NL-Year 3 / Week 2: Abraham

Introduction to the Text

Last week, we begin a new set of readings called the narrative lectionary – narrative, as in “story.” I shared how stories are the basis of our identity, both personal and communal. For Christians, our identity comes out of the biblical story, the “God story.”

So we began at the beginning…or nearly the beginning. We started our reading with the second creation story, the one with Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the serpent. It was a story whose purpose was to reveal the human condition. The man and the woman are given everything they need to live: a vocation, relationships, and a guide for living that included one prohibition. But too often, prohibition leads to desire for that which is forbidden. We don’t like to be told “No.” And knowing what is “good” for us doesn’t guarantee one will do what is good for us.

And wanting what they aren’t supposed to have leads to disobedience and shame and finger-pointing. At the end of the story, relationships have been broken between the man and the woman, between the humans and God, and even between the humans and the rest of creation. Adam and Eve are sent out of the garden, though a merciful and loving God makes garments for them. And we were left with a question. What is a good and gracious Creator going to do about this?

Well, we hope for the best. But what follows are three stories in which things go from bad to worse. There’s Cain and Abel – a story of sibling rivalry, jealousy over God’s favor, ending with murder and exile. There’s the Flood – God painfully choosing to start over because "creation has refused to be God’s creation, to honor God as God." And then there’s the Tower of Babel – a story "with some subtlety that raises questions about the practice and function of language for following or more often disobeying God’s will." (Walter Brueggemann, "Genesis," Interpretation Series)

We come to the end of the Act One of Genesis and we’re left wondering and waiting to see what God will do to restore relationships. And the answer comes when God calls to one person, Abraham. We don’t know why he was chosen. Maybe God spoke to several people and Abraham and his wife Sarah were the only ones to hear and respond. The narrator doesn’t seem to know or care – only that Abraham responded. To Abraham, God makes a three-fold promise: land, offspring, and a blessing.

Now you might wonder, why God elects, that is chooses, one person, one couple, one nation? This seems rather exclusive, like God is playing favorites. We call it the scandal of particularity. It will come up again and again especially when we talk about Jesus Christ. Being chosen by God is a blessing that comes with a burden, a responsibility. In the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” when the father, Tevye, learns that some of the Tsar’s men are about to come to his small village to cause a little trouble, a little mischief, Tevye prays: “Dear God. Did you have to send me news like that today of all days? I know, I know we are the chosen people. But once in a while, can't you choose someone else?”

God has called Abraham to start something new, “an alternative community in a creation gone awry, to embody in human history the power of the blessing ... The stories of Abraham and his descendents are not ends in themselves; they point to God's largerr purposes."  But God makes this promise to a man who is 75 and has a wife who has been unable to bear children. Some plan, some larger purpose.

Nevertheless, Abraham and Sarah respond and make the long journey from present-day Iraq to Palestine. Time passes, maybe ten years, and God reaches out to Abraham a second time, which brings us to this morning’s reading from Genesis, chapter 15 starting with the first verse. It can be found on page 10 in your pew bible. Listen for what the Spirit is saying to the church.

Genesis 15:1-6

1After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

2But Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” 4But the word of the LORD came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” 5He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 6And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Sermon

How long are you willing to wait for a promise to be fulfilled? Several years ago, my brother was invited to get in on the ground floor of a start-up company in the health care management field. There was a promise that when the company took off and became public, he could do very well for himself and his family, like the folks who started up Apple or Google or Microsoft. So my brother quit his fairly secure, well-paying job with a large insurance company and moved the family from Chicago to Maryland. Three years later as they were about to roll out their main software product, funding dried up and the company went bankrupt. So much for promises. Fortunately, my brother was able to return to his old company and move back to Chicago.

Abraham has been called by God to leave his home and go to where God is directing him. And Abraham is given a promise of land, of offspring, and a blessing. He is blessed to be a blessing to others, to all the families of the earth. So he leaves home with his wife and a sizable entourage and goes where God sends him.

Several years pass, several hard years. When he arrived there was a famine in the land so he went down to Egypt (by the way there’s a little foreshadowing). In Egypt, Abraham passes his wife off as his sister because he’s afraid Pharaoh will kill him if he discovers beautiful Sarah is his wife (so much for trusting in the promises of God). But God acts to save Sarah and Abraham. Once back in Palestine, Abraham finds himself in a foreign land that is not his own. Other than his wife and nephew, the rest of his family is far away. He and Sarah have no children. Even if God gave him the land, with no heir having the land wouldn’t really mean much. Abraham probably wasn’t feeling very blessed.

With none of the promise fulfilled, God appears to Abraham a second time and tells him “your reward shall be very great.” By the way the word translated “reward” doesn’t refer to a kind of quid pro quo. It’s not about doing things so God will immediately bless us with what we ask for. It’s more of a gift, like recognition for long and meritorious service, like a lifetime achievement award.

What is Abraham’s response? God’s promise is what called him to leave home, what keeps him going. Yet after ten years or so, there is nothing. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that his response is to complain. It’s probably what most of us would do. How long do we have to wait for God to respond? What does one do when the answer isn’t “yes” and it isn’t “no,” when the only response is wait. We would complain.

But Abraham is the great hero of three religions, the shining example lifted up by Paul and the letter to the Hebrews as the model of faith, the one God has pinned all the hopes of the future. And he complains to God. “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless.” Then Abraham suggests ways to address the problem. There’s Eliezer of Damascus. There’s a slave born in my household. I could pick one of them to be my heir. Practical Abraham taking matters into his own hands. You know, God helps those who help themselves. No…that’s not actually in the Bible.

God is patient with Abraham and repeats the promise – you will have offspring to inherit the land I will give you. Then God leads Abraham outside and has him look up at the night sky. “Count the stars, if you are able to count them.” That’s how many descendents you’ll have.

We’ve had a few nights in the last couple weeks when the stars in the sky were sharp and clear. I love this time of the year. I can still see Bootes, the Herdsman and its bright star Arcturus. And there’s the summer triangle: Vega, Deneb and Altair. You can see the Milky Way stretch across the sky through the constellation Sagittarius that looks like a teapot and is in the direction of the center of our galaxy. It’s a glorious sight. How much brighter it must have been before the days of artificial lighting.

Abraham complains, and God says, “Trust me.” Then he gives him an unforgettable vision of the night sky. And Abraham believes in this future. That’s what God’s promise and vision can do in spite of all appearances to the contrary. Faith flies in the face of experience. Throughout scripture, “faith is the capacity to embrace [God’s] announced future with such passion that the present can be lot go for the sake of that future.” Abraham trusts in this improbable future and God reckons it to him as righteousness. The storyteller reminds us this is the right way to be in relationship with God.

The Israelites were people who trusted God’s promises. And the apostle Paul will later write that faith as a response to God’s promise is what defines us as children of God. In baptism we trust in God’s promise to bless us and through our lives to be a blessing to others. And we are given a vision in the splash of water. In communion we trust in God’s promise to welcome all to the table and to fill us with such abundance that we can take some out into the community to feed others. And we are given a vision in bread and wine.

God makes it clear Abraham can trust God. What follows the statement about Abraham’s faith is a one-sided covenant ritual binding God to God's promise. In preparation for this ritual, Abraham is told to sacrifice several animals and birds, cut their carcasses in two and lay them in two lines on the ground leaving an aisle between the lines. It was the custom of the day when sealing a covenant to walk between the lines. Implied was a threat: if one failed to live up to the promise, they were to suffer the same fate as the animals. In a dream, Abraham sees a smoking fire pot pass between the animal halves. This was a vision of God promising to make good on pain of God being split in two like the animal carcasses. God puts God’s own self on the line as an assurance that the promise will be fulfilled. Abraham will live his life trusting in God.  And God will deliver.

I asked earlier, how long are you willing to wait for a promise to be fulfilled? The problem is that God operates on God-time, not our time. And that can test our faith. Even after his second encounter with God, Abraham will have to wait several more years before God fulfills the promise of offspring. And we will have to wait longer still to find out when the promise of land is fulfilled. So stay tuned for part three of the “God story” next week. The story continues.