Reorientation

How many of you are good at waiting? I wish I had that talent. I always thought that this lack of ability to wait was something I developed with the onslaught of digital media, two-day prime shipping, etc. But as I thought back to my childhood when thinking about this idea of waiting I realized that there were already areas in my life where I was bad at waiting. Not all areas of my childhood, but I can definitely see how they were precursors to developing this difficulty with waiting.

To be more precise, the difficulty I have is mostly with the fact that all these darn shipping companies like USPS, UPS, and FedEx all offer tracking. Which don’t get me wrong, it isn’t problem in and of itself, because they allow you to see that the package you ordered or you sent to a loved one is on its way or that it actually did make it to where it was supposed to go. The problem is the fact that I want to see where it is every step of the way even though the app or website tells me it’s going to be here on Thursday. Because let me tell you there are plenty of times when it’s not here on Thursday and that app said it would be here. And don’t get me started on when FedEx then releases the package to USPS for delivery because it takes at least an extra day if not two before the package arrives. And I know all of this is compounded by the fact that those of us who have Amazon Prime have been conditioned to receive our packages at a maximum of two days. Oftentimes, because we have a distribution warehouse here in Mesa, we can get next day or even same day delivery on certain items. I’m sure there are many other things that people, including each one of us, has a hard time waiting for.

I suppose, though, it’s good to know that on some level I am in good company with our friend and patriarch Abram. Even though it has only been three chapters in the book of Genesis, for Abram it has been, according to scholars, ten years in those three chapters. It was in Genesis 12 that God first made the covenant promise to Abram to make a great nation of him and more specifically in Gen 12:7 he tells Abram that the land of Canaan will be given to his descendants. That comment implies that part of the covenantal promise will be that Abram will have descendants from his own line, which is what God reaffirms in Gen 15:4 today. Now, I’ll admit that waiting 5 days for a package to arrive that I can see on my phone, and God’s promise of land and legacy by offspring and having to wait 10 years just to hear that God is sticking to God’s promise are dramatically different things. I do believe though that no matter on what level, our ability to see ourselves and our flaws in Abram really help us to not only understand his story , but also to maybe even step into the story for a bit and feel what it must have been like for him.

Abram must have been distraught, or resigned or possibly a whole host of other emotions when it has been 10 years since the promise and nothing has changed. In fact, Abram does actually resign himself to naming the head of his household, a servant, by the name of Eliezer to be the only real option of taking over what he has accumulated and take on the promise after him since he has no children of his own. If we remember the timeline of Abram we know that when God first called Abram into this covenantal promise he was already 75 years old. The author also tells us right away that Sarai is barren back in Gen 11 and then again in Gen 16, and I am sure due to their age which was 85 at the time that God spoke to them in today’s text they already knew that they were beyond normal child-bearing ages. Which again, is why Abram makes the assertion that Eliezer will be his heir after him.

What God does next is probably one of the most well known scenes in the Abram story. God takes him outside to look at the stars and count them if he’s able. God promises that his children/descendants will be this numerous. So often we have focused on this phrase as the most important aspect of the text, and why not? It’s an incredible promise from God. However, as I was listening to a podcast this last week one of the hosts made the comment to the effect that perhaps it was more than just the comment about descendants. Perhaps it was less about the amount of stars and more about a way for Abram to visualize the promise that God had given him. Abram had been wandering for 10 years and I’m sure in some ways had lost his patience with the waiting for the fulfillment of the promise. Admittedly it was God, but at the same time it was just words from God. There was nothing for him to go off from.

God understands Abram’s frustration and disappointment, God understands the difficulty of waiting and God takes Abram from inside the tent and gives him a new perspective. God may not have said this outright, but essentially God gave Abram a sign by which to know the covenantal promise would be fulfilled. God changed the way that Abram perceived and experienced God’s promise. This wasn’t just some one time ‘oh hey, look at the stars and be in awe of how many descendants you will have’. It was a reorientation of Abram to say to him that every time you look at the stars you will know my promise and you will know that I am working on it. You will know that the promise I made to you is even grander than you could possibly imagine.

That reorientation for myself, that it’s more than just the number of stars, but it is a way of grasping and holding onto the promise that God made to Abram, helps me to understand the way that God continues throughout history and our own lives to offer us signs of God’s promise to this world. The ultimate sign was the life, death, resurrection and ascension of our savior Jesus. God gave the whole world a physical sign of God’s own son, made flesh for our sake. So when I’m waiting for more important things than packages to arrive to my door I know I can fully rely on God’s promises. Perhaps it’s a medical diagnosis, a necessary lifestyle change, a loss, or anything else in this world we can hold onto the promises of God. We hold onto those promises because we see them fulfilled time and time again. We see them fulfilled in Abram, through Moses, to the prophets and beyond.

While I don’t know what each and every one of us is going through in this exact moment, I know that God does, and that God has a promise for all of us, and while it may be difficult to hold onto or see clearly at times, I pray that we know that God has always fulfilled the promises that God has made to this world, and that includes the love, care, forgiveness, and grace that is offered to all of us. Hold onto those promises each and every day of our lives, and we will see how they are also as numerous as the stars in the sky. Amen.