Easter 5
18 May 2025
Vineville Baptist Church
Macon, Georgia
Gregory Pope
COVENANT: THE TANGLED LIFE OF FAITH
From Creation to New Creation: The Biblical Story #3
Genesis 12-50
The God who created the heavens and the earth keeps starting the world all over again with people who will listen to God’s adventurous call and trust in God’s faithful presence. God did it with Noah when the violence of Cain murdering his brother Abel escalated to cover the whole world. And now from the Tower of Babel and the scattering of peoples into many languages, God begins once again with a pair named Abram and Sarai and the calling of a people who will be named Israel. God calls Abram and Sarai out from familiar territory as wanderers not knowing where they are to go. Such is the way of biblical faith: Responding to God’s life-changing call. Stepping off the map into the unknown. Making a new road with God by walking into uncertainty. Trusting God’s voice into a more faithful transforming life. All the things that scare most of us to death!
For Abram and Sarai, faith was trusting God’s three-fold promise of (1) descendants who would become a great nation (2) through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed (3) in a land God would lead them to inhabit. This was the covenant God made with Abram and Sarai.
They didn’t have much by way of beliefs or temples, commandments, or guarantees that everything would work out fine. They didn’t even have a Bible. Just a compelling inner Voice that would not be quiet, a Voice they trusted to be God leading them into a life of faith – what we would call the Holy Spirit. In their stories and the stories of their descendants we see just how tangled and complicated, rewarding and laughable the life of faith can be.
The journey begins as Abram and Sarai rise from their homeland and follow God’s call into the unknown. When they arrive in their new land it is in the midst of drought and famine. A family crisis ensues with Abram’s nephew Lot over who gets what of this new land. Abram graciously lets Lot choose. And Lot greedily chooses the rich plains of Jordan. Abram gets the rocky desert left-overs. But that’s alright. Abram knows he can risk being big-hearted and open-handed because he knows God is that way and that God can be trusted.
There were times, however, Abram and Sarai grew impatient and took matters into their own hands. Haven’t we all done that from time to time? We think to ourselves, “Well, if God’s not going to act, I will.” And we usually end up doing something foolish. It seemed like our only choice at the time, but it often brings trouble.
It happened in the life of Abram and Sarai because they believe God has promised them a child. But years pass and no baby. They’re growing discouraged about the prospects, fearful they will die childless. So they take matters into their own hands. In a practice common in the ancient world, Sarai invites Abram to take Hagar her maidservant and conceive a child with her. Abram does so. Hagar conceives and bears a son named Ishmael. Abram loves Ishmael. But Sarai grows jealous and sends Hagar and her boy packing. Abram grieves the loss. Grief often comes when faith grows impatient and we act out of jealousy and take matters into its own hands.
Abram and Sarai grow increasingly discouraged. Then one day three visitors come to the door of their home. The text tells us that the three are in fact “the Lord.” Sometimes God comes in threes! (Just ask Todd and Mary Kay Smith). The three visitors announce that they will come again in the spring and by that time Sarai will have a son. Sarai is 90. Abram is 100. (Old enough to call Charlie Jay “Sonny Boy!) Hardly candidates for parenthood. They both fall on their faces laughing. Wouldn’t you? They’re living on the border of the possible and the impossible – which is often where faith is most alive.
Well, guess what happens? Come spring, the long awaited child is born. Faith delivers. (Pun intended.) Sarah laughs all the way from Carlyle Place to the maternity ward at Atrium Navicent. And when she gives birth to that miraculous boy he is placed in her arms and she says, “I will call him Isaac (which means Laughter), for God has made laughter for me.” The only one not laughing is the bureaucrat at the Medicare office trying to process a claim for labor and delivery!
From this point on, Abram and Sarai will be called Abraham and Sarah. A change of name in the Bible often accompanies a change of character or identity. While there seems to be no real difference in the meaning of Sarah’s name, Abram’s new name means “ancestor of a multitude,” reflecting the promise God made to Abraham to make him the father of many nations.
As Isaac grows up, we are given a story thick with disturbing mystery, and Laughter enters a dark abyss. We don’t have the time to dive very deep into it this morning. But it was common in Abraham’s day for parents to sacrifice their children to the gods to appease the anger of the gods. The day comes when Abraham believes he hears God call him to sacrifice Isaac. So he takes Isaac up a mountain only to learn that this God does not require human sacrifice. Abraham found a ram up on the mountain to offer instead.
Then the day comes when the joy of Laughter returns and Isaac meets his bride Rebekah. It is one of the most beautiful love scenes in all of literature. (Take the time this week to read Genesis 24.)
From Isaac and Rebekah come twin sons, Riner and Boone, (I mean) Jacob and Esau. Like Josh and Heather, God comes in twos for Isaac and Rebekah. Esau is born first, Jacob arrives second, clutching the heel of his brother. And so he is named Jacob, which means in Hebrew “heel grabber.” In 1920’s America, the name came to mean “cool” or “awesome.” But in ancient Hebrew it meant “heel grabber.” To catch someone by the heel is to trip them up. The meaning of Jacob’s name foreshadows his cunning character.
Esau is daddy’s favorite. Jacob is momma’s boy. Esau as the firstborn son is entitled by culture to special honor and double the material blessings from his father. Both birthright and blessing are due him.
One day Jacob is in the kitchen cooking a red stew. Esau comes in from the field famished and begs Jacob for some of his stew. In order to keep from starving to death Jacob makes Esau promise his birthright to Jacob in exchange for some food. Then Jacob sets out to steal the one irreversible blessing of the father reserved for the firstborn. With his mother’s help, Jacob tricks his blind and aging father into believing that he is Esau and Isaac bestows the one and only blessing upon Jacob. When Esau finds out, his grief over losing his father’s blessing grows into a murderous rage, and he swears to kill his brother. (Lesson to parents: Don’t play favorites. And bless all your children with your unconditional love, not just the child who lives your dream!)
Mama Rebekah gets word of Esau’s vow and plans Jacob’s escape. She sends him far away to her brother’s house. En route Jacob stops for the night. He falls asleep and begins to dream. One might have expected a nightmare, disturbing and guilt-ridden. Instead, God gives him a glimpse of heaven with a ladder shining with God’s own light stretching from heaven to earth. Angels without number ascending and descending. Instead of the “blessing out” Jacob deserved, God gave him the same three-fold promise God had given Abraham of land, descendants, and blessing.
Jacob makes his way to his Uncle Laban’s house where he marries two sisters, Rachel and Leah, who enter a contest with each other to see who can produce the most sons. They even give their maidservants to Jacob to ramp up the competition. By the time the dust and bed feathers have settled, Jacob is the proud (not to mention exhausted) father of twelve sons and a daughter. And that’s how we get the names for the twelve tribes of Israel! You just gotta love the Bible! What a Netflix series that would make!
The time comes for Jacob and his family to leave Laban’s house and return home to the land God had promised them. When Jacob arrives at a river called Jabbok, he hears that his brother Esau is on the way to meet him with 400 men. Jacob sends the rest of his party ahead with peace offerings, guilt gifts for his brother. Maybe they will cool Esau’s anger, or at least buy some time. They say a guilty conscience is better than no conscience at all!
It is now evening and Jacob is all alone. As he wades out into the stream, we are given witness to a divine encounter shrouded in mystery. There in the dark, something hits Jacob. In one place we are told its an angel, in another we’re told it’s a man, and yet in another we are told it is God. Whatever, whomever, this sparring partner, its force throws Jacob into the water. There is a fierce wrestling – agonizing, decisive, and long – all night long.
Near dawn Jacob’s opponent reaches out and touches Jacob’s hip, wrenching it out of its socket. Jacob grabs hold of this Holy Other. At the end of the wrestling match, the Holy Other says, “Your name shall be Jacob no more, but Israel, for you have fought with God and others and have prevailed.” Then this Holy Other blesses Jacob-now-Israel and departs. Jacob never got the name of this Holy Other, but he knew the One whom he held onto that night, and the One who had hold of him. He gives a name to the place of the struggle: Peniel (which means “face of God,”) for I have seen God face to face and my life has been saved. The episode ends with the words: As the sun rose Jacob passed Peniel limping on his hip. Jacob has been blessed and wounded. Something has died and something has been born. Jacob has become Israel.
As Jacob hobbles fearfully toward Esau, bowing seven times in humility, Esau runs to meet him, grabs him around the neck, and kisses him. Jacob speaks to his brother perhaps the most beautiful words of reconciliation ever uttered: To see your face is like seeing the face of God. And they embrace weeping. Jacob meets God in the river and in his brother’s arms. And God’s name, God’s face, is Grace.
The book of Genesis concludes with the story of Jacob’s twelve sons. Just like his own parents, Jacob plays favorites. The favorite’s name is Joseph. Joseph shares with his brothers a dream he had that he would one day rule over them. That word from “daddy’s favorite” does not sit well. They consider killing him, but decide instead to sell him into Egyptian slavery. As a slave and interpreter of dreams, Joseph rises to prominence in the house of Pharaoh. When famine comes, his brothers travel to Egypt for food. They come face to face with their brother Joseph. With power to harm and enslave, Joseph instead forgives them, and in tears they all embrace.
The wild beauty of these incredible family of origin stories shines the miraculous light of truth that: In the midst of deceit, treachery, and family dysfunction, it is possible to find forgiveness, reconciliation, and the blessing we all crave.
The choice we have when harmed is revenge or reconciliation. In revenge we stoop to imitate the person who hurt us. In reconciliation we rise to imitate the God who forgives us and blesses us even when we don’t deserve it. And when human reconciliation is not wise or possible because the wounds are too deep and raw, we can at least choose to live in peace instead of hatred and cruelty.
Our calling on the risky adventurous journey of faith into the unknown is to trust and obey the God who made us and loves us, the God of saving grace – grace to heal our deepest brokenness, mysterious encounters of grace that leave us often wounded but always blessed. And through it all we will find that our covenant God is faithful. And we will sing with all the saints of God, often through tear-filled eyes: All I have needed thy hand has provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.