Genesis 12 - Further reflections

The pattern that emerges is this chapter is promise, pressure,panick. It is a pattern that most of us would identify with as we journey along on the spiritual life. The promise of God comes to Abram and offers him a great future. The faith Abram demonstrates in this promise is quickly met with an extreme pressure. He finds himself in a land where there is a severe famine. It seems unthinkable that you can move from being the future blessing of all the nations to finding yourself at the mercy of nature. Abram's only option to survive the famine was to journey into territory where his own life would be at threat. Abram's initial enthusiam for God's offer quickly diminished into panick. Abram sees no alternative but to offer his wife to another man in order to protect himself. Some people come to faith under the impression that Christianity delivers you from the troubles and challenges of life. When reality sets in it becomes clear that we will all walk through dark valleys and face troubling times. There are also days that we might panick, like Abram, but it is encouraging to know that God does not abandon us even when we regress from faith. As we learn to trust God and resist the need to be in control, we will dicover that keeping faith is a lot less hassle than panicking. I wonder if Abram and Sarai's relationship was ever the same again after this incident.

Genesis 12 - What else can we learn

Having devoted a post to the centrality of Genesis 12 to the overarching story of God and his pursuit to bless humanity on a global scale, I now want to revisit the narrative and observe the life of a 'Godly' man.

Social scientists; psychologists, sociologists, economists and others have devoted much thought and consideration to developing models that will explain human behaviour. Early models were linear, simplistic and of limited value. More recent models have recognised the huge range of dependencies that sway our decisions and affect our behaviours. Abram's story seems be a prime example of how inherently inconsistent the human condition is. Abram is courageous, risky and the model of faith in the opening verses. By the end of the chapter he has been reduced to a cowardly, deceitful, self-interested betrayer - handing his wife over to Pharaoh to protect his own life. It is following Abram’s building of an alter to the Lord, an act of worship, that his demise begins. One moment Abram was a man of great faith and his life was marked by worship - the next he seems to have lost it all.

We all aspire to be the Abram of the opening verses. Men and women, who step out, take risks; become heroes of the faith. Youthful optimism convinces us that we have the integrity, the character, and the faith to become great. Unfortunately, like Abram, the day comes when we falter, stumble or collapse in a heap. It only takes a moment of fear, a flash of desire, a second of anger. Confronted with our humanity we are often left devastated and crippled. The pulpit is so often used as a vehicle of emotional manipulation and high ideals are preached. We are urged to be like Abram but rarely do we progress beyond the first few verses and see that Abraham was a weak and fearful man. When the inevitable happens in our lives we are left feeling unworthy and detached from the community that once esteemed us. Our eyes are so earthly bound that we see no hope or future for the fallen.

It is as though the author of Genesis hardly pauses as he pens the demise of Abram, he surges onto the providence of God. Abram's behaviour was despicable. To treat Sarai as though she was an asset that he could appease Pharaoh with was shameful. God stoops down and protects Sarai and in doing so extends grace to Abram. The intervention of God came despite Abram's sin and Sarai's cooperation. This is God at his most glorious. This is the God of grace at work. God was perfectly entitled to punish or abandon Abram in his faithlessness; instead he extends mercy and honours his promise to make Abram a nation. God's decision would become the story of the rest of scripture. His promise to bless the whole earth would advance despite man's constant failure.

Some times the Church stands self-righteously over the world and when great leaders are suddenly exposed for secret sins the mask is shattered and the self-righteous stunned. The model we are given in scripture is that all good men are also bad men and the gospel is about our brokenness and not our righteousness. Righteousness is the work of the redeemer that flows from the recognition that none of us are heroes but we look to a compassionate restorer. The rock on which God chooses to build his Church was the greatest failure of all. Peter's determination to be the great disciple who stood by a suffering saviour terminated in the explicit and aggressive denial of God himself. Peter discovered that there was nothing in himself that could cause him to rise above his own sinfulness. The brokenness that followed was the qualification that Jesus esteemed and provoked the commission "feed my sheep". Jesus wanted a broken man to lead his people, a man who had exhausted his own effort and fallen on the Redeemer.

Genesis 12 puts God firmly as the centre of the picture. It leaves no room for hoping in human heroes. As ever the author of Genesis causes us to lift our heads and look up. We all fail at times, sometimes it is sin, sometimes a ministry dream doesn't work out, maybe our business fails - the list is endless. Life leaves us broken. Brokenness leads us to safest place of all.

NB - this post is not suggesting that we all escape the consequences of our sin in this life, or that we should expect to prosper even when we sin, nor is it meant to diminish the severity of sin.