Have you ever had to wait for
something? Wait a really long time? You begin to lose faith that it
will happen, you doubt the person who said they were going to do it,
you become frustrated and if you are anything like me anger is soon
to follow frustration.
You know we are not that different in
essences from our early patriarchs and matriarchs. Do you think
Abram and Sari were any different? They had been promised
descendents when the Lord had called Abram in Genesis 12. God had
said “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I
will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless
those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all
peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12: 2-3)
This happened when Abram was 75. He is now a hundred and has yet to
have a child. He has a vision and a conversation with God in it. He
is frustrated. Where is his great nation? Not a single child yet?
Sarai was frustrated – remember honor for a woman was having
children and she has none.
They are stuck. Then Abram has another
vision. This time the Lord says “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am
your shield; your reward shall be very great.” (Genesis 15:1)
Abram probably was afraid. He is hearing from God now after 25
years. He does not have any children and really wants to ask God
where is his nation now? (Of course I imagine it with a bit of
sarcasm because after 25 years you start to doubt it will happen)
Abram actually asks “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I
continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
Abram is actually calling God out on this.
Notice that so often we are taught not
to question God, not to doubt our promises, to accept with with
faith alone. This is useful, but not always practical. We are human
after all. We become frustrated, our sense of time is different than
God's and lets face it living in limbo is not something humans do
well. It is not something I do well. Waiting is excruciating for
me. I am so frustrated when I have to wait for a long time. But you
know what Abram is showing us it is okay to get frustrated, to ask
God, to question God. God will answer, and sometimes we won't
understand that answer either, but God is working in it.
God answers our Abram with a promise to
make his descendents as numerous as the stars. I can just imagine
Abram rolling his eyes, “yep I heard that one before.” God can
hear his doubt. God knows him inside and out, just as he knows us
inside and out.
God makes a covenant with Abram. This
is not just in a vision. It is not just a little promise easily
broken. This was a full out covenantal promise. It was messy, it
was smelly. It required great sacrifice on Abram's part. I don't
know how much you know about love stock, but at least with cows, they
don't mature until three. So essentially God is asking for animals
in their prime. Ones that would be prized and valuable. He does not
just request one but five. God has Abram cut them in half and keep
the flies from them all day so that the sacrifice can be made to seal
the covenant.
Covenants with God are hard work. It
requires something of you. It requires sacrifice and attention and
time. I am pretty sure Abram had other things to do that day then
chase flies from a pile of stinking meat for the day. It was not
easy work. God responds though. He seals the covenant by walking
between the animals which represented that if he should break the
covenant then he too should be torn in half like this.
The thing is that even after that Abram
and Sari are impatient. I have to wonder if they were thinking like
we often do very literally – that the two of them would parent that
many children. Perhaps they didn't understand the Lord, or perhaps
they just thought they could move things along, because in the very
next chapter Sari tries to get her heir through Hagar and we all know
how that ended. The thing is God does not renege on his promises.
His covenant is still firm. A great nation will come from Isaac. A
few thousand years later if you look down on the world from space we
do look as numerous as the stars. This did not happen in our time,
it did not happen all at once, or like they thought it should. It
did not happen because of Sari and Abram's ill thought out plan of
using Hagar. It happened because God chose for it to happen. It
happened because Abram did his part in the covenant. It happened
because God promised it to happen.
We make covenants with God. We make a
covenant when we are baptized – we make it as a church and as an
individual to help the person and nurture the person in Christ's
love. We make a covenant when we get married with the other person
and God. We remember God's covenant with all Christians when we
celebrate the Lord's supper each month.
All these things require us to do
something before our brothers and sisters in Christ. All these
things require us to be present before God and God is present in
them. They can be life changing events if we bring our hearts, minds
and bodies in line with God for that moment and meet God in them.
So how do you come to the covenant?
How have you gotten messy in upholding your covenant with God that
was made in your baptism or confirmation? How have you waited for
God's promises? We all make mistakes just as Abram and Sari did, but
now is the time to begin anew to try and fulfill our end of the
promises we made to God while trusting (even if we grumble) God will
uphold God's end of the deal.
