God's Covenant with Abram

July 2, 2017     Covenant with Abram             Genesis 15

            An elderly lady was well known for her faith and her boldness in proclaiming it.  She would stand on her front porch and proclaim, “Praise the Lord!”

            Next door lived an atheist who got angry at her proclamations.  He would shout back, “There is no God!”

            Hard times came upon the elderly lady.  She prayed to God for assistance.  She stood on her front porch and proclaimed, “Praise the Lord.  God I need some food.  I’m having a hard time.  Please Lord, send me some groceries!”

            The next morning the woman walked out on her front porch and noticed a large bag of groceries sitting there.  She proclaimed, “Praise the Lord!  He sent me groceries!”

            The neighbor jumped from behind the porch and said, “Aha!  I told you there was no Lord.  I bought those groceries and put them there myself!”

            The lady started jumping up and down and clapping her hands in excitement, “Praise the Lord!” she said, “Not only did he send me groceries, he made the devil pay for them!”

            This little joke shows the many twists and turns faith can take.  Our Bible reading from Genesis 15 says of Abram, “And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”  From one point of view faith and belief are a very simple straightforward thing.  Simply believe and trust God and that’s all there is to it.

From another point of view it gets very complicated.  Citing this same verse from Genesis we have Paul writing in Romans 4:3, “’Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’  Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due.  But to one who without works trusts him how justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.”

And then citing the exact same verse we get the opposite in James, “You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works.  Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,’ and he was called the friend of God.  You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

If that didn’t all make sense to you that’s okay, because Romans and James outright contradict each other.  There’s also the blatant contradiction between the disciples when they see the resurrected Jesus in Matthew 28:16, “When they saw [Jesus] the worshipped him but doubted,” and James 1:6, “…for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.”

What a mess!  And this is the core of our relationship with God and that which we hang our hopes for eternal life! 

Many people think they have wiggled through this miry bog by saying that God loves everyone and invites everyone to have a life of faith.  Each person then has a choice whether to accept God’s love or not.  Those who accept it are then in right relationship with God and are saved.  Those who don’t… well, some say they are damned.  Some say they don’t know.  Some say they just don’t want to think about it.

Whatever the case, this is a very common way to understand faith.  It seems to wiggle through the complications.  It seems to work.  And it does work well; at least it works well for people who are basically prosperous and whose lives are relatively orderly.  This works well for people who have encountered problems in life and then by their own strength or daring or intelligence manage to find a way to work through the problems and come out okay.

But when an uncontrollable crisis happens this understanding of faith starts to crumble.  And for those who are perpetually desperate, needy, hopeless and helpless, this understanding of faith is completely worthless.  James 2:15-26 says, “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and if one of you says to them, ‘Good, in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?” 

Or a similar twist that is all too common, “If you had enough faith God would help you.”  Try telling that to Syrian Christian refugees fleeing their country who drown in the Mediterranean Sea because in the policies of international politics no one would take them.

No, the idea that God loves you and if you accept it that is faith and God will help you just doesn’t cut it.  Jesus was crucified.  Almost all the disciples were martyred.  St. Paul withstood untold persecutions and hardships and was executed in the end anyway, all for his faithfulness.

Let’s turn back to Abram and look at him again to see what all these other writers are talking about.  Abram’s faith was not a matter of simple belief.  It was an ongoing relationship with God.  Last week we read about the time God called Abram to uproot and move in his old age.  Abram did so.  Along the way there were problems.  Sometimes Abram did things that fit with the will of God.  Sometimes Abram’s fears got the best of him and he messed up. 

We see Abram with questions and doubts in what we read today.  He knows God’s promises of many offspring who will inhabit the Promised Land.  But Abram has no children.  In his doubts of God’s promises he has a plan that Eliezer of Damascus will be his heir.  God says no, he will not be your heir.  Your own biological child will be you heir.  Abram says prove it.  So God tells him to do these strange things with animals, cutting them in two and laying them against each other.  At least it seems strange to us.  But in those days that was the equivalent of sitting down with your lawyer to buy a piece of property, or some other act.  Perhaps it was the equivalent of getting something notarized.  Anyway, Abram has a deep and terrifying sleep.  He has dreams and visions and it’s not entirely clear from the text what actually happened and what was a dream.  Whatever the case, it was an intense encounter with God.

Next week we’re going to look at the birth of Ishmael, the son Abram has to his wife’s slave.  We’ll see there that Abram has taken the matter into his own hands.  While he seems to trust God he’s also going on his own.  The point is that Abram’s faith is not one of simply believing and trusting God with absolute perfection and therefore everything always turns out okay in the end.  No, as we read through the life of Abram we’re going to discover the true nature of his faith, this faith the New Testament authors cite so often. 

Abram wasn’t perfect.  His belief wasn’t perfect either.  But what we see between God and Abram is a relationship building.  God has chosen Abram.  Abram accepts it.  God sends Abram.  Abram goes.  God makes promises to Abram.  They aren’t fulfilled.  Abram makes mistakes.  God forgives him.  Abram takes matters into his own hands, but he is still open to God’s will.  Back and forth it goes.

I think our Lord Jesus gave us the best image to use for faith, and that is of God as Father and us as children.   While not everyone has had a good father or even good parents, you can still get the idea.  Jesus calls his followers his family.  Like in any family there will be celebrations.  There will be sorrows.  There will be successes and failures, broken trust, and relationships restored.  The point is that a healthy family is a robust thing.  It is not fragile.  It is not weak.  That is a relationship of faith.

To be true, God does not come to us in the ways we often want.  The clouds do not spell out messages.  Angels don’t come with proclamations.  Voices don’t boom down from the sky.  But God does come to us in many ways, and we are wise to make use of them, for they are how faith is built.

The Bible is always available to us.  We can read it to receive the word of God anytime.  I know parts of it are confusing and vast sections are boring.  So just focus on the gospels if you want.  Many people have called the Gospel of John the Bible in miniature.

There is prayer, a constantly available and direct way to speak to God.  And while it can take some discipline, a quieted mind can often perceive God’s will.

We do not go through life alone.  We have the community of the church with other believers.  We are wise to keep it strong and healthy.  Plus there are Bible studies and small groups for projects socializing or whatever – community with our brothers and sisters in Christ.  It can only give to us as much as we invest in it.

And finally of course are the sacraments – God’s promised ways to be with us.  Baptism and communion are ways we feel and touch and even smell and taste God’s promises.  They are where the relationship of faith is restored and rebuilt.

What is faith?  You’ve heard me say this before.  It is a relationship of trust with God.  Abram had it.  Many of our ancestors had it.  We have it too.  Make we set our live course and make choices that strengthen our faith and the faith of those around us.