What’s Going on with Abraham and Sarah?

The Back Story

In our Scripture reading, we read the account of Sarah’s death and how Abraham took care of her burial. Let’s look at the back story leading up to the end of their lives.

 

The story begins in Genesis 12. God calls Abram and Sarai, and they leave their home in Haran for Egypt. They go with God’s promise in their ears, that God would make them into a great nation through whom all people on earth will be blessed. In chapter 13, Abram leaves Egypt with Sarai and settles in Canaan, near his nephew Lot who had accompanied them.

 

Chapter 14 contains further adventures in Canaan, leading to Abram’s encounter with Melchizedek, who gives him a special blessing. In chapter 15, God repeats and deepens God’s covenant with Abram. In chapter 16, Sarai is frustrated with not having any children. She gives her servant, Hagar, to Abraham so that she might have a child as a substitute for Sarai. When Hagar conceives, Sarai is jealous and drives her away, but God sends Hagar back to Abram and Sarai with God’s blessing on her child. Her son is then born, Ishmael, Abraham’s oldest son.

 

Chapter 17: God renews the covenant and promises Abraham and Sarah their own son (Abraham is now 99 years old), the son of the covenant. God also institutes circumcision as a sign of the covenant. Chapter 18 tells of a further promise of a son, even though Sarah is now past menopause. The son’s name will be Isaac, echoing Sarah’s laughter at the thought that she would have a child in her old age.

 

Chapters 19 and 20 break the narrative with some other miscellaneous stories from Abraham’s life, which brings us to the story that concerns us this morning. Chapter 21, then, is the fulfillment of the long-awaited promise: Isaac is born, the son of Abraham and Sarah. You would think that this great event would lead to a joyful climax, but the worst is yet to come!

 

Chapter 22. One that I have not preached on before. A deeply painful chapter. It begins:

After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”

 

I wonder what Sarah would have thought. She might have thought: “It was bad enough when we were young that you took me away from friends and relatives to travel through Egypt to Canaan. Egypt! Telling Pharoah I was your sister! It was bad enough that you made Hagar like another wife, and she had a son before I did. It was bad enough that I spent my whole life waiting for God to keep the promise that he made to you. And now that finally things are working out, you want to take our son and sacrifice him on an altar in the mountains? Burn him up? Never!”

 

The text doesn’t tell us if Abraham told Sarah what was happening. It just says that he got up early in the morning and left with Isaac and two servants. I’ll bet you Sarah was a night person and never saw them go. All she knows is that Abraham and Isaac have gone off on a father-son bonding adventure. And what an adventure!

 

Isaac has his suspicions. “Dad, where’s the lamb for the sacrifice?” “God will provide.” They go up the mountain, and Abraham changes his answer, “You are the sacrifice.” Isaac was a healthy young lad, but it seems he didn’t run away. He allowed his aged father to tie him up and lay him on the altar. Finally, God speaks. “By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.” And God did indeed provide the substitute sacrifice so that Isaac lived, and Jacob his son became Israel, and their descendants became the children of Israel, and the Messiah was born into their people, and the whole world is saved – because Abraham went on this crazy father-son bonding adventure.

 

It’s a wonderful climax, but also a deeply unsatisfying ending. The next verses suggest as much. Abraham goes back, but he doesn’t go home to Sarah. Perhaps he thought that trying to explain to her what he was willing to do was too dangerous. In any case, he settled in Beer Sheba, some 40 miles or so from their home in Kiriath Arba. Chapter 22 tells us that Sarah stayed there and died some years later. They may have still lived together, but the way the text reads led the rabbis to speculate. Maybe they got divorced, or maybe just separated. Maybe Abraham took Keturah has his wife instead of Sarah (chapter 25). We don’t know. What we do know is that the story of Abraham and Sarah is full of twists and turns, dangers and difficulties, possibilities and problems. And in it, God keeps God’s promise.

 

What Do We Do with This Story? 

What does the story of Abraham and Sarah say to us today? A first basic point is to realise that the stories of the patriarchs are not morality plays. They do not simply tell us how we should act. So, we don’t read how Abram passed off Sarai his wife as his sister and think that this was a good idea. Don’t do it! We don’t hear how Abraham took Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him and think, “that’s a good idea!” Don’t do it!

 

Instead, we listen to the story for what God is doing and ask what that action says to us. Here’s one thought. When God first called Abram and Sarai, they had no idea who God was. They knew about the gods of Babylon and the other countries around them, but they had no idea about the Creator, the one who made them, God who wants all people to find life in close relationship with him. “The God who saves” was a mystery to them.

 

As we read about Abraham and then the Children of Israel, they were a tribal people who mistrusted everyone around them – a lot like the tribes of Afghanistan today. They knew you can only trust close family. Somehow, God had to break through their insular worldview and reshape them so that God’s Messiah could come into the world. The first step was to gain their full and total allegiance. That is what happens by the end of the story.

 

Here’s a second thought. Abraham and Sarah lived through crises and dangers greater than anything I have ever faced. As we read the story, we see that God was present at every step – even in the most horrible moment of all as Abraham thought he must sacrifice his son. I take comfort from these two thoughts. If God can work patiently among the tribal family of Abraham, God can work in Canada today. If God is present even when Abraham is faced with the worst test of all, God is with us whatever we face in our lives.

 

John 12 

The climax of the story comes when God says, “You have obeyed my voice.” This little statement provides us with a connection to the story in John’s Gospel. The passage we read comes just after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, a foretaste of his own more effective and complete resurrection. After raising Lazarus, Jesus entered Jerusalem for the Passover Feast: We call this “the triumphal entry”.

 

With all the excitement from raising Lazarus and from the entry into Jerusalem, many people crowded around, trying to get close to Jesus. Among them were some Greeks. It is not clear if they were Jews, or just interested people wanting to see what Judaism was all about. They found Philip, one of Jesus’ disciples, and asked if he could take them to Jesus. Philip went to Jesus to see, and Jesus replied in a curious way. He didn’t say yes or no. Instead, he said, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.”

 

Essentially, Jesus said what he always said when someone asked him how to be saved: “Follow me. Take up your cross and follow me.” That is what Abraham had done, although he came so many years before. He followed God all his life. He wanted to see God, and that meant following God wherever God led. The Greeks said, “We want to see Jesus.” That meant following Jesus, even to the cross.

 

The Point 

I think that’s the point of the whole thing. Those who want to see Jesus must follow him; and those who follow Jesus will see him.

 

I do some visiting on a regular basis, especially when people face some sort of health crisis. I wonder sometimes what each one wants. We want healing of course, but more and more I am convinced that what most of us want most is to know that God is there. We want God to make sense of things for us. We want God to make life come out right, to make everything fair and good. We want God to answer our questions. But most of all that means simply we want to know that God is there.

 

I am also convinced that having our questions answered and our needs met means meeting God. The experience that Abraham had on the mountain was that he met God. He followed God all his life, and he met God. His life wasn’t magically sorted out. The problems with Sarah remained. The weirdness of taking his son up the mountain was still weird. But he met God. Just as the Greeks at the Passover wanted to see Jesus, he saw God.

 

C.S. Lewis wrote a book at the end of his life, his last book, called Till We Have Faces. The main character goes through all sorts of trials throughout the book and pleads with God for answers, and she gets no answer. At the end of the book, when she finally meets God face to face, she says, “I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away.” You are yourself the answer. I think that is what Abraham experienced on the mountain. God did not answer his questions. God was the answer.

 

I don’t mean “Jesus is the answer” in a trite way that simplifies the difficult issues of life. Such simplifying is usually false. I mean something like Paul said in Colossians 1: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” In Jesus life holds together, coheres, makes sense – not because he answers our questions, but because Jesus is life, and life makes sense when it is lived in Jesus.

 

A Conclusion 

Vachel Lindsay has a moving poem titled “General William Booth Enters into Heaven”, which captures something of my deep desire – our deep desire – to see Jesus.

Booth led boldly with his big bass drum—  
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)  
The Saints smiled gravely and they said: “He’s come.”  
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)  
Walking lepers followed, rank on rank,  
Lurching bravoes from the ditches dank,  
Drabs from the alleyways and drug fiends pale—  
Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powers frail:—  
Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath,  
Unwashed legions with the ways of Death—  
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

 

The poem continues for several verses describing the way that Booth and his band march around Heaven as though they own the place. Then Jesus works the work of Heaven on them.

Jesus came from out the court-house door,  
Stretched his hands above the passing poor.  
Booth saw not, but led his queer ones there  
Round and round the mighty court-house square.  
Yet in an instant all that blear review  
Marched on spotless, clad in raiment new.  
The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled  
And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world.

 

Several more verses describe the transformation and wonder that comes in the New Heavens and the New Earth. And then the final verse.

And when Booth halted by the curb for prayer  
He saw his Master thro’ the flag-filled air.  
Christ came gently with a robe and crown  
For Booth the soldier, while the throng knelt down.  
He saw King Jesus. They were face to face,  
And he knelt a-weeping in that holy place.  
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

 

I cannot read that final verse without tears – “You are yourself the answer, and before your face all questions die away.” I believe that was Abraham’s experience, and that is God’s gift to each of us in the perplexities and struggles of this life.

 

 

Steinbach Mennonite Church

 22 September 2024

 

Texts

Genesis 23: 1-4, 17-20.

Sarah’s Death and Burial

23 Sarah lived one hundred twenty-seven years; this was the length of Sarah’s life. ² And Sarah died at Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron, in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. ³ Abraham rose up from beside his dead and said to the Hittites, ⁴ “I am a stranger and an alien residing among you; give me property among you for a burying place, so that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” ...

¹⁷ So the field of Ephron in Machpelah, which was to the east of Mamre, the field with the cave that was in it and all the trees that were in the field, throughout its whole area, passed ¹⁸ to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the Hittites, in the presence of all who went in at the gate of his city. ¹⁹ After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah facing Mamre, that is, Hebron, in the land of Canaan. ²⁰ The field and the cave that is in it passed from the Hittites into Abraham’s possession as a burying place.

 

John 12: 20-26

Some Greeks Wish to See Jesus

²⁰ Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. ²¹ They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” ²² Philip went and told Andrew, then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. ²³ Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. ²⁴ Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit. ²⁵ Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ²⁶ Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

 

Sermon in a Sentence

One of our deepest desires is to make sense of life – especially the confusing parts – which can only happen in a profound encounter with God.

 

Living Our Faith Questions

The story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22 is about as difficult as it can get. What did Abraham and Isaac's trek up the mountain do to Sarah? What happened to Abraham and Sarah's relationship as a result? Where can we turn when our lives are turned so completely upside down?

What’s Your Story?

The passage we read from Psalm 78 is one that Mennonites have lived by. The Psalmist says that he will tell “the glorious deeds of the Lord and the wonders that he has done”. He tells the story of “God’s mighty saving acts” (to use the phrase coined by George Ernest Wright) so that the next generation will know what God has done and will place their trust in God.

 

Wright called this recital “salvation history” – the story of God’s mighty saving acts which created Israel’s identity. If their descendants forget this story, they will become rebellious and lose God’s favour and blessings. If they remember what God has done, they can choose to be God’s people fully and receive God’s blessings here and hereafter.

 

We have also told the story of how God preserved our people through danger, especially as Mennonites were restricted and persecuted in the former Soviet Union. The way that different families were able to escape in the 1940s inspires us to trust God and follow God faithfully. I have been blessed hearing these stories, and they continue to shape us and give us hope today.

 

That’s what stories do. They shape our identity and give us a way to live in the world today. You know the story of Dirk Willems, the Dutch Mennonite who turned back on an ice-covered river to save his pursuer. He saved the man’s life and lost his own, expressing his commitment to love and peace. His story nourishes our own commitment to peace, even at great personal cost.

 

The Story of Canada 

Many of you studied the history of Canada in school. I didn’t, but I know enough about the way history is told to know that a lot depends on who is telling the story. I learned about the second world war when I was a schoolboy in Zimbabwe. My English teachers told me that the English won the war with the help of the Americans and others. Then we moved to Pennsylvania, and I heard the same story, but this time from an American perspective. I learned that the Americans won the war, with the help of the English and others. It matters who is telling the story!

 

The history of Canada as taught in our schools today seeks to include an indigenous perspective, but I suspect most of us learned the story from an immigrant perspective. We learned how immigrants from Europe found a new place to live and carved out homes in the wilderness. The beginning of Steinbach is part of that larger story. We know the story of Steinbach: 18 families from Russia carved their homes out of the empty lands on the east edge of the prairie.

 

Of course, people did live here before it was Steinbach. There were Assiniboine and Cree nations. When they moved on, Anishinaabe took their place. When the first Mennonite settlers came, the Metis nation lived in the general area. That is why we sometimes recognize that the church is located on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation. The point of this recognition is not to make anyone feel guilty. It simply notes that there is more than one perspective in our history. When we learn our story, we should also learn the story of the people around us. This may make us uncomfortable, but that’s okay.

 

This is part of what is happening this weekend, as a group from SMC joins the Metis community in Manigotagan at their annual family camp. When we no longer could send a youth team there, representatives from SMC started going up and visiting with the community. We have listened to their stories and told them some of our stories. This process means that the community in Manigotagan and our community are becoming partners in life.

 

Israel and Palestine 

But what happens when two people are in critical conflict with each other? What happens when their stories are so radically different that they cannot agree on what happened? This is the situation we see in Israel-Palestine. In the June issue of Anabaptist World, Lisa Schirch has an article in which she compares the story that Israelis tell with the story that Palestinians tell. She sets these competing narratives out in a useful table (see link) that helps us see how they work.

 

You see the Palestinian story: From their historic tie to the land to the nakba in which 700,000 Palestinians lost their homes to European Jews fleeing European persecution. From the military occupation of Palestine by Jews backed by Europe to the continued occupation of Palestinian land and the daily humiliation of Palestinians who remain in their home. From the military might of Israel supported by the West to the destruction of Gaza by Israeli troops. The only possible solution is for Israel to stop their aggression and withdraw from all Palestinian territory.

 

It’s a compelling story. Three of my college friends were Palestinian Christians. C’s family lost their home in the nakba. J and D have dedicated their lives to serving Palestinians in Israel through their occupations as a lawyer and a journalist. J married a woman from the church I pastored in Pennsylvania, and I remember the visit of his family to our church when they held the wedding feast in his bride’s home. I hear this story and my heart aches for my friends. Their story resonates in my heart and in my soul.

 

But hear the Israeli story. From their historic tie to the land to the holocaust in which six million Jews died to the dispossession of 700,000 Jews who lived in Arab lands. From the reality that half of all Jews were “brown, Arab Jews” and half were Ashkenazi European Jews to the way that Arabs and Palestinians have worked to destroy them – even colluding with the Nazis to the reality that there is only one small Jewish state where they can live in safety compared to the 50 or so Muslim states who support Palestine. From the experience of constant attacks from Palestinian extremists to the horrific invasion of Israel last October.

It’s a compelling story, if we have the ability to hear it. I have taken several groups from Providence to visit the mosque on Waverley Avenue in Winnipeg for Friday prayers and to Sha’arey Zedek across from the legislature for the Sabbath service. I have been there often enough that Bill Weissman, our guide when I take a class, has told me that they will have to make me a member.

 

One Sabbath, the synagogue service was what they call a Yizkor – a remembrance. The rabbi said, “Now we remember those whose mothers have died”, and he called us to stand. I stood with the others whose mothers had died while he prayed, “Remember, God, the soul of my mother, my teacher, who went to her world, because I will give charity for her. Let her soul be bound up in the bond of life, with the soul of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah, and with the other righteous men and women in the Garden of Eden. And let us say, Amen.”

 

We said prayers for those whose fathers had died and prayers for those whose children had died. Each group stood in turn while we prayed, and you could hear quite weeping in one family or another as they remembered their loved ones – a lot like our Eternity Sunday. Then finally the rabbi said, “Now we remember the six million”, and everyone stood. I realized with a start who they meant. Six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. Twenty percent of all Jews worldwide died in that terrible time, only 80 years ago.

 

This is our problem: The Israeli story is a deeply compelling and tragic story, and the Palestinian story is a deeply compelling and tragic story. How do we come together when the stories that we want to tell, as the Psalmist reminds us to do – what do we do when those stories are in such bitter conflict?

 

Towards a Resolution 

I don’t have the wisdom to answer this question, but I can point us towards an answer. The steps we have taken with the community at Manigotagan are part of the answer. Start by hearing the others’ story and telling our own. Start by embracing the full humanness of the other and by baring our own souls in return. Our stories shape us and make our identities: We share ourselves when we share our stories.

 

Paul gives us a clue about a further step we can take. As Christians, we have a new and deeper story. You see it in 1 Corinthians 15, one of the earliest Christian confessions. It is the story of the cross: “Christ died ... Christ was buried ... Christ was raised ... Christ appeared to us ...” It is the story of God’s grace given to people whose rebellion has cut them off from God. It is the story of God’s response to the ugliness and hatred and violence that permeate all of our human stories. It is the story of God’s redeeming love.

 

When we come together at the foot of the cross, our own personal stories are transformed. Our story as immigrant settlers from Europe comes together with the indigenous story of those who helped us make a new home in the East Reserve, when we come together in the presence of the crucified and risen Jesus. Our mistakes and failures don’t disappear, but they lose their power, and we can embrace our sisters and brothers at Manigotagan. This has already happened, as their elder, Norman Meade, has opened the word of life to us on several occasions here.

 

Israel and Palestine present a much harder case, but the way to new life in the Middle East still passes through the cross. I cannot see how Israelis and Palestinians can walk that road, but I know that it runs through the cross. The Friday prayer in the Anglican church says it well: “Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.”

 

It would be arrogant of us to try to tell Jews and Palestinians how to walk this path. Our part is to listen to both sides, to seek to hear their stories, and to act as carefully and prayerfully for peace. What that means is for discussion in our Sunday School time. A couple from the Mennonite Church who have significant experience in Israel-Palestine will join us in November, and we can talk more about it then.

 

Until then, embrace God’s story. Embrace the “mighty saving acts of God”. The story of the cross embraces all our stories and transforms them into “the way of life and peace.” Join me in a closing prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honour of your Name. Amen.”

 

 

8 September 2024, Manigotagan Sunday 

Steinbach Mennonite Church

Texts: Psalm 78:1-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

 

Focus Statement: Our lives can be told as a story. We all have different stories, and so do our families. Our individual and communal stories are sometimes in conflict with each other, but they all come together in the story of the cross (heilsgeschichte – salvation history).

 

Going Deeper Questions: What can we do with the different stories of Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East? What about Canada's indigenous people and our own Mennonite ancestors? How can we come together as one people when our histories are in conflict?