Genesis 24 – Faith is the legacy

Abraham is now a very old man. He wasn't young when he started his big adventure in life, moving from Ur to Canaan. Now he's pushing 140. Sarah has died. Isaac is well into adult life, and ready to take over Abraham's responsibilities – for a family business and more importantly for living in that covenant relationship with God. But – he is still single. So Abraham is concerned – like all parents – to see his son settled and happily married. So he calls his chief steward, the servant who is kind of general manager of the family business, an older, trusted employee who is kind of like a godfather to Isaac. Abraham trusts him to find a suitable partner for Isaac. But he makes his promise, not to choose a wife from Canaan, but find someone from back up north, where Abraham's relatives still lived. More important than finding a partner, was preserving family purity.

The servant asks “What if I can't persuade a girl to come down south to marry Isaac, shall I take him up North instead?” And Abraham replies “No way. Whatever you do, don't take Isaac back up north. He must stay in the land God has promised.” Abraham's priorities are clear.

First, the land God has promised.  The first priority for Abraham, in looking to the future and setting Isaac up as a married man, is pursuing that promise. Don't leave the land. Make sure he stays in the land. Don't take him back up North. He has to stay in Canaan. Because that's the place God promised us.

And we need to make our first priority receiving the promises God has for us. We need to be concerned about appropriating the “land” that god has promised to give us. And in our NT world that is the Kingdom. It is the Spirit-filled life; it is the reality of being a New Community, the people of God today; it is the grace of God not only forgiving us but transforming us. It is the riches of our inheritance in Christ Jesus. And it may be the specifics of how God has spoken within the context of the New Covenant, into our personal lives.

Second, the blood-line. Family purity is the next priority. Abraham had taken the Egyptian Hagar as a wife and raised Ishmael. He and Sarah had experienced various challenges and difficulties among the Canaanites. It was important to Abraham that Isaac marry one of their own people.

We need to be concerned about purity – not in the racial sense but spiritually: if the desire for the racial purity in the OT means anything at all for us today, it means that we need to belong wholly to god and not compromise or trade the realities of the Kingdom of God for a “quiet life” or for a cheap sense of popularity. Paul says “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female...” and we want to be an inclusive community – but we want to be a community that belongs 100% to God.

And then, finally, the practicalities. Finding a wife for his son. Yes, it was important. He wanted to see it sorted. But it was not his first or even his second priority.

And interestingly, it is as Abraham stands firm in his desire to see Isaac enter and possess the land, that he is able to take a stand on faith – not just wishful thinking – and tell his servant “[God] will send his angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from among our people up North.”

We have a legacy for the next generation. But the quality of that legacy will be determined by what are our priorities. Get them right. First, the promises. Second, the purity. Thirdly, the practicalities. So often we turn it on its head. We are concerned about the practicalities:

I could easily stop there. Do I hear an amen? I don't want one! I want briefly to unpack the rest of the story and show how that works out.... how the legacy Abraham wanted to leave, is secured. 

 

Almost immediately, the servant decides it is time to make a journey, pursue his master's desires, and find a wife for Isaac up North. So he provides himself with what he needs from Abraham's wealth, loading up ten camels with good gifts. When he gets there he sits by the well and prays for guidance (verses 12-14). He calls the Lord, “the God of Abraham””. That isn’t meant to suggest the servant worshipped another god. Not at all. The Lord was his God too – but God had made a covenant with Abraham and the servant says “show kindness to my master” and as we learned from Colin Symes, that word kindness is chesedh – covenant-keeping love! Literally “serve up covenant-keeping love”.

He prays that when he asks one of the girls who comes to the well, the girl God has chosen for Isaac will not only give him a drink but will water these ten camels. That is a lot of water. One big camel can drink as much as 200 litres – 40 gallons. Even if they were smaller – half that size, ten camels might drink 200 gallons of water.

"Camel" by "Jiron" licensed Creative Commons by SA 3

And as he finishes his prayer, this gorgeous girl, called Rebecca turns up, and draws water. The servant asks her for a drink, and she offers to water the camels; the servant observes her as she does this job, give her a nose ring and bracelets, and finds out that she is related to Abraham. She runs home to tell her family what has happened; her big brother Laban runs back to the well and the servant is invited to stay the night. Before eating he tells them why he is there – verses 34-49 are the servant's word-for-word retelling of the whole story.

Bethuel the girl's father and Laban her brother, immediately recognise God's hand in this, and it is all agreed, before dinner. I wish it was always that easy. That is – as the servant acknowledges in a prayer of thanks, God's covenant-keeping love at work.

So after a night of feasting, Abraham's servant is keen next day to get back home to report to his master how good God has been,. Mission accomplished! But the family, understandably, want to keep Rebecca for a while, to give her – and them – time to get used to the idea. It's all a bit sudden. But the servant is desperate to get home, so they ask Rebecca what she thinks and she is happy enough to go off there and then. I think she is a very special girl. Sure, she will have her weaknesses. A tendency to make a favourite of one of her twins, Jacob, and then resorting to deception and encouraged Jacob to do the same. So she is far from perfect. But she's beautiful, hard-working, decisive, fearless and adventurous. She turns out to be wise and sensitive to Isaac's needs and culture, putting on her veil as soon as she sees him. If she had chosen to wait – or indeed refused to go at all, her family would have respected that. But she was ready for the big adventure. How good god is to Abraham! He knows that all he can do has been done to pass on the right legacy to the future. How good god is to Isaac! He has a wonderful wife to comfort him after the death of his mother and as he begins to pick up where Abraham has left off (the servant treats Isaac as equal to Abraham now) he is beginning to enjoy the spiritual legacy of his father. We have a faithful and good God.

If we want to leave a legacy of faith, we need to get our priorities right: God's promises; spiritual purity, and then the practical details.

In the little story of Rebecca we are almost back where we started. Here is someone new, who is, like Abraham, prepared to leave her home comforts, and step out in to the big world, following God's call.

One last thing. There's one word that is used twice in the story – and missed out both times in the NIV! In v. 10, we are told that Abraham's servant “arose, and went to Mesopotamia;” and in v. 61, that “Rebecca and her maids arose, and rode upon the camels ...” (RSV gets it right both times!)

If we want to be part of the legacy, part of the promise, we need to arise. To stand up. To step out. 

© Gilmour Lilly July  2015

 

Genesis 23: Abraham – Loss and Hope

Loss: 
Eventually,  Abraham experiences a tragedy – and this time he is not offered a choice. His beautiful Sarah dies.  No-one can deny the sense of loss Abraham experienced at this point.  Despite the sadness, worry, confusion and shock he had felt at different stages in his life, Abraham's grief was so overwhelming that the writer actually mentions (for the first time) that Abraham wept. (v. 2)   He mourned – meaning eh wailed and beat his breast, and shed tears.  And only those who have experienced something like it can understand that loss. 

Loss is part of our experience, whether we choose it or not.   And we experience loss in different ways –

• the loss of a loved one as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death
• ageing or  life changing illness with the loss of health, |mobility, independence;
• loss of employment, of prospects and prosperity
• family break-up
• we lose a vision or a dream we have cherished.
• the death of traditional elements in our culture, so we lose familiar landmarks and  the Church loses status and influence in society
• change in our churches that feels like loss.

Bereavement changes our lives.  Those who have been through bereavement experiences will agree with that.  You experience the loss of a loved one.  Life changes – and as it does the sense of loss continues.

Change and loss are closely intertwined.  Loss is change.  Change – even positive change – involves loss.   Choice involves saying “No!” so one thing in order to say “Yes” to another.  The traditional marriage service includes the line “forsaking all others...”   Coming to Rosyth Baptist Church means not going to that other church down the road. 

So, for Abraham, there is a sense of loss. His only choice is what this change will do to his life: will he block it out and live in denial?  Will he allow it to dominate his thinking and ultimately destroy him?  Or will he face it, be reconciled to it, and begin to hope again.  

“Change marches onward – may all change be blessed”  so says Henry Twells in his old hymn, "Awake, O Lord, as in the time of old!" But not all change is welcome.  How can we ensure change is blessed?

Hope
Sarah's death had brought something home to him sharply: where would he bury

Sunset on Castleland HIll, July 2014 by G Lilly

her? He was still a stranger in Canaan: a visitor.  He needed somewhere to bury Sarah; but he needed, more importantly, to look to the future.  His time would come eventually; all that god had promised, he would need to hand over to Isaac.  This moment of loss was a moment to look to the future. 

So Abraham went to the Hittites who lived in the land.  He took a bag of silver with him; it was now or never.  Time to do a deal. 

What we have in the rest of the chapter is a description of a polite, formal discussion, a negotiation that ends up with Abraham being given the right to own land, and buying a field that included a convenient cave, from one of the Hittites called Ephron. 

Buying the cave was not just about honouring the past: it was about having a stake in the land. For the first time, Abraham actually owned a little piece of the promised land!  It wasn't much, but it was a  start.  One scholar calls it a “prophetic sign” of what God was going to do in Abraham's family, of the inevitable journey from being a tribe to being a nation.  Abraham would be buried in that cave (Chapter 25 9). So would Isaac (35. 27ff),  Rebecca and Leah (49. 31); and Jacob (carried all the way from Egypt, see 50. 13); And even Joseph: Exodus 13. 19 tells us that although Joseph was buried in Egypt, when Israel left Egypt, they took Joseph’s bones with them – for forty years in the desert – so they could be buried in Canaan.  It's all a way of saying “We are expecting God to give us this land.  It is our land.”  They were “looking for a country of their own” (Heb 11. 14). but they were also “longing for a better country – a heavenly one.”  (Heb 11. 16)  We need to live hopefully – for God's kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven;” and  for heaven itself.  And “hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”  Romans 5. 5

So how do we move towards hope?

Firstly, stand up. Abraham  “rose from beside his dead wife” (NIV) or “left the place where his wife's body was lying”.  Literally “he stood up from the face of his dead.”  We need to consciously decide we are going to stand up.  Our loss is staring us in the face.  We feel wrecked.  We've cried, we've shouted, we've thrown things.  I was reading in the Gideon news about a guy called Steve Woodcock who's now a Pastor but who describes when he came back to God: “I had a little Gideon testament (which had survived remarkably well having been flung at walls) and  began to it”.   And some of us can relate to that.  We've told ourselves all hope is gone.  But we reach a point when – the the face of our loss – we stand up.

Secondly, be real.  Abraham admitted the weakness of his position.  “Here I am, grieving the loss of Sarah, and I am a foreigner and stranger among you.”  There's an urgency about this.  In the Middle East, burials have to take place within 24 hours of death. And there's a long term necessity about getting it sorted.  And as they speak, Abraham is in the embarrassing position of not owning property nor having the right to do so.  

Thirdly, press in. Abraham avoided distraction.  The Hittites responded by saying “No, Abraham, you're like a prince among us.  None will refuse his tomb for you to bury Sarah.”  It's very polite, very respectful; in fact, it's almost flattering.  And it's clever: they are actually sidestepping the issue:  “Abraham, you're a great man – a prince among us, we know your people are god's people. So you can use any burial cave you want – pick the best you can find.  But it won't actually change hands.”  It would have been easy to think “That sounds reasonable.  They recognise that I am a powerful, rich man....” But it's not good enough.  Don't be distracted by what sounds reasonable; don't be distracted by flattering words.   When Peter healed the beggar at the beautiful gate of the Temple, there were plenty of distractions – a crowd walking by, and some of them may have given the man money – but Peter and John said “Look at us!”.  Don’t be distracted by money or TV of career or reputation.  Don't be distracted by anything. 

Fourthly, pay the price.  When Abraham made the deal with Ephron, the land he bought was probably overpriced, but Abraham didn't haggle about the price.  He paid the four hundred shekels of silver straight away.  The point is not that “Nothing is too much to spend on my Sarah!”  (although I suspect that the funeral industry exploits that sort of sentiment) but “No price is too high for the future God has called me to be part of.”  Can we say that? “No price is too high for the future God has called me to be part of.”

Finally
We have to ask the same questions, face the same choices Abraham faced.  Do we live in denial, or face reality? Do we allow reality to crush us, or do we learn to hope. We can't choose to opt out. But we can choose how we respond.... 

• Face it.
• Honour the past.
• Embrace the future.
• Live hopefully.

© Gilmour Lilly July  2015

Genesis 22:

Photo by G Lilly

 "Tried and Tested"

This is one of the deepest and darkest pools in the ocean of Scripture.

The Test. Temptation is not a good word: God doesn't tempt anyone!

Question: Who needed to know what was in Abraham's heart?

It looks like God tests Abraham so that God will know what is in Abraham's heart. But the Hebrew word to Know (v 12) is yāḏa — “I know by experience”, or “I observe, take note”, so God doesn't need to find out what is happening in Abraham's heart. He isn't filling in the gaps in his knowledge – but maybe he is filling in the gaps in Abraham's knowledge... He is “proving” to Abraham where his faith and fear of God have taken him.

Photo by DAVID ILIFF. Used under creative Commons License

When Jonas Bjorkman is training Andy Murray, maybe having him repeat his serve over and over, the point is not just to satisfy Bjorkman, but to satisfy Murray, that he can do that serve. What Jonas Bjorkman knows about Murray's ability isn't going to win points on Centre Court: but what Murray knows may well win points. And we all need to move towards that point of “proven” faith, where we know what our faith can do.

What is God trying to “prove” or test? Not just that Abraham loves God more than he loves Isaac – but “To prove his faith” (John Kennedy) and his fear of God (v. 12). These two things: faith and fear; reliance and reverence.

Faith...

... in two specific things: God's Person and God's Power. Who God is and what God can do.

Who God is. This experience goes right to the character of God himself. Abraham had lived a lifetime in the belief that his God was not the same as the gods of the other people in Canaan. That his God was “the One True God” and was holy, pure, the Judge of all the earth, and One who would do what was right. Abraham's God was pure, not a fertility god represented by some nude statue; he is a God who gives, not some vile deity demanding infant sacrifices. The sacrificing of children was known in the ancient world, and God outlawed them as an abomination when he gave Moses the law. Was this – something Abraham may have heard of – what his God was now asking of him? Had he been wrong in his understanding of the character of his God? Was he worshipping a monster?

We will encounter things in our world, and in God's word, that cut across and challenge what we know of God's character. How can a God of love flood the world, or command the destruction of Jericho? How can a God of love allow the suffering that is taking place throughout the Arab world because of the so-called Islamic State? How can a God of love allow earthquakes and tsunamis? How can a God of love allow us to experience our own personal payload of suffering? Sometimes our answers – or the answers of other – sound cheap and trite, and add to our pain. It is a test of our faith, to encounter these things, and still believe that God's character is good. It's the ability to say “I know him: I have walked with him. And even though this is not consistent with what I know of Him, I will love him and trust him.” Abraham managed to hold all that together. That's faith! Job in the midst of incredible suffering made worse by people’s fumbling attempts to sort him out, said “I know that my Redeemer lives,  and at last he will stand upon the earth”; and Paul says “I know whom I have believed, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me. ”

What God can do. Humanly speaking, if Abraham sacrificed Isaac, that was the end of all hope of becoming the father of a great nation. It was the end of God's promise. But as Abraham gets up in the morning to do what God had said, he does so in the confidence that God has made a promise and that God will still fulfil that promise. No delays. No discussions. No excuses. He simply makes the preparations he needs to – including taking firewood so that nothing will deflect him from this task. Twice he hints at his confidence in what God can do. In v. 5 he says to his servants “My son and I will go over there and worship, and then we will come back to you.” Then father and son haver a wee conversation that is full of affection; the boy asks “Where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” and Abraham says “God will provide himself a lamb.” There is a confidence that God knows what he is doing and will provide the guidance and the material things that were needed at just the right moment.

But that moment is a long time in coming. Isaac is eventually tied, laid on the altar, and Abraham picks up the knife. What is going through his head at that moment. The writer to the Hebrews tells us, two thousand years later: 'It was by faith that Abraham, when God tested him, offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice. God made the promises to Abraham, but Abraham was ready to offer his own son as a sacrifice.  God had said, “The descendants I promised you will be from Isaac.” Abraham believed that God could raise the dead, and really, it was as if Abraham got Isaac back from death.' Hebrews 11. 17-19. That's a really remarkable level of faith.

Fear. 

 Don't imagine that Abraham did this easily, without emotion. The emotion was there: the writer simply doesn't mention it. This is an epic story from two millennia before Christ, not somebody's Facebook page: “Got to sacrifice Isaac today. So gutted...” The storytelling style is interested in events not emotions. But that doesn't mean Abraham was a cold fish, a kind of psychopathic type who was incapable of feeling. This took faith and courage at every level. It cost Abraham; but he goes with faith. Abraham has shown a level of faith in the reality of God, that fears Him. The fear of God is reverence for Him. It is a sense of respect for Who He is. “Lord you are who you are, you are good; you are able to raise up Isaac from the dead; I cannot disobey your word. What can I do but obey you! I lay my life down at your feet. No more striving to hold on to what you have promised. No more conniving and scheming to bring your future by my own efforts. Everything, everything, is yours.” That's the fear of God. It is a place of utter surrender, utter yieldedness to Him. The great preacher C H Spurgeon says that what Abraham did was “As much to sacrifice himself as to sacrifice his child”.

Fear of God is an outworking of Faith in God. It is related to a confidence in who God is and what God can do. It's not anxiety or terror. We are not saying “I wonder what he's going to get up to next!” It's not something that paralyses us; it's something that motivates us. Paul said “knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men”, (2 Cor 5. 11)

Blessings: 

It is to that place of relinquishment, faith, and fear, that God wants to take us. And it's not about whether we love Isaac, or our home, our ambitions or our families more than we love God. It's about surrender; it's about control. It's about taking our hands off the steering wheel.

In relinquishment, Abraham prophetically models the surrender of God who gave his son for the salvation of mankind. In letting go we model the character of our Heavenly Father – who “did not spare his own son but gave him up for us.

And in relinquishment, Abraham received the promise of God: see verses 15 and

Lewis Beach: Photo by G Lilly

following. God revealed himself as Yahweh Yireh – the Lord provides. God said “I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore.” God promised Abraham “by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice” Relinquishment releases the promises of God into our lives. It releases his provision; it releases blessing not only for us but for the nations and peoples around us: “because you have obeyed my voice. It is in surrender and letting go, as an expression of faith in God and fear of God , that we best express the character of God , end experience the blessing of God.

© Gilmour Lilly July  2015

Genesis 21. 22-33: "Out there"

 Here we find Abraham, once again, in a bigger context: not just in the challenges of family life, not just pursuing his relationship with God as a “private citizen” or even as someone with a specific call from God – a prototype spiritual leader, a Father to a Nation – but as a businessman and pioneer – a man who knows he is on a mission from God to establish a people – the people of God – in this land of Canaan.   This is God at work, Abraham making his way, In the “Secular” world: the world of work, finance, politics.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
His dealings right now are with a guy called Abimelech – one of the first Philistine leaders to settle   in Canaan.  He pays a fairly formal visit to Abraham, taking his army commander along.

Now, Abraham and Abimelech go back a wee while together.  Chapter 20 – which we missed out – tells how when Abraham entered Abimelech’s territory, he introduced Sarah, not as his wife, but as his sister.  That was a half-truth, as we have already found out.  And Abraham had already done the same thing, to Pharaoh in Egypt.   You would think he would have learned his lesson. Yet here was, repeating the same old mistakes again, betraying his wife into the hands of a foreign King, then lying low and hoping something would work out.   This pattern of wrong behaviour was so deeply ingrained that it was repeated in the next generation: What Abraham had done, his son Isaac in turn did – to Abimelech!  (Gen 26. 7)

This time, God had done two things.  He had appeared to Abimelech in a dream and warned him in no uncertain terms not to touch Sarah.  And he had caused a sudden outbreak of infertility in Abimelech's tribe.  (as well as causing the women in Abimelech's tribe to become infertile!  So the situation took place over a protracted period of time, once again!)

And again, as had happened in Egypt, Abimelech told Abraham off severely – and asked Abraham what he was playing at. And Abraham's excuse for his behaviour? He was afraid, because “I thought, surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife!”  Now, that is not a great way to win friends and influence people!  It was honest, but it was honestly stupid.  Too often Christians struggle in our dealings with the “secular world” because in our hearts we are thinking the same s Abraham was:  “There is no fear of God in this place.”  I believe that sort of negative, judgemental, and sometimes shallow assessment of our world, pulls us out of shape, blinds us to the possibilities for effective, positive witness, and predisposes us to be fearful and inept in our dealings with the big, bad world.

But God was gracious: he was on Abimelech's and Abraham's and Sarah's case!  So Abimelech's response was to give Abraham sheep and land to stay in as compensation for taking his wife.  God was gracious, and Abimelech showed himself to be honest and fair-minded.

That's all background. Now Abimelech turns up again with the commander of his army.  He's not looking for trouble: quite the opposite, he wants to head trouble off.  He's looking for some sort of agreement, some sort of treaty, that will allow his people, and Abraham's people, to co-exist, in the new land they have come to.

Is it possible to co-exist with the Philistines?  Is it possible to co-exist with the “secular world”?  With an employer, a Trade Union, a political party?  Not if we are full of fear and tend to dismiss everything outside the Christian faith as “Godless” and bad.   And not if like Lot, we walk blindly into our world and uncritically copy its values and actions.  We want to be salt and light in our world; we want to change our world.  That means we have to be there but be different.

Abimelech  has two things to say:

Firstly, “I recognise that God is with you”.
Abimelech had reasons to know that “God is obviously with you, helping you in

Sunset on Castleland Hill, Photo by G Lilly

everything you do”  HE already knew Abraham to be a prophet even if one who made mistakes; he had seen Abraham become more and more prosperous (and had helped him become richer); he had no doubt heard about the miraculous birth of Isaac.

Abraham was able to demonstrate God's power and God's grace.   That is a desirable aim:  in the world of work, politics, business, for people to be able to recognise God is with you”.... 
It is grace.  We make mistakes – just like Abraham did, we misjudge people, we self-protect, we lie, we connive.  And God is on our case!  He wants to refine our character, to pour out his power, to provide for us, to answer our prayers, so that people can see “God is with you.”

And, secondly, “Promise you will not deceive me”.  
“Don't lie to me; and deal with me according to the covenant love or loyalty (hesed) I have shown to you.”  A bit embarrassing for Abraham!   Abimelech had reasons to say “Promise you won't deceive me!”   Abraham is happy to enter into a treaty with Abimelech; but first, he wants to be sure it will not be empty words but a workable agreement they can all use for future reference, so he needs to deal with something that has been an irritation for some time – and was actually vitally important in an area where water is a valuable commodity.  Some of Abimelech's men have taken over by force a well dug by Abraham.  Abimelech denies all knowledge.

The way the agreement was “signed” was through a ceremony when animals were handed over.  And Abraham includes seven lambs as a sign that he, Abraham, had dug and therefore was the rightful owner, of that well.

There area a number of lessons we can take from this treaty, for our witness, co-existing in our world.

Firstly, to be affirming and positive. To recognise virtues  and strengths. “Deal with me according to the loyalty I have shown you
Secondly, to be grace-givers, who are prepared to show generosity in situations where there is wrong.
Thirdly, to be realistic and proactive in dealing with difficulties.
Finally, to be honest and upright at all times.

We have covenants, agreements, responsibilities and points of contact with the secular, commercial, business world: we buy and sell houses; we borrow money, we accept jobs; we go to school, we use the NHS.   And some of us have that connexion in our own homes, maybe in marriages with people who don't know Jesus or with kids or parents who aren't living as Christians.  All around us there are people, situations, that are saying to us “deal with me according to the loyalty I have show to you.”

We need to hear that.  We need to be in the place where we are hearing these two cries, from the “secular world”:  “I recognise that God is with you,”  and,  “promise that you will be fair with me”

So the place gets a new name: The well of Seven, which sounds like The well of oath.   Beersheba.  There Abraham plants a tamarisk tree – any tree would be a sign of looking to the future and the tamarisk has particularly hard, durable wood.  A great sign of permanence, and reminder of the “everlasting God”.  Quietly, on his own again, Abraham worships the “everlasting God.”   If we are in there in the power of he Spirit, the secular world doesn’t distract from our spiritual life – it enriches it and makes it makes it stronger.

© Gilmour Lilly June  2015

Genesis 21, verses 1-21

Genesis 21, 1-21
 
Abraham and Sarah have plenty to celebrate.  God has been good to them! The ninety-one year-old Sarah gives birth to a healthy baby boy and the hundred-year-old Abraham delights in performing the duties of a father – circumcision on the eighth day and throwing a big party when the baby is weaned.  

But, there's an “elephant in the room” in the form of the clumsy, goofy teenager Ishmael. He's a constant reminder of a mistake – or a series of mistakes – Abraham and Sarah have made.  Desperate for the fulfilment of God's “Plan A” and promise to give them a son,  Sarah had  concocted a “Plan B,” and given her slave-girl Hagar to Abraham as a very inferior second wife.  Abraham had accepted this, and Hagar had duly produced Ishmael. He's there, fourteen years old, when Isaac is born.  He's there, two or three years later when Isaac is weaned and Abraham throws a big party.  

And Ishmael is laughing at Isaac – not playing with him (RSV) but at the very least teasing him (NLT) or (more likely) generally mocking the whole proceedings (AV, NIV are correct; the Hebrew does not say who Ishmael was laughing at).  I believe this is more consistent with what we know of Hagar's character and of the dynamics of the relationship between Hagar and her masters. And it seems to have been passed on to young Ishmael: you can imagine the jokes between mother and son – especially if you've been in a family or a workplace which thrives on mockery. And mockery comes so naturally to teenagers.   

So it looks like the whole sordid problem of “Plan B” was still staring Abraham and Sarah in the face, even at their kid's big celebration.

Then, it seems, Sarah has a “hissy fit”. Abraham has seen that look before: his wife's eyes narrow to little slits, her face hardens, her  hands tremble slightly, and there are a few moments of terrible silence; then she says “Get that woman and her brat out of here: "he will never take even a share of my Isaac's inheritance.”

What is poor Abraham going to do?  This seems so wrong. He has a pattern of doing what Sarah tells him to; but he loves the boy and has some feelings of decency towards Hagar.  He's troubled. He wants to do what Sarah says.  But still it seems so wrong.  Understandably he is struggling to decide what to do.  Then God speaks and tells Abraham “Do what Sarah says”.   Emotionally and morally, how could he?  And how could God?  Does God condone the abandonment of Isaac and ultimate betrayal of Hagar who has been used abominably by Abraham and Sarah?

Remember this wasn't a mess of God's making.   God's “Plan A” was for Abraham and Sarah to become parents by having Isaac. Ishmael was the result of “Plan B.”  God was working around, and unpicking the consequences of, Abraham's and Sarah's mess.  

And there were plenty of consequences. Sarah may have feared for young Isaac: Ishmael was much older than Isaac and had, it seems, picked up his mother's contempt for Abraham and Sarah.  He could have been a threat to his younger half-brother.   There were consequences for Abraham –  the sorrow and pain of separation from Ishmael.  And for Hagar it was being the despised and misused slave girl; for Ishmael being an unwanted child. Our “Plan B” strategies have consequences. Unbelief has a way of leaving footprints.

Paul says in Romans 8, “For we know that to his loved ones, God co-operates or assists all things into good, for those being welcomed or invited according to his purpose.”   God works all things out, assists all things – even the bad things – to produce good.  Even Sarah's scheming unbelief, and jealousy; even Hagar's and Ishmael's foolish mocking, and Abraham’s weakness and fear, God didn’t send them; he didn't even use them; but he worked them into his design.  

There is a story (possibly made up)  told of a piano concert, given by the great Padrewski: before it began a small boy gave distracted parents the slip and found his way onto the stage, sat down and started plonking out “Twinkle Twinkle little star” with one finger. Padrewski appeared on stage, stood behind the wee boy and surrounded the boy's inept playing with a wonderful variation.  That is what God does all the time, with our mistakes.  He weaves them into his tapestry. That is what God was doing here. Not inflicting evil on Hagar and Ishmael; but using the situation for his glory

God goes on, then, to say, “Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.”  (v12)   Abraham had grounds to know that, now. Because there sits Isaac, a chubby three-year-old eating solid food.   God had already done what he said. Three times, just in case we don't notice, verses 1 and 2 repeat that Isaac’s birth was “as God had said”.  God had said, all along.  God would give Abraham a whole nation of descendants through Isaac. That was the plan.  

And then God speaks about Ishmael:  “I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.”  So, Ishmael is going to be OK, too.   Abraham has good, solid grounds for figuring that, if The Lord could give Abraham and Sarah an Isaac in their old age, as he had said, he could look after Ishmael, protect him and make him a nation too, as he had said.  

And in the purpose of God, what Sarah said “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac” was a prophecy. Paul quotes Sarah's words in Gal 4. 30  Sarah meant it out of jealousy or fear.  God used it to bring out a vital principle for every God-seeker in every age. It is the child of faith, not the child of human effort, that inherits eternal life and the Kingdom of God.  We need to be children of the Spirit not children of the Flesh. God keeps his promises.  Life in the Spirit – trusting God and seeing Him at work instead of trusting ourselves, is a possibility.  

If you want to connect with God, to have a relationship with the creator of the universe, a life that will survive to eternity, you need to receive that by Spirit not flesh.  Jesus once had a visit from a very “religious” man who stayed up late studying the Bible and tried to live a good life.  But still he wasn't sure he had eternal life.  Jesus said to him “You need to be born again – a miracle done by God's Spirit inside you.”  Ask God to send his Spirit to you to make you a new person. 

And if you're desire is to serve God today, to use your gifts, to reach broken people , to bring family members to know Him, to know his healing; to see the Church alive and growing like Abraham's family – it happens by Spirit not flesh. God is faithful, he keeps his promises. He “does chesedh – steadfast love and mercy,”  Trust him and walk in his way – he will do what he promised.

I guess it is still with a  heavy heart that Abraham packs Hagar and Ishmael off, with about as much as they could carry for  the journey. And the rest of the story tells how God is looking after Hagar and her son, right up to the point where, leaning on each other, the young man collapses and his mother puts him in the shade of a shrub, and God opens her eyes to see the water he has provided.   He keeps the promise he had made to Abraham about the boy.  Ishmael is going to be OK.  He is going to make it.  At the end of the section we find him settled down and married.  

We should avoid making the oft-repeated comment that “we are still suffering for Abraham's mistake today”.  God loved that boy and preserved him; God looked after him.  If he is the father of the Arab race, then God loves the Arab and wants to bless the Arab with the same blessing that comes through Abraham to all the nations of the earth.  

But Abraham didn't see that.  He had to let Ishmael go.  His journey – the flip side of the joy and excitement of seeing God keep his covenant – was marked by relinquishment.  At this point it was Ishmael.  There would be other “letting go” moments.  Walking by faith involves a letting go of anything and everything that gets in the way of our relationship with God, anything and everything that we trust in, instead of trusting God.  
 

© Gilmour Lilly June  2015

Genesis 18

Growing faith.

This is the sixth time God has come and made promises to Abraham. We have followed the progress of these promise over the last few weeks.

It began in Genesis 12: God called Abram to move from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan; twice he promised a land and a people; and Abram obeyed in a faith that took God at his word.

Then in Genesis 13, God came again and repeated the promise – this time promising descendants as numerous as the desert sand. And Abram continued to move in obedience to god's will.

The fourth time – in Genesis 15 – Abram had a moan about the fact that the promise still hadn’t been fulfilled; But God sealed his covenant with Abram using that sacrifice cut in half. But eventually Abram did what you shouldn't do with a promise, and made it come true by his own scheming.

The fifth time, God got a bit more specific – telling Abraham that he and Sarah would have a son called Isaac. And Abram had to be circumcised as a sign of that covenant.

So, for Abraham, there has been a building up of the details and demands of the promise; as it becomes more specific it demands more faith, and demands full commitment. And as the promise unfolds, Abraham wavers between amazing simple faith, and just a bit of cynicism, fear, and self-reliance.

Now God comes, appears to Abraham. There is a slight difference. This time the Lord (18. 1) is in human-like form accompanied by two others, angelic beings (19. 1). The whole scene is typical of desert hospitality: visitors appear, waiting to be invited into the camp was the desert equivalent of knocking the door; being sat down, made welcome; the host declaring that the visit is a God-given opportunity to show hospitality;; fresh bread made, a calf killed... for some time while Abraham, Sarah, and his servant, prepare a meal – slaughtering the fatted calf... And God promises that within a year, Sarah will give birth to a son. Fulfilment, of a specific promise, within a specific time-frame. All God's dealings with Abraham, have come full circle. And it is so amazing, so unbelievably precious, after so many years of waiting, And Abraham’s faith, has come full circle. Abraham's faith – and I mean the whole way he does his walk with God – has been developing, maturing.

We go through stages in our development, and there are stages in faith development too: that can get a bit complicated as it's partly related to our age... but we start with very simple faith – and then you struggle to hold it all together in various times of trial, unanswered prayers. That's a questioning stage. There's another stage, when you can hold the simple faith and the questions together. Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “The only simplicity for which I would give a straw is that which is on the other side of the complex — not that which never has divined it.” That is grown-up faith. It is childlike but not childish. Simplicity, not pretending the questions aren't there but surviving on the other side of all the complications and questionings. And that is where I believe Abraham had come to. He had even been circumcised as an expression of that mature tested faith.

And Sarah, overhearing in the tent, has a wee giggle to herself. (Literally “Laughing within her midst”) You get the impression of her talking to herself and laughing at her own rude joke about her and Abraham's sex-life!  ("ShallI have pleasure?") Now we discovered that Abraham's laughter was OK: it was an expression of joy and celebration. Sarah's had a bitter, cynical edge. God challenged her about it and she denied she had laughed: it wasn't something she was proud of. So it looks as if Sarah was at a different place in her faith journey. She was still in the place of scepticism and questioning. 

 

It is possible to get “stuck” at any stage of the faith journey, from a “Baby” faith of Bible stories without knowing what they mean, to a stage where we “believing what we are told” , to a questioning doubting stage. Or we can keep moving forward. I think Sarah was stuck, and Abraham had moved beyond the questioning stage. Maybe their human instincts, and drives made them respond differently to things: Sarah had not become a mother, but Abraham had become a father: that simple fact may have helped to make them grow on from the questioning stage at different speeds. Maybe Sarah was angrier about the situation. But remember Abraham had a more grown faith – but he certainly wasn't perfect. In fact he repeated the same sins and mistakes over and over. Grown up faith isn't the same as perfection.

God is in the business of dealing with us. He is in the business of growing our faith. He is in the business of taking us from simple faith – through various times of struggle, disappointment, failure – back to simple faith. Maybe a less arrogant faith; maybe a faith that is less self-centred, self-obsessed. To a faith that is prepared in a fresh way to take on the heart-circumcision of belonging totally to God and to his people...

In response to Sarah's laughter,  God says something really simple yet really profound. “Is there anything too heard for the Lord?” (v 14) "Too difficult" originally means " too wonderful." The theme of what is too hard for God comes up again (Jeremiah 32. 17 , 27 , and Zechariah 8. 6.)

How will we answer that question?So how do we respond when God comes and says “OK, now is the time: I am going to fulfil these promises now?” Are we like Abraham: we have come through the doubts and returned to that place of simple faith? Or are we like Sarah: “Yeah, right!”

Then, as the visitors are leaving and Abraham escorts them down the road, they reveal what God plans to do in the cities of the plain. God acknowledges Abraham to be his friend close and intimate .Being “Chosen by God” and being God's friend, means not only that he s going to become a father; it means he is involved in the plans of God for the nations; so it is perfectly appropriate that God reveal to Abraham what he plans to do in Sodom.

God is judging Sodom for the evil that was happening there. Sodom had become a thoroughly violent, arrogant and sexually promiscuous, amoral place, where the attitudes of immorality had rubbed off on Lot and his family... Chapter 19 describes what one scholar calls "a loveless squalor" not only in the behaviour of the people of the city but on the part of Lot's daughters later on.

So Abraham prays: his praying shows how mature his faith is: a deep understanding of who God is (you might say right doctrine) working through the questions and worked out in godly character.

As he prays he comes out with another of these key phrases: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (v. 25) Abraham knows his Good to be not tribal but universal, and not tyrannical but just.

When he begins he is saying “Lord, would yo destroy the city if here were fifty good guys in there? Then he takes the number down to 45, 30, 20, 10. It's quite a prayer, rooted as it is in concern for God's character and in a compassion for the lost!!

"Interceding love is ingenious". We need a passion for God, and a passion for God's creatures. How would we have prayed?

So, where are you on that faith journey? Do you still live with the faith of the nursery: folk-religion, or folk-atheism that you believe because everyone else does? Do you have living faith that is yours and makes you part of the living Church? Do you have questions that maybe feel overwhelming? OR have you come through the questions to a faith that is simple enough, strong enough and flexible enough to thrive in a challenging world and show God's compassion there? 

© Gilmour Lilly June  2015