God's Promises
September 16, 2012 | Anita Retzlaff | Genesis 12, 15: 5-6, Psalm 116: 1-9

Grace and peace to you from God the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus the Christ. And so today we begin our journey through the Bible, book by book, week by week.  If any of you have doubts about this project let me remind you that this was Patrick’s idea. Actually it is a superb and challenging endeavour, a trip through scripture that all of us will participate in together over the course of a year or more.  It will be a wild ride with very brief stops in each and every book: not enough to tell the full story in detail but enough to remind us again that God’s love is steadfast and comes through for the Hebrew people time and time again. God is not necessarily merciful at every turn but usually capitulates in the final scenes. As we tell the biblical story from Sunday to Sunday I encourage us all to read along throughout the week in whatever way is possible.

It is Genesis that calls our attention today.  Over the centuries Genesis has been used as a science textbook and a rulebook and even a mythological text of terror citing the murderous vengeance of a capricious deity calling forth flood and demanding blood. When all is said and done Genesis is a story! In spite of all of the other ways in which it has been used; it is quite happily, a story.  It is a story of God’s promises; a story of God’s relationship to a people and a people to their God.  It’s a story that has ultimate significance for us all.  Because it is OUR story and it is the story about OUR God. That is what makes it scripture and that is what makes it holy. In the creation story and the Abraham story, the Jacob story and the Joseph story we find our identity.  These are the stories of Genesis – creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the flood, Abraham, Jacob and Joseph - and through these narratives we are told why we are God’s people and why God has promised a relationship that never, ever ends.

God creates in the first act of Genesis. God chooses. God chooses a people: a people of promise in whom the promise is lived out, tried out and figured out in all the generations that follow. It seems to me that to be chosen, as was Israel in the Genesis narrative, means simply that in this people God invested promises - 3 of them - the promise of limitless descendants, a way to recognize and to find home and a blessing that will, through them, reach to the ends of the earth. Just as we choose a spouse and make promises to be faithful to that person alone so God chose Israel and made promises so that Israel might be faithful to YHWH God alone.

And as we contemplate God’s promises I direct you to the image overhead, the same one that is on the bulletin cover.  This photograph was taken by Stephanie Epp on one of her visits to the Middle East.  This hillside is east of Jerusalem where the rock and sand falls toward sea level and reaches the shores of the Dead Sea.  You can imagine God saying to Abram as you will find in chapter 13 if you are able to do some reading on your own. God says, “I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.” (13:16) And again in chapter 12, part of today’s reading, gazing toward the heavens upon God’s instruction, Abram looks upon the infinite stars and hears the promise of God.  “So shall your descendants be.”  Imagine yourselves on these hills; a land where God chose a tiny nation to join in the salvation of the whole world.  A place to start and a people chosen to lead the charge: this is the stuff of Genesis.

It’s first 11 chapters tell the primeval story of creation, how it is that the world and humankind came to be.  We are introduced to Adam and Eve who run into trouble pretty quickly. The first murder is recounted in the story of Cain and Abel setting off a tidal wave of sin that is washed from the face of the earth by a flood leaving only Noah’s family to continue on. A couple of genealogies bracketing the tower of Babel debacle and we meet Abram in Chapter 12 as we have read!  “Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ (12:1-3) Here is the three-pronged promise. And just that quickly, in this very sparse account of God meeting Abram, the story of God and Israel begins on a high note.  But let me tell you, as this story unfolds it sometimes reads like a soap opera.  We will get to that momentarily.

Abram sets out as the LORD instructs – without hesitation it appears.  At 75 years of age Abram leaves his familiar and familial homeland and strikes out to follow God’s promises.  It seems like an easy start.  Abram takes his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot “and all of the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan.” (12:5) Abram and Sarai arrive in Canaan without incident.  It is a land that is already populated by other nations.  Abram passes through the land arriving at Shechem and there God again promises that Abram’s descendants will one day be given this land.  Abram builds an altar to the LORD there, then moves on into the hill country similar to what we see on the projected image above, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. Again Abram builds an altar to God.

But that, my friends, is the end of peace and tranquility, for a famine has overtaken the land and Abram and his entourage must keep moving to find food. They continue to journey southward toward Egypt: that place in the later stories of Genesis that seems to have food in plentiful amounts while Palestine goes hungry.  And at the Egyptian border Abram runs into a dilemma.  Sarai, his wife, is a very beautiful woman.  Abram is scared for his own skin.  He imagines that the Egyptian men will want her because of her beauty; that they will kill him to get to her.  So Abram passes Sarai off as his sister, not to protect her but to save himself.  Pharaoh is indeed taken with her, brings her into his household and makes Sarai one of his wives.  Thanks a lot Abram!  And guess what, Abram prospers as a result! The Pharaoah gives him sheep, oxen, donkeys, slaves and camels – in that order.  And Abram did very well for himself.

But guess who wasn’t happy with this arrangement?  God sends great plagues upon Pharoah and his house so that Sarai’s deception is uncovered.  Their lives are spared but they are forced to make a quick departure from Egypt. And if you read on, happily Abraham remains a wealthy man yet family conflicts come into play, one after another, from incest to treachery of all kinds and in chapter 20 Abram does it again: passes off his wife as his sister.  By then God makes the 3 promises again and enters into a covenant with Abram so that his name has been changed to Abraham and his wife’s name is now Sarah instead of Sarai.

Don’t forget that Abraham and Sarah are getting close to 100 years of age and Abraham still has the audacity to pass Sarah off as his sister.  At this point they are still childless and it appears that part of God’s promise will not be fulfilled unless they have a baby.  And so the story goes on and on and on.  God promises blessing and faithfulness and before you can turn the page someone in Israel, usually a big-time biblical hero, does something really bad, sometimes just stupid but often with disastrous consequences.

The astounding thing about all of this is that despite story after story of Israel’s faithless response the promises that God gives are never totally withdrawn.  The chosen ones, whom God has set apart to help bring the whole world into the loving embrace of the One God, the chosen ones themselves continue to jeopardize the promise.  They break faith with God; they break faith with each other and more often than not within their own immediate families and there is a great deal of violence as a result.

However, God never gives up on Israel – not after the flood anyway.  And even with the flood we see that God saved a tiny remnant – Noah’s family - through which the promises continue. But the Noah story gets pretty dicey too and there is drunkenness and nakedness and a big family mess.

So Genesis is a cliffhanger of a story as one threat after another is recounted, threats that could have driven God to back off on the promises a thousand times over.  The point of Genesis as I see it, however, is that God chooses a people to be an alternative community to what is known in Canaan and God does not give up on that choice.  As this people begins to discover what it means to be God’s people, patterns emerge.  Themes follow this motley band of desert nomads: themes like the barrenness of key women in the stories, beginning with Sarah.  How can the promises of God be realized, you recall – countless descendants - if no babies are forthcoming?  Family feuds and favoritism jeopardize the relationship between God and Israel.  There are significant murder stories within families and among kin and tribes not to mention some of the foolish exploits against the Canaanites in the land.

In the end it seems like the odds of Israel staying connected to God are similar to winning the lottery – almost impossible.  And yet, God is steadfast, remains connected and uses really troubled people to carry forward the promises and maintain the relationship.  So, for us who read these stories today, we can take courage from what has gone before.  God uses scoundrels and liars, murderers and cheats, giving them second, third and fourth chances to make things right.  And more often than not, they do. 

This is our story.  This is our God.  These promises are for us too. God has given us a place to call home; we call it The Church. God has given us descendants and a long history that often stretches back to other continents for many of us.  God has invested us with a blessing, a universal message of love that through us is meant to be sent throughout our neighbourhoods, communities and the world.  We are God’s people and the promise continues through us.  Thanks be to God, our Creator, Redeemer and Friend.  AM