Sermon: Questioning God

Genesis 15:1-18

Questioning God

James Sledge                                                                                       February 21, 2016

If you’re like me, it’s sometimes hard to relate to the faith heroes of the Bible. Take Abram, later Abraham, one of the original faith heroes. According to Genesis, God just shows up one day and says, “Go from your homeland and family and friends to a place I will show you. I’ll make you great and bless you and you’ll be the start of a great people. And you’ll be a blessing to all the people of the earth.” And Abram, along with wife Sarai, pick up and leave, headed for parts unknown, no questions asked, all because of God’s promise.

Imagine that you were Abe’s parents when he came in to explain his plans. “Mom, Dad, God wants us to leave here and go somewhere else. Not really sure where yet. We’re heading out tomorrow.” What would you say if your child said something like that to you? What would you do if you thought God was telling you to sell the house, pack up everything, and head out to some unknown destination? Like I said, it can be hard to relate to biblical heroes.

But a lot has happened since God first said “Go” to Abram. He’s done a lot of going because of God’s promise. He’s gained wealth and had some exciting adventures, but there’s one colossal problem. It’s hard to be the parents of a great line of people when he and Sarai have no children. And they’re both getting on in years.

So when God shows up again, making more promises, Abram’s a little less ready to trust. “Don’t talks to me about rewards,” Abram says. “Sarai and I are getting old and have no kids, no one to pass it on to.”

This Abram I can relate to. When I think back on my own call and what followed: seminary, strains on our marriage, pain for Shawn that too often accompanies being the pastor’s wife. “God, this isn’t what I thought was going to happen when I said, ‘Yes.’”

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When Abram starts whining about how following God’s promise hasn’t turned out as planned, the story says, But the word of the Lord came to him. Maybe this was some sort of vision, I’m not sure, but somehow God takes him out to look at the stars and promises that his descendants will be as vast as all those twinkling lights in the sky.

And Abram trusted God one more time. I suppose that if it were a good enough vision, that would do it for me, too.

Then God starts with a new promise. This one is about land, but Abram’s not so quick to jump at God’s promises as he once was. He wants proof. “How am I to know this will really happen?”

It is a crucial and basic faith question. Are God’s promises trustworthy? Does it make any sense to do as God says, or should we go our own way, doing whatever seems best to us?

A lot of people seem to have the idea that faith and doubt, even faith and questions, are somehow incompatible. Some people think of doubt as the opposite of faith. But that is not so. In fact, only because of his doubts and questions does Abram come to know God on a deeper level in today’s passage from Genesis.

Abram learns is that God’s promises don’t always conform to our timetables. Abram’s descendants will possess the land, but not for a long time. They will be aliens in a foreign land and they will be slaves. But in due time, they will have a land, a home.

Abram also learns something about the nature of this strange God who calls him and makes promises, something that's easy for modern folks to miss because it’s embedded in the strange, archaic covenant ceremony reported in our reading.

It says, On that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram… The Hebrew literally says, Yahweh cut a covenant, an image that I assume comes from the cut up animals, although we still speak of “cutting a deal.” The part about the animals is strange and foreign to us, but for someone in Abram's day, this particular covenant ceremony would have seemed strange for a very different reason.

When covenants were cut in Old Testament times, these were binding treaties between unequal parties. A king would cut covenants with petty chieftains, promising to help them so long as they performed certain services: providing soldiers, paying tribute, and so on. And when these treaties were made, a ceremony took place where the chieftains would pass between the pieces of sacrificed animals while saying something like, “May I become like these animals if I do not honor the covenant I make today,” an ancient and more serious version of "Cross my heart and hope to die."

It’s always the petty chieftain, the vassal, the weaker party who passes between the cut up pieces, but when God cuts a covenant with Abram, it is not Abram who walks between them. Instead, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch pass through.

You don’t need to be a biblical scholar to realize that the fire and smoke are symbols of divine presence. It is God who passes through the pieces, who says, "Cross my heart and hope to die." God's covenant with Abram is no "I'll be good to you if you do things for me" sort of agreement. God goes all in with Abram. God is committed, period, without reservation or condition.

And Abram discovers this only because he questions, because he doubts, because he wrestles with the issue of whether or not God and God's promises can be trusted.

It is easy to go through life without really engaging such questions. It is easy to keep God far enough to the edges of our lives that such question matter little. But sometimes the questions rear their heads anyway. "Is this really what I'm supposed to do with my life?" "I have the things the culture says I should want, so why do I still feel empty?" "I see so much pain and hurt in the world. Isn't there something we could do?" "What are my money and possessions really for?"

In Christ, God answers, speaks and calls and make promises on these questions and more. Speaks of love, for neighbor and for enemy. Speaks of costly self-giving. Speaks of life oriented differently. But are such answers reliable? Are they to be trusted?

The life of faith, the path of spiritual formation, the discovery or our truest and deepest selves, is about wrestling with such questions, and meeting God in the process.