Debating with God
Second Sunday in Lent, Year C: Hebrew Bible
Welcome to Liturgical Threads! This is the first material of the week, focused on the Hebrew Bible selection from the Revised Common Lectionary: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18. You can look forward to materials from the Epistle and the Gospel later this week.
Grace and peace,
Justin
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
15 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” 4 But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” 5 He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.
7 Then he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other, but he did not cut the birds in two. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.
[…]
17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates,
Genesis 15 is the account of the one of God’s several covenants made with Abram/Abraham, known as the Covenant of the Pieces. Genesis obviously contains several accounts of covenant, and in fact, more than one between God and Abram, but I think this one is the one we most commonly think of when someone invokes the idea. It is here that God promises to make Abram’s descendants as numerous as the stars.
I want to focus here on the exchange between God and Abram that we find in these verses, because I think it illustrates something unique about the God of Israel, a trait that passes down to us today in our understanding of a God who suffers with and for us, in the person of Christ. God begins his covenant here with Abram by imploring him, “Do not be afraid.” This is a reasonable command from God; direct encounter with the Divine is obviously something reverent and holy and, more than likely, terror-inducing. We see, later in Exodus, that gazing upon God can bring death if not mediated in some way. So, it is reasonable for God to preface this interaction with Abram by reassuring him: there is no need to be afraid, I am not here to smite or destroy.
But then, in the back and forth we get between God and Abram, it seems that Abram is far from fear. It would be reasonable to assume that, in an interaction with a Divine Being that requires a disclaimer at the start, that the human being would be meek and submissive and cautious. But, that is not what we see in Abram. Instead, Abram challenges God’s promise, and he pushes back, and later, he asks for a sign. Abram understands that, in this moment of covenant, that he can and should reciprocate by holding God to the agreement, as much as God is holding him to his side.
This illustrates something important about the understanding of God being developed in Genesis, and throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. God is consistently described in terms of great glory and magnificence, with ideas that would have been familiar to anyone living in the ancient near east. But, unlike those other royally-coded divines, this God is shown in a relationship with humanity that is two-sided. Abram pushes back, and Sarai laughs aloud at God’s promise. Moses flees God. The Psalms consistently lament, not just injustice, but the failure of God to always address them. Job spends chapter upon chapter arguing with and calling God to account. The God of the people of Israel is a relational God, and that means a give-and-take. The covenant made here is one in the style of a “royal grant”, wherein a king graciously makes concessions so the lesser side doesn’t have to. But the lesser, in this case, is not merely content with promises. Abram wants to know that God is willing to keep God’s side, and shows he is going to call God to account if not. That’s a whole new way of understanding the Divine.
As noted above, this selection from Genesis showcases Abram verbally sparring with God - not the last time he would do so! Messages centered on this passage could explore what it means to challenge God. Popular imagination may view doing so as scandalous or dangerous to one’s salvation, but there is strong Scriptural warrant for doing so - see Job and the Psalms for numerous examples; also, Abraham in the days before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Moses in the wilderness pushing back against God’s anger towards the people.
This is also the first major covenant God made with the people of Israel, and probably the most well known. God promises here the nation of Israel, and the destiny of Abram’s descendants. Covenant is a key theme in the Torah. Consider exploring the concept of covenant: an agreement between two parties, often with promises made by both sides as they enter into some form of relationship.
That said, this covenant is interesting in the sense that it is one-sided: God makes promises here to Abram without yet asking for anything in return. In later covenants, God will have requirements of Abram and his descendants, but for now, this is a covenant of grace: God grants it to God’s people merely be dint of who they are, not what they do. There are important implications here to explore when doing the work of dispelling the idea of a different God in the Old and New Testaments. Already here, early in Genesis, we see the God of love and grace at work, in a world full of transactional gods.
A Call to Worship for the Second Sunday in Lent
One: When we feel the cares and the injustices of the world pressing in on us,
All: Hear God: Do not be afraid! I am your shield; your reward shall be very great!
One: When the future seems dark and uncertain,
All: Hear God: Look toward the heaven and count stars, if you are able. So shall your descendants be.
One: When we are dispossessed and driven away by the boot of empire,
All: Hear God: I am the Lord, who brought you from UR, to give you this land to possess.
One: Hear God, and believe the promises made to us.
All: Do not be afraid! You reward shall be very great! Amen!