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March 7, 2004
Second Sunday in Lent
Driving Away Birds of Prey
Gebesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Most of us who attend church and Sunday School learn a hodgepodge of stories and characters from the Bible.
We learn the Creation story.
We learn the stories of Ruth and Naomi, Jonathan and David, Samson and Delilah.
We learn the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Sermon on the Mount, the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
Because we hear and learn these stories out of order and with very little context, we often do not know where they appear in the Bible, how they fit into the overall Biblical narrative, even whether they come from the Old Testament or New Testament.
Among the characters most of us have encountered in sermon listening and Sunday School attending are Abraham and Sarah, known in the passage we just read[1] as Abram and Sarai.
After God created the world,
After the fall of Adam and Eve
Drove the world out of its original paradise,
After Cain killed Abel,
After Noah built the ark,
After people sought to reach heaven by building the Tower of Babel,
Only to have their language confused by God,
Halting construction as if there were labor strike,
God chose — from among all the fallen creatures of humanity — Abram and Sarai through whom to bring order and redemption to all.
Even though Abram was seventy-five when God called[2], God promised the aging, childless couple that they would have a child. God promised that he would make of them a great nation. God promised that he would give them land. And God promised that he would bless them and that through them, every nation under the sun would be blessed.
Can you imagine the step this promise put in Abram and Sarai's gait, the sparkle it brought to their eyes, the renewal of passion it brought to their marriage?
You will have a child.
You will be a great nation.
I will give you land.
Through you every nation will be blessed.
But alas, twenty years later, there is still no land, no child, hence no descendents, and no apparent blessing. Was God's promise a cruel joke, a divine hoax, bestowed upon this ancient couple simply to keep them from going downhill in their waning years?
II.
When we join Abram and Sarai in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, Abram has doubtless asked God some pointed questions concerning when, exactly, the fulfillment at least of one promise is going to occur.
God responds to Abram's interrogation by speaking to him in a vision:
Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield
[God says];
Your reward shall be very great.Oh yeah [Abram says].
What are you going to give me
And when are you going to give it?
I continue childless.
My heir is Eliezer of Damascus,
A slave who lives in my house.
But the Lord replies:
Eliezer shall not be your heir;
No one but your very own issue
Shall be your heir.
God then brings Abram outside:
Look toward heaven and count the stars [God says].
Your descendents will be as numerous as these stars.
The writer of Genesis then tells us that Abram once again believes God, and God counts Abram's trust as righteousness.
God then tells Abram:
Bring me five animals:
A three-year-old heifer
A female goat three years old
A ram three years old
A turtledove
And a pigeon.
Abram gathers the animals.
He cuts the heifer, the goat, and the ram in two.
He lays each half over against the other on an altar.
He places the two birds on the altar as well.
Scholars do not know the symbolism involved in the split carcasses. Nor do they know why the heifer, goat, and ram were split, while the birds were left whole.[3] But they do tell us that the ancients believed that God would act by passing flame from one half of the carcass to the other, symbolizing that God has made a treaty and pledged God's divine person to Abram. Therefore, Abram waits for God to send flame as a sign that God will keep God's promise.
III.
I doubt that many of us have split carcasses, placed them on an altar, and waited for God to send flames. But many of us have had the experience of putting everything in place in our lives and waiting for God to light the flame, fulfill the promise.
We meet someone.
We come to love them.
We determine that it is this person, above all other persons, with whom we want spend our lives, bring new life into the world.
We arrange all the pieces on the altar for conception.
We wait.
We arrange the pieces again.
We wait.
We try natural methods then we turn to medicine and technology.
We wait.
Like Abram and Sarai, we wait for God to fulfill the promise, send flame, enact fertilization.We take a special interest in a student in our class.
He came to this country in a boat.
He cannot speak English.
He lives with distant cousins with whom we can barely communicate.
We are determined to teach this child English, while neither destroying nor denigrating his native tongue.
We stay late after school.
We spend grocery money on supplies for him.
We help him form words in his mouth, sounds in the back of his throat.
Like Abram, we arrange all the pieces on the altar and we wait for God to light the flame, fulfill the promise.
IV.
When Abram waits for God, he doesn't sit in a lawn chair and read the afternoon paper. Rather, Abram has to work while he waits. In fact, while split carcasses remain unlit on the altar, beginning to circle overhead are
- Birds of prey
- Vultures
Dark, beak-ed, cackling creatures who can smell blood before it is shed and who take their place above Abram's head waiting for
- One slight opening
- One hint of weakness
- One sound of knees knocking together
- One shudder in the soul
- One doubt in the mind.
If such opening appears, these birds of prey will strike — and soon there are no more carcasses on which flames can light and dance.
You know who these birds of prey are. They circle overhead when we have, to the best of our ability, arranged the pieces on the altar and taken our place to await God to fulfill the promise that has given rise to our effort. You know the language these birds of prey speak, the message they whisper in our ear:
"Are you still trying to get pregnant?"
"Are you still trying to teach that kid English?"
"Are you still with that company?"
"Are you still with that fiancée?"
"Are you still with that church?"
As Abram waits for the fire to light, the birds of prey start dive-bombing the carcasses with their hideous screeches. But instead of fleeing, Abram lifts his ancient, sleeve—covered arms and flails away at the birds of prey, until through his gallant, heroic, and exhausting effort, he drives them into descending dark. I have an image in my mind of Abraham flailing away at birds of prey, protecting the carcasses on the altar, until finally the birds give up, fly away, leaving the carcasses protected for the act of God.
Night falls.
Abram goes to sleep.
While Abram sleeps, a small flame indeed ignites a carcass, passes to another, and soon, as the writer of Genesis tells us, "a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch pass between them." God speaks to Abram: "To your descendents I will give this land."
V.
There are two brief points I draw from this story.
a.)
In all human endeavors — earning a degree, leading a company, fighting a disease — there is a role for both human effort and divine action.
The human effort is this:
Like Abram,
We put the pieces in place on the altar,
Doing our best to cut and arrange them to perfection.Then we wait for God to act.
Sometimes, like Abram,
We have to drive away birds of prey.But finally, after we have put forth our best effort,
We lay down to sleep and leave the outcome to God.
The divine action then kicks in.
God ignites a flame,
Passes a torch from one carcass to the next,
Brings to fulfillment our efforts in ways
We never imagined.
We put forth our best effort. God brings the results.
b.)
In the noise and activity of our lives
We must carve out a space,
Carve out time,
To build an altar so that God can act.
If we don't clear space in our lives for an altar,
If we don't take time to arrange pieces on the altar,
If we don't drive away birds of prey,
Like doubt
Worry
Fear
Peer pressure
The need always to succeed
Anger
Greed
Envy jealousy
Grief
Self-pity
Self-absorption
Narcissism
All those things that threaten
To devour the sacrifice
Before God acts,
We will likely not experience God's promise.
Yet when we
Create space,
Clear out time,
Drive away birds of prey,
God will light the flame,
Fulfill the promise.
Amen.
1 Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18. go back
2 Genesis 12:4. go back
3 Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa, J. Clinton McCann, James D. Newsome, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Basedon the NRSV-Year C (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994), 201. go back
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Church of Cedar Rapids
310 Fifth Street SE Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
Phone: 319-364-6148
E-mail: church@fpccr.org
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