Scripture: Genesis 17: 1-9
(1) When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, "I am
God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. (2) I will confirm my covenant between me
and you and will greatly increase your numbers." (3) Abram fell face down, and God
said to him, (4) "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of
many nations. (5) No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I
have made you a father of many nations. (6) I will make you very fruitful; I will make
nations of you, and kings will come from you. (7) I will establish my covenant as an
everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations
to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. (8) The whole land of
Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and
your descendants after you; and I will be their God." (9) Then God said to Abraham,
"As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the
generations to come."
This is my covenant with you: I will be your God and you will be my people. I will give
you land, wealth, and descendants so numerous they will be like the stars of the sky. You
shall be the parents of a great nation."
In the chapters preceding this scripture, Abram and Sarai were given this promise
several times and, despite their friends' guffaws, they believed. Heading off across the
desert, they sought the fulfillment of the promise: land, wealth, children. They settled
in Canaan and expected the promise to be fulfilled. But a famine struck and their faces
became skin on bone, their stomachs swollen, and their limbs like knobby sticks. Where was
the promise now?
They went to Egypt to wait out the famine and eventually returned to Canaan with gifts
of sheep, oxen, donkeys, camels and slaves from Pharoah, the King of Egypt. They survived
family squabbles over the accumulated wealth, as so often happens, and battles with
neighboring kings. Decades passed. They had sheep and goats as numerous as the stars in
the sky, but still no children of their own.
This morning we hear the promise again: "I will be your God and you will be my
people." New names for a renewed covenant: Abram became Abraham and Sarai became
Sarah. But what good is a new name? Abraham and Sarah were both over 90 years old. How
could they have a child to carry on the lineage? Surely God's promises are not really to
be believed.
Our questions of faith and frustration with God are not so different than theirs. How
can people of faith, such as we, continue to believe in God's promise and presence when
there seems to be no tangible evidence to support it?
Look at the world:
God promised through the prophets of old, a time of peace and shalom, a time when
justice will flow down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. But each
time a peace treaty is signed, our hope for peace in our generation is short-lived. In
Kosovo and Ireland, the Middle East and parts of Africa, conflict resurfaces and promises
are broken.
Each week in the Assurance of Pardon we hear the promise that "we are a new
creation; the past is finished and gone," but when we go home, we face the
consequences of angry words spoken earlier, of addictions that must still be faced one
step at a time, of patterns of distrust and defensiveness learned in childhood that still
affect our responses and relationships as adults.
Every time a bill for gun control finally reaches the floor of Congress, the NRA and
conservative politicians shoot it out of the trees like a dove as if keeping guns out of
the hands of 6-year-old children really is a threat to our Constitution.
As gay and lesbian couples finally begin to receive some of the same civil rights that
other long-term committed couples have in this country, we're told they are a threat to
your marriage and mine. But as the words in a famous opera say, "Love is heaven come
down to earth, that earth may become a heaven." Their love for each other doesn't
threaten my marriage or yours, or anyone else's, but I despair at how long it will take
for that to be realized by both church and society.
And finally, no matter how hard we try to make the sanctuary watertight, the roof
continues to leak!
Surely, it seems, God's promises are not really to be believed.
We are tempted at such times to do what Abraham and Sarah did in the verses right after
this morning's reading: to give up on God and try to create our own solution. Abraham and
Sarah tried to substitute Ishmael (Abraham's and Hagar's son) for the son they couldn't
imagine. We make our own substitutions when God's promise is too long delayed.
We stop voting, and gripe instead.
We give up on working for peace, for quality education and for programs to keep
children out of gangs, and lock our doors instead.
We give up on trying to change the bigotry of our society against those who aren't
white or straight or educated and at least middle class, and develop enclaves of
like-minded people.
We fill the empty places in our lives and cover the despair in our hearts by working
longer hours; accumulating a bigger house, the newest electronic gadgets and the latest
cars.
We fill the empty places and cover the despair at promises delayed by eating, drinking,
obsessively working out, partying or playing. We numb our pain and get a short-term fix.
We believe that we know better than God how to make the promise of abundant life come
true, so instead of watching and waiting and doing our part faithfully, we develop
substitutes. Like Abraham and Sarah, we do not understand what God is doing and why it
takes so long.
Yet in spite of their periodic doubt that the promise was true, in spite of their
arguing with God, in spite of their periodic unfaithfulness to the One who had made the
promise, Abraham and Sarah did return to God. They reaffirmed the covenant and circumcised
all the males in their household to show their faithfulness and to show that they were a
covenant community.
That sense of community, of family and story kept them together and helped them sustain
their hope in the promise long delayed.
We are that community for one another.
When we are tempted to despair for lack of answers to our prayers, when we feel
overwhelmed by difficult circumstances or lose heart at the continued evil and suffering
in the world, this community the church gathers with us to weep and rage at God.
The church carries us on its shoulders until we can walk again and carry others. We
retell for each other the stories of God's saving power and faithfulness through the
centuries until we remember the fulfillment of God's promises already in our own life.
In the church we have the hindsight of scripture to know that God was faithful:
Isaac was born; Abraham and Sarah did become the ancestors of a great nation; and
Through Jesus Christ, we are their descendants,
We know that God kept the promise and brought the Hebrews out of Egypt and back to the
Promised Land,
We know that when the people kept going astray. God fulfilled the covenant again by
sending us Jesus Christ. We know that when the world crucified Jesus, God kept the
covenant by raising Christ from the dead.
We know that in our own life, God has carried us through difficult times in the past,
and shed the light of morning into the dark night of the soul.
Therefore, since we know that God has been faithful in the past, we can trust that God
is faithful still. Even if the promise is long delayed, even if justice is held behind a
dam of bigotry for a time, even if the night is long and the future uncertain, the promise
is sure and the covenant, forever.
Look around you:
Catholic and Protestant schoolchildren in Northern Ireland build a playground together.
A family is reconciled before their father dies.
Tutors are working with children at Jefferson Elementary School.
An alcoholic stays sober for another day.
A marriage is restored.
The mix of youth who come to my house to work on school projects and play video games
includes those of African, Asian, Hispanic and Indian heritage; Jews and Hindus,
conservative and liberal Christians - an example of the reign of God unimaginable in this
country 20 years ago.
A church comes back to life, slowly at first, but step-by-step, and the witness of
Jesus Christ grows stronger in Pasadena.
As Leonardo Boff, one of the great Latin American liberation theologians says in a
quote I kept on my desk for many years: "To work and pray and hope for something the
conclusion of which we may not see in our lifetime is to make incarnate in our own day the
Gospel of Jesus Christ."
We are children of the covenant, Abraham and Sarah's descendants. Let us not give up
hope, but work side-by-side with God to make the promises come true, for God is faithful
still.
Thanks be to God, who was, and is, and shall be ever more. Amen.
