Old Testament for February 25, 2024

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This covenant almost seems too little too late for old Abram.  He is ninety-nine years old, and logic would seem to dictate that he should be looking for a retirement home on the coast, not taking on a new responsibility!

Already, he has experienced a lifetime of promises from God, and a lifetime of challenges and disappointments.  At seventy-five, he first heard God’s call to leave his home in Haran and go to a land he didn’t know anything about, in Canaan.  He was promised land and descendants (Chapter 12).

The promise was reiterated in chapter 15 after he had entered Canaan, and after he had come to the rescue of his nephew Lot who was captured by marauding kings.  But in chapter 15, Abram had indicated that he was beginning to wonder about the promises — he complained that he still had no heir even after all these years.

Chapter 15 is followed by a rather troublesome and complicated episode. Sarai, who was still barren, tried to manipulate matters and get an heir through a surrogate mother (namely her slave, Hagar).  This left a sordid smudge on the otherwise sterling character of Abram.

In the passage we are considering now, it seems as though God is reaffirming his original promise to Abram.  The covenant is to be renewed.

As with covenants and contracts of that day, this one has certain key ingredients:

• God identifies his own character as God Almighty (El Shaddai).
• God makes clear his demand of Abram’s character — that he be blameless. There is an ethical requirement placed on Abram. Perhaps this is a subtle reproach for Abram’s lapse with Hagar?
• God reiterates his promise to make Abram’s descendants numerous. This is a reaffirmation of his earlier promises.

Abram is overcome with a sense of awe and worship, and falls on his face before the Lord.  What happens next is new:

• God changes Abram’s name to Abraham. Abram means exalted ancestor; Abraham means ancestor of a multitude.  We know that in the ancient Hebrew culture, a name is highly significant.  It denotes the character and the potential of its bearer. God changes Abram’s name as a way of denoting who Abraham is to become — the father of a multitude of nations.  Nations and kings will come from his lineage.

Not only that, but Sarai, who was so deeply jealous of Hagar, and whose role as the wife of Abraham was imperiled very early on in a previous sinister episode with the Pharaoh of Egypt, would also be a central part of the fulfillment of the covenant.  Her name is changed from Sarai to Sarah — meaning princess.  She would be the mother of royalty!

APPLY:  

When we experience the kind of setbacks and challenges to our lives that Abraham and Sarah experience, it becomes easy for us to give up on God’s promises for us.

Yes, we’ve heard all the Scriptures about how God cares for us, and wishes to bless us, and his wonderful promises for our lives.  But then a crisis happens to a family member; or we get involved in some kind of ugly and complicated family dispute; or our dreams and hopes are deferred for so long that we begin to wonder if God’s promises apply to us after all.

Abraham’s experience with God reminds us to hold on — even into our old age.  God is faithful and will bless us.  Maybe not always in the way that we might expect, but he will keep his promises.

And as we worship him, and walk before him blameless, we will find in time that like Abram, our character will change — just as his name was changed to symbolize a change in him!

RESPOND: 

There are some dreams I have for myself and for my family that seem to have been deferred so long that I’ve begun to wonder if they will ever come to pass.  And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that sometimes these “dreams deferred” have tested my faith.

Abraham and Sarah are a reminder to me that God doesn’t operate according to my timetable, but, as John Wesley once said, “God’s time is the best time.”

So, I keep my faith in God Almighty even when I haven’t received the promised inheritance — yet.

Lord, when promises seem to be unfulfilled, and I don’t seem to receive the “inheritance” that you have promised, please remind me that I am on the wrong schedule.  I need to be on your schedule, not you on mine.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"Christian poster outside Manchester Chinese Christian Church on Yarburgh Street in Moss Side, Manchester" by Alex Pepperhill is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for July 9, 2023

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

The Old Testament lesson for this week focuses on transitions and rites of passage.  The actual lectionary reading — Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67 — includes only a part of the whole story.

We must begin with the back story.  Sarah, the mother of Isaac, had died at the age of 127 years at Kiriath Arba (Hebron), when her son was about 37 years old (Genesis 23:1-4).  A few years later, Isaac hadn’t yet married, and this spurs Abraham to action.  He seems to be concerned about two things:

• His own advanced age and health — perhaps he wishes to see Isaac married before his own death.
• He is concerned that Isaac should not marry a “local girl” from among the Canaanites, perhaps because of their idolatry.

So, Abraham commissions his chief servant with a very important mission — he is to return to Mesopotamia and seek a wife from amongst Abraham’s own family (apparently the prohibition against “kissing cousins” was not yet in effect).

The servant (who may well have been the Eliezer named in Genesis 15:2 as Abraham’s chief servant and heir prior to the birth of Ishmael and Isaac) makes the long journey back from Canaan to Mesopotamia, bearing with him gifts loaded on the backs of a caravan of camels.  When he arrives, presumably at the city of Haran (although it is called here the city of Nahor because it is where Nahor lives), the servant rests at the water well outside the city.  The time is in the evening, when young women come to the well to draw water for the family.  The servant prays to Yahweh, Abraham’s God, and asks for direction in finding the girl to whom Isaac is to be married.  The sign for which he asks is fulfilled — she not only draws water for the servant, she also draws water for his camels!

Our passage begins after the servant has discovered that this young woman is in fact Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor (Genesis 24:15).  Nahor was the brother of Abraham!  God has brought the servant directly to Isaac’s cousin! He honors her with a gold ring for her nose, and gold bracelets for her wrists.

When Rebekah brings the servant back to her family’s tent, there is an awful lot of “catching up” to do.  The servant fills them in with updates on Abraham and Sarah — their blessing from God, their greatness and fame, and particularly their prosperity.  And then there is the clincher — the servant reveals that he has been sent to find a wife for the boss’s son.

Then the bargaining begins. The servant says to Rebekah’s brother and father:

Now if you will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me. If not, tell me, that I may turn to the right hand, or to the left.

Unfortunately, the lectionary editors have not included one of the more interesting interactions in this account (verses 50-56).  Bethuel, who is Rebekah’s father, and Laban her brother appear to be angling for a good “bride price.”  Although they admit that what the servant has told them seems to come from Yahweh, they appear to be bargaining with the servant.  After he gives jewels and gold and clothing to Rebekah, Laban and her mother, Laban and Bethuel delay the servant’s departure.  Is this sentimentality because they want to prolong the goodbye with Rebekah, or is this a way of milking more treasure from Abraham’s servant?  Given what we learn about Laban in subsequent accounts from Genesis, particularly his rather devious and sharp dealing with Rebekah’s son Jacob years later, we may have good reason to suspect Laban of ulterior motives.

The servant finally has to demand an answer:

 He said to them, “Don’t hinder me, since Yahweh has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master.”

Astonishingly, in this patriarchal, male-dominated culture, they allow Rebekah to speak for herself:

They said, “We will call the young lady, and ask her.”

Rebekah reveals herself to be a person of adventurous faith.  She agrees to accompany the servant to a land she doesn’t know, in order to marry a man she has never met!

Rebekah is sent away with the family’s generous blessing:

Our sister, may you be the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and let your offspring possess the gate of those who hate them.

The journey south to Beer Lahai Roi (coincidentally, the location of the well at which Hagar was comforted by Yahweh’s Angel in Genesis 16:9-14.  Beer Lahai Roi describes the place as ‘where God lives and sees me.’) leads to one of the most romantic encounters in the Scriptures:

Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the evening. He lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, there were camels coming.  Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel. She said to the servant, “Who is the man who is walking in the field to meet us?”

The servant said, “It is my master.”

She took her veil, and covered herself. The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done.  Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife. He loved her. Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

In this classically abbreviated Hebrew style, we see this young woman and man meet, fall in love and marry, all in just a few verses.  The phrase indicating that Isaac took her into Sarah’s tent suggests that Rebekah has filled the grief in his heart over his mother’s death.  Sarah’s empty tent, formerly a place of sadness, now becomes a place of joy.  And one wonders if this may be a part of the Jewish custom of the wedding tent even today.  Isaac was 40 when he married Rebekah (Genesis 25:20).

APPLY:  

There is an old expression — “theirs is a marriage made in heaven.”  We may wonder, in these modern times when divorce seems rampant, if heaven has anything to do with marriage.

We find in the account of the relationship between Rebekah and Isaac that even a marriage “made in heaven” requires human as well as divine initiative.  We see evidence of a divine/human synergism in this account. Perhaps another way of saying this is that God plays matchmaker — but human beings must cooperate!

Abraham sees that the eligible women in Canaan are not suitable for his son Isaac — this is probably not because of ethnicity but because of their idolatrous religion. So he takes action and sends his servant back to the “home country” to find a woman.

The servant prays for a sign from Yahweh which is promptly confirmed when Rebekah appears.  But she must also exercise her own free will in order to become a part of this Abrahamic dynasty and the salvation history of Israel.

And Isaac also must consent to this “arranged marriage” and choose to love Rebekah — even when her coming was not originally his idea!

Perhaps we have a partial answer to the increase of rocky marriages today.  A common faith, prayer, and the choice to love one another are critical in strong marriages.

RESPOND: 

In some ways, this account of the arranged marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, with a servant as the yenta (the “matchmaker”), seems to come right out of the pages of a book with a title like The Art of the Deal.  It all seems so “transactional.”

The servant brings camels laden down with treasure, and then asks for the lady’s hand on behalf of his boss’s son.  It’s about a business arrangement.  And it’s about the family business.

But I wonder — is our “romantic” ideal, based on “falling love,” a preferable model?  Divorce rates suggest that many marriages based solely on “romance” don’t last very long.

As a father of two I can understand Abraham’s efforts to intervene by arranging a marriage for his son Isaac.  I joke that marriage is too important to be left to hormonal kids!  The truth is, the prayer of the servant may be the most important and most easily overlooked feature of this story.  Without deep and earnest prayer, no marriage should ever be solemnized.  It is prayer, and a strong faith in God that keeps Christian marriages together.

Lord, marriage is ultimately your idea — bringing two people together for the purpose of love, comfort, and, yes, for a legacy that will outlive that man and woman.  We pray for strong, loving, faithful marriages that bring honor to you. Amen.

PHOTOS:
“Terah’s family” by Martin LaBar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for July 2, 2023

“The Ram of Sacrifice”
Detail of a mosaic from the Rosary Basilica in Lourdes.
[photo & description by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.]

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 22:1-14
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This is a difficult passage.  Abraham and Sarah’s long-awaited hope for a son has been fulfilled.  Isaac has been born to this aged couple, bringing great joy (Genesis 21:1-8).  They have weathered the potentially explosive tensions between Sarah and Hagar, the mother of Abraham’s first son (Genesis 21:9-12).  Abraham has experienced deep grief because he has sent away his son Ishmael, in order to keep peace in the family (Genesis 21:11-14).  Now life has seemingly stabilized for Abraham, Sarah and Isaac — Abraham has negotiated for possession of a well, which is an important source of life and prosperity in a dry land (Genesis 21:22-34).

All is well.  And then this:

After these things, God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!
He said, “Here I am.”
He said, “Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, even Isaac, and go into the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of.”

Needless to say, this is unexpected and shocking!  Abraham has been in a trusting, vital relationship with God since he was living in Haran many years earlier.  He has been led to Canaan, and through all of the vicissitudes of life, he has remained faithful to God.  The most significant promise to Abraham — that he would receive this land of promise, and that all the families of the earth would be blessed through him — was that he would be the father of many nations, particularly through the son born of Sarah.

The request from God, in verse 2 of this week’s lectionary reading, seems a direct contradiction to God’s original plan and will.  God is asking Abraham to sacrifice that which is most precious to him:

your only son, whom you love, even Isaac.

The place of the sacrifice was to be Moriah — also known as the Mountain of Yahweh.  Moriah is significant in Biblical history.  One thousand years after Abraham, David bought the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, which was at the summit of this mountain (2 Chronicles 24:18); this would also become the site of Solomon’s Temple.

What we know of Canaanite religion is that there is strong evidence of the requirement of human sacrifice.  Molech was one of the gods of the Canaanites — and one of his greatest demands was child sacrifice.  We know that later in the history of Israel, human sacrifice, and particularly child sacrifice, would be strictly prohibited (Leviticus 18:21; 20:2, etc.).  This may explain why Abraham was willing to even entertain this request, although it seemed out of character for Yahweh.  Perhaps he believed that Yahweh was asking for the same sacrifice as Molech.

Abraham carefully follows the prescribed ritual — he splits the wood for the burnt offering, he travels with Isaac and two other servants, and then bids the servants to stay behind when they arrive at Moriah.  All of the ingredients for this ancient ritual of sacrifice are there — the wood, the knife, the fire — all but the lamb!

Isaac cannot help but notice this, as he himself carries the wood for the burnt offering.  When he asks about it, did his voice quaver a bit nervously?  Abraham’s answer reveals that he is still a man of faith:

 Abraham said, “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”

Either Abraham is deceiving Isaac, or he is still hopeful that God will intervene.

When they arrive at the summit of Moriah, Abraham follows through on all the rubrics of ancient worship — he builds the altar of stones available on site, lays the wood in order — and then binds his son and lays him on the altar!  What a perilous moment, as he takes up the knife to cut his son’s throat!

And, in good Hollywood fashion, at the last moment, there is an intervention:

 Yahweh’s angel called to him out of the sky, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!
He said, “Here I am.
He said, “Don’t lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

Was it a test of Abraham’s faith and obedience to God?  Or was it a means by which God uses Abraham as an example that God repudiated human sacrifice as a form of worship?

In any event, Abraham learns, or re-learns, a lesson about God’s character — God provides what he requires.  If he requires a sacrifice, he himself will provide it:

Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and saw that behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son. Abraham called the name of that place Yahweh Will Provide.  As it is said to this day, “On Yahweh’s mountain, it will be provided.”

A key aspect of Yahweh’s character is revealed — he is Yahweh-Jireh, the Lord who provides!

APPLY:  

A sick and troubled interpretation of this passage would draw the conclusion that God may require human sacrifice.

A healthier and more accurate interpretation would argue that while God tested Abraham’s obedience, he uses this opportunity to repudiate the pagan practice of human sacrifice.  It is true that Abraham proves his faith in God.  James, in the New Testament, praises Abraham’s obedience:

Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?  You see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was perfected (James 2:21-22).

But it is also true that God never requires a father to sacrifice his son — and in fact repudiates this practice officially in the Mosaic Law.

A typological interpretation of this passage draws this conclusion — that a substitute was found that made Isaac’s sacrifice unnecessary.  Christ is described in various places in the New Testament as a substitutionary sacrifice for us:

For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place (1 Corinthians 5:7).

In any event, Abraham had faith that Isaac would not be lost to him, because God had promised that he would fulfill his covenant through Isaac:

By faith, Abraham, being tested, offered up Isaac. Yes, he who had gladly received the promises was offering up his one and only son; even he to whom it was said, “your offspring will be accounted as from Isaac”;   concluding that God is able to raise up even from the dead. Figuratively speaking, he also did receive him back from the dead (Hebrews 11:17-19).

The application for our faith is that God does ask for our complete surrender of everything.  Everything we have will one day be taken away from us, and the only way to receive it back from God is to give it up to God.  And furthermore, God provides whatever he requires from us — whether it be the substitutionary atonement of his Son, or granting us a strength and grace beyond what we have in ourselves to do what he calls us to do.

RESPOND: 

As the father of two sons, I cannot imagine being placed in the position that Abraham was in. He had already “sacrificed” one son, Ishmael, to the jealousy and dysfunctions of a complicated family situation.  Now, the son who was to fulfill God’s covenant was literally on the chopping block!

The truth is, though, every parent must sacrifice their children, figuratively speaking.  When our children grow up and begin to make their own decisions, we must understand that in a unique sense those children belong to God in a deeper way than they belong to us.

I’m reminded of a story told of Andrew Young.  Andrew Young had been an aide to Martin Luther King, Jr., a pastor, and eventually the mayor of Atlanta, Georgia.  But on one occasion he was saying farewell to his daughter in the airport.  She was leaving to participate in a Christian mission in Africa.  After watching her board her flight, he was heard to say, “I wanted her to be a Christian, but I didn’t mean a real Christian!”

Any honest parent can understand his sentiment.  We want our children to live exciting, adventurous lives — so long as they are protected in bubbles.  Life just doesn’t work that way.

But when it comes to the sacrifices that are required in our lives, we can do no better than to pray as St. Augustine of Hippo prayed:

Command what you will, and then give what you command.

Lord, you don’t require human sacrifice; but you do require that we take everything that we love, cherish, and value and place it in your hands.  At our best, we are like Abraham who trusts that you give it all back.  Increase our faith, even as we pray as Augustine did — command what you will and then give what you command. Amen. 

PHOTOS:
“The Ram of Sacrifice” by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for June 18, 2023

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 21:8-21
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This may be a somewhat troubling passage for some.  Abraham and Sarah are not depicted in a very complimentary light.  However, I appreciate the fact that the Scriptural writers are almost invariably honest, even about the flaws of great heroes and heroines of the faith.  This is a reminder that the Bible is a real book about real people — not plaster saints.

We are reminded that Yahweh had promised Abraham he would have a multitude of descendants, as part of a larger covenant (Genesis 12:1-3).  But time dragged on, and some of the promises seemed to be less and less likely — especially the promise of children.  Abram and Sarai were growing old, well past normal child-bearing age.

We have evidence that Abram’s famous faith may have wavered a bit, when he said to Yahweh:

Behold, to me you have given no children: and, behold, one born in my house is my heir (Genesis 15:3).

Yahweh assured Abram that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:5).

But evidently Sarai didn’t get the memo.  She seems to be aware that God has made these promises to Abram, and she is grieved that she hasn’t delivered a child.  So, she decides to take matters into her own hands — to manipulate the situation a bit.  It is her idea to give her maidservant, the young Egyptian woman named Hagar, to Abram.  The idea was that Hagar would be a surrogate mother, and the child would be adopted by Sarai.

Things didn’t quite work out that way.  In fairness to Sarah (her name, and Abraham’s, are changed by Yahweh in Genesis 17: 5 & 15), Abraham was compliant with Sarah’s request that he have relations with Hagar.  Again, we have an example of the realism of Scripture.  Human nature being what it is, when Hagar conceived and bore a son named Ishmael, Hagar grew haughty (Genesis 16:4-5).  And Sarah was jealous.

The fact is, Yahweh had always intended that his promise of the covenant would be continued through the child of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 17:15-19).  So, the three Angels of the Lord appeared and promised that Sarah would bear a child — though she was ninety years old! (Genesis 18:1-15).  The child would be called Isaac, which means (appropriately enough) he laughs.

All of this, of course, is backstory to our passage.

Sarah has given birth to her son, Isaac.  And, as was the custom, when he was weaned, Abraham threw a party.  But when Sarah sees Ishmael mocking Isaac, she is irritated.  Bear in mind, Ishmael is Isaac’s half brother.  But perhaps Sarah sees in Ishmael’s attitude some of the haughtiness that she had detected in Hagar, his mother.  Sarah is decisive:

Therefore she said to Abraham, “Cast out this servant and her son! For the son of this servant will not be heir with my son, Isaac.”

Perhaps Sarah sees Ishmael as a threat to the dynastic promise made to Isaac.  But Abraham is grieved.  After all, he certainly loved his son, Ishmael, as well.

God reassures Abraham:

Don’t let it be grievous in your sight because of the boy, and because of your servant. In all that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice. For your offspring will be accounted as from Isaac.  I will also make a nation of the son of the servant, because he is your child.

Yahweh offers a  “both/and” option to Abraham — Isaac will be the heir of Yahweh’s covenant; but Ishmael will also be great.  And realistically, Abraham will finally have some peace from these feuding women!

What Abraham does the next day is a little troubling to us — he gives Hagar and Ishmael some bread and water, and sends them out to the wilderness of Beersheba!  A woman and a young boy — probably no more than a teenager, based on the math of Abraham’s age when Ishmael was born (eighty-six, according to Genesis 16:16).

Hagar and Ishmael are in a wilderness, no doubt filled with predators both animal and human, without resources and without a husband and father to protect and provide for them.  Understandably, when the bread and water are gone, Hagar succumbs to despair.  Ishmael is weakened by hunger and thirst — she lays him under a shrub so she doesn’t have to watch him die, and grieves her heart out.

We are reminded that this is not the first time Hagar has been exiled from the family of Abraham.  Earlier, while Hagar was still pregnant with Ishmael, Sarah had driven her away.  At that time, Yahweh had come to Hagar under similar circumstances in the wilderness.  He had then told Hagar to submit to her mistress Sarah, and that her yet unborn son Ishmael would be a great nation and a mighty warrior (Genesis 16:9-12).

Once again, the angel of God intervenes on Hagar’s behalf.  God hears their cries. He reiterates the promises that were made to Hagar years earlier:

Get up, lift up the boy, and hold him in your hand. For I will make him a great nation.

Hagar and Ishmael are spared:

God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went, filled the bottle with water, and gave the boy drink.

Although they can’t return to Abraham’s camp, God in a sense assumes the role of father with Ishmael:

God was with the boy, and he grew. He lived in the wilderness, and became, as he grew up, an archer.  He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother took a wife for him out of the land of Egypt.

APPLY:  

This passage is a reminder to us that God’s providence is not restricted to a particular nation or people.  It is true that God called Abraham and Sarah for a particular purpose, and that it was through Isaac that salvation history would be enacted:

Sarah, your wife, will bear you a son. You shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him (Genesis 17:19).

Isaac would become the father of Jacob, who became known as Israel, the father of the twelve tribes of Israel.  To them and through their descendants, we receive the Law, the heroic stories of the Exodus, the royal dynasty of Judah, and the great prophetic tradition — all culminating in the coming of Jesus the Messiah.

However, God’s election of Isaac as the vessel through whom he would bless all nations (Genesis 17:18) does not mean that God rejects other tribes and other people.  We get a hint of this in Abraham’s attitude toward both Ishmael and Isaac. When God promises that Sarah will be the mother of Isaac, Abraham wistfully seems to sigh:

 Oh that Ishmael might live before you! (Genesis 17:18).

God assures Abraham, and Ishmael’s mother Hagar, on several separate occasions that Ishmael also will be blessed and will be the father of many nations (Genesis 16:10-12;  17:20; 20:18).

Though human beings may reject us, and even treat us as outcasts, God does not abandon us.  Hagar and Ishmael are a demonstration of that assurance.

RESPOND: 

One of the many factors that makes the Bible credible to me is its honesty and realism.  The Scriptures don’t whitewash the reputations of its “saints” — from Abraham and Sarah, to David, to Peter.

That gives me great hope.  God can work through flawed people and still accomplish his great vision for the world.

I find a song, written in 1981 by Michael Card and John Thompson, and then popularized by singer Amy Grant, to be an inspiration:

El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
El Elyon na Adonai,
Age to age you’re still the same,
By the power of the name.
El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
Erkahmka na Adonai,
We will praise and lift you high,
El Shaddai.

Loosely translated, the Hebrew phrases mean:

God Almighty, God Almighty,
The Most High God, O Lord,
We will love you, O Lord. 

One of the verses of the song makes reference to the son of Abraham, and the deliverance of Israel when God turns the sea into dry land.  The verse also includes the experience of Hagar in Genesis 16:7-13:

To the outcast on her knees,
You were the God who really sees…

God sees all of us who have felt like outcasts, and intervenes on our behalf.

Lord, there have been times when I have felt like an outcast. And there are many people in our world who feel that even more deeply than I do.  I take comfort in the promise that you do see us, and you will deliver us.  Amen.

PHOTOS:
“Hagar and Ishmael” by Jean-Charles Cazin is in the public domain.

Old Testament for February 28, 2021

 

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This covenant almost seems too little too late for old Abram.  He is ninety-nine years old, and logic would seem to dictate that he should be looking for a retirement home on the coast, not taking on a new responsibility!

Already, he has experienced a lifetime of promises from God, and a lifetime of challenges and disappointments.  At seventy-five, he first heard God’s call to leave his home in Haran and go to a land he didn’t know anything about, in Canaan.  He was promised land and descendants (Chapter 12).

The promise was reiterated in chapter 15 after he had entered Canaan, and after he had come to the rescue of his nephew Lot who was captured by marauding kings.  But in chapter 15, Abram had indicated that he was beginning to wonder about the promises — he complained that he still had no heir even after all these years.

Chapter 15 is followed by a rather troublesome and complicated episode. Sarai, who was still barren, tried to manipulate matters and get an heir through a surrogate mother (namely her slave, Hagar).  This left a sordid smudge on the otherwise sterling character of Abram.

In the passage we are considering now, it seems as though God is reaffirming his original promise to Abram.  The covenant is to be renewed.

As with covenants and contracts of that day, this one has certain key ingredients:

• God identifies his own character as God Almighty (El Shaddai).
•  God makes clear his demand of Abram’s character — that he be blameless. There is an ethical requirement placed on Abram. Perhaps this is a subtle reproach for Abram’s lapse with Hagar?
• God reiterates his promise to make Abram’s descendants numerous. This is a reaffirmation of his earlier promises.

Abram is overcome with a sense of awe and worship, and falls on his face before the Lord.  What happens next is new:

• God changes Abram’s name to Abraham. Abram means exalted ancestor; Abraham means ancestor of a multitude.  We know that in the ancient Hebrew culture, a name is highly significant.  It denotes the character and the potential of its bearer. God changes Abram’s name as a way of denoting who Abraham is to become — the father of a multitude of nations.  Nations and kings will come from his lineage.

Not only that, but Sarai, who was so deeply jealous of Hagar, and whose role as the wife of Abraham was imperiled very early on in a previous sinister episode with the Pharaoh of Egypt, would also be a central part of the fulfillment of the covenant.  Her name is changed from Sarai to Sarah — meaning princess.  She would be the mother of royalty!

APPLY:  

When we experience the kind of set-backs and challenges to our lives that Abraham and Sarah experience, it becomes easy for us to give up on God’s promises for us.

Yes, we’ve heard all the Scriptures about how God cares for us, and wishes to bless us, and his wonderful promises for our lives.  But then a crisis happens to a family member; or we get involved in some kind of ugly and complicated family dispute; or our dreams and hopes are deferred for so long that we begin to wonder if God’s promises apply to us after all.

Abraham’s experience with God reminds us to hold on — even into our old age.  God is faithful and will bless us.  Maybe not always in the way that we might expect, but he will keep his promises.

And as we worship him, and walk before him blameless, we will find in time that like Abram, our character will change — just as his name was changed to symbolize a change in him!

RESPOND: 

There are some dreams I have for myself and for my family that seem to have been deferred so long that I’ve begun to wonder if they will ever come to pass.  And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that sometimes these “dreams deferred” have tested my faith.

Abraham and Sarah are a reminder to me that God doesn’t operate according to my timetable, but, as John Wesley once said “God’s time is the best time.”

So I keep my faith in God Almighty even when I haven’t received the promised inheritance — yet.

Lord, when promises seem to be unfulfilled, and I don’t seem to receive the “inheritance” that you have promised, please remind me that I am on the wrong schedule.  I need to be on your schedule, not you on mine.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"Trust God's Promises" uses the following photo:
"Review" by Hernan Pinera is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

 

Old Testament for July 5, 2020

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

The Old Testament lesson for this week focuses on transitions and rites of passage.  The actual lectionary reading — Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67 — includes only a part of the whole story.

We must begin with the back story.  Sarah, the mother of Isaac, had died at the age of 127 years at Kiriath Arba (Hebron), when her son was  about 37 years old (Genesis 23:1-4).  A few years later, Isaac hadn’t yet married, and this spurs Abraham to action.  He seems to be concerned about two things:

• His own advanced age and health — perhaps he wishes to see Isaac married before his own death.
• He is concerned that Isaac should not marry a “local girl” from among the Canaanites, perhaps because of their idolatry.

So, Abraham commissions his chief servant with a very important mission — he is to return to Mesopotamia and seek a wife from amongst Abraham’s  own family (apparently the prohibition against “kissing cousins” was not yet in effect).

The servant (who may well have been the Eliezer named in Genesis 15:2 as Abraham’s chief servant and heir prior to the birth of Ishmael and Isaac)  makes the long journey back from Canaan to Mesopotamia, bearing with him gifts loaded on the backs of a caravan of camels.  When he arrives, presumably at the city of Haran (although it is called here the city of Nahor because it is where Nahor lives), the servant rests at the water well outside the city.  The time is in the evening, when young women come to the well to draw water for the family.  The servant prays to Yahweh, Abraham’s God, and asks for direction in finding the girl to whom Isaac is to be married.  The sign for which he asks is fulfilled — she not only draws water for the servant, she also draws water for his camels!

Our passage begins after the servant has discovered that this young woman is in fact Rebekah,  the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor ( Genesis 24:15).  Nahor was the brother of Abraham!    God has brought the servant directly to Isaac’s cousin! He honors her with a gold ring for her nose, and gold bracelets for her wrists.

When Rebekah brings the servant back to her family’s tent, there is an awful lot of “catching up” to do.  The servant fills them in with updates on Abraham and Sarah — their blessing from God, their greatness and fame, and particularly their prosperity.  And then there is the clincher — the servant reveals that he has been sent to find a wife for the boss’s son.

Then the bargaining begins. The servant says to Rebekah’s brother and father:

Now if you will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me. If not, tell me, that I may turn to the right hand, or to the left.

Unfortunately, the lectionary editors have not included one of the more interesting interactions in this account (verses 50-56).  Bethuel, who is Rebekah’s father, and Laban her brother appear to be angling for a good “bride price.”  Although they admit that what the servant has told them seems to come from Yahweh, they appear to be bargaining with the servant.  After he gives jewels and gold and clothing to Rebekah, Laban and her mother, Laban and Bethuel delay the servant’s departure.  Is this sentimentality because they want to prolong the goodbye with Rebekah, or is this a way of milking more treasure from Abraham’s servant?  Given what we learn about Laban in subsequent accounts from Genesis, particularly his rather devious and sharp dealing with Rebekah’s son Jacob years later, we may have good reason to suspect Laban of ulterior motives.

The servant finally has to demand an answer:

 He said to them, “Don’t hinder me, since Yahweh has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master.”

Astonishingly, in this patriarchal, male-dominated culture, they allow Rebekah to speak for herself:

They said, “We will call the young lady, and ask her.”

Rebekah reveals herself to be a person of adventurous faith.  She agrees to accompany the servant to a land she doesn’t know, in order to marry a man she has never met!

Rebekah is sent away with the family’s generous blessing:

Our sister, may you be the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and let your offspring possess the gate of those who hate them.

The journey south to Beer Lahai Roi (coincidentally, the location of the well at which Hagar was comforted by Yahweh’s Angel in Genesis 16:9-14.  Beer Lahai Roi describes the place as ‘where God lives and sees me.’) leads to one of the most romantic encounters in the Scriptures:

Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the evening. He lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, there
were camels coming.  Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel.  She said to the servant, “Who is the man who is walking in the field to meet us?”

The servant said, “It is my master.”

She took her veil, and covered herself. The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done.  Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife. He loved her. Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

In this classically abbreviated Hebrew style, we see this young woman and man meet, fall in love and marry, all in just a few verses.  The phrase indicating that Isaac took her into Sarah’s tent suggests that Rebekah has filled the grief in his heart over his mother’s death.  Sarah’s empty tent, formerly a place of sadness, now becomes a place of joy.  And one wonders if this may be a part of the Jewish custom of the wedding tent even today.  Isaac was 40 when he married Rebekah (Genesis 25:20).

APPLY:  

There is an old expression — “theirs is a marriage made in heaven.”  We may wonder, in these modern times when divorce seems rampant, if heaven has anything to do with marriage.

We find in the account of the relationship between Rebekah and Isaac that even a marriage “made in heaven” requires human as well as divine initiative.  We see evidence of a divine/human synergism in this account. Perhaps another way of saying this is that God plays matchmaker — but human beings must cooperate!

Abraham sees that the eligible women in Canaan are not suitable for his son Isaac — this is probably not because of ethnicity but because of their idolatrous religion. So he takes action and sends his servant back to the “home country” to find a woman.

The servant prays for a sign from Yahweh which is promptly confirmed when Rebekah appears.  But she must also exercise her own free will in order to become a part of this Abrahamic dynasty and the salvation history of Israel.

And Isaac also must consent to this “arranged marriage” and choose to love Rebekah — even when her coming was not originally his idea!

Perhaps we have a partial answer to the increase of rocky marriages today.  A common faith, prayer, and the choice to love one another are critical in strong marriages.

RESPOND: 

In some ways, this account of the arranged marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, with a servant as the yenta (the “matchmaker”), seems to come right out of the pages of a book with a title like The Art of the Deal.  It all seems so “transactional.”

The servant brings camels laden down with treasure, and then asks for the lady’s hand on behalf of his boss’s son.  It’s about a business arrangement.  And it’s about the family business.

But I wonder — is our “romantic” ideal, based on “falling love,” a preferable model?  Divorce rates suggest that  many marriages based solely on “romance” don’t last very long.

As a father of two I can understand Abraham’s efforts to intervene by arranging a marriage for his son Isaac.  I joke that marriage is too important to be left to hormonal kids!  The truth is, the prayer of the servant may be the most important and most easily overlooked feature of this story.  Without deep and earnest prayer, no marriage should ever be solemnized.  It is prayer, and a strong faith in God that keeps Christian marriages together.

Lord, marriage is ultimately your idea — bringing two people together for the purpose of love, comfort, and, yes, for a legacy that will outlive that man and woman.  We pray for strong, loving, faithful marriages that bring honor to you. Amen.

PHOTOS:
“Terah’s family” by Martin LaBar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for June 28, 2020

“The Ram of Sacrifice”
Detail of a mosaic from the Rosary Basilica in Lourdes.
[photo & description by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.]

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 22:1-14
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This is a difficult passage.  Abraham and Sarah’s long awaited hope for a son has been fulfilled.  Isaac has been born to this aged couple, bringing great joy (Genesis 21:1-8).  They have weathered the potentially explosive tensions between Sarah and Hagar, the mother of Abraham’s first son (Genesis 21:9-12).  Abraham has experienced deep grief because he has sent away his son Ishmael, in order to keep peace in the family (Genesis 21:11-14).  Now life has seemingly stabilized for Abraham, Sarah and Isaac — Abraham has negotiated for possession of a well, which is an important source of life and prosperity in a dry land (Genesis 21:22-34).

All is well.  And then this:

After these things, God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!
He said, “Here I am.”
He said, “Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, even Isaac, and go into the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of.”

Needless to say, this is unexpected and shocking!  Abraham has been in a trusting, vital relationship with God since he was living in Haran many years earlier.  He has been led to Canaan, and through all of the vicissitudes of life, he has remained faithful to God.  The most significant promise to Abraham — that he would receive this land of promise, and that all the families of the earth would be blessed through him — was that he would be the father of many nations, particularly through the son born of Sarah.

The request from God, in verse 2 of this week’s lectionary reading, seems a direct contradiction to God’s original plan and will.  God is asking Abraham to sacrifice that which is most precious to him:

your only son, whom you love, even Isaac.

The place of the sacrifice was to be Moriah  — also known as the Mountain of Yahweh.  Moriah is significant in Biblical history.  One thousand years after Abraham, David bought the threshing floor of  Araunah the Jebusite, which was at the summit of this mountain (2 Chronicles 24:18); this would also become the site of Solomon’s Temple.

What we know of Caananite religion is that there is strong evidence of the requirement of human sacrifice.  Molech was one of the gods of the Canaanites —  and one of his greatest demands was child sacrifice.  We know that later in the history of Israel, human sacrifice, and particularly child sacrifice, would be strictly prohibited (Leviticus 18:21; 20:2, etc.).  This may explain why Abraham was willing to even entertain this request, although it seemed out of character for Yahweh.  Perhaps he believed that Yahweh was asking for the same sacrifice as Molech.

Abraham carefully follows the prescribed ritual — he splits the wood for the burnt offering, he travels with Isaac  and two other servants, and then bids the servants to stay behind when they arrive at Moriah.  All of the ingredients for this ancient ritual of sacrifice are there — the wood, the knife, the fire — all but the lamb!

Isaac cannot help but notice this, as he himself carries the wood for the burnt offering.  When he asks about it, did his voice quaver a bit nervously?  Abraham’s answer reveals that he is still a man of faith:

 Abraham said, “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”

Either Abraham is deceiving Isaac, or he is still hopeful that God will intervene.

When they arrive at the summit of Moriah,  Abraham follows through on all the rubrics of ancient worship — he builds the altar of stones available on site, lays the wood in order — and then binds his son and lays him on the altar!  What a perilous moment, as he takes up the knife to cut his son’s throat!

And, in good Hollywood fashion, at the last moment, there is an intervention:

 Yahweh’s angel called to him out of the sky, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!
He said, “Here I am.
He said, “Don’t lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

Was it a test of Abraham’s faith and obedience to God?  Or was it a means by which God uses Abraham as an example that God repudiated human sacrifice as a form of worship?

In any event, Abraham learns, or re-learns, a lesson about God’s character — God provides what he requires.  If he requires a sacrifice, he himself will provide it:

Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and saw that behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son. Abraham called the name of that place Yahweh Will Provide.  As it is said to this day, “On Yahweh’s mountain, it will be provided.”

A key aspect of Yahweh’s character is revealed — he is Yahweh-Jireh, the Lord who provides!

APPLY:  

A sick and troubled interpretation of this passage would draw the conclusion that God may require human sacrifice.

A healthier and more accurate interpretation would argue that while God tested Abraham’s obedience, he uses this opportunity to repudiate the pagan practice of human sacrifice.  It is true that Abraham proves his faith in God.  James, in the New Testament, praises Abraham’s obedience:

Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?  You see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was perfected (James 2:21-22).

But it is also true that God never requires a father to sacrifice his son — and in fact repudiates this practice officially in the Mosaic Law.

A typological interpretation of this passage draws this conclusion — that a substitute was found that made Isaac’s sacrifice unnecessary.  Christ is described in various places in the New Testament as a substitutionary sacrifice for us:

For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place (1 Corinthians 5:7).

In any event, Abraham had faith that Isaac would not be lost to him, because God had promised that he would fulfill his covenant through Isaac:

By faith, Abraham, being tested, offered up Isaac. Yes, he who had gladly received the promises was offering up his one and only son;  even he to whom it was said, “your offspring  will be accounted as from Isaac”;   concluding that God is able to raise up even from the dead. Figuratively speaking, he also did receive him back from the dead (Hebrews 11:17-19).

The application for our faith is that God does ask for our complete surrender of everything.  Everything we have will one day be taken away from us, and the only way to receive it back from God is to give it up to God.  And furthermore, God provides whatever he requires from us — whether it be the substitutionary atonement of his Son, or granting us a strength and grace beyond what we have in ourselves to do what he calls us to do.

RESPOND: 

As the father of two sons, I cannot imagine being placed in the position that Abraham was in. He had already “sacrificed” one son, Ishmael, to the jealousy and dysfunctions of a complicated family situation.  Now, the son who was to fulfill God’s covenant was literally on the chopping block!

The truth is, though, every  parent must sacrifice their children, figuratively speaking.  When our children grow up and begin to make their own decisions, we must understand that in a unique sense those children belong to God in a deeper way than they belong to us.

I’m reminded of a story told of Andrew Young.  Andrew Young had been an aide to Martin Luther King, Jr., a pastor, and eventually the mayor of Atlanta, Georgia.  But on one occasion he was saying farewell to his daughter in the airport.  She was leaving to participate in a Christian mission in Africa.  After watching her board her flight, he was heard to say, “I wanted her to be a Christian, but I didn’t mean a real Christian!”

Any honest parent can understand his sentiment.  We want our children to live exciting, adventurous lives — so long as they are protected in bubbles.  Life just doesn’t work that way.

But when it comes to the sacrifices that are required in our lives, we can do no better than to pray as St. Augustine of Hippo prayed:

Command what you will, and then give what you command.

Lord, you don’t require human sacrifice; but you do require that we take everything that we love, cherish, and value and place it in your hands.  At our best, we are like Abraham who trusts that you give it all back.  Increase our faith, even as we pray as Augustine did — command what you will and then give what you command. Amen. 

PHOTOS:
“The Ram of Sacrifice” by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for June 21, 2020

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 21:8-21
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This may be a somewhat troubling passage for some.  Abraham and Sarah are not depicted in a very complimentary light.  However, I appreciate the fact that the Scriptural writers are almost invariably honest, even about the flaws of great heroes and heroines of the faith.  This is a reminder that the Bible is a real book about real people — not plaster saints.

We are reminded that Yahweh had promised Abraham he would have a multitude of descendants, as part of a larger covenant (Genesis 12:1-3).  But time dragged on, and some of the promises seemed to be less and less likely — especially the promise of children.  Abram and Sarai were growing old, well past normal child-bearing age.

We have evidence that Abram’s famous faith may have wavered a bit, when he said to  Yahweh:

Behold, to me you have given no children: and, behold, one born in my house is my heir (Genesis 15:3).

Yahweh assured Abram that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:5).

But evidently Sarai didn’t get the memo.  She seems to be aware that God has made these promises to Abram, and she is grieved that she hasn’t delivered a child.  So, she decides to take matters into her own hands — to manipulate the situation a bit.  It is her idea to give her maidservant, the young Egyptian woman named Hagar, to Abram.  The idea was that Hagar would be a surrogate mother, and the child would be adopted by Sarai.

Things didn’t quite work out that way.  In fairness to Sarah (her name, and Abraham’s, are changed by Yahweh in Genesis 17: 5 & 15), Abraham was compliant with Sarah’s request that he have relations with Hagar.  Again, we have an example of the realism of Scripture.  Human nature being what it is, when Hagar conceived and bore a son named Ishmael, Hagar grew haughty (Genesis 16:4-5).  And Sarah was jealous.

The fact is, Yahweh had always intended that his promise of the covenant would be continued through the child of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 17:15-19).  So, the three Angels of the Lord appeared and promised that Sarah would bear a child — though she was ninety years old! (Genesis 18:1-15)   The child would be called Isaac, which means (appropriately enough) he laughs.

All of this, of course, is backstory to our passage.

Sarah has given birth to her son, Isaac.  And, as was the custom, when he was weaned, Abraham threw a party.  But when Sarah sees Ishmael mocking Isaac, she is irritated.  Bear in mind, Ishmael is Isaac’s half brother.  But perhaps Sarah sees in Ishmael’s attitude some of the haughtiness that she had detected in Hagar, his mother.  Sarah is decisive:

Therefore she said to Abraham, “Cast out this servant and her son! For the son of this servant will not be heir with my son, Isaac.”

Perhaps Sarah sees Ishmael as a threat to the dynastic promise made to Isaac.  But Abraham is grieved.  After all, he certainly loved his son, Ishmael, as well.

God reassures Abraham:

Don’t let it be grievous in your sight because of the boy, and because of your servant. In all that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice. For your offspring will be accounted as from Isaac.  I will also make a nation of the son of the servant, because he is your child.

Yahweh offers a  “both/and” option to Abraham — Isaac will be the heir of Yahweh’s covenant; but Ishmael will also be great.  And realistically, Abraham will finally have some peace from these feuding women!

What Abraham does the next day is a little troubling to us — he gives Hagar and Ishmael some bread and water, and sends them out to the wilderness of Beersheba!  A woman and a young boy — probably no more than a teenager, based on the math of Abraham’s age when Ishmael was born (eighty-six, according to Genesis 16:16).

Hagar and Ishmael are in a wilderness, no doubt filled with predators both animal and human, without resources and without a husband and father to protect and provide for them.  Understandably, when the bread and water are gone, Hagar succumbs to despair.  Ishmael is weakened by hunger and thirst — she lays him under a shrub so she doesn’t have to watch him die, and grieves her heart out.

We are reminded that this is not the first time Hagar has been exiled from the family of Abraham.  Earlier, while Hagar was still pregnant with Ishmael, Sarah had driven her away.  At that time, Yahweh had come to Hagar under similar circumstances in the wilderness.  He had then told Hagar to submit to her mistress Sarah, and that her yet unborn son Ishmael would be a great nation and a mighty warrior (Genesis 16:9-12).

Once again, the angel of God intervenes on Hagar’s behalf.  God hears their cries. He reiterates the promises that were made to Hagar years earlier:

Get up, lift up the boy, and hold him in your hand. For I will make him a great nation.

Hagar and Ishmael are spared:

God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went, filled the bottle with water, and gave the boy drink.

Although they can’t return to Abraham’s camp, God in a sense assumes the role of father with Ishmael:

God was with the boy, and he grew. He lived in the wilderness, and became, as he grew up, an archer.  He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother took a wife for him out of the land of Egypt.

APPLY:  

This passage is a reminder to us that God’s providence is not restricted to a particular nation or people.  It is true that God called Abraham and Sarah for a particular purpose, and that it was through Isaac that salvation history would be enacted:

Sarah, your wife, will bear you a son. You shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him (Genesis 17:19).

Isaac would become the father of Jacob, who became known as Israel, the father of the twelve tribes of Israel.  To them and through their descendants, we receive the Law, the heroic stories of the Exodus, the royal dynasty of Judah, and the great prophetic tradition — all culminating in the coming of Jesus the Messiah.

However, God’s election of Isaac as the vessel through whom he would bless all nations (Genesis 17:18) does not mean that God rejects other tribes and other people.  We get a hint of this in Abraham’s attitude toward both Ishmael and Isaac. When God promises that Sarah will be the mother of Isaac, Abraham wistfully seems to sigh:

 Oh that Ishmael might live before you! (Genesis 17:18).

God assures Abraham, and Ishmael’s mother Hagar, on several separate occasions that Ishmael also will be blessed and will be the father of many nations (Genesis 16:10-12;  17:20; 20:18).

Though human beings may reject us, and even treat us as outcasts, God does not abandon us.  Hagar and Ishmael are a demonstration of that assurance.

RESPOND: 

One of the many factors that makes the Bible credible to me is its honesty and realism.  The Scriptures don’t whitewash the reputations of its “saints” — from Abraham and Sarah, to David, to Peter.

That gives me great hope.  God can work through flawed people and still accomplish his great vision for the world.

I find a song, written in 1981 by Michael Card and John Thompson, and then popularized by singer Amy Grant, to be an inspiration:

El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
El Elyon na Adonai,
Age to age you’re still the same,
By the power of the name.
El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
Erkahmka na Adonai,
We will praise and lift you high,
El Shaddai.

Loosely translated, the Hebrew phrases mean:

God Almighty, God Almighty,
The Most High God, O Lord,
We will love you, O Lord. 

One of the verses of the song makes reference to the son of Abraham, and the deliverance of Israel when God turns the sea into dry land.  The verse also includes the experience of Hagar in Genesis 16:7-13:

To the outcast on her knees,
You were the God who really sees…

God sees all of us who have felt like outcasts, and intervenes on our behalf.

Lord, there have been times when I have felt like an outcast. And there are many people in our world who feel that even more deeply than I do.  I take comfort in the promise that you do see us, and you will deliver us.  Amen.

PHOTOS:
“Hagar and Ishmael” by Jean-Charles Cazin is in the public domain.

Old Testament for February 25, 2018

 

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This covenant almost seems too little too late for old Abram.  He is ninety-nine years old, and logic would seem to dictate that he should be looking for a retirement home on the coast, not taking on a new responsibility!

Already, he has experienced a lifetime of promises from God, and a lifetime of challenges and disappointments.  At seventy-five, he first heard God’s call to leave his home in Haran and go to a land he didn’t know anything about, in Canaan.  He was promised land and descendants (Chapter 12).

The promise was reiterated in chapter 15 after he had entered Canaan, and after he had come to the rescue of his nephew Lot who was captured by marauding kings.  But in chapter 15, Abram had indicated that he was beginning to wonder about the promises – he complained that he still had no heir even after all these years.

Chapter 15 is followed by a rather troublesome and complicated episode. Sarai, who was still barren, tried to manipulate matters and get an heir through a surrogate mother (namely her slave, Hagar).  This left a sordid smudge on the otherwise sterling character of Abram.

In the passage we are considering now, it seems as though God is reaffirming his original promise to Abram.  The covenant is to be renewed.

As with covenants and contracts of that day, this one has certain key ingredients:

• God identifies his own character as God Almighty (El Shaddai).
•  God makes clear his demand of Abram’s character — that he be blameless. There is an ethical requirement placed on Abram. Perhaps this is a subtle reproach for Abram’s lapse with Hagar?
• God reiterates his promise to make Abram’s descendents numerous. This is a reaffirmation of his earlier promises.

Abram is overcome with a sense of awe and worship, and falls on his face before the Lord.  What happens next is new:

• God changes Abram’s name to Abraham. Abram means exalted ancestor; Abraham means ancestor of a multitude.  We know that in the ancient Hebrew culture, a name is highly significant.  It denotes the character and the potential of its bearer. God changes Abram’s name as a way of denoting who Abraham is to become — the father of a multitude of nations.  Nations and kings will come from his lineage.

Not only that, but Sarai, who was so deeply jealous of Hagar, and whose role as the wife of Abraham was imperiled very early on in a previous sinister episode with the Pharaoh of Egypt, would also be a central part of the fulfillment of the covenant.  Her name is changed from Sarai to Sarah – meaning princess.  She would be the mother of royalty!

APPLY:  

When we experience the kind of set-backs and challenges to our lives that Abraham and Sarah experience, it becomes easy for us to give up on God’s promises for us.

Yes, we’ve heard all the Scriptures about how God cares for us, and wishes to bless us, and his wonderful promises for our lives.  But then a crisis happens to a family member; or we get involved in some kind of ugly and complicated family dispute; or our dreams and hopes are deferred for so long that we begin to wonder if God’s promises apply to us after all.

Abraham’s experience with God reminds us to hold on – even into our old age.  God is faithful and will bless us.  Maybe not always in the way that we might expect, but he will keep his promises.

And as we worship him, and walk before him blameless, we will find in time that like Abram, our character will change — just as his name was changed to symbolize a change in him!

RESPOND: 

There are some dreams I have for myself and for my family that seem to have been deferred so long that I’ve begun to wonder if they will ever come to pass.  And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that sometimes these “dreams deferred” have tested my faith.

Abraham and Sarah are a reminder to me that God doesn’t operate according to my timetable, but, as John Wesley once said “God’s time is the best time.”

So I keep my faith in God Almighty even when I haven’t received the promised inheritance — yet.

Lord, when promises seem to be unfulfilled, and I don’t seem to receive the “inheritance” that you have promised, please remind me that I am on the wrong schedule.  I need to be on your schedule, not you on mine.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
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Old Testament for July 9, 2017

Start with Scripture:

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67

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OBSERVE:

The Old Testament lesson for this week focuses on transitions and rites of passage.  The actual lectionary reading — Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67 — includes only a part of the whole story.

We must begin with the back story.  Sarah, the mother of Isaac, had died at the age of 127 years at Kiriath Arba (Hebron), when her son was  about 37 years old (Genesis 23:1-4).  A few years later, Isaac hadn’t yet married, and this spurs Abraham to action.  He seems to be concerned about two things:

• His own advanced age and health — perhaps he wishes to see Isaac married before his own death.
• He is concerned that Isaac should not marry a “local girl” from among the Canaanites, perhaps because of their idolatry.

So, Abraham commissions his chief servant with a very important mission — he is to return to Mesopotamia and seek a wife from amongst Abraham’s  own family (apparently the prohibition against “kissing cousins” was not yet in effect).

The servant (who may well have been the Eliezer named in Genesis 15:2 as Abraham’s chief servant and heir prior to the birth of Ishmael and Isaac)  makes the long journey back from Canaan to Mesopotamia, bearing with him gifts loaded on the backs of a caravan of camels.  When he arrives, presumably at the city of Haran (although it is called here the city of Nahor because it is where Nahor lives), the servant rests at the water well outside the city.  The time is in the evening, when young women come to the well to draw water for the family.  The servant prays to Yahweh, Abraham’s God, and asks for direction in finding the girl to whom Isaac is to be married.  The sign for which he asks is fulfilled — she not only draws water for the servant, she also draws water for his camels!

Our passage begins after the servant has discovered that this young woman is in fact Rebekah,  the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor ( Genesis 24:15).  Nahor was the brother of Abraham!    God has brought the servant directly to Isaac’s cousin! He honors her with a gold ring for her nose, and gold bracelets for her wrists.

When Rebekah brings the servant back to her family’s tent, there is an awful lot of “catching up” to do.  The servant fills them in with updates on Abraham and Sarah — their blessing from God, their greatness and fame, and particularly their prosperity.  And then there is the clincher — the servant reveals that he has been sent to find a wife for the boss’s son.

Then the bargaining begins. The servant says to Rebekah’s brother and father:

Now if you will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me. If not, tell me, that I may turn to the right hand, or to the left.

Unfortunately, the lectionary editors have not included one of the more interesting interactions in this account (verses 50-56).  Bethuel, who is Rebekah’s father, and Laban her brother appear to be angling for a good “bride price.”  Although they admit that what the servant has told them seems to come from Yahweh, they appear to be bargaining with the servant.  After he gives jewels and gold and clothing to Rebekah, Laban and her mother, Laban and Bethuel delay the servant’s departure.  Is this sentimentality because they want to prolong the goodbye with Rebekah, or is this a way of milking more treasure from Abraham’s servant?  Given what we learn about Laban in subsequent accounts from Genesis, particularly his rather devious and sharp dealing with Rebekah’s son Jacob years later, we may have good reason to suspect Laban of ulterior motives.

The servant finally has to demand an answer:

 He said to them, “Don’t hinder me, since Yahweh has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master.”

Astonishingly, in this patriarchal, male-dominated culture, they allow Rebekah to speak for herself:

They said, “We will call the young lady, and ask her.”

Rebekah reveals herself to be a person of adventurous faith.  She agrees to accompany the servant to a land she doesn’t know, in order to marry a man she has never met!

Rebekah is sent away with the family’s generous blessing:

Our sister, may you be the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and let your offspring possess the gate of those who hate them.

The journey south to Beer Lahai Roi (coincidentally, the location of the well at which Hagar was comforted by Yahweh’s Angel in Genesis 16:9-14.  Beer Lahai Roi describes the place as ‘where God lives and sees me.’) leads to one of the most romantic encounters in the Scriptures:

Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the evening. He lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, there were camels coming.  Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel.  She said to the servant, “Who is the man who is walking in the field to meet us?”

The servant said, “It is my master.”

She took her veil, and covered herself. The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done.  Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife. He loved her. Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

In this classically abbreviated Hebrew style, we see this young woman and man meet, fall in love and marry, all in just a few verses.  The phrase indicating that Isaac took her into Sarah’s tent suggests that Rebekah has filled the grief in his heart over his mother’s death.  Sarah’s empty tent, formerly a place of sadness, now becomes a place of joy.  And one wonders if this may be a part of the Jewish custom of the wedding tent even today.  Isaac was 40 when he married Rebekah (Genesis 25:20).

APPLY:  

There is an old expression — “theirs is a marriage made in heaven.”  We may wonder, in these modern times when divorce seems rampant, if heaven has anything to do with marriage.

We find in the account of the relationship between Rebekah and Isaac that even a marriage “made in heaven” requires human as well as divine initiative.  We see evidence of a divine/human synergism in this account. Perhaps another way of saying this is that God plays matchmaker — but human beings must cooperate!

Abraham sees that the eligible women in Canaan are not suitable for his son Isaac — this is probably  not because of ethnicity but because of their idolatrous religion. So he takes action and sends his servant back to the “home country” to find a woman.

The servant prays for a sign from Yahweh which is promptly confirmed when Rebekah appears.  But she must also exercise her own free will in order to become a part of this Abrahamic dynasty and the salvation history of Israel.

And Isaac also must consent to this “arranged marriage” and choose to love Rebekah — even when her coming was not originally his idea!

Perhaps we have a partial answer to the increase of rocky marriages today.  A common faith, prayer, and the choice to love one another are critical in strong marriages.

RESPOND: 

In some ways, this account of the arranged marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, with a servant as the yenta (the “matchmaker”), seems to come right out of the pages of a book with a title like The Art of the Deal.  It all seems so “transactional.”

The servant brings camels laden down with treasure, and then asks for the lady’s hand on behalf of his boss’s son.  It’s about a business arrangement.  And it’s about the family business.

But I wonder — is our “romantic” ideal, based on “falling love,” a preferable model?  Divorce rates suggest that  many marriages based solely on “romance” don’t last very long.

As a father of two I can understand Abraham’s efforts to intervene by arranging a marriage for his son Isaac.  I joke that marriage is too important to be left to hormonal kids!  The truth is, the prayer of the servant may be the most important and most easily overlooked feature of this story.  Without deep and earnest prayer, no marriage should ever be solemnized.  It is prayer, and a strong faith in God, that keeps Christian marriages together.

Lord, marriage is ultimately your idea — bringing two people together for the purpose of love, comfort, and, yes, for a legacy that will outlive that man and woman.  We pray for strong, loving, faithful marriages that bring honor to you. Amen.

PHOTOS:
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