Sermon Series - Covenant - Abraham

“Blessing, Promise, and Covenant”

            Last week, we focused on the Covenant that God makes not just with Noah, but with all of creation.  After the flood, God covenants with all of creation never to destroy the earth again with a flood.  As we will see throughout the summer, God marks God’s covenants with a sign and with Noah, the sign is that of the rainbow.  As Noah, his family, and the animals depart the ark, they are God’s new creation.  The old is destroyed, the chaos is contained, and a new beginning occurs. 

            According to the Biblical genealogy, four generations separate Noah from today’s story of Abraham – making Noah, Abraham’s Great grandfather.  Now, Biblical time, at least in the book of Genesis, does not correlate with how we understand time.  Many of these people lived for hundreds of years, so four generations expands a whole lot more time than what we would define four generations to be in our day and age. 

            As God calls Abraham or Abram, the mood is definitely different from that of the day of Noah.  There is no sense of God being upset or disappointed at humanity.  Rather, God sees potential and is ready to lead Abram and Sarai into this new future.  As God asks Abram to leave his country and follow God to a new land, God proclaims two things:  that Abram will become a great nation and that God will bless him.  And then, just as God covenants with all of creation through the sign of the rainbow, God proclaims to Abram that all people on the earth will be blessed through him. 

            The word covenant has not yet been used in this story, but it opens with a promise, a promise of being a great nation, a promise of being blessed, and a promise of that blessing - blessing all of humanity.  What a task Abram undertakes, leaving behind everything he knows and understands.  The old is gone, and the new is ahead.  In order for God to shape Abram and Sarai into the people, into the nation, into the blessing that he wants them to become, he must separate them from all that they know, their culture, their routines, their habits, their rituals.  All of that must be left behind in order to be shaped into something new.  Just as Noah was God’s new creation, so too are Abram and Sarai.  God is staying faithful to the covenant with Noah by not destroying the earth, rather, God has found potential in Abram and Sarai and is moving alongside of them with a new approach. 

            The story of Abram and Sarai spans several chapters, as they enter the promised land only to leave it due to famine.  Over time, Abram begins to despair, he has trusted God and been faithful but he cannot comprehend how he will be a great nation if he still has no offspring.  Sarai is barren.  This is a story that illustrates God’s time versus our time and how, we as people, are impatient and when things don’t seem to be working out we take matters into our own hands.  So, Sarai gives Abram her maidservant Hagar to be the surrogate mother for Sarai.  This, of course, ends in disaster as the human emotions of jealousy play out.  But God does not seem to get angry with Abram and Sarai, for all of their mistakes, for all of their poor choices, God continues to work with them and reminds them that Abram will indeed have offspring and a great land. 

The word covenant first appears in the Abraham story in Chapter 15 while Abram is in a deep sleep.  God speaks to him in a dream, telling him about his descendants and how they will be enslaved for four hundred years before they return to this land that God is promising Abram.  In the covenant God makes with Abram he gives clear geographical lines to define the land Abram’s descendants shall have: from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.      

God again gives the covenant to Abram at which time he also gives Abram a new name.  No longer will you be called Abram, your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.  In this reiteration of the covenant God proclaims that it will be an everlasting covenant between God and Abraham’s descendants.  In this covenant there is the promise of: land – the whole land of Canaan, the promise of being a great nation, and the promise of being a blessing.  And just as with Noah, once God gave the covenant, God marks it with a sign such as the rainbow, God marks this covenant with Abraham with circumcision.  Circumcision is to be the mark of the covenant.  My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. 

In the Biblical sense, a covenant is much more than a promise, it is much more than a contract between two parties, it marks a way of life in living with God.  God creates the covenant as a gift of hope, a source of identity, and a sign of belonging.  But covenants are not just to be given, they are to be lived.  So as God gives, the people receive and respond.  In the case of Abraham, the response and the action is being marked with circumcision. 

What makes the Abrahamic covenant different from the Noahite covenant is – the covenant given to Noah is immediate, it is God’s gift to all of creation from that point on.  Whereas with Abraham, the covenant is for the future.  Abraham will never dwell in the Promised Land, he will never see his descendants become a great nation, for Abraham it is a postponed blessing, promises to the future.  And with faith, Abraham accepts this.  He is willing to give of himself so that his children and grandchildren and great grandchildren will have a future with God.  As it was put in one of my resources:  he was willing to embrace the future with his present passion and was willing to take risks and make sacrifices for the benefit of those generations ahead of him. 

On this Fourth of July weekend, I can’t help but think about our nation’s early forefathers and the gift of the Constitution that they gave to future generations.  They lived out a passion for a new way of being society and blessed the future generations through their own courage, risks, and sacrifices. 

The story of Abraham does not end with Moses bringing the people out of Egypt into the Promised Land and the fruition of becoming a great nation in the time of King David and King Solomon.  Abraham is mentioned at least 72 times in the New Testament scriptures.  He is the father of the faith.  For Paul, in his letter to Rome, he focuses on the faithfulness of Abraham, that it is not through any of his works or through the law that earns him God’s love.  Paul’s intention in this letter is to illustrate that we too have received God’s promises through Abraham, not through the law, but through sharing the faith of Abraham.  

Sermon Series - Covenant - Moses and the Law

            God remembers.  At least four hundred years later and God remembers the covenant he made with Abraham and Isaac and Joseph.  God remembers that the cries of oppression that he hears are of a people that God is calling into a greater purpose.   People separated by centuries of time, are a people still connected through God’s sacred plan.  Abraham’s offspring have become a multitude and now is the time for them to leave Egypt   

            The story of Moses is well known in our modern culture.  There are numerous movies about the plight of the Hebrew people under the forced labor of Egypt, the plagues, and Moses leading the people out of the country with the parting of the Red Sea.  Moses leads tens of thousands of people out of Egypt and into the wilderness.  Three months into their journey they arrive to a place called Sinai and it is here that Moses receives a new Covenant, the Covenant of the law. 

            As God gives this third Covenant, Moses becomes the mediator between God and the people.  In the cases of Noah and Abraham, God gave the covenants directly to them, but now, there is a transition, instead of God speaking to all the people of Israel in the Wilderness, just Moses is called to receive the covenant. 

            Another major difference in the receiving of this Covenant is that it is no longer an eternal covenant but rather a conditional covenant.  God proclaims:  If you obey and keep these laws, then you will be a community consecrated to the service of God.  If / then.  God now has established some requirements for the community.  You are to be my people, a consecrated community, but in order to do that, you must live your life reflecting these laws.  And so the law is given.  We are rather familiar with the 10 commandments, but we are less familiar with the long list of other laws that follow. 

            Why a covenant of law?  Just as the other two covenants marked God bringing forth a new creation, so too is this.   The movement of people out of slavery into freedom is a new creation and in order for these people to transition, transform themselves, become a part of God’s new creation, they need to understand how to live together as community and as God’s people. 

            Thousands of years later, there are still people within our greater community that are living out this covenant of the law.  By keeping Kosher, and other forms of rigorous religious living, a people are maintaining this covenant as a consecrated people to God.  When I see people walking to temple on Saturday morning it seems completely outdated and yet, the dedication and commitment amazes me.  In such changing times, to hold so firmly to one’s tradition, one’s religious practices, one’s purpose within God’s community is a powerful witness.  

            Covenant Law, the people needed guidelines in how to live together as a new community, as a people leaving behind the security of the everyday routine into the future of the unknown.  And so as God gives Moses the tablets of the law, the covenant is marked with a sign.  Noah had the rainbow, Abraham has circumcision, Moses receives the tablets and seals this covenant with a sacrifice of animals, and scatters the blood binding the agreement between God and people. 

            And then Moses has the people make an Ark.  This will be a sacred box in which the tablets will be place and it will be carried with the people throughout their journey towards the Promised Land.  They are not just given this covenant verbally, it is now a sacred symbol journeying with them, a constant reminder that God is with them, God is leading them, God is calling them to live within the structure of these laws. 

            As the people learned to live as a people of God rather than has slaves under Pharaoh there were a lot of growing pains, but eventually the do make it to the Promised Land, or at least their children do.  And the law continued to guide them as their spiritual leadership changed over time.  They remained a people called by God to be a kingdom of Priests, a Holy Nation, a people with a divine purpose. 

            Jump forward thousands of years into the day and age of Jesus, Jesus is able to take a step back from his religion, from the laws in which he too has lived his life.  He sees how strict they have become, how they are no longer giving people the freedom to live as God’s people, but rather have become a burden to the people.  The law was to be a boundary, a way of illustrating right and wrong, but rather, they became too constrictive keeping people from God rather than binding them to their Creator. 

            Jesus uses Sabbath keeping as an example.  No work on the Sabbath become so burdensome, no work included not helping a person that needed help.  As Jesus heals on the Sabbath, he makes his point that it is better to give life on the Sabbath than to neglect the needs of another.  And so we have this passage of Woes against the scribes and Pharisees that sit on Moses’ seat.  They are the keepers of the law.  They are the keepers of the Covenant given to Moses and the people so many generations ago.  They are the keepers of this Holy Nation and they have placed such a burden on the people that they are keeping people out of God’s purpose. 

            Jesus goes as far as to say – Woe to you scribes and Pharisees for you lock people out of the Kingdom of heaven.  These are strong words.  The very people that are suppose to be bringing people to God Jesus accuses of keeping people out.  Jesus had a heart to see those that were left out, the poor, the disabled, the outcastes, and yes, even the sinners.  God did not call a select group within the Israelite people to be God’s people, God created the entire nation to be a Holy Nation.  Every person should feel valued by God, not thrown away, not on the fringes, not unclean.  But that is how so many people felt, they had no hope of being made whole spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially. 

            Jesus proclaims, I did not come to nullify the law, but rather fulfill the law.  Under the teachings of Jesus, there is still the law, there is still: Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself.  All of the law can be hung on these two commandments.  Thou Shall Not does not sound anything like love, but if you think about it – if you love God, then thou shall not take God’s name in vain.  If you have love for neighbor, thou shall not kill.  Reversing the way these laws are heard seems to be more inclusive for us in today’s world. 

            The covenant of the law, given to Moses so long ago, is still a strong hold for us today.  Most everyone knows of the 10 Commandments, although we might not be able to list them all.  We know the main ones:  Thou shalt not kill, or steal, or covet.  These seem to make sense for community living whether we are a people living in the wilderness or a people living in our modern world.  And yet, and yet we still can’t seem to get it right.  Our world is hurting, people are grieving, lives are not valued, and there is great tension in many communities.  There is so much anger and that anger needs to be used for positive transforming results instead of more violence.  Years ago, I gave sermon called:  be angry but do not sin.  Anger is okay, in fact, we should be angry.  But what we do with that anger is essential. 

            God gave Moses the covenant of the law and the scriptures make this a very personal connection.  God wrote the covenant with God’s very own finger.  By the finger of God the law was given.  I believe that for us today, we must reconnect with the personnel connection God has with us.  Where is the finger of God touching the world?  God remembered God’s people in the days of Egypt, and God remembered God’s people in the days of Jesus, and God remembers God’s people in the age of technological greatness, and God is present in our pain at senseless violence.  We may not live our lives by the code of the rigorous laws of our scripture, but let us at least live into love of God and love of neighbor.