“Yes; it really is true…There is enough love to go around”

(The story of the Tax Man and the Pharisee. Luke 18: 9-14)

Today we come to Jesus’ intriguing story about two men who just happen to be in the same place at the same time. They’re in the Temple…

And on the face of it these two men couldn’t be less like one another …one’s a tax collector…he works for the hated Romans who currently occupy Palestine – it’s a military occupation remember…the other’s a Pharisee a fully paid up, card-carrying member of the Jewish Teachers’ Union.

One of them – the tax collector man is regarded as a collaborator of the occupying forces – a Quisling; almost certainly despised and probably feared by the Jews; the other, an honourable teacher highly regarded as a wise and respected community leader.

Both of them ‘pray’…the Pharisee with his abundance of good deeds is thankful; The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’

The tax gatherer simply asks for mercy. ¹³ “Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’”

And there we have it…two men as different as chalk and cheese. Or so we might be tempted to think.

I’m pretty sure that over the years I’ve thought of it like that.

But now, having thought about it a bit more carefully and I suspect more generously I think I’ve been wrong.

So I’d like to try and put the record right if I can.

So we start by asking why would Jesus have told a story like this?

Well, you’ll recall that Jesus is really interested in only one thing thru’out the whole of his ministry…the arrival of what he called the Kingdom of God…this arrangement between people where life would be lived gracefully, generously and mercifully…

where care for the person sitting next to me here in church or on a bus or airplane ….or the person standing in line in front of me,

or the person I might pass while pushing my shopping trolley along the aisle in the supermarket, is as important as anything I might wish for myself.

This isn’t a new idea of course … the Hebrew prophets had been banging on about it for centuries …a way of living that reflected the generosity of their God…Yahweh.

But by and large the pleading and urging of the prophets had eluded the nation as a whole – generally the pleading and the predictions of the prophets – the spokespeople for Yahweh went unheeded – for some reason they didn’t get it – and many regarded the military occupation of their land as some sort of divine retribution while life went on with people believing – at the same time – that there was no need for anyone to be any different.

^18;9-12 So (Jesus) told (t)his (next) story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people…two men went to the Temple to pray…

(One of them, a) Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’

And as we catch a sniff of what looks like pompous self-promotion we might be tempted to say (under our breath of course!)  “Oh, good on you…well done you. Didn’t you do well” We might even be inclined to side-line him – to dismiss him – as someone who isn’t very nice…a bit conceited perhaps.

The (other, a) tax gatherer simply asks for mercy. ¹³ “Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’”

And it’s likely that we might be tempted to think “Now there’s a really good man. He gets it” Chances are we might even identify with him – for we know ourselves well!!

And if we did this we set up an understanding of this story that we’re so familiar with.

Because it’s the way Luke ends the story;

“This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God”.

Our sympathies are very likely to be with the tax man and not the Pharisee. The sinner turns out to be a saint…while the saintly Pharisee turns out to be…well less than a saint – we might think he was up himself … a bit of a snob.

Which is where our hearing of the story usually ends and we tend not to hear the rest of what Jesus says…

If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you’ll become more than yourself.”

Luke tells us that Jesus told this story to his disciples. I think then that what Jesus is saying is that the habit of judging other people negatively isn’t a trait the fits with Jewish values…remember that we’re talking here about a story told by a Jew to Jews…

and I’m pretty sure that we can make the jump to saying that judging other people negatively is not a trait the fits with Christian values either…it’s a human trait and one which we all to commonly fall for.

But while this is an important point – a moral point – that’s not the major talking point of this story.

The major point emerges out of a problem which you’d never guess after hearing this morning’s bible reading.

The problem is v¹⁴ “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God”.

Both men were in the Temple which it seems is a safe place where both seek solace and comfort; let’s assume that both were genuine in their prayers…both wanted Yahweh’s recognition – they both want to be understood – both were likely lonely and isolated. Both of them are searching for  the same thing… peace of mind and since they’re both Jews they were almost certainly also seeking the acceptance of Yahweh – who recall is the God of the covenant…that agreement made by Yahweh that he is on their side and watching their backs.

To put it simply…they both want to be loved.

Did both of them find what they were looking for?

Well I’m pretty sure the answer is “Yes” and the reason is that there is – tucked away in v 14 a small and confusing Greek preposition…it’s the word  “para” from which we get our words ‘paradox’ and ‘parallel’ even – believe it or not – ‘parable’.

As well as this verse 14 is disputed – scholars debate whether or not it was even part of the original story and interestingly, we could remove the verse and the story loses none of its meaning…It adds nothing to the story line.

For reasons that no one quite understands or can explain, Luke gives the Pharisees bad press – thruout his gospel.

So…the way the story’s told by Luke, the Pharisee ends up looking like the bad guy while the taxman ends up looking sweet.

And that’s because the translators have used that little Greek word para to suggest

some sort of antagonism…one against the other…and so we get;

“This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God”.

But consider the other way this word is used….it’s also used to suggest some sort of juxtaposition…where two things are placed close together  in contrast to each other.

Now if there’s any truth in that, the text should read …“This tax man, and the other (alongside him, the Pharisee), went home made right with God”

One translation has this…..“To you I say, descending to his house, this one is justified alongside the other.” And like any good parable that would’ve been a revolutionary idea to devout first century Jews.

These men were different in almost every way possible yet they walked on parallel tracks when they found themselves in the Temple seeking Yahweh’s blessing. Remember they’re very likely looking for the same assurance – the same blessing…why else would they be there?…both were sincere both were devout…and both sought relief from the same Yahweh.

For Jesus finishes the story with these words

“If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you’ll become more than yourself.”

 Or to put it in simple English….”If you’re a bit sniffy and regard yourself as better than the next person sooner or later you’ll come a cropper, but if you’re comfortable with who you are in your own skin you’ll be better than just OK”

So that’s the good news.

But wait….there’s more and …it may be the greatest challenge of this parable…we are part of a community.

Said like that it sounds rather obvious but think about for a moment…

We  form  and belong in a community where we live in the plural…we pray in the plural “Our Father…give us….Forgive us….”

We live in a community where each of us is responsible for the other…and that means that the sin of one of us can impact – negatively –  every other one of us.

And it means that the good deeds of one us can have a positive impact on the lives of every other one of us. And the good any one does can rub off onto me and protect me…and you too of course.

The Jews have this wonderful notion of ‘zechut avot’…Hebrew for ‘stored up protection’…the idea that allows others to be justified….made right with God. This is the passionate belief held by Jews that even if we sin – and we will – the benefits of the good deeds of Abraham  and of Isaac and of Jacob the could be transferred to us!

Does that sound fanciful?

Well it sounded like an a great idea to Paul – who you’ll recall promoted himself as the Pharisee supreme – when he proposed that it was the faithfulness of Jesus the Christ that allows us to be justified – made right with God.

“Yes … it really is true…There is enough love to go around”

Enough for tax collectors and Pharisees. It’s the same love that wrapped itself around these two men as they walked home.

Now we don’t know what happened to these two men after they left the Temple … its an outside chance but they may have gone home together for pizza and a cold beer? And established a community of two where they shared blessings because of their shared gratitude. It’s possible that as a result of their longings and petitions they were now enfolded by the grace of Yahweh.

“I’m not religious, but I do love the concept of grace, of a gift so profound that it could never be earned or deserved. And so when I cite grace here as the final and most important force in friendships, I mean it in two ways. One is the forgiveness that we offer each other when we fall short. The other is the space that creates for connections—and reconnections—that feel nothing short of miraculous”.

(The Atlantic June 2023)

Part of King Charles coronation that I watched included the Moderator of the Church of Scotland presenting a Bible to the king.  I thought that was, like many other features of the service, very inclusive. 

After all one of the King’s roles, since Henry the Eighth, is to be head of the Church of England

Nevertheless, it bothered be slightly that a Presbyterian would say something like, these are the only laws you need.  To me the Bible is not a set of rules but a collection of stories that encourage us to prayerfully reflect on human behaviour and the divine influence on that behaviour.  

Like all good stories there are heroes and villains and after reading some of the stories you may want to check under the bed for monsters before you go to sleep at night. 

The lectionary avoids most of the real scary stories, but I have a copy of Phyllis Trible Texts of Terror and Jonathan Kirsch The Harlot By the Side of the Road: The Forbidden Tales Of the Bible, and I have skimmed through both of them.

Today’s readings do not meet the cut for either of those books.  But I suggest that an enterprising journalist could get three front page stories for the Press and an in depth interview on TV One’s ‘Sunday’ for our reading from Genesis.  I could certainly see it as evidence for a School Board in the USA to ban the Bible from the Library.

However, it is important that we read this story every three years because it is part of The Abraham Saga that, not only grounds our faith, but also three of the world’s great faiths.  Furthermore, this particular part of the story is about relationships and ambition so it gives us an opportunity to reflect on the way people behave so we can make ethical and spiritual decisions about that behaviour.

Hagar was Sarah’s slave and whether it was a marital decision for Hagar to provide an heir for Abraham or Abraham just helped himself to a bit on the side, we will never know. 

We live in a time when people have families later in life and surrogacy, with or without controversy, is one of the options that people choose when a woman can’t carry a child.  Of course, that usually involves a clinical procedure and willing participants not the head of the household to have a child by his wife’s slave.

In fact, we assume we don’t have slavery in our society. However, a recent ‘Sunday’ programme explored the conditions and abused employment rights of migrant workers. The word slavery was certainly used, and we were reminded that a man has recently been convicted for slavery.

But reflecting on Hagar’s situation I know a woman who was adopted by a family who physically abused her until they sent her to boarding school.  That was a  relieve from a household that relied on excessive corporal punishment and allowed her to qualify for medical school. 

Like so many people anonymously adopted out as babies she eventually sought her real identity and, not only discovered who her mother was, but found she had a whole family of brothers and sisters. 

Her mother had been a domestic servant and had a child by the head of each household she worked in.  Not terribly different to Hagar’s situation and illustrates that the Bible Stories are about real situations that happen to real people.  Furthermore, my friend’s story tells us those situations don’t just happen a long time ago.

Obviously, my friend and indeed her siblings survived because they were adopted by others.   Probably foster parents that were both good and bad.  Their mother I assume survived by continuing the near slavery of a domestic servant as pregnancy banished her from one household after another.

But we may well wonder how Hagar and Ishmael survived after being abandoned in the wilderness and the ‘good news’ story that helps us was in the Press on the 12^th of June. 

The headline was ‘Alive after 40 Days in the Wilderness.’  Of course all sorts of wonderful things happen in the Bible after 40 days or 40 years.  But this was a story about 4 children that not only survived a plane crash in the Amazon but were able to survive in the jungle until they were found. 

The general in charge of the rescue suggested the children were able to survive in the jungle because they were children of the jungle.  They knew what seeds and fruit they could eat and the dangers they must avoid.  However, despite their local knowledge the word miracle comes to mind and, with their parents killed in the plane crash, we could well imagine that they were, like Jesus in his 40 days in the wilderness, ministered to by angels. 

Their story also encourages us to suspect that Hagar as the slave of nomadic shepherds had a similar relationship with the wilderness she lived in.  We are told that God pointed out a well just as God looked after the four children.  All of them knew their wilderness but it was still a miracle they all survived.  

Comparing Bible Stories with modern parallel stories invites us all to take notice of the miracles in our own lives.  We are also challenged to notice the evil in our own world and remind us that it is possible to deliberately or inadvertently be part of dehumanising activities. 

But on a more positive reflection we are challenged to expect disaster to turn into triumph and we should even seek to aid such transformation. 

The Abraham saga is indeed the story of God guiding the journey of a family towards becoming a people of God.  It is also the story of a tribe fumbling their way through nomadic herding towards settled agriculture as God leads them towards the best outcome from each stumble along the way.

It is the founding myth of two great peoples and three of the world great religions.  

Along that journey we have the hard sayings of Jesus which begins with the most troubling verse for peace loving Christians:

‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword’. (Matthew 10:34)

Jesus then goes on to talk about division within families which is even more shocking for good comfortable middle-class Christians.  The idea that a commitment to Christ would divide families seems appalling. 

The reality is that families are divided by faith and ideas.  The story of the dismissal of Hagar and Ishmael shows that there is not only hope in such division, but it is part of the story of human development and migration across the face of the planet.

From an historical perspective, the Temple authority that ruled on behalf of the Roman Empire in Jesus’ time was corrupt and they would react violently to anyone who suggested that they were not representing the true faith in the true God.  That violence had Jesus crucified. 

What would also be true was the fact that within the families of Jesus’ followers some would choose to continue to follow Jesus and others would stay with the traditional temple faith, or the Pharisaic Judaism that replaced it. 

Indeed, there is evidence that, by the time Matthew wrote his gospel, a curse of the Nazarenes was added to synagogue worship.  That was a division between the religious family of Judaism and such divisions would also run through biological families. 

More importantly Jesus’ comments about not bringing peace and causing division among even the closest of relationships points to the need for a loyalty to the total family of all humanity. A loyalty that is greater than even our closest relationships. 

In Christ we are all one and therefore we have loyalties beyond our immediate biological family. 

All systems of human government try to impose an ethical framework that demands greater loyalty to the state rather than families, but governments are themselves human and therefore corruptible. 

Like Abraham, Henry the Eighth and his supporters worried about providing a male heir for the stability of the monarchy and the nation.  But Henry was the self-proclaimed head of the Church in England which by then stressed monogamy as a moral position.  So, he couldn’t be seen to father a son with one of his servants.  Such an heir would be contested, and the swords would come out and pit brother against brother.  Multiple wives like king David and Solomon had was also incompatible with Christian understanding so he simply murdered one wife after another in search of a suitable heir. 

Alas for all misogynists the family infighting and power politics failed to provide a monarch for any length of time, and it was his daughter Elizabeth who finally succeeded to the throne.  

She provided a stable reign and restored the economy by knighting the pirates who plundered the Spanish ships filled with Inca and Aztec gold.

Of course, the Spanish were rightly miffed.  But fog and a soft breeze allowed fire ships to drift amongst the Spanish Armada and change the DNA of the people of coastal towns and offshore islands. 

The journey towards an inclusive humanity is not only long and mysterious but a balance of triumph and tragedy with a sprinkling of miracles along the way.

Along that journey Kings, queens, tyrants, religious organisations, and even democratic elected governments set laws and regulations to guide humanities journey.  But they also get corrupted by the power they hold. 

Therefore, humanity must ground its ultimate values beyond an individual group or society.  That indeed is is one of the core tasks of religion. 

That task involves individuals reflecting on the stories of our scripture and relating those stories to our own stories. In that way our minds are opened to the divine Spirit.  The Spirit, that calls us to oppose actions that limit rather than enhance people’s lives. 

As religious people we are called by such study and reflection to speak out for justice even when doing so goes against loyalty to family, or mates.  We are called by our faith to live our lives in ways that give new life to the marginalised of our world.

As followers of Christ who claim to be both reformed and reforming, we must face the risk of division, even among friends and family, to promote a just society and live God’s Realm into the reality of our world.  

In 2004 Adidas launched a very successful advertising campaign with the byline  “Impossible is nothing”.   If you think about it, you may well think “what a load of mumbo jumbo”, really “impossible is nothing”?   But it didn’t stop Adidas making a lot of money as millions of people bought their products.  Nor did it stop them relaunching the slogan in 2021.   “Impossible is nothing”.   Perhaps part of the success of Adidas’ campaign is that we love the story of the impossible becoming possible.   And that is very much the story we focus on today as we again turn our attention to Abraham and Sarah.

Last week we saw that God told Abram to leave Haran, to leave his people and his father’s household, and to go to a land God would show him.   And God made a promise, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”. Well Abram obeyed, for we read that Abram left, as the Lord had told him, and they arrived in the land of Canaan. But there’s a problem.   How do you make a great nation out of a childless couple, especially as Abram was 75 and Sarai 66 when God made the promise.  And that’s where we left things last week. 

Today we pick up the story in Genesis 17 and 18, and we find the problem has become even more impossible. 25 years have gone by and not a single child has come from Abraham and his wife, Sarah.   God had said I’m going to make a great nation from you.   But there’s no child, not a single one.   Surely God’s left it a bit late for this now 100-year-old and his 90-year-old wife.   It’s now way beyond the impossible.   

Of course, 13 years before Abraham and Sarah took matters into their own hands.  They agreed to a plan where Sarah would give over her maidservant Hagar and Abraham would visit her in the middle of the night so Hagar could become a surrogate mother.    And it worked, Ishmael was born but, and there’s always a but, this was not how God intended to fulfil his promise.   So when you get to Genesis 17, the whole thing starts turning into a comedy.    God repeats his promise “I will bless Sarah, and moreover I will give you a son by her.  I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” And what’s Abraham’s reaction? Well, he falls flat on his face laughing and saying to himself “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”  And when he finally stops laughing he says to God, “O that Ishmael might live in your sight!”. Hey God, Ishmael’s thirteen, use him to produce the kings and peoples and nations.  It’s a much more sensible plan.  At least by using Ishmael there’s a chance of success. But God replied “No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac.”  And it seems that something clicks, that Abraham finally gets it.  He starts to believe that despite the problem of age he will have a son through Sarah.  And he goes away and the first thing he does, is to get circumcised as a sign that he believes God’s promise.

Sometime later we read that the Lord appeared again to Abraham, this time by the oaks of Mamre.   For Abraham it’s just another hot day and he’s probably thinking about his midday nap.  Yet something makes him look up and he sees three men standing nearby.   Well there goes the nap, he’s suddenly wide awake and running round at top speed.    He hurries from the entrance of his tent to meet his visitors and bows low to the ground by way of a greeting and says  “If I have found favour in the eyes of my Lord, don’t pass by”.   I’ll bring some water and wash your feet.   

Then he offers to get a little bread so they can be refreshed and go on their way.  They accept his hospitality so he runs back to the tent to find his wife Sarah, and tells her, “Quick, Sarah.   Bake some bread.   Get on with it.”   And then he runs again, and he goes to the herd, which are presumably chewing the cud out the back somewhere.   He finds the best calf and he takes it quickly to the servant who hurries to prepare it.   Everything’s at speed for this very old man, where it should be very, very slow.   He’s desperate to be the best host he possibly can.  And did you notice how he’s just offers a little bit.   “I’ll get you little water for your feet”, “Let me bring a little bread”.   Just a mouthful, a morsel.   And then what does he do?   3 measures of the best flour, that’s almost 12 kilograms of flour.   That’s at least 25 loaves of bread.   And it’s not just a mouthful of something.   It’s a whole calf.   No wonder everyone’s hurrying.   It’s going to take all afternoon to get this feast cooked.   And all the time this 100 year old is dashing around, serving his visitors curds and milk, where did they come from?   He serves them and then just stands there and watches them eat.   It’s a strange little scene carried out at a frenetic pace.

So, what’s going on?  There’s a clue in verse 3, “If I have found favour in your eyes, my Lord, do not pass your servant by”.   If you’ve been reading Genesis from the beginning, you may have noticed that this it’s said of Noah, that he “found favour in the eyes of the Lord.”  But there’s a difference here.   Noah obeyed God by building the ark and rescuing his family and the animals, but Noah’s heart at the end of the story is no different to his heart at the beginning.   Abraham is going to be different.   He will be an utterly new creation.   Where once life was impossible, for Sarah cannot conceive, life will be possible.   And that’s why it could not be through Ishmael, for that would be taking matters into their own hands.   It has to be the way of a gift, Isaac will be the impossible being made possible.   And Abraham it seems has got it. “If I have found favour in your eyes, my Lord, do not pass your servant by”.  

But what about Sarah?   Abraham must have told her about the encounter he had with God in Genesis 17.  She must have noticed the circumcision of Abraham and all the males in their household.   But we’re to see the contrast between her and Abraham.   Verse 9 is a turning point.  The chairs are pushed back after their rather big meal.   And Abraham is asked, “Where is your wife, Sarah?”.   And he replies “There, in the tent”.  And suddenly we go from being under the tree with Abraham and his three visitors, to in the tent with Sarah.   And notice everything towards the end is towards, and about Sarah who is behind Abraham listening at the tent door. 

The promise is made, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah will have a son” a promise repeated four verses later “At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah will have a son”.   And in between the promises it’s all about laughter.   And Sarah’s laughter is understandable, isn’t it?   It’s not laughter of mocking.   It’s a laughter of hopelessness.   Life has taught her not to clutch at straws.   She’s in her 90s.   She’s given up hope of ever having a child herself.   It’s laughter that’s filled with human realism of pain.   Age and experience and disappointment can do that to you.   And we’re supposed to see and understand, Sarah.   We’re supposed to empathise with her.  That’s why verse 11 reminds us that “Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women” a rather polite way of saying that she’s well past  the age of childbearing.  It’s laughable that Sarah should have a child.   But while we’re supposed to empathise, we’re not supposed to agree with her laughter. 

The scene ends strangely.   “Then the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child now that I’m old?’   Is anything too wonderful for the Lord.   At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah will have a son”.      Then we read “Sarah was afraid”.   So, she lied and said, “I didn’t laugh”.   But he said.   “Oh, yes, you did laugh.”   And the story abruptly stops there and you find yourself in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, then the incident with King Abimalech, only resuming in chapter 21.

So you are lft with questions.  Does Sarah believe it or not?  Does it happen, will she have a son?  But it also leaves us with a challenge.  What about you?   What about me?   What do we think about verse 14 , about the question God poses “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”   Are we going to be like Abraham, who welcomes the impossible?  Or are you going to be like Sarah, who laughs in the face of the impossible.   And if you think about it there are echoes of the Garden of Eden for, we’re under a tree again.   And under the tree we have Abraham doing what Adam should have done, which was to serve and to welcome God.   And we have Sarah who’s hiding, she’s lying and did you notice, she’s afraid.   Which way are we’re going to go?  Are we going to go with this new creation way, which is through God, or are we going to stick with the old and try and sort it out ourselves.

Lets jump ahead, to when the people of Israel retold the story of Abraham and Sarah and told their children “That’s great, great, great, great, great, great grandad Abraham and look, that’s great, great, great, great, great great grandma Sarah,” and the children are asking “why doesn’t she believe?  She’s crazy.   We’re all here.   We’re all listening to the story of it.   We’re the decedents of Abraham and Sarah. Why doesn’t she believe?”  And no doubt the parents chipped in that it’s not just Abraham and Sarah who couldn’t have children but then had Isaac.   But Isaac married Rebecca, and she couldn’t have children either.   But they did have Jacob.   And then Jacob got married to Rachel.   And you know what?  She couldn’t have children either.   And there’s a whole tribe of us lot, in fact twelve of them.   God has kept his promise.   With God the impossible becomes possible, with God the impossible is nothing.   You might say that God has got form here.   Of breathing life into what was once dead.   You see God is making it clear in the very opening pages of the bible a principle that will run all the way through and all the way through today.   

Jump back to chapter 17, to when Abraham manages to control his laughter and ask “O that Ishmael might live in your sight” What if God had said yes, all right, let’s do it your way, through Ishmael.   If that had been the case, it would have allowed some human means to bring about his promise of blessing.   And it wouldn’t have dealt with the problem of the human heart, which is the centre of the problem.   It’s that default position, which means that we grab Gods throne.  My life, my way.   And the opening chapters of Genesis are filled with human examples of taking matters into our own hands, Cain literally took life into his own hands by murdering his brother Abel.   The citizens of Babel said we can do it ourselves, we can make ourselves great.   Ishmael himself, will be a wild donkey of a man.   It’s going to end in ruin.   That is the way of the human heart and it’s the way of insecurity.   In all of our human efforts, to bring about blessing when is it ever enough?  We are slaves to personal improvement.   And it doesn’t match up all the efforts we make, what do we do?  We hide away.   We pretend it’s better than it really is.   We lie due to shame.   We’re in a culture of progress and targets.   We’ve tried capitalism, we’ve tried communism.   We’ve tried individualism.   We’ve tried pretty much any other “ism” that you can possibly think of.   Yes we think that the possibilities are limitless, but that’s a lie.  The reality is that we are limited, we are limited in our abilities, we are limited in our understanding, we’re limited in our time.   But what we do is crazy.   We try to limit God by our own experience of limitation.   But God is God.   He is the only one who’s without limit.   Is anything too hard for God?   You see, if God creates a divine roadblock to Ishmael, he creates a highway for Isaac.   If Ishmael is a way of insecurity and dashed expectations, the way of Isaac is a way of certainty and hope.   If God can breathe life into the barren womb of Sarah, he can breathe life into an empty tomb.   He can breathe life into your heart and mine, no matter what you are like or what you have done in the past   Is anything too hard God?  When it comes to God’s promise that he will change me and he wants me to be more be more like his son, is anything too hard for God?   What about this church as it struggles to nurture life and build connection with the people living around us. It’s all too hard, too much of a struggle, but is anything too hard for God.   And when it comes to God’s promise on a global scale that he will reach every tribe and tongue and nation with his grace and favour through Jesus Christ, is anything too hard for God?   

Abraham learned.   Sarah is learning.   What about us?   You see we long for the impossible to be made possible.  Will we go God’s way for God is in the business of fulfilling his promises, because for him actually, impossible is nothing.   

I want to quickly finish by jumping to chapter 21 where we read:-

The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as he had promised.  Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him.  Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him.  Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.  Now Sarah said, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.  And she said, “Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

Over the last thirty or so years researching family history has become one of New Zealand’s fastest growing hobbies.   It comes complete with the excitement of discovering you are related to an amazing celebrity or that you have some juicy scandal in your past.    My father got into genealogy when he heard the suggestion that his great, great, great grandfather was the illegitimate son of Napoleon Bonaparte.   Much to his disappointment he quickly discovered that was untrue, and further research showed that he, and hence I, am disappointingly not related to any famous people and have a boring set of ancestors that appears totally lacking any skeletons in the closet.    

Having said that, I want to suggest this morning that if we are Christians, we have a surprise scandal in our family tree.   For right near its beginning is a moon worshipper who twice passed his wife off as his sister to save his own skin, had extra marital relations with his slave which resulted in a child, and later attempted child sacrifice.    I’m sure you’ve guessed that this outrageous ancestor is Abraham.   And if you’re thinking that Abraham is far too distant a figure to be of any significance to us as Christians, who are after all Jesus people not Abraham people, take a deep breath, for this once moon worshipper provides the essential starting point for every Christian’s family tree, he is the essential foundation for every Christian storyline.   So let me try and put the story of Abraham into its context, and hopefully we’ll see why Abraham matters and what he says to us today.   

Let’s start with some very familiar words of Jesus from John 3 : 16, “God so loved the world”.   But you only have to go a few pages into the first book of the Bible, and you could easily forgive God for not loving the world.   The Bible begins, as I’m sure you all know, with a description of God’s wonderful creation with human beings as the pinnacle of it all, and the placing of a man and a woman in the amazing garden of Eden.   But that man and that woman were not satisfied, they wanted more than God had given them, they wanted to take over and play God themselves.   Not surprisingly this rebellion provoked both God’s displeasure and judgement, bringing the curse that affects all of life even today, from work to family relationships, from the environment to spiritual warfare.   And it leaves Adam and Eve banished and barred from the garden, desperately clinging to a promise that one day, one day, a descendant of theirs would crush the evil one and undo the curse.   “God so loved the world?”  Well, maybe.   

Meanwhile, sin infected the world and it spread at a speed that makes a global pandemic, even COVID 19 seem sluggish in comparison.   And soon all God could think of was to wipe everything out and start all over again.  God sent a flood that makes the recent Cyclone Gabrielle look like a tiddly little puddle.   But even as God’s flood swept everything away, the love God still had for the world was shown in the provision of an ark for Noah, his family, and the animals, so that even in this terrible destruction there could still be a future.   But even that doesn’t look very bright when Noah celebrates his rescue in a drunken naked stupor.   “God so loved the world?” 

The world remained an ugly place, and in Genesis 11, ambition and pride rear their ugly heads.   The people of the world are determined to make a name for themselves, and they plan to build a city with a tower that reached to the heavens so that they would be on an equal footing with God.   Well, not surprisingly, this triggers God’s judgement and displeasure all over again, and he scatters the people all across the world in a confusion of speaking many different languages and unable to understand each other.   “God so loved the world?” 

And as Genesis 11 works itself out, there’s no sign yet of any love, any grace, or any hope after the latest coup attempt.   It was as if God’s patience, God’s love, has finally run out, and if the story had stopped there, you could forgive current day atheists saying that everything is the result of chaos, that life is meaningless, that it’s all down to the survival of the fittest.   

But then at the end of Genesis 11 we get a tiny inkling that God hasn’t finished with the world yet, a faint hint that God’s heart of love is still beating.   And chapter 12 begins, “The Lord had said to Abram”.   Amazingly another storyline is starting.   God is still bothering with us.   His love isn’t exhausted.   God so loved the world, and I’m sure we all know how that sentence goes on, “That he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”  And that is true, but the story starts way, way back in Genesis 12.   God so loved the world that he called Abram.   And this is the story that undoes the curse, unravels the chaos, outlasts the despair.   God called Abram.   

But back up for a moment to the end of chapter 11.   Look more closely.   See, in this world, contaminated by the sin virus, reeling from the effects of God’s judgement, the curse, the chaos, the confusion.   But as you look you will see families are on the move, including a man called Terah and his family.   They leave the ancient city of Ur and they head for Canaan which will become the promised land.   But they don’t get there, they make a start, but then they stop.   Terah and his family settle in Haran which is way short of Canaan.   And we are told that Terah had a son called Abram, but Abram is not some sort of spiritual goody two shoes.   You know, a shining, glossy Yahweh believer.   We’re told that he and his family worshipped other gods.   And both the cities of Ur and Haran were major centres of moon god worship.   It looks as if they set out on their journey, found Haran and settled there, at home with the familiar moon worship.   But God’s love reaches down to the unlikeliest of people, to call them to himself.   And that’s what happened to Abram.   Genesis 12 begins, “The Lord had said to Abram”.   When?  When they were still in Ur, possibly.   After they settled in Haran? more likely.   But at some point, the Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people, and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.”

And it’s into this setting that the love of God speaks extraordinary words of grace.   Out of the blue, so to speak, God said to Abram.   “I will bless you”.   And then, maybe even more remarkably, “you will be a blessing”.   Promise after promise declares that God hasn’t given up on the world.   His plans are plans for welfare, not for evil.   Even in this darkest of starting places there is a future, and all this love and purpose and grace is poured out onto Abram.   But it’s not restricted to him alone.   Look at these promises a little more carefully.   There’s the promise of a people.   Verse two, “I will make you into a great nation”.   Surely an easy promise to come up with, but hang on, Abram is 75 years old when this is said to him.   And if you think that isn’t a particularly insurmountable problem, his wife Sarai was childless because she wasn’t able to conceive and at 66, she’s not much younger that Abraham and way past childbearing age.    “I will make you into a great nation” – Yeah right. 

God promises a people, but there is more for he promises a people with a place.   If you belong, you need somewhere to call home and when you don’t have that, it’s amazing how rootless people can feel.   Well, look at verse one, “go to the land I will show you”.   There is a promised land for the promised people.   I mean, rootless and banished from their original home that God made for them in the Garden of Eden, now they discover there’s a promise of a new place and a new home ahead.   And there is still more promised.   There’s protection on the journey.   “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.”  Blessing God’s people will bring unexpected rewards.   Opposing them will bring unexpected costs, promises God.   And there’s nothing small scale about the vision, about what God is going to do.   “All peoples on earth – will be blessed through you”.   Did you spot the irony.   In the chapter before these promises, proud rebels set about building a city with the Tower of Babel reaching to the heavens.   For in their words, they wanted to “make a name for ourselves”.   It must have been a remarkable bit of architecture.   But we’re not told, and no one knows the name of a single person who designed the Tower of Babel or worked on it.   Now Abram is told to go, to go away from home and family and anything that will give him identity and God promise, “I will make your name great”.   Today Abram whom God later renamed Abraham is known right across the world.   And this story, isn’t the story for Jewish people alone.   “God so loved the world” that he called Abraham to bless us.   You see, Jesus is there in Abraham’s family tree.   He’s one of the descendants.   He’s the one who makes these promises come true.   

And we find our place in the family tree in the remarkable storyline because of Jesus Christ.   Our reading from Romans 4 tells us this.   It says that if you belong to Christ then through faith you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.   If you’re Christ’s man, if you’re Christ’s woman, these promises are for you.   The New Testament tells me I don’t work out the Abraham family tree by following from father to son to grandson.   No, no.   I do it by following the faith line.   Abraham had faith in God’s promises, relied on them, lived his life trusting them.    Those who have faith in Jesus Christ, who rely on him, who live our lives trusting him, we make them true for we find ourselves on Abraham’s family tree of blessing.   

But there’s more from the New Testament understand that those who have faith are children of Abraham.   For those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith, and we’re included in the blessing.   “God so loved the world” he called Abraham to bless us.   His story is our story.   These are our blessings.   This is the story that undoes the curse, and as Christians we’re part of it.   And when it eventually reaches its climax, there will be a home.   Not a fluffy cloud and a harp to strum for eternity, but something far more earthy than that.   A new heaven and a new earth and nothing of the curse will stain it.   Gone will be all evil and sin, gone will be tears and pain, gone will be all sickness and death, they’ll all be gone.   And the people gathered to enjoy it will be from every nation, every tribe, every people, every language.   They will all be there as God promised.   All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.   “God so loved the world” he called Abraham.   To bless you.   So, this is the story to keep your eyes on.   This is the one to never lose track of, to make sure it’s on your playlist when you’re asking the question of how you make sense of life.   

And it’s a storyline that makes us look outwards.   We who are Christians often speak of the Great Commission, and we think of Jesus’s words at the end of Matthews Gospel.   You remember them, “Go and make disciples of all nations”.   But the idea doesn’t begin there.   It begins here.   In Genesis 12, all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.   If you’ve got a place on this faith family tree, then you can bring blessing to the world.   Blessing is God’s happiness.   Blessing is living in relationship with God.   Blessing is living under his favour.   And blessing is something we share with others, for like Abraham we are blessed that we may be a blessing.

Here’s something practical you can do in response.   Tomorrow morning when you wake up, wake up with a simple prayer, “God make me a blessing to someone today.”  It’s a great daily prayer to have.   It’s a great way to start the day and every day.   It’s a great way to live.   It’s being one of the family.   “God make me a blessing to someone today”.   You see, God so loved the world that he called Abraham to bless us, so that we bless others.   

God said “Go” and Abram went.   We read in verse 4 “So Abram left, as the Lord had told him.”  Verse 5 They set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.” And he went, did you notice, he built altars to the living God in the heart of Canaanite territory, in the land of Canaanite gods, as if he’s marking out the territory for the future.   Faith obeys.   Even when it doesn’t know just how things will turnout.  Next week we will pick up the story again almost 25 long years later.   Lots of altars have been built, lots of land has been explored, but there’s a massive problem for Abraham and Sarah are childless.   Is God going to keep his promise even when it’s way beyond possibility?  Find out next week.

REFLECTION:  God of Many Names

We call God by many names partly because we recognize the limits of our human language  No one name can capture God’s fullness. 

But the conclusion of  this morning’s story reassures us that all the individual voices ultimately come together to call God One. Composer Brian Wren has a similar theme in his hymn, Bring Many Names. We’re not singing it as there is no substitute tune for its unusual metre.  However, the lyrics speak of: Strong mother God, working night and day, planning all the wonders of creation; Warm father God, hugging every child, feeling all the strains of human living”; Old, aching God…wiser than despair; Young, growing God, eager, on the move, crying out for justice, and, finally, in the last verse, Great, living God, never fully known, joyful darkness far beyond our seeing, closer yet than breathing….    

So on this Trinity Sunday we bring many names for God, but, as the story reminds us, we also call God One. In dialogue with our Jewish and Muslim sisters and brothers, we can affirm our belief that God is one.  But, within Christianity, we believe that God is three-in-one.  Over time this idea came to be known as the Doctrine of the Trinity, traditionally celebrated on the Sunday after Pentecost.

This morning let’s look at how the doctrine of the Trinity developed.  Theologian Elizabeth Johnson traces the origin of Trinitarian thinking to early Christians experiencing God as beyond them, with them, and within them: as utterly transcendent, as present, historically in the person of Jesus, as present in the Spirit within their communities.  These were all encounters with only one God.  Out of their experience they sought a way to express this, leading them to talk about God in a threefold way. Early Christian writings are filled with this threefold understanding,  appearing in hymns, confessions of faith, liturgical formulas and doxologies. In the process, the view of God as One, flexed to incorporate Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And so their language expanded creatively to accommodate their religious experience.

As Elizabeth Johnson wrote, while early Christians still believed in one God, they also experienced God in at least three particular ways: beyond them, with them, and within them.

Experiencing  God beyond them, recognized that the fullness of God is beyond human language, knowledge, experience.  Of course the understanding of an utterly transcendent God was historically ancient.  God with them, was the recounted experience of the actual person of Jesus, who embodied the ways of God in his life.  Overtime, because followers saw the ways of God so clearly in him, Jesus of Nazareth became known as Jesus the Christ. And, at the same time that early Christians experienced God as beyond them and with them, they also experienced God as within them, as present in the outworking of the Spirit in their communities.

So, although there was a transcendent aspect of God that would always be beyond their experience, and even after Jesus was no longer physically with them, early Christians still experienced the closeness of God, that is, as Brian Wren writes, closer yet than breathing. The Early Church called this aspect of God Spirit.

As Christians continued to experience God in these three ways, they also wrote about God in a threefold way.  We see an example of this in the apostle Paul’s second letter to the Church at Corinth, written around the mid-50s of the first century, so more than twenty years after Jesus’ death. In the very last sentence of chapter 13,  Paul offered a three-part benediction, one we know well, namely  The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

However, we still need to remember that the New Testament does not contain a doctrine of the Trinity, nor does the word Trinity ever appear. It was almost 200 years after Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians that scholarly writings in the early 3^rd century attempted  to apply the Greek word Trinity to Christian thought.  And the Doctrine of the Trinity was still a further 100 years away, formulated at the Councils of Nicea in 325 and Constantinople in 381. If we do the sums,  it was 350 years after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus before a fully-fledged doctrine of the Trinity was able to be articulated, eventually becoming orthodoxy.  During those centuries, there were also many other diverse ways that people’s experiences with God were understood and expressed. 

Today we are a long way beyond the  Trinitarian battles of the Early Church.   And today we are not limited to how the Trinity was understood in the 4^th century.  Afterall it did take 350 years to settle on an official doctrine.  The Ecumenical Councils where this occurred were actually only called  because of bitter disputes among rival groups on  how to talk about Jesus Christ. These rivals had various ways to understand God, both Trinitarian and non- Trinitarian.

Although the Trinitarian camp received a majority of votes at the 4^th century Ecumenical Councils, the minority Christian groups didn’t disappear.  So called heresies flourished, along with diverse interpretations of the orthodox creeds.

Early Christians did their best to reflect theologically about their experience of God from the limits of their time and place.                

Our challenge is the same, as it has been for people of faith in every age. 

We are called to reflect about God as best we can, based on our  experience, while taking into account the wisdom of the past. 

For example, many people today, find it insufficient to limit our language about God to the classic Trinitarian formula of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.   Limiting ourselves to an exclusively masculine formulation (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) can be an inadequate reflection of our 21^st century experience.               Just as Sandy Sasso’s children’s book and Brian Wren’s hymn urge us to bring many names for God, we need to bring many names for the Trinity.  There is strong precedent for this.  In the 4^th century, St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, in Algeria, listed twenty different formulations for the Trinity in his book On the Trinity.

When we hear  different Trinitarian formulas, do they resonate with us, or disturb us?  Either way, it might be helpful to ask ourselves the question, why? What feelings, thoughts, or memories emerge in response to the metaphors?

First, how do we respond to the traditional language of Father, Son, Spirit?  What are the things that affect our response?

Secondly, one I use often,  Creator, Redeemer and Giver of Life.   

And thirdly, from Jim Cotter’s Lord’s Prayer, Eternal Spirit, Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-Giver.

We don’t have to look far to find many other images or metaphors.  You may like to consider what names for God are meaningful for you.  What formulation of the Trinity would you choose to express something of your experience of God?  

You won’t be too surprised that  argument and conflict over Trinitarian formulations continued beyond the great Councils of the 4^th and 5^th Centuries.  16^th Century Protestant theologian John Calvin reminded people,  that no figures of speech can describe God’s extraordinary affection towards us; for it is infinite and various so we might be more aware of God’s constant presence and willingness to assist us. Today’s readings from Genesis 1 and Psalm 8 reinforce that.

In fact God loves us as if we were God; and invites us to love other humans beings in the same way that we are loved by God – by loving our neighbours as our very selves. That is the deep meaning for us on this Trinity Sunday.