Abram 1: Seriously?

Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18

¹ Some time after these events, this word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram! I am your shield; I will make your reward very great.” ² But Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what good will your gifts be, if I keep on being childless and have as my heir the steward of my house, Eliezer?” ³ Abram continued, “See, you have given me no offspring, and so one of my servants will be my heir.” ⁴ Then the word of the LORD came to him: “No, that one shall not be your heir; your own issue shall be your heir.” ⁵ He took him outside and said: “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can. Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.” ⁶ Abram put his faith in the LORD, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness. ⁷ He then said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as a possession.” ⁸ “O Lord GOD,” he asked, “How am I to know that I shall possess it?” ⁹ He answered him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ He brought him all these, split them in two, and placed each half opposite the other; but the birds he did not cut up. ¹¹ Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram stayed with them. ¹² As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram, and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him. ........ ¹⁷ When the sun had set and it was dark, there appeared a smoking brazier and a flaming torch, which passed between those pieces. ¹⁸ It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River (the Euphrates).

"Count the stars if you can." I hadn't been on a camping trip for a long time, and had never gone camping in the desert. In the middle of the night I, of course, needed to go to the bathroom. After fighting it off as long as I could it eventually became crucial to honor the need. So, with much grumbling I climbed out of the sleeping bag, slipped on the tennis shoes, left the laces untied, and headed off to everyone's favorite destination -- an overused, tightly sealed outhouse that had baked in the desert sun all day. Well, I made it, barely, and staggered back to my tent -- the one no one would share with me because of my certified, professional, industrial strength snoring. Just as I was about to crawl in the tent I happened to glance up and what I saw (I know this is a cliché) took my breath away. Really. It did. I had never seen the stars on a dark desert night. The sky seemed a solid mass of tiny points of light. There were so many stars visible that when I tried to identify constellations -- something I did easily in the city -- I could only find the Big Dipper. Barely. I was amazed and couldn't help praising and thanking God for the incredible beauty. Looking at those stars it was so easy to believe.

The next day was spent hiking. The trip leaders had gone on and on about the hike, how we would be amazed at the incredible views and the amazing rock formations. And for a while, when it was still cool, I did enjoy it and could feel the same awe as the night before. But, as the sun started doing what the sun does in the desert that "God you are awesome," began to turn into, "Awe come on, it's time for a break!" I wanted to quit. I don't like heat, rocks in the shoes hurt and after a while warm water just doesn’t cut it. “Whaaaa! Whaaaa! Whaaaa! Somebody call the Whaaambulance!”

Abraham was in the desert, too. He could look up at night and see that same solid mass of stars - stars that had to have been spewed forth by the big bang of God's laughter and delight. This is a God Abram can trust, one who can laugh in the face of deep darkness and light the night.

And God promises him that he will father a great nation. But Abram is old, real old; Sara is old, and they don't have an heir, no legacy to carry on the family stories, the family name. It can't happen. They are way past their prime, if you know what I mean.

But Abram has seen the stars, had his breath taken away by their beauty, been transfixed by the result of God's laughter. And maybe that’s why, for that moment, Abram can trust. If God can laugh the stars into the heavens, God can laugh my descendants onto the earth.

So Abram trusted. And “the LORD…credited it to him as an act of righteousness.”

But then God goes a bit too far. When you get right down to it, it was enough of a stretch for Abram to believe the descendants thing so He’d better not push his boy Abram too hard. But, right after Abram put his faith in the Lord, and God gave him a hearty, ‘Attaboy!’ God puts that final straw on the back of the camel that was Abram’s ability to trust. And we all know what that straw does. The straw is the promise that Abram will get the land to put all those descendants on.

Old Abram isn't quite so sure on this one. "O Lord God…how am I to know that I shall possess it?” [Translation (sort of) from the not-so-original Hebrew: “Look, God, it's hard enough to believe that promise of future descendants as numerous as the stars. But that star thing is just a metaphor. Right? You don’t mean you’ll REALLY give me all those descendants and all that land. Do you? Cuz if you did, God, you need to come down here and take a look. You know (of course you do, you’re God) the land here isn't so metaphorical. It's pretty solid and my feet are covered with its dust - not too mention a few other things it's not polite to talk about. What you are promising is too solid, too immediate, and too real -- and it will be too obvious if it doesn't happen.” End translation]

So Abram waivers. It's just too much, after all, and this nomad has learned in the desert of hard knocks that when things are too good to be true they are exactly that. There were a few other people who said that land was theirs and it wasn’t for this strange one and only God of Abram to give away. [Translation continues: ‘So, God, it would be good, wonderful in fact, if it was true, but I'm just not sure. Help me out here; give me a little sign that all this stuff’s really going to happen.’]

And isn't this exactly like our life with God. Sometimes we are filled with faith, overflowing with trust. We look out on the beauty of creation and are amazed, in awe. We see a baby, cooing and drooling and smiling and we see God (especially if those babies are my three grandkids). We even may reflect briefly on the absolute trust that baby has for her parents as a metaphor for how we are called to trust God. But then God starts getting a little too close to home, actually starts asking us to really trust, trust up close, not from a distance. Whoa! Actually trust my career to you? Trust that you will still "give me the land" if it turns out I hate the major I’ve chosen in college? Trust when my cherished one dies? Trust when the marriage fails? Trust when the one I love does not love me? Trust then? Aren't you asking a bit much, Lord? How about we go back to that metaphor of the distant descendants and distant land in the distant future? Let's keep things a bit vague, nebulous, no clear edges. How about we compromise; I'll "trust" and say "everything happens for a reason" and you keep talking about astronomy. Please don't ask me to trust too specifically, it's just too scary….But, apparently, God’s actually pretty serious about that kind of trust. Crazy.