Abraham

Abraham

The First in the Series on Old Testament Heroes

By Ed Winkler

May 25, 2008

Text: Genesis 12:1-9

[1] Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. [2] And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. [3] I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves." [4] So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. [5] And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions which they had gathered, and the persons that they had gotten in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, [6] Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. [7] Then the LORD appeared to Abram, and said, "To your descendants I will give this land." So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. [8] Thence he removed to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD. [9] And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb. (Revised Standard Version)

When the Lord speaks to you and the very first word is “Go,” you know you’re in for quite an adventure. That’s what Abraham found out. We don’t know the precise year—they didn’t have accurate calendars then as we know them—but sometime around 1700 BC, a man named Abram and his wife, Sarai, lived with Abram’s father in Ur. Ur is an area that is today on the border of Iraq and Kuwait. The whole family traveled several hundred miles up the Euphrates River to an area that today is in southeast Turkey. It was there that Abram’s father died. It was there that the Lord spoke to Abram and said, “Go. I’ll show you where and you will be blessed and you will be a blessing for the whole world.”

Abram was no spring chicken. He was seventy-five years old when the Lord spoke to him. The Lord pretty much said, “Trust me. I’ll show you where to go.” And that’s what Abram did. So Abram gathered up his wife, his nephew, his servants, his livestock, and his possessions and took off. He trusted the Lord and started a long journey that took him to Canaan, the area we now know as Palestine.

Fast forward a few years. Abram and his family are settling into the land. Palestine is not the Shenandoah Valley. It was not green with beautiful rivers, but dry and dusty. It took a lot of land to support a family. Abram and his nephew saw that the land couldn’t support both of their families. So Abram said to his nephew, Lot, “you choose the land you want and I’ll take the rest.” Wouldn’t the world be better if people could be that generous today?

So Abram and his family settled down. There was only one problem in Abram’s life. He and Sarai were childless. In a time when people believed that their afterlife was in the memory of their children and when people needed children to support them in their old age, not having children was a serious problem. Abram was worried, but the Lord wasn’t. The Lord told Abram, “Look in the sky. Can you count the stars? Your descendants will be numerous as those stars.” Abram and Sarai were not convinced. They were nearly a hundred years old, so they had trouble believing that there would be children in their future.

Sarai had an answer to the problem: “Abram, have a child with my servant.” As they say on TV, don’t try this at home. Abram had a child with Sarai’s servant, and there was almost immediate friction between Sarai and her servant. It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to figure out all of the possible problems in that tent.

The Lord came back to Abram with more promises. God told Abraham, “I will be your God and you will be my people, and you and Sarai will have descendants.” Then the Lord sealed the deal with a sign. Abram and all of his men were circumcised as a sign of the covenant. And the Lord changed Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s name to Sarah so that they would never forget their covenant with God.

One day, Abraham was hanging out by the tent when the Lord visited, although that’s not what Abraham saw. What Abraham saw were three men walking past the tent. Abraham insisted that the men stay with him, and he lavishly fed them and took care of their needs. One of the men told Abraham, “Next spring, you’ll have a son.” Sarah was out of sight, but listening in. That was just too much for her. She fell on her face laughing. Who wouldn’t laugh? She was ninety years old—she was going to have a baby?

The Lord, of course, got the last laugh. Sarah gave birth to a boy named Isaac. The birth of Isaac brought great joy into the household. The birth also brought great problems. It’s hard for us to imagine this scene, but Abraham was living with his wife, his wife’s servant, sons by each of the women, and a whole lot of jealousy with which to contend. Sarah eventually laid down the law. The maid and her son, Ishmael, had to go.

And so they went. But the Lord looked out for the maid and Ishmael. The Lord protected them, and Ishmael is known as the father of the Arabs. In an interesting twist, the Qur’an also tells this story, but with an important difference. In the Qur’an, Ishmael is the favored son, and Sarah and Isaac got booted out of the tent. But the Bible and Qur’an agree on one thing: God keeps God’s promises.

Sometimes, God is a tough taskmaster. One day, to test Abraham, God told Abraham to take his son, Isaac, to the mountain top and to sacrifice him. It’s hard to imagine God telling us to kill our son. But Abraham obeyed. He took Isaac up the mountain, tied him up, and was ready to kill him. Fortunately, before Abraham could actually sacrifice Isaac, an angel stopped him. Then Abraham looked around and saw a ram caught in a thicket. The ram became the sacrifice instead of Isaac. On the mountain was the last time that God ever spoke to Abraham. But instead of becoming bitter, Abraham remained faithful to the Lord.

Abraham lived a long life and had many descendants including, many generations later, Jesus. Abraham is the father of the world’s three great monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. God, indeed, did bless the world through Abraham.

The story of Abraham is sometimes complex, sometimes horrifying, and sometimes humorous. It is the story of a man who has a deep, trusting relationship with the Lord. It is a story of someone whom God both chose and tested. Abraham passed the test.

Abraham’s story teaches us many things. Abraham is a model of hospitality for us. When the three men appeared to Abraham, he turned over his household to them. He provided food, water, shelter, and anything else that they needed. He didn’t demand to see their green cards or ask where they came from. They had needs; he took care of those needs. In an increasingly inhospitable world, Abraham is a model of how the Lord would have us treat others.

Abraham models for us a deep relationship with God. One of my favorite stories in the Bible is in chapter 18 of Genesis. God told Abraham that he was going to destroy the town of Sodom. “Wait a second,” said Abraham. “Would you destroy the righteous along with the wicked? What if you found fifty righteous men there? Wouldn’t you let the town survive if there were fifty righteous men?”

God agreed, “If there are fifty righteous men, I’ll let the town survive.”

Then Abraham started negotiating, “How about if there are forty-five righteous men?”

“OK. I’ll let it survive if there are that many.”

Abraham kept bargaining with God: “How about forty righteous men? What if there are thirty righteous men? What if there are twenty?”

In the end, the deal was that God wouldn’t destroy the town if there were ten righteous men. The story shows that in a deep relationship with God, we can question God. We can even be mad at God. God can take it. A deep relationship with God, as with a deep relationship with a spouse, a brother, a sister, or a friend, is based on trust and communication. Abraham shows us what a deep relationship with God looks like.

First and foremost, Abraham is a model of obedience. Even when it was difficult, unpleasant, or confusing, Abraham did what the Lord wanted him to do. It’s hard for us to imagine sacrificing our son. That’s where most of us would draw the line. But Abraham said “yes” to the Lord even then.

The basis of that kind of radical obedience is trust. That kind of obedience is grounded in the idea that the Lord is looking out for us and will provide for us even if we don’t understand it. Obedience doesn’t mean that everything will be easy. It wasn’t for Abraham. It isn’t for us. Sometimes, we will fail even when we are trying to be obedient. Obedience is an everyday task. Serving the Lord is a 24/7/365 commitment. We won’t be tested the way Abraham was—thank God—but we will be tested in life. Obedience is saying, “Lord, I trust you and I’m going to try to do what you want in any case.”

It’s not always clear what obedience means for us. The Lord clearly and audibly spoke to Abraham. The Lord does not always speak that way to us. Sometimes, we have difficulty knowing what the Lord wants us to do. But we are not totally in the dark. The Bible tells us what the Lord wants us to do. And when we listen prayerfully, the Lord will give us hints and ideas about what we should do. An important part of obedience is listening.

For all the ways that Abraham is a model for us, Abraham was not a perfect man. Twice, he passed his wife off as his sister so that things would go well for him. He let powerful men take his wife into their homes because he was afraid. Abraham was hardly a perfect man, but his story reminds us that God works through imperfect human beings. The patriarch of three great religions was imperfect, sometimes conniving, sometimes fearful, but always blessed by God to be a blessing for all people.

This old, old story is nearly 4,000 years old. Yet it still speaks to us. Like Abraham, God knows that we won’t be perfect. God calls us instead to trust God, to be obedient, to be hospitable to those in need, and to be a blessing to the world. Some things haven’t changed in 4,000 years.