Path of the Covenant

This sermon was presented at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on the Second Sunday in Lent, March 4, 2007.

Genesis 15:1-2, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

In the church, we often talk about covenant, most often we talk about the covenant of grace, the covenant of Jesus Christ. But in today’s Old Testament reading we get a picture of a different covenant, the covenant between the Lord and Abram.

The covenant in Genesis 15 contains two promises, people and land. Last week’s reading from Deuteronomy reminded us that our ancestor, Jacob, was a wandering Aramean. But this nickname also could have applied to his grandfather Abram who we hear about today. Abram was the original desert wanderer, a term which because of his landless condition literally means “one who is destitute, perishing.”[1] We learn earlier in Genesis that Abram had become affluent with flocks and herds, but he was still without a country to call home. He has wealth, but without a home he is like a plush potted plant that without being replanted in fresh soil will grow until it becomes root bound and dies in its pot.

Our reading begins with Abram receiving the word of the Lord in a vision. Abram is told that his reward will be very great. Abram asks what reward the Lord would give him since he does not have an heir. It is as if he asks the Lord “what good is more wealth if there is no one to receive it when I die?” It may seem a little presumptuous to ask about the relative value of the Lord’s gifts, but Abram has the confidence or the gall to ask. An heir would be very important to Abram. He and his wife Sarai were getting older. It is beginning to appear that his family, his lineage would end with him. His name and the name of his family would be lost to eternity. His wealth and power would go to others, in this case, to a slave of his household.

Here the Lord promises that Abram will have an heir of his own. Abram hears “No one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” He is then told that his heirs will be so vast, that his family would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens. In the ancient culture, progeny is a form of wealth surpassing material goods. Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Then the Lord promised the wealth that supports family and livestock alike, land. The Lord promises Abram the land where he stood as his inheritance.

Imagine how Abram felt at that moment, he was promised his greatest desires. He had wealth, now he was promised descendants to share the wealth and land for them to make a home. It must have seemed too good to be true. Then again while Abram faithfully believed, perhaps he had a shadow of doubt like the man with the child in the Gospel of Mark who cries out, “I believe; help my unbelief.”[2] For whatever reason, Abram asks the Lord, “O, Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

The Lord orders Abram to bring the elements of the covenant sacrifice. Another way to say making a covenant in Hebrew is cutting a covenant.[3] While the full reason for this expression is unknown, one explanation among many is that in making the covenant, a sacrifice was offered and the parties making the covenant would pass between the cut halves of the sacrificed beasts. Doing this, they symbolically take upon themselves the fate of the animals should they violate the covenant.[4]

The symbolism and the theology of the sacrifice system are pretty far beyond us. So it is probably more than most of us could imagine that Abram took first a heifer, and then a female goat, and then a ram, and split each of them in half. He didn’t have chain mail gloves like many who work in beef processing. He didn’t have power tools or refrigeration. There was no high powered water jet to cut the animals. He had a knife which he used to slaughter and then prepare the animals for the sacrifice. He cut skin, fat, muscle, tendon, cartilage, and organ with his knife to prepare the livestock for the covenant. Imagine the blood, not just on Abram’s clothes but in the mud between his toes. Finally, after several hours or perhaps even days, when the preparations were made, Abram put the finishing touches on the stock; he added a full dove to one stack and a young pigeon to the other. The offering was complete, but until the covenant ceremony was finished, Abram had to drive the buzzards from the carcasses.

In this post industrial-information age society, most people don’t have everyday contact with livestock. But we do have one advantage toward knowing about this system that others do not; we live in an area that has stock production and processing. Several members of this congregation even work in livestock production and processing. Even for those of us who don’t know the industry first hand, we know the smell of the chicken house and the smell of the Tyson plant cutting nuggets on three shifts. In this community, we are more familiar with the smells of livestock preparation than most, but it is still limited. Cutting a covenant was a messy business. So since we know something about the slaughterhouse when we proclaim the fate of the livestock can be our fate too if we violate the covenant, we say a lot.

But there is one more element of cutting a covenant. The covenant is established between the parties after they pass between the halves of the livestock. In this case, we learn only a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, symbols of the Lord, pass between the offering. The Lord establishes the covenant with Abram unilaterally. In this case, only the Lord is bound to provide the promises of the covenant upon the penalty of prior example. The Lord makes the covenant with Abram saying, “To your descendents I give this land.” Passing alone between the halves of the offering, the Lord promises these rewards.

The question then needs to be asked: Why did the Lord make Abram the recipient of such a generous covenant? The promises to the patriarchs, Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, point toward a day when their descendants will make up a populous nation whose wealth and well-being will benefit their neighbors.[5] The promise, the covenant is not so that they will have vast wealth to obliterate their neighbors, it is to be used to benefit their neighbors. Israel understood its existence not as its own accomplishment, but as a life grounded in the Lord’s benevolence.

In the reality of the Roman Empire, life grounded in the Lord’s benevolence had different meanings for different people. Our gospel reading accents this with the words of the Pharisees.

Their screams of “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you!” have a bit of Chicken Little associated with them. There are several theories why the Pharisees would warn Jesus.
Conventional wisdom has the Pharisees warning in a negative light because it comes from the Pharisees, consider the source if you will. The Pharisees were threatened by the teachings of Jesus and they used Herod to get him out of their hair. This is the conventional wisdom, but it is not always supported by Luke’s gospel. Luke’s writings are relatively neutral on the Pharisees, so this may not have been the case.

Another theory is that the Pharisees are attempting to distract Jesus from his divine purpose. If Jesus leaves, his ministry will be thwarted and the Pharisees will have the area all to themselves again. A side benefit is that without Jesus raising the rabble, Herod will leave the Pharisees alone. Again this may or may not be the case.

A third theory is that the warning came from genuine concern. As one commentary says, given “Luke’s ambiguous portrait of the Pharisees, some of whom will align themselves with Jesus, it is likely that the Pharisees in this scene are well-intentioned but lack a full understanding of how Jesus will fulfill God’s will. Given the dim-wittedness of the disciples on this score, we can hardly fault the Pharisees for failing to grasp that God’s purpose is served through the violent death of a prophet.”[6] But this is uncertain too.

So whether the motives of the Pharisees had bad intentions or not, Jesus knew that some of them would tell Herod what was happening just like a younger sibling who tattles at every opportunity. Whether the Pharisees had evil intent or were simply not ready for the new thing the Lord was doing, Jesus would not be turned from his path. Jesus knows his path. He knows where his ministry is leading. He knows that he will not die on this day, or the next, or the next by the hand of Herod. He knows it is not yet his time and this is not his place.

Jesus knows He is God’s blessing through the nation of Israel for the world. Through Him the world is redeemed. Where last week we said that the devil would not define the relationship between the Father and the Son, this week we learn that no human, neither the Pharisees nor Herod, would define this relationship either.

This sacrifice Jesus makes; he makes alone on our behalf. This is the covenant the Lord makes with all creation. As we said in our Call to Worship, “we make our offering with sounds of great gladness, singing and making music to the Lord,” then the Lord alone walks among it accepting it and making it holy.

Jesus is our perfect example, he walks between the sacrifice of two criminals hoisted upon their own petard. He rests between the sacrifice of our world and stands there alone for our benefit. But, this isn’t our focus today.

There is a lot of intrigue in the world of the Pharisees, those of 2,000 years ago and those of today. There are many things that seek to distract us from the word and work of the Lord. But Jesus was not deterred from his mission and we should not be deterred from ours. As the children of God, we are called to be a benefit to our neighbors because our existence is not our own accomplishment. Our life is grounded in the Lord’s benevolence received in the covenant of grace. This is the path of the covenant Jesus walks. We cannot walk it with him, no matter how hard we might want or try. Our path is different; we are not to be turned from our path of honor and service to the Lord for one that is not ours.

Yes, there is intrigue in the temple and in our world. And the promises of the Lord may seem too good to be true. Perhaps even while we believe and it is reckoned unto us as righteousness, there is a nagging grain of unbelief. But through his covenant and his sacrifice, we are able to do more than we ever could without. Let us not be distracted by our world. Let us seek, know and follow our path and follow it as Jesus knew and followed his.

[1] Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A, The New Interpreter’s® Study Bible New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha. Notes for Deuteronomy 26:5, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989.
[2] Mark 9:24, NRSV.
[3] Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A, The Interpreter’s® Dictionary of the Bible, Supplemental Edition. George Arthur Buttrick, Dictionary Editor. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1976.
[4] Ibid. NISB, note on 15:9-10.
[5] Ibid, Excursus on “The Promises to the Patriarchs.”
[6] Ibid, paraphrase of the notes on Luke 13:31.