Abram's Doubt [Lent 2C - Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18]

 The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

 

Abram’s Doubt

Trinity, Plattsburgh

 

This is not the first time Abram has heard this promise – the one we find in today’s Genesis reading.  He left his country and kindred to follow this very promise – a promise that he chased like a distant horizon.  Once upon a time, his life was normal, stable.  And then this mesmerizing, strange God changed his life – stole him away from his birthright, his plans, from the moon gods of his youth and his people.  This new God saw into his heart, spoke to his deepest longings.  And so, like the disciples on the beach, Abram left everything.  Through deserts and danger, he pursued the promise and yet still, beneath the big, starry sky, he seemed no closer to its fulfillment.

 

The visions kept happening.  But still there was no evidence.  Every month, with the moon, came a reminder that Sarai was again not pregnant.  Every month the likelihood that the dream would come true diminished.  Every month the grief claimed new territory.  Every month the regret surfaced a bit more.  He left country and kindred only to wander in this desperate loneliness.  It was bad enough that he chose this for himself, but his wife was also suffering because he decided to chase a wild dream.

 

The God who first whispered this promise, back in Haran, was a stranger to Abram.  Though the promise seemed fantastical, Abram just went; he just went with it.  He didn’t ask any follow up questions; he didn’t challenge the mysterious voice.  Unwilling to make waves, he just politely followed the one who interrupted his entire life, as if walking away was simple.

 

That was chapter 12; this is chapter 15.  In today’s reading, Abram hears the same promise, from the same God, but now he something to say.  What changed, I think, is that the two now know each other well enough to be honest.  Honest with words and honest with emotions.

 

And honest with doubts.  Because Abram’s been going along.  And he has faith.  But the faith is now ragged.  Because the cost has been immense and the promised has been elusive.

 

Abram still believes but also, at this point, he needs something.  And so here he prays, “O Lord God, how am I to know?”  It is a very human question.  And God knows Abram is human and honors that the tired believer has enough faith to ask an honest question, to expose his doubts.  You see, our doubts and our questions do not show a lack of faith; they prove our belief.  They prove our trust in the presence and goodness of a merciful God, an understanding God, a loving God.

 

God responds, but the response is strange.  Not quite “build a yacht in the desert” strange, but still pretty unusual.  To his credit, I guess, Abram doesn’t seem to bat an eye. 

 

God commands Abram to cut a cow in two, then to cut a goat in two, and then to cut a ram in two.  Also, kill two birds but don’t cut them in two – because, obviously, cutting birds in two would be weird.  And then lay them out in a very particular fashion.  And then flail around wildly so that the vultures don’t eat the splayed carcasses.  Can you imagine if someone accidently wandered into that scene?

 

Exhausted from all the cleaving and flailing, Abram falls into a deep and terrifying sleep.  And somewhere in that night – whether in dream or waking or something in between, Abram watches an autonomous smoking fire pot and a ghostly flaming torch pass between the pieces – a haunting spectacle, to be sure. 

 

And yet, what he needed.  There was still no baby.  They was still no home.  He was still waiting on the promise.  But when Abram’s soul was plagued by a deep and terrifying darkness, when life felt hopeless, when the future looked bleak, God was there; God was with him.   

 

This story is old and it is strange.  And it is ours.  We are the heirs of the ancient promise.  And like father Abraham, we have been called, by a mysterious God, to chase the promise of an elusive dream.  In a broken and battered world, we are commissioned to search out the glimpses of the Kingdom of God.  To pray for Heaven on Earth.  To live the Gospel of Love in an age of division. To stake our future on some fragile hope.  We are a people who find our salvation in circles of bread and sips of wine, in a rugged cross and a crucified savior. 

 

Life with God is strange; it always has been.  And it is not always easy.  At times it is riddled with doubt and plagued by despair and as dry as a desert.  But that is OK.  Even the great Abraham carried his doubts through the desert.  Those doubts were wrapped in a ragged faith and a tattered hope – a faith and hope that he dared to lay out, like a young goat, before his God. 

 

And when he did, God didn’t even flinch.  Instead, his loving God listened, heard his every desperate prayer.  And when Abram’s doubts were overwhelming, and when his faith was flagging, and when the journey felt too long, and the price too high, and the grief too deep, and the future too cloudy, Abram found that God was with him, still with him, always with him.  And even in that moment when the terrifying darkness threatened to suffocate his soul, Abram was not alone.  The light of God was shining in that darkness and the darkness could not overcome it.