Lent II
I want to start out this morning by telling you that I'm not a Hebrew scholar. I did take an intensive course in Hebrew as part of my Master's degree in Theology, but, interesting as it was, it only allowed me to scratch the surface of the language. But it's times like this week as I was preparing for this sermon when I wished I were fluent in the language, just so that I could really savour and appreciate this morning's Old Testament reading, a text which has haunted me since I started my theology courses way back in 2003. I think it's always dangerous for a preacher to speak on a text that has a lot of personal meaning for them. No matter how hard they try, there's no way they can ever convey the elusive quality that makes the text so meaningful to them. The more they try to define it, the more difficult it is to put into words what it means to them; more often then not, they end up just waving their arms helplessly and saying –but, listen: it's so real, so true, so beautiful...
I hope I won't end up in that helpless state this morning, although I'm not making any promises, as I talk about this strange covenant between Abram and God, a covenant which marked the unique relationship between the Creator of the Universe and a simple human being.
It begins with a conversation. Putting this text into context, we find that Abram had been following God for many years. But before this time, the only response Abram had ever given God was silent obedience. God had taken this man, probably a pagan, and chosen him to be the father of a great people. God had commanded and Abram had obeyed. This had been the pattern for many years –an unquestioning acceptance of God's orders. But now, something had changed: Abram found his voice. In the passage we have heard this morning, we hear Abram's first words addressed directly to God: “O Lord God –what will you give me, for I continue childless”? Abram begins to think for himself, and his first thought is to doubt God's sincerity.
Well who could blame him? It had been years that God had been promising to give Abram children, and still, there was nothing. Let God put his money where his mouth was. Who was this God who had asked so much and who had promised so much, but who had produced so little? And it seems that God heard Abram's voice. Scripture says, God suggests a covenant with Abram. The terms of the covenant are unequivocal: God will give Abram descendants, and they would have a land full of bounty. And for his part, Abram would give...? Nothing at all. According to the terms, Abram was not bound to anything. A strange covenant...
To understand this story better, it's helpful to know a little bit about the covenant practices of the ancient middle east. There were 2 main types of covenant –one between a sovereign and a vassal, and one between equals. Although we might expect the covenant between God and Abram to be the first kind, in fact, the ritual described in the Genesis text is of a covenant between equals. In such a covenant, there are animals sacrificed in a very particular way: they are cut in two and laid out. As a surety, the parties of the covenant pass between the cut pieces, symbolizing that they themselves will be cut in two like the animals if they renege on the contract.
And so Abram makes a great leap of faith, puts aside his doubts, and sets out the sacrifices. All logic suggests that this is a futile effort. Abram's own experience with God and God's promises suggest this is a futile effort. But he still goes ahead with the terms of the covenant. And he waits... In the text, we're told that he waits so long that birds of prey came down to eat the carcasses, and this too suggests that this audacious covenant is an exercise in futility. But Abram still hopes –he drives away the birds. And then, when it seemed like nothing would happen, something happens. A deep sleep fell upon Abram.
And this is where I wish my Hebrew were better. The ancient Hebrew language has a certain degree of ambiguity and mystery built into it. In the old texts, the words are written without vowels, and since so many of the words are semantically related -they're similar in meaning- it's sometimes difficult to say with any degree of precision just how the words in a sentence relate to each other. Of course, there are places where it is very clear, but in general, words resonate differently in Hebrew than in our more prosaic tongue. It makes for a very poetic language: fluid and mysterious. It's a perfect language for this vision of Abram's. There re many words that help us see the mystery of what is happening here. For one, there's the word used for the “deep sleep” that fell upon him: tar•de•mah. This is a word that is used only when there is something special about a sleep –it's not used casually. It's used, for example, when God brings Eve out of Adam's body in the creation account. It denotes that something profound is happening, something mysterious and full of meaning.
It is in this kind of sleep, this creative sleep, that a “deep and terrifying darkness” descended on Abram. And in that darkness, smoke and flame appeared, those profound symbols of God's power and majesty, and they passed between the pieces of the sacrifice, marking the covenant –the impossibly equal covenant between the Lord and Abram.
Well, I suppose this is the point where I start to wave my arms around helplessly. I can see the scene so clearly in my mind's eye –Abram's terrified eyes, the darkness, the smoky flame, the call of the night birds. The overwhelming sense of mystery –a mystery that has become suddenly tangible. If I close my eyes, I can almost see the stars, almost smell the odor of burning. It's so real, so true, so beautiful...
And now is the time when you tell me very gently: Karla relax --it's only a story, or at the most just a vision someone had, thousands of years ago. It may not have –and probably didn't— even happen at all. Some scholars think that Abram never existed in the first place. He was simply the personification of the Hebrew people and a way of expressing the beginning of their history as the people of God. How can you get so worked up over a story? The stars, the smoky flame, Abram's eyes –all the product of an over-active imagination.
That may well be, but I still think that this story, this narrative, speaks to us about truths that we would be hard-pressed to describe in any other way. It's one thing to say baldly that the Hebrew people felt they had entered into a covenant of equality with God and saw God as having a personal relationship with them. It's quite another thing to feel the terror and exhilaration which resonates in us as we hear this story, this very human story. How can we really experience the mystery unless we can identify with another human being who has lived through it?
And here is the mystery: our God and our Creator, unimaginable powerful, wants to give us gifts of plenty and fruitful abundance –gifts given freely and without reservation. This is the God to whom we are bound. This is the kind of unconditional love that we find hard to believe from the Lord of Heaven. And yet -there it is –expressed in Abram's tale of trust, doubt and covenant.
We all know there are many problematic aspects involved in the study of the Hebrew scriptures. All that talk of sacrifices and blood and war and passion. It's not dainty! But the message of a God who is intimately and irrevocably involved with the affairs of human beings, terrifying as that may be, is at the heart of the story. God is in a covenant with us. God will not break this covenant.
There is an earthiness to this idea that we need to cling to during our times of difficulty, both in our own lives and in the life of the church. It's dangerous to imagine that we're alone in our fears and doubts –just as if we don't actually have a covenant with God. But from the beginning of our creation as God's children, we have been told time and time again, though stories like Abram's, and Jacob's and Esther's, and all the other men and women of the Old Testament, and through the words of the prophets, and through Jesus himself –we are told: God is with us and will remain with us, even when we doubt, even when our eyes are blinded by our fear.
God is mysterious. Humans don't always understand the nature of that mystery, not in Abram's time and not in ours. We all find ourselves at some point in our lives trembling in hope and dread, and we again remind ourselves of this covenant of ours, the one that offers us so much. It's from stories like Abram's that we acquire an intimate knowledge of this covenant with our mysterious God.
This is the second week of Lent. It is a time we put aside in our lives in the church to be introspective, to be open to God's mysterious presence, made known to us in the stories of the Old Testament as well as the stories of Jesus. It's a time when we find ourselves looking into the heart of mystery. And we find Our Lord there at the heart. In his life and death and resurrection we have yet another story, real and true and beautiful, one that's steeped, like he himself was, in the great narrative of a people who are in covenant with their God. Let us never forget that we are part of that same covenant –with the God of Abram and with our own dear Lord, a covenant which calls us into life and abundance. We can rely on this God, and of our own free will, we can live up to our own part of the bargain, bringing life and abundance to others as it was given to us. Amen.
