So late, and not actually completed, but I am proud of what I was able to write.
Introduction
Today we continue in the book of Genesis with one of the stories of Abra(ha)m, and discuss the possibility of righteousness reckoned.
Text
Genesis 15:1-6
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2015%3A1-6&version=NRSVUE
After these things the word of YHWH came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O YHWH God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” But the word of YHWH came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” God brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then God said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 6 And he believed YHWH, and God reckoned it to him as righteousness.
Last Time on Tales of Faith
Since the last reading, things have not gone so well for humanity. The mistake of the man and woman snowball with one of their children (Cain) murdering the other (Abel), and Cain’s descendant (Lamech) taking this as license to kill a young man. Humanity’s violence compounds until every inclination of their hearts are evil continually. There are exceptions, however, the line of Seth includes Enoch and Noah who are both righteous. God and Creation itself has enough of humanity’s violence, and they are de-created in a great flood. However Noah, his family, and a number of animals are preserved. From Noah’s three sons, the nations are divided among the good (Shem), the bad (Ham), and the others (Japheth). Humanity once again tries to rival the gods with a tower reaching the skies, and God confuses their language.
Abram, a descendant of Shem, is called by God to leave his family in Hebron. God promises honor, wealth, a great name, blessing, and a land for Abram. God also promises descendants, even though Sarai, Abram’s wife, is barren, and they are both advanced in age. Abram tries to trust in God’s promises, and sometimes succeeds. It has been several years since this initial call when God again calls to Abram again.
Themes
Blessing
Blessing is a major theme in the Abra(ha)m epic, and forms the tension in this text. The blessing of Genesis 12 is alluded to in YHWH’s opening words, yet as far as Abram is concerned, they have not come to fruition. The promise of offspring is core to Abram’s frustrations, and since he has not received that, the other blessings/promises are worthless.
It may be helpful to think through the various blessings offered by YHWH
Call (Genesis 12:1): Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land I will show you.
Blessings (Genesis 12:2-3, 7)
I will make of you a great nation
Unfulfilled, this blessing/promise is descendant dependent
I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing
Abram is a player on the national stage with the defeat of king Chedorlaomer and co. (Genesis 14:14-16)
I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you will be cursed
This one we have seen, and will see again: God curses Pharaoh’s household when he marries Sarai (Genesis 12:10-20); Abram’s flocks flourish so much that he needs to separate from his nephew, Lot, (Genesis 13:2-7); even though Abram takes the worse land, he is blessed (Genesis 13:14-18)
In you all the families of the earth will be blessed
Unfulfilled, though it is implied in some of the stories above
To your offspring I will give this land
Currently Abram is only living in the land, but will come to own some of it later (Genesis 22)
Childlessness
Abram’s complaint is that he remains childless. Care needs to be taken in exploring this theme as many in our pews have or are experiencing issues that this might bring up.
Infertility problems have been in the news a lot lately with the Republican movements to legislate against IVF treatments along with abortion and other family planning. It is also a personal issue for my spouse and I. We tried to have a child for almost ten years naturally, and then underwent fertility treatments for about a year until we finally got pregnant. I cannot describe the soul crushing disappointment month after month after month when the pregnancy test comes back negative. The strain on the relationship due to tests, injections, and regimented and scheduled intimacy. I am well aware that I, as the male in the relationship, only have a small glimpse of the emotional rollercoaster that my wife went through over those years, the feelings of inadequacy, the monthly raising of hope and then crushing defeat. We eventually did conceive, and have a wonderful child, but a couple years later started the process of trying for another child. At that point fertility treatments no longer worked, and we contemplated IVF or fetal adoption (both of which are now illegal in some states). In the end, it was the cost of these procedures (which was not going to be covered at all by our insurance) which led us to abandoning that avenue. We have an amazing kiddo now, and are so grateful, but also know well all that it took to get there.
In addition to conception in the first place, carrying a fetus to term is also a physical and emotional struggle for many. We have a dear friend who desperately wanted to have a child. For her, conception was less of an issue, but ended up having several ectopic pregnancies, where the fetus did not properly implant in the womb. A few of those times, the pregnancy needed to be terminated several months in, after ultrasounds had been taken. After her (blankity blank) husband divorced her she tried to OD on pills while staring at those same ultrasounds. We found her before she died, luckily. She eventually did become a mother, but that does not change the emotional turmoil that she was going through at the time, and I am sure that she continues to bear the pain.
Same-sex couples have more technical challenges to bearing children than heterosexual couples, male partners even more so than female ones. While many queer couples desire to have and raise children, most of the options (standard adoption or fetal adoption, sperm donation, IVF, surrogacy, etc) come with immense expense and cultural push-back (and now illegal, depending on the state- which surely is an unintended consequence).
Beyond issues of infertility, childlessness is an emotional topic. Intentional childlessness is a decision that an increasing number of people are making. Many point to the climate crisis and general uncertainty of life as a reason. For others it is a financial decision (even naturally conceived and birthed children are expensive). The lack of parental leave standards in the United States (the only industrialized nation in the world to lack them) may also be a factor of this financial decision. Still others know that they are not suited to raise children, often because of unresolved trauma in their own upbringing. As noted above, some same-sex partners make the choice to be childless due to the expense and technical challenge. Many also choose to be single (again counter to immense cultural pressure) due to personal choice, asexual identity, etc.
On one hand, I applaud the ability for people to choose not to have children (how many people have we counseled whose parents did not have the emotional maturity or temperament to be parents, and yet felt obligated to do so?). However, I also know that due to our culture(and especially christian culture)’s push to bear children, that childlessness bears emotional weight. In my experience, the most deeply affected are the parents and grandparents of those who choose (or don’t choose) to be childless. The person making the choice to be childless does so for specific and personal reasons, reasons under their own control. Their parents, however, do not have such control, and therefore need to deal with the grief and potential shame that comes along with it. This is grief of the loss of potential, the dreams that they may have had of being grandparents may not be realized. This grief is not dissimilar to the grief experienced by the parents of trans children. There is a process of grief over the hopes and dreams that they may have had for their son or daughter, however offset by their excitement over the person their child is becoming.
Of course, the loss of a child may also be a factor. Psychologists say that the grief of losing one’s own child is the deepest emotional pain that can be experienced. The loss of a child can also compound the above issues, putting more pressure on any siblings.
Some in your congregation have gone through or are currently going through such struggles. Texts like this one (as well as special days like Mothers Day, Fathers, Day, Grandparents Day, etc) may reopen wounds. In this there is potential for healing, but also potential for harm if not treated with care.
God as Shield
In the dialogue for this text, YHWH introduces themselves with the metaphor of being a shield for Abram. This is a common metaphor in the Hebrew Scriptures (e.g. Psalm 3:3) and a larger idea of God as protector (e.g. Deuteronomy 31:6, Isaiah 41:10). Interestingly it is not a picture of God who is omnipotent (all powerful) as became vogue in the Christian era. It implies the presence of oppositional forces (either physical enemies or the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune) and that God can in some way affect the outcome of their attacks, but a God who does not (or cannot) eliminate attacks altogether. This is not the God who is the ultimate cause of all things and can (and does) control every event, but the God who protects their chosen ones from the violence of attack and misfortune. As Thomas Jay Oord claims in his book, The Death of Omnipotence and the Birth of Amipotence, this more limited view of God is a more scriptural one. Our scriptures talk about a God who is deeply loving and chooses to be with and for humanity, rather than one that has complete control over everything and can change the outcome of any event (yet chooses not to in some cases).
Eliezer of Damascus
As the note in the NRSV/UE notes, the Hebrew of this text is unclear. This apparently important person, Eliezer of Damascus, just shows up in this text, and then never again. Here are a few possibilities.
According to the Jewish Mishna, Eliezer is the faithful servant of Abraham that is eventually sent to find a wife for Isaac in Genesis 24
According to one Jewish Talmudic tractate, the numerical value for the name ‘Eliezer’ is 318, identical to the number of men that Abram brings to attack Chedorlaomer and co. Nedarim claims that this means that Abram just brought Eliezer (with the strength of 318 men) to wipe the floor with the four kings and their armies. BA.
It is likely lost to time (and not particularly important, frankly).
The most important thing is that Eliezer is an enslaved person, rather than a child. For Abram it is proof that God has not yet been faithful to their promises.
Your Very Own Issue
A gross way to put it, but the important point is that it is a doubling down on the promises of descendants. This is increasingly unbelievable, Sarai is barren, they are both well into their seventies (or perhaps eighties). In the next chapter, Abraham (as he is renamed) will be asked to take on the sign of the covenant, circumcision. In addition to explaining the reason for this cultural marker, it raises the temperature on impossibility, Abraham is wounded in the very thing that he needs to produce a child. We will find out later (in this account at least) that Sarai/Sarah is to be the the mother of this child of promise. Again, she has been introduced as being barren, and by the time she conceives, she has gone through menopause “it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women” (Genesis 18:11). The narrative takes every opportunity to emphasize how physically impossible it is that such a thing could happen, and yet it does, that is the miraculous thing in the story.
Look to the Stars
YHWH asks Abram to go outside and look at the stars. This is the narrative center of this short text.
Count the Stars
The initial request is to count the stars, if you can. I don’t know if you have been in a wide-open place (like the desert) with no artificial lights around and really looked at the stars, it is overwhelming. The idea of counting them all is overwhelming. At the surface, this is the promise, that not only will Abraham be able to have one child, but that his descendants will be an uncountable number.
Changing Your Stars
This has the possibility of a totally different interpretations from an ancient perspective. One ancient way of thinking about the stars were that they spelled out and to a certain extent controlled the destiny of human beings. According to Rabbi Rashi, the meaning here is that God is literally changing the planets/luck of Abram and Sarai, along with their names. It may have been that they were destined to be childless, but their luck is changing. (interestingly, the Talmud claims that the Jewish people have no constellation, and are therefore not affected by such astrological influences).
So Shall Your Descendants Be
I have also heard (though cannot find a reference, at least one time was on a Homebrewed Christianity episode I was listening to while I was driving, so that is no help) that in the ancient mindset, the stars were understood to be ancestors/gods/divine beings who have obtained an exalted state. This statement then could be a promise not only of quantity but of quality. The promise is that Abram’s descendants will be (at least) like those honored ancestors who have become the stars in the sky. This could also have some threads to the false promise in last week’s reading of being like God/the gods.