Gordon McPhee

                                                  Luke 13: 31-35

Promises, promises!

SCRIPTURE:  Genesis 15:1-12; 17-21 [MSG]

When the sun was down and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch moved between the split carcasses. That’s when God made a covenant with Abram: “I’m giving this land to your children, from the Nile River in Egypt to the River Euphrates in Assyria—the country of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.

INTRODUCTION:

In 1960, Billy Wilder directed and produced a film called “The Apartment,” regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made, one of 25 added to the Library of Congress in 1994. In 1968, it was made into a very successful Broadway musical called “Promises, promises” because the plot is all about broken promises. Hopes and dreams established but never fulfilled, lives dashed by shattered promises. The vast popularity of this subject matter speaks to me of our own feelings about promises. As we enter into a time of choosing new leadership for our country, as our neighbours to the south have done just months before, the state of our faith in the promises being thrust at us seems pivotal to our decisions. It may be asked, do we, in fact, believe anything we are told?

This is important for us as Christians because how we live our lives is wholly bound up in the extent we believe the promises of God in scripture. One of my favourite quotes is by George Bernard Shaw, a consummate cynic after my own heart, saying, “The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who don't have it.” If we have become cynical and unbelieving and are only ready to adopt what we can readily touch, see, and feel with our own understanding, where do we find faith to believe what God has promised? Are they just “Promises, promises!” or can we live our lives based on their truth? Today, we will listen to Abram the Patriarch and Paul the Apostle about “Promises, promises!”.

SERMON:

Well, let’s begin by unpacking this somewhat bizarre reading from Genesis filled with animals being hacked apart, a strange ritual, God speaking and night terrors. It begins, “After all these things,” which immediately prompts us, or at least it should, to ask, “What things?” Abram has just finished saving his nephew Lot, who, along with the population of cities like Sodom, Gomorrah, and Salem, was taken by the victorious kings of the battle. Abram, who has already demonstrated his faith in God by journeying from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan, again shows his right attitude by refusing compensation from the King of Sodom for what he attributes as God’s victory and giving a tithe to Melchizedek, the king of Salem and priest of El Elyon, The Almighty. So God speaks to Abram and reassures him, “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I’m your shield. Your reward will be grand!”

But Abram, rather boldly and ungratefully, points out to God that he’s missed the key issue. That what is most important to Abram, his progeny, his genesis, is missing from the picture. Now, if I said to God, or anyone who had just lavished me with wonderful things, “What use are your gifts?” I’d be waiting for the gifts to be revoked and the accompanying, well-earned tirade to ensue. It seems, however, thankfully for Abram and for us, that God is more gracious and understands our hearts.

“Don’t worry … You’re going to have a big family, Abram!” A simple assurance and the way God presents it, Abram can look up at the sky on any clear night and say to himself, “My children.” Paul’s words in Romans 4:3, “What does Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness’” is quoting this passage of scripture. Abram believed God’s promise because he had the sign of the stars in the sky. But there’s more.

God continues and reiterates his promise to give Abram’s descendants all the land of Canaan, as described about 300,000 square miles of territory. A vast territory of which he owns none and holds little hope of acquiring any. He’s a Hebrew, a wanderer living in a tent, moving with the weather and need for fodder for his animals. Establishing ownership of a territory requires putting down roots, a city, and a place to be. Compared to that, bearing offspring seems easy. So, Abram asks for assurance, something tangible he can hold on to, something his mind and heart can look to in the future when doubts creep in so that he won’t lose hope. After all, this is a big thing, and God understands. He instructs Abram to prepare one of each of the ‘clean’ animals, those that would later be specified to Moses for the sacrifices before God in the Tabernacle.

This is where things get a little weird for us. Abram kills the animals and cuts all but the birds in half, laying the halves opposite one another. This isn’t a Hebrew biblical ritual. There’s evidence of this in other cultures. It’s not a sacrifice but a symbolic signification of a covenant between two parties. A legal contract. It's like spitting on your hand and shaking on a deal, which, as gross as that is, I still prefer it to the ancient choice method. An animal would be cut in half, and the parties of the contract would walk between the halves, signifying that if they broke the promise, their end would be that of the animals. It was the most serious of contracts, a covenant of death. A deep sleep and a dark and heavy sense of dread overcome Abram. And we enter a part of the story full of metaphor and allegory.

The sun had set, and it was dark. As we know from many descriptions of God intervening in the world: Mount Sinai, the Tabernacle, the cloud that led Moses, the consecration of Solomon’s Temple, and, of course, at Jesus' death, God, the light, is revealed in thick darkness. The same word for a “smoking fire pot” is translated as “smouldering oven,” referring to God’s presence on Mount Sinai. A flaming torch is universally a source of light in the darkness. These are the two elements Abram experiences passing between the split carcasses. So, these are the two parties of the covenant, God and the light, not Abram. This is a unilateral covenant, an unconditional promise between God and whom?

The commentators, with reasonable cause, remind us that Jesus is the light of the world and a descendant of Abram, of the seed to whom the promise is made. But Jesus is also Divine God, of one substance with the Father. So, this is still a unilateral covenant with Abram and Israel. It is also God the Father and God the Son, Jesus, covenanting together to fulfill, even unto death, this promise of a land and a people. And as Paul reminds us in his letter to the church at Philippi, it is a promise that extends to us as God’s people waiting for his promised coming kingdom.

Paul’s warning to the Philippians is equally a question for us to answer. Are we living our lives like we really do believe this promise God made with Abram and with us, sealing it with His own life? What guides your decisions for the path you are taking? Are you choosing goals other than those Paul has been writing to the Philippians about? Is the Cross of Christ and all that includes the dearest, strongest motivation for all your decisions? Paul describes those we should not run alongside: “All they want is easy street. They … make their bellies their gods; belches are their praise; all they can think of is their appetites.” I think it is reasonably easy for us to dismiss such a scathing description as not applying to us, and you’ll be pleased to know I would not disagree, if you even care what my opinion is. But I would suggest that it is also a matter of degrees.

Paul prefaces this text, declaring, “Stick with me, friends. Keep track of those you see running this same course, headed for this same goal.” He’s talking about where you’re heading, what direction you are looking, not where you are now. That somewhat colourfully derogatory description is where those who are “taking other paths, choosing other goals” are heading, not necessarily where they are now. Paul says they are “trying to get you to go along with them,” implying they are currently close at hand. It’s those little decisions, those small steps taking the slightly easier path, that erode our focus on the goal. When he uses the euphemism “Christ’s Cross” he’s talking about the willingness to sacrifice as needed. Not sacrifice for its own sake, as our Saviour demonstrated in his last appeal to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, but that all things needed would be accomplished.

Like the promise to Abram, we are not left with an empty tomb. “We’re citizens of high heaven! We’re waiting for the arrival of the Savior, the Master, Jesus Christ.” That’s pretty heady stuff, like being told that while you’re living alone and childless in an apartment in a foreign country, you’re going to own 300,000 square miles of that country and have more descendants than you could possibly count or imagine. But the seal of the promise is the same. The Furnace and the Torch have passed between the carcasses, and the covenant is unbreakable. The question is, “Do you believe that? Do you live your life and make your choices with the assurance that this is true?”

And even more incredible, He “will transform [your] earthly bodies into glorious bodies like his own. He’ll make us beautiful and whole with the same powerful skill by which he is putting everything as it should be, under and around him.” Can you believe that, as Abram believed the promise? Well, maybe you can because just as he had the sign of the fire pot and the torch, we have the sign of Jesus in the Gospels, Christ on the Cross, and the Holy Spirit at work today in the church.

Understand me when I say I know it’s not easy. These are not simple things. They are, frankly, incredible and, by their very nature, must be accepted in faith, as Abram had to. Like him, we have signs to remind us that God has promised to do this, to come again and transform us. But still, we need the strength of faith to overcome our weaknesses. Paul knew this and so encourages us to “[s]tick with [him], … [keeping] track of those you see running this same course, headed for this same goal.”

Let me close by speaking of this as Paul did, “My dear, dear friends! I love you so much. I do want the very best for you. You make me feel such joy, fill me with such pride. Don’t waver. Stay on track, steady in God.”

Amen