When the Vultures Are Hungry

Abram (Abraham) Part Deux

Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18 (Again)

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).

So, in our last episode boys and girls we left poor Abram (he isn't called Abraham until later) wavering, not so sure he could trust the outlandish promises of this God he tried to believe in. This God was asking him to actually believe that he, Abram, old, old, childless Abram would be the father of descendants as numerous as the stars in the heavens AND that he, Abram, would get this land that belonged to lots of other people for he and all those descendants. Tough stuff to believe, don’t you think? And, reasonably enough, Abram wants some way to trust the promise. Just some sign, even just a little sign, that all these pretty crazy promises had some chance of being for real

God's response strikes me as a bit strange, even weird. Poor Abram just wants some reassurance and God tells him to get a bunch of animals, cut them in half, and lay them out so there is a path between them. Actually, all God said was to go get the animals; the rest was Abram's doing. You see, Abram understood what God's answer meant. In the custom of the times, when two parties wanted to make a solemn agreement, a covenant, they did it in a pretty graphic way. The agreement would be struck and they would go get some animals, cut them in two and lay them out. Then the two would walk between the carcasses. By this they were saying, "May what happened to these animals happen to me if I break the covenant." Obviously a covenant is way beyond a contract. A contract basically says, "If you do 'A' then I'll do 'B'. If you don't do 'A', then I don't have to do 'B'." No carcasses, no blood, no drama, no life on the line. A covenant is a bit, well, a lot more solemn, more is at stake, there's no wiggle room.

And then nothing happens. God doesn't do anything. The animals just lie there all through the day and nothing happens -- except things are starting to smell pretty ripe and the vultures see a whole lot of gourmet food and decide to indulge . But Abram fights them off. It says that Abram "stayed with them." That's pretty remarkable. Here God has told Abram to get ready for a covenant and then doesn't show up. Yet, Abram stayed with them, fought off the vultures and, I think, fought for his faith at the same time. Poor Abram. God builds up our hopes and then it seems like he decides to do the wash, change the oil in the car, mow the lawn and watch the NFC and AFC Championship games - all the while Abram is waiting, wondering, trying to trust.

What does Abram do? Well, he does what many of us, what I, fail to do when we are struggling to believe, to trust. He acts as if he did trust. He did the stuff he would do when faith was fun, exciting, and easy. He stayed with it. Why did he fight off the vultures? Because that's what he would have done if he had just come off a retreat and was filled with faith, filled with the Spirit. It’s what he would have done if he had just seen a prayer answered. He stayed with it, wouldn't let it go.

There's a lesson for us in this strange little passage, a question, and a challenge. What do we do when we don't feel it anymore? What do we do when God seems to be taking care of the lawn and not taking care of our lives? Well, too often we don't stay with it. We quit praying, quit worshiping, and quit trying. We give up. But Abram went about it differently and challenges us to "stay with it." When we are struggling, when we don't feel God anymore, when the vultures are circling, we need to fight them off. What things would we do when faith was easy? Then do those things when faith is hard. What would we do when it seems like God is constantly there, constantly working, constantly reassuring us? Then do those things when it seems God is constantly absent, constantly asleep, not there to reassure us.

It's called discipline. It's about character. It is trust.