Text: Genesis 15:1-6

I am very well known in my family – or with my children, I guess, for never making promises. As any one who has spent any time with children will know, there’s and kind of constant litany of questions: Can I have…? Can we do…? Can we go…? Can I? Can I? Can I?  I say no a lot. But if it’s something that I feel like I can agree to, my answers or plans are still pretty circumspect. I might say, “I’ll do my best but I can’t promise.” Or “If there’s time, we can go to the playground after school.” 

Because I know what happens when I promise. Or even if I don’t explicitly say, “I’m not promising!” When I say, “Sorry, no park today… “But you promised.” Even though we humans know that plans change, circumstances change, we could but now we can’t. I sometimes hear one child say something like, “You promised we could go to the beach,” and the other child responding, “Mom doesn’t make promises!” They know me well.

They also know that if I do make a promise I take it very seriously – a promise is a promise. 

This story about Abram (not yet Abraham!) is also a story about a promise. It’s about the promise of God. The bible story book that I grew up with was called God Keeps His Promises. Call that because over and over again, the story of God and God’s people is a story about God’s promise of presence and love to creation and all creatures.

But Abram’s story is a specific promise: God has made a promise to Abram back in chapter 12. Abram will be a blessing and through Abrahm and his lineage all people will be blessed. Through the biological descendents, in other words. 

We’ve read to the end. We know that there will be a song called, “Father Abraham Had Many Sons.” We will nod our heads and wiggle our right hands and left feet and turn around. Abram hasn’t heard that song. There is no arm wiggling. He is doubtful and he is afraid.

I’m not sure if he knows how afraid he is. Have you ever had the experience where you aren’t sure what you’re feeling until someone tells you? Or someone asks you how you’re feeling and you realize you’re feeling A LOT! The example that came most readily to mind, since my recent sermon about Hannah and infertility was when I’d miscarried and my midwife did a follow up call and said, “It’s not your fault.” I realized then how much shame and guilt I was feeling. Along with a lot of grief.

God comes to Abram in a vision and he sees Abram’s inner self and says to Abram, “Don’t be afraid.” God sees that Abram is anxious. When I preached about Hannah a few weeks ago I talked about how much children – and specifically sons – ensure a person’s legacy. For Abram this is also true. Sons are a person’s future. Their legacy, the life-beyond-life. 

So while God has made a promise of legacy, it has not yet come to pass. Abram knows he’s getting on in years, so he’s been planning work-arounds (and so is Sarai as we come to find out; the next chapter gets into Hagar). Here we learn that Abram is planning to pass on his holdings to a member of his household staff – essentially his assistant. God comes to him with reassurance. Don’t be afraid. I keep my promises. Sometimes you just have to wait.

That doesn’t mean Abram isn’t going to push back. Just like kids will. Even if I didn’t promise a thing I sometimes hear: “But you said!” Abram is not being childish but he cannot see how God can offer him anything at this point: He has wealth, he’s had adventure, he’s won battles, he’s connected with royalty, he has influence. But he has no sons! 

In the Believers’ Bible Commentary: Genesis, author Eugene Roop says, “We often equate complaint with rejection, assuming that a complaint directed against us necessarily means we are not trusted or accepted…But complaint means that one takes the one who has promised seriously enough to be angry when things do not work out as promised.” 

That’s one of the things that’s kind of cool about the Hebrew Bible especially – God’s people are not not afraid to voice their fears, their anger, their uncertainty to God, even to argue with God, to push back. And God doesn’t understand that as lack of faith. God’s response is to take Abram outside.

I once went camping in Wadi Rum in Jordan. This was at least in the same general region where Abram was wandering. This was 30+ years ago when I was a teenager – but even now I can remember how vividly the stars shone. I think that may have been the most spectacular sky I’ve ever seen. And I grew up in Saskatchewan, where “Land of Living Skies” is the motto on the license plates.

In Wadi Rum at night, it felt like the stars were close enough to touch. Like the milky way was a sheer scarf draped across the heavens. There were no city lights to dilute the starlight. There were no tall buildings to block the horizon. Abram may have looked up at those stars every night and yet God had him look up again. To remind him that this dazzling brilliance in the heavens was a part of God’s handiwork. If God can create the stars, how much more is God able to follow through on the promise for Abram. 

It’s hard to wait on blessing. To wait on God when we don’t see any movement. It’s hard to wait on God when we’re in pain, or feeling anxious, or are longing for change, for justice, for a resolution to a hard problem. We get jaded and cynical.

I don’t remember exactly how it came up, but we were welcoming a couple of new people to our gathering of Kirkland pastors this past week and someone commented that it’s a Northwest trait to be cynical. This is a region of cynics. I don’t necessarily know that I agree, but maybe that’s just because I’m still an outsider and I tend to be an optimist. And anxious optimist, maybe. But still an optimist. 

When Martin Luther King said that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice I’m like, yeah! It’s all going to work out. On the other hand, he also said that the arc is long. God wants us to know that too. Abrah will experience the promise of a son, but the fullness of God’s blessing of land, of a blessing through all nations won’t happen for generations upon generations. 

When I do get discouraged or start feeling cynical or doubtful about the future, it is helpful to me to (metaphorically at least) look up. If I could, like Abram, look at the expanse of the stars and see the infinity of space, to the literal arc of the milky way and of the horizon, to take the literal long view, perhaps I could gain a perspective on God’s time. 

The next time I am despairing over politics, or injustices or violence. Like Abram I will take action of my own – because action gives me hope. I will complain to God, because God welcomes my prayers. And I look out at the stars to remember that God is faithful. God keeps promises.

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