The Park Road Pulpit

The pain was evident in her posture. She carried herself as if she owned a great burden. The curse was written on her face, which spoke of her dark secret.

They had tried everything they knew to try. They had consulted with doctors and friends. They had been to the priest. But month after month, year after agonizing year, nothing worked for them. And she could not escape her punishment. Everywhere she turned there was a new baby. All of the “ooh-ing” and “ah-ing” had begun to cut like a knife. When they said God had “blessed them with a child,” she understood why they spoke in such a way; her mind shared their joy; but in her heart she heard that taunting voice, repeating over and over, “and God has cursed me – what Covenant have I broken?”

I do not know this young woman’s name. I met her in a hospital a few years ago. She was not more than thirty, but her pain was as deep as old Sarai’s ninety-nine years of misery. Her story has been told all too often, both in ancient times, and in our modern world of fertility specialists and surgical procedures. And, unfortunately, the Church has often been of little help. By its teaching, either by implication or by explicit pronouncement, the Church cannot seem to close the door on its many variations on the “Prosperity Gospel” – that superstitious and insidious belief that God’s Promise is a promise of blessings, made visibly manifest in your life through some form of health or wealth. Have a baby – you are blessed. Have no baby…

The story of Abram and Sarai tend to influence such thinking. Abram’s new name, Abraham means “father of a multitude,” and the new, “Sarah” may derive from the word “princess,” and may be etymologically related to the name, “Israel.”[1] Thus, their story is the legendary narrative of the beginning of a people, Israel. Read less carefully, however, the story might seem simply another “miracle” story of the Bible – an evidence that there is a God “out there” somewhere, waiting to hand out favors to the truly deserving, or perhaps just to the lucky.

But in this series for Lent, the rich story of Abraham and Sarah serves to remind us of the God of Promise, the God of paradox and surprise, the God who, through great moments of seeming contradiction, brings life where there is no life, breeds faith where there is only despair. God did not love, nor bless, old Sarai more than my nameless friend at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. To claim proof of God’s love through the birth of children, or any other personal desire, is to bow down to a god of “promises, promises” – it is not to walk humbly[2] with the biblical God of Promise.

We have set up this series of sermons as a conversation of contrasts, juxtaposing “failed covenant” on one side, and “the Promise of God” on the other. The season of Lent calls us to the honest task of recognizing such broken covenants. I suggested to you last week that something in the very nature of creation even displays this brokenness. Through the next few weeks, we will look at other examples of covenants that we have broken. Our texts for today, however, call us to ask about the very nature of such covenants.

In the Genesis passage we hear what might sound like a Covenant of conditions: walk before me, and be blameless… and (if you are blameless) I will make my covenant between me and you… The original call from God had come with a breathtaking challenge: “[Abram] -- Go from you country and your kindred and your fathers’ house to the land that I will show you…” There was no guaranteed destination for Abram (just a land that I will show you). There was only a faith-filled Promise – and one huge responsibility. I will bless you… so that you will be a blessing.[3] (We need to recognize that this responsibility is just as universal as Abram’s calling. In other words, when we claim, for example, that God has “blessed” us, financially, we must recognize that the reason God has blessed us… is only that we might use our wealth to bless others.)

Abraham is the Bible’s great exemplar of faith, yet the scripture does not attempt to hide, even his, “warts.” In the twentieth chapter of Genesis we read that, after reaching Palestine, Abraham and Sarah sojourned into Egypt. During days of famine, they searched for food in this foreign territory, and Abraham surmised that his wife might become the desire of some Egyptian Prince. Fearful for his own life, old, faithful Abraham instructed Sarah to say to any such prince that she was just Abraham’s “sister.” She was even to marry the prince if the situation arose – thus saving Abraham’s hide. John Claypool says of this episode,

Abraham was as capable of mistrust and fearfulness as he was of faith and courage, and several times we see him falling and failing, even after the process of promise had begun. . . Any way you look at it, this was a shabby, self-preserving performance, and one which God himself had to step in and untangle.[4]

It is clear to me that I need not spend much time, even during Lent, convincing you that covenants fail, whether with the “Father of Israel,” or with us. We already know too well the places that we have, and are, “falling and failing.” We are people who kidnap our neighbors’ innocent children, subjecting them to our own delusions and wickedness. We murder our spouses and abuse our own children. We prefer the efficiency and dominance of war to the hard work of lasting peace. We trade our work for our health. Cash in our paychecks for our families. We covet things and ignore crises today in order to save for tomorrow. We are unfaithful in our marriages. We lie to our bosses. We cheat on tests. We betray our best friends.

It is neither my desire nor my calling to declare piously that you are broken. We already know this! (And, I am just honest enough to see this sin every day – in my own bathroom mirror.) But unless Abraham’s God needed a grammar lesson, God’s words, I will establish my covenant between me and you, means something. (How many times did my father correct my speech – if I had laid such a grammatical egg, he would have quickly chastised, “Russ, let me correct that for you. It’s ‘between you and me…’”) I have not done a careful exegetical study of the grammar of this phrase, but let me offer my interpretation.

The God, in whose image we are cast, knows every breach of every covenant we engage, and yet offers relationship, anyway. The God of the Promise risks much more than grammatical alienation to call us – “Why don’t me and you go for a walk? I’ll lead the way.” Not only is the final word “not ours, but the Lord’s,”[5] but the first word is, too. God offers Covenant. God grants Grace. God extends Mercy. God pronounces Forgiveness. I will establish my covenant, between me and you…

In his very circum-loquacious way, Paul, the former Pharisee and scholar of the Jewish Torah, is making the same, simple point. His confusing argument here really has to do with the sign of circumcision. Do Christian converts have to follow the laws of Judaism, first, in order to become faithful, followers of Jesus? (This was a burning issue in his day.) Paul meticulously lines out his answer, which is, Absolutely Not! For Abraham, even faithful, righteous Abraham did not inherit God’s Promise because he had kept the law. His faith was “reckoned to him as righteous” long before he received the sign of the covenant, circumcision. Faith, not the Law, guaranteed the Promise.

This might seem an absurd, archaic argument. You might wonder why a liberal Baptist preacher in the 21^st century would waste even a brief amount of his breath and time recounting such an argument. But then again, you might think of my friend in Birmingham. That barren young woman who felt herself judged by the fallen order of creation; who felt herself judged by a failing vision of self-doubt; who felt herself judged by the broken legalism of a religious world who still will not believe that our inheritance depends on faith (alone) in order that God’s Promise may rest on Grace.

And on this, the conversation turns: The Promise is Faith. (The evidence of things hoped for, but not seen.[6]) God knows we will not be blameless. Covenants will be broken. And religion – any one’s religion – can serve only to judge us in that brokenness. The God of Promise, on the other hand, requires only walking; persistence; hope; trust. Faith.

“I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and Earth…” Thus begins the oft-repeated Apostle’s Creed. But it is a creed which makes too little of this God. The affirmation of God is given only a fraction of the space which is allotted for claims about the Son. For too many believers, God is only the logical and necessary point of departure. The prelude to what is really important in faith, namely: Jesus Christ. Or the Spirit. Or the Miracles. Or the Resurrection of the Body. Or the Life Everlasting.[7]

It should not be so. Paul says that the aim of our faith, the beginning and its end, is God. God, whom we know in Jesus Christ. God who raised this Jesus from the dead. God who brings life where there is no life. God who speaks a word of contradiction, even in the midst of broken covenants.

Whatever else the name means to you, I believe “God” must convey some sense of the more. That is, that even in a highly scientific world, there is more than can be seen with eyes of flesh. “God” means “Promise.” Promise, not guarantee. Promise, not miracle. Promise, not pie in the sky. Promise, not wishes granted. Promise. Presence. Faith.

We live in a world of broken covenants. We all contribute to its brokenness. And yet, we still sing our “alleluias” for there is the Promise.[8]

[1] The New Interpreter’s Bible, “Genesis,” p.459.

[2] Micah 6.8.

[3] Genesis 12.1.

[4] John Claypool, Glad Reunion, pp.15-16.

[5] As Amy and I complete a few announcements at the end of each service, we conclude that time, and transition into our benediction by saying, “The final word is not ours, but the Lord’s, so hear now this good word of benediction…”

[6] Hebrews 11.1. See also Romans 8.24-25.

[7] I am not arguing here against the veracity or the importance of any of these items of faith, only that they should not supercede the prime object of faith, namely, faith in God.

[8] We have been singing a doxology to the tune of “All Creatures of Our God and King,” which retains the “alleluia’s” of that hymn. Our new director of music pointed out to me after we continued this doxology into Lent that “liturgical churches don’t sing alleluias during Lent.” After some discussion concerning music, congregational life, and theology, we chose to leave the alleluias, but to print in the order of service the following explanation: “Reflecting on sin and repentance during the Lenten season, many liturgical churches refrain from singing ‘alleluias.’ However, in keeping with our theme, finding the paradoxical promise of God even within our broken covenants, we have retained the ‘alleluias’ in our doxology.”