Today we have a couple of very interesting scripture lessons in Genesis and Philippians! Our reading in Genesis features the patriarch Abram slaughtering animals and then keeping the birds off the carcasses, and our reading in Philippians features Paul talking about people whose god is their belly and whose end is destruction. And our focus this week is on the Lenten discipline of imitating our spiritual forefathers. Good luck y’all!
Seriously, what we’re seeing in these two passages are men of faith, who are suffering for what they believe in, not because they’ve done anything wrong but because life is difficult sometimes. But their suffering draws them closer to God and, as it does, it gives us an example to follow. In addition to that, while God doesn’t take the troubles away (at least not right away), their experience of God in this time of trouble gives them great joy – which can inspire us as well.
Let’s look at Genesis first. This passage of scripture describes a world that is foreign to us. I think generally speaking, people have not changed all that much across the centuries: we are still concerned about the same things, like marriage and family and kids and friends and having enough to eat and having a safe and comfortable place to sleep. But cultures have changed a great deal. People in Abram’s time, for example, didn’t vote; they didn’t binge-watch anything (except maybe the campfire); and back then a ‘night out’ meant out of the tent and under the stars! We need to remember this story from Genesis comes to us from over 4000 years ago and from a middle-eastern culture that is still in many ways foreign to us today.
We’re also entering into Abram’s story in the middle: a good bit has already happened in Abram’s life. He has grown up and married; he has received God’s promise that God will make a great nation of him; he has left his home and has become a wandering shepherd at God’s command; and this includes having spent some time in Egypt. But at this point in his life, Abram is still going by the name Abram (which means “exalted father”). God has not yet given him the name “Abraham” (which means “father of a multitude”).
At this point in the story God has chosen Abram to be a friend of God; and God says to Abram, “I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”
But Abram longs to be father; he’s grieving over his childlessness. Abram sees no purpose in the wealth and material success God has given him if he has no children to share it with, and has to leave his estate to a servant who isn’t even related to him.
And I think Abram’s feelings reflect God’s heart, because God also longs to share all the good things of heaven with us, God’s children. In God’s eyes, heaven isn’t complete without us. And on a purely human level, anyone who has ever longed to be a parent knows what Abram is feeling.
But God assures Abram that he will have children of his own, and that his descendants will be as numerous and un-countable as the stars. And when we think about all the descendants of Abraham alive in the world today, we know God has been faithful to that promise.
But as this story is unfolding, Abram doesn’t see all this yet. Abram just sees himself, and Sarai his wife, getting older and not being able to have kids. But Genesis tells us that when God speaks to Abram about his future and all his descendants, Abram believed God and “God reckoned it to him as righteousness”. And this verse is the foundation of the concept of salvation by faith we still believe today. Don’t ever let anybody tell you that in the Old Testament people were saved by keeping the law. The Law of Moses was given to let people know what God’s standards are, and where we’ve gone wrong, and to convince us we need God’s mercy and forgiveness. But salvation has always come by faith in God, and the Bible teaches no other way – from Genesis to Revelation.
So God gives Abram this promise; but God doesn’t leave Abram there. God, who knows us and loves us better than we know and love ourselves, reaches out to Abram in mercy to speak to Abram exactly where he is. Back in Abram’s time, when business deals were made or when treaties were agreed on, they didn’t have written contracts (or lawyers for that matter.) In those days, treaties and contracts between two parties were ratified by killing animals, and cutting them in half, and laying the parts opposite each other with a path between them; and a representative of each of the parties in the agreement would walk between the halves of the animals. It was a way of saying “if I break this treaty, if I break this agreement, let happen to me what has happened to these animals.”
Here in the Genesis story, God does the same, but he adds a twist: God alone walks between the animals. Abram does not. In other words, God is saying “It’s all on Me. The responsibility for fulfilling this covenant is all on Me.” God is represented in this passage by smoke from a fire pot and flame from a torch – much as God will one day appear to the Israelites when God leads them out of Egypt in the form of a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
And in fact God makes this connection for Abram, the connection between his own experience and the experience of the people in Exodus, by letting Abram know (in vss 13-16) that his descendants would one day be aliens in a foreign land, but that God would lead the people out with great wealth, and return them to the Promised Land.
So in Genesis, Abram brings to God his sorrow at being childless; and God in response gives Abram a promise beyond anything he can imagine: a promise that includes a multitude of descendants.
And in this passage we, here, today, are invited to imitate Abram in hearing God’s word and believing, which gives us righteousness in God’s eyes – and then by doing what God directs us to do.
Turning then to our passage from Philippians: in Paul’s case, the source of his sorrow is that he knows he will probably be executed soon, and he doesn’t want to leave the people he loves behind. The family of God at Philippi has a special place in Paul’s heart. For an evangelist like Paul, there is no greater joy than witnessing people coming to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. This joy is rooted in the knowledge that the grandeur God has created in each human being, each human soul, is greater than the grandeur in any symphony or the grandeur of a summertime sunset, because human beings bear the image of God: we were made in God’s image. And to see that image – which has been battered by the world – restored to its original glory is the deepest and greatest joy for an evangelist.
When Paul looks at the Philippians, that’s what he sees. And so he calls them “brothers and sisters,” “my beloved,” “my joy and crown” – the crown being a reference to the wreath of victory the ancient Olympic athletes used to win. The Philippians are the result of Paul’s life work, everything that he has suffered, and all the self-discipline he has endured. For Paul, heaven wouldn’t be heaven without his Philippian friends; and he wants to be sure that he will see them again in the Kingdom of God.
The sorrow Paul is feeling is not because he’s looking death in the face (he’s done that many times before) but because he may be parted from friends he doesn’t want to leave behind. And of course the Philippians don’t want Paul to die either. So Paul writes to let them know he’s ready to go home, and not to be afraid for him, much as he would love to stay with them.
Paul is looking forward to the day when they will be reunited in heaven. And so he pleads with the people he loves to follow the examples of their teachers in the faith. He says to them: don’t be like the people who are enemies of the cross of Christ.
I want to stop on that phrase for a moment – “enemies of the cross of Christ” – because it’s such an unusual phrase. I mean, we all know atheists, and agnostics, and people who follow other religions, and many of them are not enemies of the Cross! One of the best TV shows on the subject of Christianity I’ve ever seen was written by an atheist. As Jesus once said, whoever’s not against us is for us.
Enemies of the cross of Christ would be, for example, the people who made fun of Jesus while he was dying. Or the people who take a gun and shoot up a worship service, whether it be in a church or a synagogue or a mosque. Or the people who deny that it takes something as powerful as the death of the Son of God to cure the evils of this world. Paul describes the enemies of the Cross well. He says: their end is destruction; the things they glory in are shameful; they worship only what they can consume; and their minds are set completely on earthly things, on things that are passing away.
Paul begs his beloved friends to avoid this at all costs, because if they do, they will remain citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. And from that kingdom Jesus will one day come and transform our earthly bodies to be like his glorious body, like what the disciples saw on the mountain of the transfiguration.
The Lord Jesus will transform us. For anyone who’s into science and technology, this one’s for you. The Greek word here is metaschematazo… almost like meta-schematics. In computer technology, schematics has to do with the plan or diagram for an electronic circuit – in other words, what makes a computer work. And meta-schematics? That’s the big picture plan.
So in other words, God knows every detail of our design: body, mind, and soul. God has our blueprint, so to speak: and God has already designed what we will become, and knows how to get us from Point A (where we are right now) to Point B (glorified bodies in the Kingdom of Heaven). When Paul says “God will transform our humble bodies and conform them to the likeness of his glorious body” this is what he’s talking about.
Therefore, Paul says, my brothers and sisters whom I love… my joy and my crown… stand firm in the Lord! Don’t let anything shake you, my beloved.
And we, today, are invited to imitate Paul in his love for the people of God; and in his life, which is oriented toward God’s Kingdom and not the false gods of this world that consume and destroy. We are invited to imitate Paul’s faith that this life and this body are not the end – that there’s a glorious body and a glorious Kingdom in our future.
Therefore, brothers and sisters: imitate Abram; imitate Paul; hold on to God’s word; hold on to faith; hold on to the cross; stand firm; and hold on to glory. AMEN.
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Preached at Fairhaven United Methodist Church, Spencer United Methodist Church, and Incarnation Church (Anglican), Strip District, Pittsburgh, 3/17/19
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Genesis 15:1-12 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” 4 But the word of the LORD came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” 5 He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 6 And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.
7 Then he said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.
[13 Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years; 14 but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”]
17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates…”
Philippians 3:17 – 4:1 Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. 18 For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. 19 Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.
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