Visions From Our Story: the Promise is Held Captive

The promise of God's restoring work for humanity and creation seldom appears to have an easy time maintaining any momentum. Each time the promise seems to be well on its way to success it ends up taking a detour into difficult and dangerous circumstances. The conclusion of the Joseph story is one such deadly detour.

We left the story of the promise last week with Jacob and his clan safely ensconced in Egypt with plenty to eat and connections to power (which means the promise is safe). What we did not take a look at was the cost of that safety. If we carefully read the texts at the end of Genesis what we discover is that Joseph, while being able to save Egypt and his family from starvation also assisted the Pharaoh in consolidating all power into Pharaoh's hands. The Pharaoh essentially makes slaves of all Egyptians and ultimately of the clan of Joseph (who have come to be known as Hebrews).

This enslavement then poses one more threat to the promise. The question becomes how can a community of slaves ever be God's instruments of universal salvation and restoration? That question is the one posed in the opening lines of the book of Exodus, the second book of our English Bible.

"8 Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 He said to his people, "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh." Exodus 1:8-11 (NRSV)

 

In some sense this is the constant condition of the Promise. It is held captive by someone. Martin Luther (the first of those who worked to reform the church in the 1500s) wrote a pamphlet entitled "The Babylonian Captivity of the Church." Though we will deal with Babylonians later what we can gain from his writing is that the church, and the promise it holds, is always at risk of being taken captive and losing its power to transform persons and the world.

 

As most of us are aware we, the people of God are just that, people. We are not perfect and are constantly making missteps in our attempts to live out the Promise in such a way that our relationship with God, others and the world are fully restored. While we desire to live out the Promise we are often led astray by those who claim to be able to have all of the answers as to how the Promise ought to be lived out. We see this in our own time in those who preach an exclusivist Gospel (only certain people are acceptable to God) or a self-centered Gospel (God is all about me and not about my serving others). When the church follows one of these paths (among many) it allows the promise of God's reconciling and restoring love to be held captive…its transforming power diminished.

 

The challenge before us at First Presbyterian Church of Birmingham is to be constantly checking in with scripture and tradition in such a way that we set the Promise free rather than holding it captive by our preconceived notions of what church and faith are all about. As we head into a new decade I believe we are up to the task of being the Promise bearers for God and for God's Son, Jesus the Christ.

The Promise Goes South

God had promised to bless Abraham and through Abraham the entire world. This promise outlived Abraham because he had a son, Isaac. The promise was continued when Isaac had two sons Esau and Jacob. While it was assumed that the promise would be continued through the eldest son Esau we discovered that God had something else in mind as it was Jacob who obtained the blessing and the promise.

The story then becomes a bit more complicated when Jacob has 12 sons and those twelve sons act like, well twelve brothers, filled with competition, jealousy and spite. By their actions they manage to alienate all the other peoples living near them and to even sell one of their brothers, Joseph, into slavery. This hardly seems likes a group of people God would use to help bless the entire world.

What we will discover however is that God is able to work in and through circumstances that would appear to preclude any sense of grace or promise. And we will see that the continuation of the promise often turns on moments which at the time, would appear to be filled with more evil than good.

We see this played out in the story of Joseph, the brother sold into slavery. He is sold into slavery because his brothers are jealous of him. They are jealous because Joseph claims to have dreams from God which can tell the future. This might not be so bad except that the future predicted in the dreams is one in which all the older brothers serve the younger brother, namely Joseph. This so angers the older brothers that at first they plan to kill Joseph (making it look like an accident) but later decide slavery is the better option.

Joseph is taken into slavery in Egypt where he works for a wealthy man. The man's wife takes a shining to Joseph and invites him into her bed (and you thought the Bible was boring). He refuses, she lies about him and Joseph ends up in prison. While in prison he interprets some dreams which eventually gets him out of prison and working for the Pharaoh. In the meantime there is a famine in the area in which Jacob and his family are still living. Upon hearing that there is food in Egypt some of the brothers travel there and guess who they meet, though they do not realize it…yes that's right…they meet Joseph.

Joseph takes his time reveling his true identity, but ultimately he lets them know who he is, invites the family to live with him in Egypt and thus saves the family (and the promise). The promise is thereby saved by the evil intentions of the brothers. Where this leads us is to one of the more intriguing lines in the entire Bible when Joseph tells his brothers, "You meant it (his being sold into slavery) for evil, but God meant it for good." (You can read this story in its entirety in Genesis 37 – 47)

Hopefully this story will remind us that God is able to turn even the most despicable of actions into paths to the good. We are called then to see that those moments in our lives and in the life of the church when we believe all is lost, are moments when we should never count God out. For it may be that God is indeed working to turn the world's evil into God's own good in order that the promise continue to live and humanity and creation be restored.

Visions From Our Story: The Promise Takes a Detour

We have watched as the Promise of God to restore creation and all of its relationships was put at risk by God's own self…and saved by God as well. This week we watch as the Promise appears to take a significant detour. It will appear to go by a route no one was expecting.

The Promise has been given to Abraham and through Abraham and to his son Isaac. Isaac carries on the promise and is prepared to pass it to his oldest son Esau. Now for those unfamiliar with the story Isaac had two sons Esau and Jacob. They were twins with Esau being born first (Genesis 25:24ff). Esau was his father's favorite and was a real man's man. He was the guy who was always out hunting and doing manly things.

Jacob in the other hand appears to be a momma's boy. He is always hanging out with his mother Rachael while talking about his feelings (not really but it sounded good). He was someone who was much practiced at deception and learned how to get his way by working behind the scenes rather than confronting things head on.

The Promise by all intents and purposes was supposed to be passed (through a blessing) from father to first born son. Thus Esau was the intended recipient of the Promise. Rachael and Jacob (and evidently God) had other plans. Together they concocted a plan through which they would steal the promise and the blessing (Genesis 27:5ff) First Jacob buys the birthright (the privilege of receiving what would go to the first born) from his brother for a bowl of stew (hey even back then the way to get something from a manly man was through his stomach). Then Rachael and Jacob trick nearly blind Isaac into giving the blessing to Jacob.

Suddenly the Promise has taken a detour. Instead of moving through the obvious hero Esau it now moves through a trickster and deceiver named Jacob. What is going on here? This hardly seems to be the way that the God of justice and righteousness would work. Jacob does not deserve it and certainly hasn't earned it. Why would God allow such a thing?

Perhaps the lesson we need to learn from this story is that God seldom does the expected. This is one of those discoveries that often confuses and irritates people. If there is one "person" we expect to always do the expected it is God. What the Bible teaches us however that God, while always being faithful, is seldom predictable. God is not some sort of blessing dispensing machine where we put in our faith and always receive what we ask for. God is regularly upsetting things by choosing the wrong person to carry the blessing, forgiving those who we think ought not to be forgiven and asking us to do what we consider to be the impossible.

Jacob's story (Genesis 24-35) is one that often surprises people because it is so human. Jacob is not some caricature of the perfect person, but a rather atypical antihero who happens to be God's chosen Promise bearer. What I believe we can take from this is first, we do not have to be perfect to work for God. God can, has and will use ordinary persons for extraordinary tasks. Second we can always expect the unexpected from God as God works to insure the restoration of God's good creation and God's relationships with us.

Visions From Our Story: A Promise Kept

In our last episode we watched God promise Abraham that God would not only bless Abraham but that through Abraham the entire world would be blessed. This promise was the foundation upon which God would build a restored creation in which human beings would live in right relationship with God, one another and all of creation.

We might assume that since God made the promise then God would powerfully pave the way to assure that the promise would not only fulfilled but never threatened. After all what kind of a promise would this be if it might not be kept?

We might be surprised then to discover that this promise almost comes to an end in the stories that follow. Two of these promise risking occasions center on the birth and continuing life of an heir for Abraham and Sarah.

If the promise is going to be fulfilled then Abraham needs an heir by his wife Sarah. For many years Sarah is not able to conceive. This couple of the promise is frustrated by this lack of offspring and so Sarah convinces her husband to sleep with her Egyptian maid Hagar in order to conceive a child (Genesis 16). Hagar conceives and gives birth to Ishmael. What we quickly discover in our story is that this end run around God's promise will not work. The promise is still under threat because the child needs to come from the first couple of promise. Finally after a divine visit (Genesis 17) Abraham (who is a very old man) and Sarah (who is already in menopause) manage to conceive and produce their own child, Isaac. The promise is thus saved…and it is saved in a way that insures we all know this is God's work because of the age of Abraham and Sarah.

The promise continues but once again comes under fire. This time the enemy of the promise is not infertility but God. That's right, the one who threatens the promise is the one who made it. In Genesis 22 we read about God commanding Abraham to go and sacrifice Isaac. What we have to remember is that in the time of Abraham child sacrifice was a fairly wide-spread practice. So when Abraham receives this command he does not hesitate and even make Isaac carry the wood for the fire. Just as Abraham raises the knife to kill Isaac an angel of God intervenes, shows Abraham a ram whose horns are stuck in a bush, and orders Abraham to sacrifice the ram and not Isaac. Abraham complies and the promise is safe once again.

This story along with the flood story (the death of most of humanity) and the conquest of Canaan (the death of people already in the land the Hebrews were to occupy) is one of the most difficult in the Bible. Scripture never lets us in on why God does this, though there has been much speculation. Even so I would offer a possible way of reading the story. God as the promise maker is the only one who could insure that the promise was ultimately kept. What better way for God to make the point that God would keep the promise than to create a situation in which God is willing to change the normal way of human/god interchange (human/child sacrifice) in order to assure Abraham that the promise was secure even with God. Once again then we are given assurance that God's promise of the restoration of the good creation will continue.

Next week: The Promise Takes a Detour

Blessing

I think that it is important for us to take a moment and recap where we have been…sort of like television shows that recap what happened during the last season. In Episode One, "Creation", we discovered that God is the creator who declared that all of creation (including human beings) is good. In Episode Two, "The Fall", we witnessed part of that creation, humanity, deciding that they knew better than God how to run their lives; thus leading to death dealing and not life affirming ways of being human. God responded to that act of defiance in Episode Three, "Discipline and Grace" not through annihilating humanity but by responding with a complex combination of forgiveness and consequences. Finally we watched as God reestablished the relationship with humanity through covenants in Episode Four "Covenants"; agreements in which each side promised to live up to certain commitments. Where this part of the Biblical narrative leaves us is with a present reality in which God and humanity coexist in a rather loose relationship but do not seem to have a plan for restoring the full goodness of God's creation.

This lack of a plan is addressed almost immediately in our current episode, "Blessing."

This episode begins very abruptly in Chapter 12 of Genesis where we hear God speak to a man named Abram from Haran (Iraq) telling him to move to Canaan (Israel). Abram's journey was not an isolated one. Sometime around 2000 BCE large numbers of people moved from Upper Mesopotamia (Iraq) to the area we call Palestine (Israel). Chances are Abram and family were part of this great migration. Additionally within the Abram stories we see names, customs and places which can be historically rooted in that period of time.

The opening words of Chapter 12 also offer us a look at some of the promises God makes to Abram. We hear God make three promises (most of which are fleshed out later in the story) of land, offspring and blessing. Each of these promises will play a critical role in the unfolding story, but for the moment let's focus on the promise of blessing.

The blessing comes in two forms. First God will bless Abram and those who bless Abram. Second, and for our purpose more importantly, through Abram and Abram's family all of the families of the earth will be blessed. Though we are not told the specifics of what it means to bless all the families of the world what this promise implies is that Abram's family will play a decisive role in God's plan to restore creation. The work of this wandering Aramean and his family matters because they are the vehicle through which hope for humanity comes.

In this episode Abram, his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot and their retinue engage in a series of amazing adventures (and misadventures for that matter) as they journey to Canaan, Egypt and back to Canaan. They fight battles, tell lies to protect themselves and meet a wide variety of interesting people. Eventually God speaks once again (Chapter 17) and makes a covenant with Abram. As part of the covenant Abram's name is changed to Abraham and God instructs that all of Abraham's males will be circumcised as a sign of the covenant. Sarai is also given a new name, Sarah, and a promise that she will have a child in order that the promise of the blessing to the world is real.

We close this episode with hope; hope birthed because God has initiated a plan for restoring the blessings for creation that God originally intended in God's good creative work.

Next week: the Blessing at Risk

Visions From Our Story: Covenants

Last week we looked at the manner in which God dealt with the brokenness of the world; through grace and discipline. This week we take a deeper look at how grace and discipline become a more structured part of the relationship between God and humanity through Covenants.

Covenant is a term we don't use much anymore. Instead we use words like agreement or contract to describe arrangements between two parties in which each side agrees to undertake certain actions on behalf of the other. While these more modern terms are appropriate for most of what we do today (buy a house, sign with the Pistons, etc.) they miss the relational aspect which the word Covenant implies.

We see this relational aspect in marriage. In once sense marriage could be seen as no more than a legal contract in which both parties agree to live together, share assets and jointly file their taxes. Most of us however think of marriage as something more profound than that. We see it as the creation of an intimate and hopefully, long lasting relationship. There is an emotional content to the arrangement built upon love and support, rather than simply contractual agreements. This is why in church marriage ceremonies we speak of the marriage Covenant and not the marriage contract.

Biblical Covenants carry that same kind of relational content. God's Covenants with humanity are created out of God's love for the people God has created. God makes Covenants in order to help God's people realize their full human potential (as those God created in God's image). At the same time however, Covenants in the Old Testament also carry with them sanctions which are in place in case the Covenant is broken (think of divorce as a sanction for breaking the marriage Covenant).

We see this clearly in the Hebrew words used to describe the making of a Covenant. A literal translation would be to "cut a Covenant." This comes from the ancient practice of cutting a bull into two halves (yes I know this has an ick factor) and then having the two parties to the Covenant walk together, between the two halves saying, "May what happened to this animal happen to me if I violate the Covenant." The language is a reminder of the serious nature of Covenant making.

The first Covenant occurs in Genesis following the flood story (Genesis 6-9). God, having become angry with humanity for living in death dealing rather than life affirming ways, decided to make a fresh start. God choose Noah and his family to be the seeds from which a new humanity would grow. Everyone else is drowned. Needless to say this is a very disturbing story (even if not an actual event in history). It implies that God can lose God's temper and destroy all that God has made…including you and me.

Fortunately the story finds its conclusion in a unilateral Covenant (Genesis 9:8-17). God promises that God will never again destroy the world through flood (and by implication that God will not destroy it by any other means). God even gives a sign (the rainbow) that God will keep God's promise. This Covenant then establishes a "floor" under the rest of the story assuring us that God will work for the good and not for the destruction of humanity in times to come.

Next week: the Covenant of the Promise

John

Visions From Our Story: Grace and Discipline

So what is a good creating God to do when part of what God has created has gone rogue? That is the question which the readers of God's story are faced with at the end of Genesis chapter three. To recap the last episode of the story we find Adam and Eve living in fear, not of God, but of their own finiteness. By choosing to go their own way, rather than follow God's way, they have discovered that the world is a very frightening place in which to live when God is not your partner. So again the question is, how is God going to deal with these renegades?

This being the Old Testament, what most people would expect would be some fire and brimstone raining down from heaven to teach Adam and Eve a lesson. What we find is something very different. God first expels them from the garden (God following through in a way that they suffer the consequences of their actions) but then makes them clothes and gives them children. In other words God shows them grace.

Many of us have grown up with an image of an angry Old Testament God and a loving New Testament God. A more thorough examination of God's story however reveals that from the beginning to the end of the story, grace is part of God's character. This does not mean that God is a pushover who ignores the pain giving side of humanity…sort of like some parents who appear on Super Nanny. Instead it means that God loves God's creation, including God's often disobedient people, enough to both discipline them so they learn better ways, and to show them grace that they might remember they are always loved.

We see this discipline vs. grace theme in the next several stories. Cain slays Able. God disciplines Cain by sending him away from his family, but shows grace by protecting him from those who would try and take his life. Humanity has become completely evil. God disciplines by bringing the flood and wiping out most of the human race, but God shows grace by saving some (Noah and his family) in order that humanity continue its task as stewards of God's good creation. Finally we have the story of the Tower of Babel in which humanity ineptly tries to invade heaven (a careful reading of the story reveals that the tower they are building was bound to collapse long before they got very high). God disciplines them by confusing their language but shows grace by spreading them out across the earth…thus insuring they will fulfill their destiny. Discipline and grace are woven together in God's story.

The combination of discipline and grace becomes one of the key lenses through which the story of God and God's people needs to be read if we are to come to grips with what God is up to in the world and in our lives. Remember that God created this world, and the people in it, in such a way that we can live together in right relationship with God, with one another and with our creation. That was God's purpose and God's goal. These Genesis stories remind us that God will accomplish God's purpose and goals with the discipline and grace of a loving parent.

My hope is that rather than spending time looking for Noah's Ark or the Garden of Eden (favorites of the Discovery Channel) we will instead see the God we worship Sunday after Sunday as one whose desire for our lives is wholeness, and as one who is willing to help us find that wholeness through the grace and discipline that comes from love. (Next week…making promises)

John