Reading: Genesis 16-18, Psalm 5
When I was growing up, one of my favorite television shows was Star Trek: The Next Generation. Like all Star Treks, time travel eventually plays a role in many episodes. In one particular episode (season 5 episode 18, Cause and Effect, if you must know) the ship is caught in a time loop, causing the crew to experience the same events over and over without fully realizing what is happening to them, but with the vague sense that something isn’t right and they have to do something different to get out of the loop. The year after that episode aired, Bill Murray starred in Groundhog Day, a movie with essentially the same plot. The enduring popularity of these kinds of stories comes because they evoke familiar feelings in us: We often feel we are living the same day over and over and over. Reading the book of Genesis, one begins to wonder if Abram and Sarai had any equivalent story to Groundhog Day, or if they were the first people to live it out.
Following Abram’s complaint to God about his lack of children and God’s rather epic response, we get to hear about Sarai’s annoyance with the same issue. She complains to her husband that she has no children. And so she gives him another woman to have children with.
Ok. Two things here. One, the idea of having children through someone else was not all that strange in the ancient near east. There were established cultural traditions about continuing family lines in cases of early death or inability to have children. So, in some ways, Sarai’s actions aren’t so far off the norm. Two, despite the cultural norms, in the context of the story so far this was (yet another) egregious violation of God’s design for humanity: man and woman were to be partners and a reflection of the image of God. Sarai, like Abram, seems bent on making God’s promise within God’s design impossible.
So, having just received a direct promise from God that he would have a son, and having had that promise sealed by a dramatic supernatural covenant ceremony, Abram of course demurred and told Sarai to trust God with this. Wait, what? No? He doesn’t do that. He (and both of the involved women) continue to demonstrate what is so far the most overt theme of the Bible: Humans, we have a problem. Sarai gives Abram another woman, Hagar. Abram gets her pregnant. Hagar starts treating Sarai badly. Sarai gets mad at Hagar. Abram tells her to do whatever she wants to Hagar. Sarai treats her so badly she runs off into the wilderness. Seriously, this is Jerry Springer material.
Then God shows up. He responds to this mess in two ways. First, he speaks to Hagar (an Egyptian) and extends to her a promise that pulls her and her child into the promise he made to Abram, but with the unfortunately consequence that her descendants will be turned against their brothers. God takes the mess Sarai and Abram made of this woman’s life and does what God does: He makes all things new.
Second, God takes dramatic action with Abram and Sarai. First of all, he changes their names. Abram becomes Abraham, and Sarai becomes Sarah. In this God very clearly communicates to them something we will see reiterated throughout the story of the Bible: You are not who you think you are. Despite their shortcomings and reckless behavior, God will not only be faithful to his promise, he will expand it to include the consequences of their actions. Second of all, God institutes a covenant sign with Abraham that he (and all the other guys in his family) won’t be forgetting anytime soon: circumcision.
Now this is one of those super awkward topics that doesn’t come up so much in the Sunday School version of the Biblical story. Generally it’s not a great idea to try and guess God’s motives in this story- he is presented as a different order of being than humans, and humans aren’t really given the tools to effectively guess at the mind of God. But we can say one thing: all the men descended from Abraham who keep this covenant sign will never forget it, and will be identifiable to anyone they are intimate with. Abraham’s descendants will be unquestionably marked.
In the middle of this proclamation by God, Abraham expresses his doubts about having children at his age, but God continues to reiterate his promise that Abraham will have a son with Sarah, his wife. Despite all their improper actions, God is going to make the story better.
The last little story in today’s reading has God visiting Abraham and delivering a timeline promise: Sarah will have Abraham’s son in one year. But this is almost a sideline to the rest of this little visit- God is sending angels to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to utterly destroy them. Part of God’s continual action to make all things new is that the distortion of evil cannot be allowed to grow forever: it must be obliterated. Sodom and Gomorrah are described at places of rampant evil. So of course Abraham cheers God on in destroying them. Wait, again, no? A rather strange little dialogue ensues instead. Abraham, rather long windedly, asks God how few people have to be righteous for him not to destroy the cities. And it goes all the way down to ten. God is committed to making all things new, but he values the righteous.
These stories add up. They paint a picture of the character of God. Abram and Sarai have proven no better than Adam or Noah, but God is doing a new thing with them. Rather than hitting the reset button, God is making his promises bigger and better as the humans mess things up. As the humans make the story worse, God is making the story better.