In the belief that it’s always a good idea to keep your affairs in good order, Kim and I booked an appointment at the back end of last year with Helen just over the road at Tilley Bailey and Irvine (other solicitors are available). Somewhat awed by the heavy Victorian panelling in the office and the Dickensian shelving, desk and contents we updated our wills (gentle prod to congregation ‘when did you last check yours’) We signed on the dotted line and left feeling that we had done right by the Harding clan and one or two others (you included).
When Abram wanted to put his affairs in order things were not as straightforward. Last week Ana preached on God’s promise to him of ‘the land’. ‘The land’ gets a mention this week too but our Old Testament reading begins with Abram’s concern as to who will inherit, who will carry on his name. To locate this passage, we need to realise that it sits within a series of chapters in the Book of Genesis in which God promises Abram both a land and descendants. In time, these descendants will number more than the grains of sand on the seashore or the number of stars in the sky. But here, in chapter 15, Abram and Sarai (his wife) are still childless and God’s promises seem empty. Abram is both worried that time is running out for him and fearful: fearful that his trust in God has been a mistake and that God will not deliver on His word.
And so God speaks to him in a vision: ‘Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’ This attempted reassurance however is not enough for Abram. He voices his concerns (an example perhaps to us that sometimes we simply need to say it – to get out in the open what it is that is weighing on our minds).
Abram’s concern is this: that he, the first Jew, looks as if he may well be the last. It’s not as if he doesn’t try. You’ll remember that when he left his father’s house and set off (under God’s guidance) for the Promised Land, he brought with him his nephew, Lot. Perhaps he thought that Lot would inherit? But the two men had parted ways when disputes over pasture had come between them. Some commentators say that Lot’s choice of the ‘good pasture’ amongst the ‘wicked people’ of the plains of Sodom and Gomorrah show him to have preferred wealth over morality. Whether that is true or not, Lot was ruled out of the picture.
Here in chapter 15 Abram wonders whether his trusted servant Eliezer will inherit. Apparently, there is ancient historical evidence that servants might be adopted into a family to preserve an inheritance. But no. God rules this out. We also know that Abram and Sarai, wanting to hurry God along, will attempt to force the issue through the use and abuse of Hagar as a surrogate mother: Hagar will give birth to Ishmael. But Ishmael is not to be the child of promise. Despite these three possible avenues for the family-tree to take root, God has other purposes. A child will be born miraculously, and Abram is asked to ‘believe’ God. This he does.
It’s at this point that we hear one of the most famous verses in the scriptures. A verse that comes into its own in Paul’s letter to the Romans (which some of us studied last year), is picked up again by Augustine and then by Martin Luther and which became central to Reformation faith. We’re told that Abram believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness. Here, righteousness is not so much about being or doing good or bad but being in a right relationship with God. Abram’s trust will indeed wobble down the years but it is His trust in God’s promise that God sees and which receives divine approval and recognition.
It’s worth pausing here. So far, I have used the words ‘belief’ and ‘believe’ and ‘trust’ – I have not used the word ‘faith’. Too often we use the word ‘faith’ in a way that suggests that it is a list of intellectual beliefs to which we might subscribe. That is one way of understanding the word, but ‘belief’ and ‘trust’ help fill out the meaning of the word ‘faith’ because they speak of something we actively do. ‘Can we ‘trust’ God?’ is a much more helpful question than ‘do we believe that there is a God?’ Abram here clearly believes that there is a God but here he is entrusting himself and his future to God’s purposes and promises. This is what we are asked to do. This is what receives divine approval.
But it is hard. Abram believes God. He believes that God is trustworthy and that He will deliver on His word against some pretty heavy odds. However he’s not the only one to find this active faith difficult. You have perhaps experienced seasons of difficulty when it has been hard for you to hold onto a belief that God’s purposes for you are always good. Illness, bereavement, disappointment – these things shake us all. But Abram points the way: he holds onto God’s promise even when he cannot see how it might be fulfilled. And it is going to be hard, be sure of that. Perhaps the key to his perseverance is the fact that he knows full well how difficult it will be. If you know you’re going to need to hold on then you’re ready to do so! Yet some Christians seem utterly surprised that hard and difficult stuff happens to good people. God doesn’t promise that the hard stuff won’t happen: He does promise to be with you through it. Abram, in the verses omitted from our reading this morning (for notice, there are some verses left out of our passage) is actually told that his descendants are going to be slaves in Egypt and oppressed for 400 years (for heaven’s sake) – yet STILL he believes it better to trust God even if His promises will take generations to be fulfilled. He is revered as the father of nations (4 billion people nowadays – Christians, Muslims and Jews regard him as such) because his trust in God enabled him to live a hopeful life. I came across this quote the other day: ‘Faith is the ability to live with delay without losing trust in the promise; to experience disappointment without losing hope, to know that the road between the real and the ideal is long and yet be willing to undertake the journey.’ Abram’s faith is of this kind and we honour him for it and are called to emulate him in it.
But then notice (as if you’d forgotten) that this covenant promise is made with something a tad stronger than ‘cross my heart and hope to die’! That gruesome pathway between the carcasses of slaughtered animals has bewildered generations of readers but what seems to be clear is that they suggest that ‘if the covenant is broken by either of the parties’ death is the penalty. That would normally be the understanding: the two parties to the covenant walk between the carcasses of the animals and are therefore bound by their agreement. But notice, at no point does Abram walk this gruesome path. God does, alone. So, are there two parties to this covenant or just one? Who is it who takes upon themselves the burden of the relationship? God and Abram…or just God?
God does keep his side of the agreement. Abram’s descendants do indeed exceed all attempts to count them: he also finds a place in the Promised Land. But the people of God?
Abram’s trust is what God looks for, this is what God ‘reckons as righteousness’: actively living out of trust in God and His good purposes, this is what was required of Abram’s descendants but, if the bible story is anything to go by, God looks for it in vain.
Last week the commentator Giles Coren wrote an article in The Times about his Orthodox Jewish upbringing being unexpectedly transformed into Church of England Christian practice and worship. His Jewishness had involved him doing the right thing, it had never asked of him any ‘faith’. The birth of his children and attendance at worship associated with their school had introduced him to faith being more to do with ‘assent’ than ‘descent’: more to do with embracing for oneself an understanding of the goodness and faithfulness of God and living life accordingly, than relying on one’s family tree and Jewish inheritance.
God is faithful but human beings are not. Our passage suggests that the cost of our faithlessness is death and that this cost must eventually be paid. So behind this morning’s passage there are pointers towards Good Friday and a walk through the valley of the shadow of death. On Good Friday we see Israel’s representative, Jesus, die on a cross; the covenant broken yet its demands fulfilled. The covenant fulfilled by the One who made the covenant in the first place and who was prepared to shoulder its burden: fulfilled by God. The result is that our faithlessness is transformed by Jesus’ faithfulness to His Father: His hope, against all odds, that there will be a new beginning, even beyond death is reckoned to Him as righteousness. The promise to Abram continues with all its demands fulfilled and he can, indeed, become the father of many nations through the grace of Jesus Christ offered once for us and for the whole world.
To end, a verse from our offertory hymn.
The God of Abraham praise,
Whose all sufficient grace
Shall guide us all our happy days,
In all our ways:
He is our faithful friend;
He is our gracious God;
And he will save us to the end,
Through Jesus’ blood.