Excerpt from the first reading for Tuesday’s daily Mass:
Genesis 13:5-18
Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents,
so that the land could not support them if they stayed together;
their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together.
There were quarrels between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock
and those of Lot’s.
(At this time the Canaanites and the Perizzites
were occupying the land.)
So Abram said to Lot:
“Let there be no strife between you and me,
or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are kinsmen.
Is not the whole land at your disposal?
Please separate from me.
If you prefer the left, I will go to the right;
if you prefer the right, I will go to the left.”
Lot looked about and saw how well watered
the whole Jordan Plain was as far as Zoar,
like the LORD’s own garden, or like Egypt.
(This was before the LORD had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)
Lot, therefore, chose for himself the whole Jordan Plain
and set out eastward.
Thus they separated from each other;
Abram stayed in the land of Canaan,
while Lot settled among the cities of the Plain,
pitching his tents near Sodom.
Now the inhabitants of Sodom were very wicked
in the sins they committed against the LORD.
After Lot had left, the LORD said to Abram:
“Look about you, and from where you are,
gaze to the north and south, east and west;
all the land that you see I will give to you
and your descendants forever.
I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth;
if anyone could count the dust of the earth,
your descendants too might be counted.
Set forth and walk about in the land, through its length and breadth,
for to you I will give it.”
Abram moved his tents and went on to settle
near the terebinth of Mamre, which is at Hebron.
There he built an altar to the LORD.
Abram (later changed to “Abraham” by God) exemplifies a line from Psalm 34:15 “seek peace and pursue it.” Abram does not just want peace with his nephew. He does not just hope for it. He takes responsibility for trying to see that it happens. In this case he gives the younger and certainly less mature man, Lot, first choice of the grazing land. He shows no resentment or irritation when Lot takes the best for himself. To Abram, peace between family members was more important than continual squabbling over resources. This lesson is underlined for us as Christians when it is quoted in 1 Peter 3:11.
How is the Lord asking me to “seek peace and pursue it” in my life now? With whom? Over what? Pray to know, and then pray to know how to go about it.