Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38
For these first few weeks in Lent the theme of our Old Testament readings is covenants.
You may remember last week it was God’s covenant with Noah. "God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you…. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood… This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds” (Genesis 8-9, 11a, 12-13a).
This week it is THE covenant. The covenant between God and Abraham and his descendents. This is the most important covenant between God and God’s people in the Hebrew Scriptures and remains extremely important in Jewish identity today.
We just heard the reading from Genesis 17. "When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.’ ….I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you" (Genesis 17:1-2, 4-7).
God promises Abraham offspring. God promises that Abraham will be exceedingly numerous, exceeding fruitful. And God makes a covenant of relationship between the descendants of Abraham and God. I will be your God.
As important as this covenant itself is, I want to focus today on Abraham’s reaction to God’s promise. Remember that at this point Abraham and Sarah have no children together, although Ishmael has been born to Sarah’s handmaid. God promises Abraham numerous descendents. How does Abraham react to God’s promise?
In today’s epistle Paul talks about Abraham’s reaction: "Abraham believed that he would become "the father of many nations," according to what was said, "So numerous shall your descendants be." He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised" (Romans 4:18-21).
Admittedly, Paul is trying to make another point here, but it seems to me he greatly exaggerates the faithfulness of Abraham’s response! Based on what’s in Genesis, it certainly seems an exaggeration to say that Abraham did not weaken or waver at all in his faith and was fully convinced that God would fulfill God’s promise.
Abraham’s reaction as it is recounted in Genesis is in the next verse after the reading appointed in the lectionary for today. Genesis 18:17: "Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’" Then Abraham went on to try to bargain with God. How about Ishmael? Can't we maybe shift the covenant to him? He's already alive...
Abraham fell on his face and laughed. (Paul must have skimmed over that verse.)
It’s common for us to attribute a certain naiveté to the ancients, but they knew where babies come from. And not from a man who was “as good as dead.”
So there are two parts to Abraham’s reaction. He fell on his face. And he laughed.
To fall on one’s face in the Hebrew Bible is to take a posture of obedience or worshipfulness, as at Genesis 17:3, when Abraham’s falling appears there to be a sign of assent to the covenant. In v. 17, the falling is joined with laughter, and obedience mixes with incredulity. It is as if Abraham’s body knows what to do upon hearing this news, but his mind can’t quite catch up (Cameron B. R. Howard at Working Preacher, citing Claus Westermann, Genesis 12-36)
Obedience mixes with incredulity.
Worship and skepticism go hand in hand.
Right there in father Abraham. Father of us all, as Paul says. And Sarah, too, in the next chapter of Genesis when the promise of a child is renewed by oaks of Mamre. Sarah laughs.
It’s OK; it’s common; it’s normal to hold these two paradoxically contradictory reactions at the same time. As Abraham did. Obedience mixed with incredulity. Worship and awe mixed with skepticism.
I’ve said before, it both frustrates and saddens me when people refuse or drop away from participation in any religious practices because they think their faith isn’t perfect or certain or unwavering.
Abraham is in the midst of a personal encounter with God! Abraham experiences himself in the very presence of God. And God makes a promise and offers a covenant. And Abraham falls on his face and laughs. Obedience and incredulity.
This is relevant to us in general, I think, but also particularly during Lent. When we are yearning towards the promise of God, the Easter promise. God’s promise of redemption and resurrection. And think how that Easter promise sounds, not only to us today, but to Jesus’ disciples as he was speaking to them in today’s reading.
God has promised a redeemer, a newly anointed king of kings, a savior to deliver the nations from sin and suffering. But that redeemer will be executed by the empire, and who could really be raised from the dead? The prospect is as impossible as ninety-year-old woman having a child with a hundred-year-old man. When we hear the promise of the resurrection, we know to fall on our faces in reverence: God is speaking to us! Yet surely we must also laugh incredulously; this is a foolish promise (Cameron B. R. Howard, HERE).
The witness of Scripture is that God keeps God’s incredible promises.
But it is also the witness of Scripture that human beings, from Abraham all the way up through Peter, react to God’s promises with complicated mixtures of obedience and incredulity, worship and doubt, faith and denial.
We shouldn’t expect our reactions to be any different.
