Genesis 15 & 16, selected verses
Psalm 128

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, grace to you and peace from our Creator God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray.  O Gracious Father, when you open your hand you satisfy the desire of every living thing.  Bless the land and waters, and give the world a plentiful harvest; let your Spirit go forth to renew the face of the earth.  As you show us your love and kindness in the bounty of the land and sea, save us from selfish use of your gifts, so that men and women everywhere may give you thanks; through Jesus our Lord.  Amen

Abram has been following the instructions and guiding of the Lord for awhile now, and chapter 15 begins with God once again assuring Abram that he has nothing to fear and everything to gain.

Verse 3 is the first time Abram challenges what the Lord is saying, but it won’t be the last.  “What is this promise worth?  When I die, my name will not live on because I do not have a son.  I have chosen one of my slaves to be my heir.”  In verse 15, God repeats the promise that Abram will have descendents, and Abram “believes the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”  Chapter 15, verse 6, is the verse that ended last week’s sermon.

We may find it hard to hear stories like this – about faithful people who talk back to God.  Abram is pretty gutsy to get in the Lord’s face this way.  He has seen the power of God – credited God with victory in the war over the five kings and the rescue of Lot’s family.

Abram challenges God to make good on the promise that has led him so far.  “You promised me a son, but you haven’t delivered.  How can you claim to have blessed me?”

You and I might wonder how this shows faith and respect toward God.  But look how Abram begins the challenge …

In chapter 15, verse 2, Abram addresses God with title and name, “My Lord and my God.”  He immediately shows that he has a relationship with God and recognizes that God IS Lord and Master.  And then he reminds God that this wasn’t his own idea.  God is the one who has promised that he will have an heir.  “What will you give me?”

Abram has trusted what the Lord has said.  Abram reminds God that there are a couple promises that have not yet been fulfilled.  And Abram continues to believe these promises.  That continued trust, despite his current circumstances, is what the Lord credits to Abram as righteousness.

Trusting, under all circumstances – claiming the promise that has already been given – that is righteousness.  Our Jewish brothers and sisters in faith show us with stories such as this one, that God does not mind when we hold up our frustrations at our circumstances in life.  It’s okay to be upset, when you feel that God is not holding up God’s end of the bargain.  Trusting in God so much that you are willing to hold GOD accountable for a promise is deep trust indeed.

In chapter 16, we see that Abram and Sarai – like so many of us – don’t always wait for the Lord to fulfill promises, however.  They take matters into their own hands.  If the Lord has not provided a son as Abram’s heir, maybe they need to find a way to do it themselves.

In verse 1, we find out that there is another option in the ancient culture.  The child of a slave could be claimed as a legitimate heir and so Abram and his wife agree that this is as good an option as any.  Verse 4 reports that Hagar the slave has become pregnant.

What they don’t count on is Hagar’s response.  Since she is now bearing the promised child, she begins to hold herself up as somehow more important than other women in the household.  Sarai tries to put Hagar back in her proper place in the household in verse 6, and Hagar runs away.

No doubt Sarai took some of her own frustrations out on Hagar, and was probably cruel in ways that slave owners can be cruel.  Hagar probably had very good reasons to run away.

But we see in verse 9, that the Lord agrees at least in the basics with Sarai.  The angel of the Lord who comes to Hagar to help her in the wilderness tells her to return and to remember that she is indeed the slave, not the master of the household.  And the angel adds, “But don’t worry.  God hasn’t forgotten you and your plight.  This son you bear will also receive blessings from God.”

And so Hagar returns and gives birth to a son and Abram names him Ishmael – a Hebrew name that means “God hears me”.  Perhaps Abram is still thinking that this is the way that God will fulfill the promise for descendents that will fill the land.

In the Jewish faith and in that aspect of the Christian faith, which we received from our Jewish ancestors, we focus much more on Abram’s second son Isaac than we do on Ishmael.  But Ishmael’s story will not end here.  As we continue reading through the book of Genesis, Ishmael and his offspring will show up again and again.

God makes a promise to Hagar, “You will not be forgotten.  You will also have many descendants – so many that they cannot be counted.”  Later we will hear that God promises to make Ishmael into a great nation.

The descendants of Ishmael will play a very important role in the story of the people of faith.  Ishmael’s family intervenes in a significant way in the story of another of the Jewish patriarchs – Joseph, who winds up saving his entire family from famine in Egypt.  And for us in our modern world, Ishmael and his descendents have a very powerful influence.  Our Muslim brothers and sisters in faith trace their ancestry and their faith back to the lines of Ishmael, and the promises that God made with Hagar and her son.  We would do well not to lose track of this boy and his place in God’s plan for the people of faith.

We now have three covenants that God has established with people of faith – Noah, Abraham, and Ishmael – and there are more to come.  Our God is an incredibly generous God.  Our Lord offers blessings to all who reach out and ask for help.  We also have the covenants that form the base for three major religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

We three peoples of faith are all “People of the Book.”  We all trace our faith back to the same promises made by the same God – here in the book of Genesis.  Unfortunately, the sibling rivalry that began in this ancient heritage, has continued into our modern age and has built up into the disputes that now rage in the Middle East.  In the midst of the struggles and disputes, we need to remind ourselves that our God is the God of ALL THREE FAITHS, and that ALL THREE FAITHS are represented among those we call “Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs.”

As we pray for the talks that will take place in Annapolis this week, remember to pray not only for the political leaders but also for the religious leaders – Jewish, Christian, and Muslim leaders.  Leaders of all three faiths are working very hard to find a peace process that will result in lasting peace – not a temporary political cease-fire.

It is not easy to sort out all of the claims that we make – since all of them are based on promises from the same God.  But we cannot dismiss the faith claims of our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters without calling into question our own – since we are all trusting the same promises and the same covenants.

Our Lord is a very generous God.  And still today, we are challenged in our faith by the generosity of this God.  Abram and Sarai wanted to take matters into their own hands.  We want to take matters into our own hands.  We don’t like to wait for God to work in our lives.  We like to plan out our futures with careful attention to every detail, even when God is saying, “Trust me on this one.  I’ve got a plan in mind.”

Advent is a time of waiting on God and trusting in the promises.  And so we join with Hagar and Abram and Sarai as we wait for the Lord.

Trust and believe and wait … in this is the righteousness of God reckoned also to us.

Amen