a verb.  We "believe" in something. In the case of God, this is a profound act - an acceptance of a personal reality that is at the origin of all creation and sustains it in being.  For Abraham this would be expressed in the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore.  He had an experience of God that motivated him to act as he did in going to a place that God told him would belong to him and his descendants.  It is Abraham's faith, and not his moving, that was the basis of the covenant between him and God.  St. Paul reacted, after his conversion, to a belief that religious observance or ritual is the basis of faith.  Martin Luther had a similar reaction to the church as it had become in the early 16th century.  

     However, faith is not an abstraction!  It has both an interior and exterior expression.  The "covenant" that Abraham makes with God on the occasion in today's passage from Genesis is an expression of faith.  The whole reality of the church is an expression of faith.  We are called not just as individuals but as a community which shares a faith in God.  "Quietism" - a belief that faith consists only in an "inner light" - is not compatible with Christianity because Jesus has given us the command to preach the gospel, and not simply to believe in it!  Abraham's faith led to his covenant with God which meant leaving his familiar surroundings and striking out for a new land.  What can each of us say our faith in God motivates us to do?  AMEN