Untitled Sermon

The Threat of Scarcity

In the last passage, Abram finally arrived in the land of promise only to find it plagued by famine. There, Abram broke faith with God and moved himself and Sarai to Egypt in an attempt to make their own way forward. Here, Abram seems to have learned something valuable during his time in Egypt. He finds himself in a very similar situation. The land just isn’t able to provide enough for both Abram’s and Lot’s large group of followers and livestock. The threat of scarcity reemerges, as Abram once again faces the prospect of not having enough.

The threat of scarcity is a problem that has plagued humanity as far back as we can remember. What happens when the land simply doesn’t produce what we need it to? What happens when we don’t have enough? The answer of the world, much like Abram’s and Lot’s herdsmen, seems to be conflict.

“The land could not support both of them.... and there was strife between the herders....”

What happens when there isn’t enough? How do I make sure that me and mine will be able to survive the threat of scarcity? The herders understand this harsh reality: there are always winners and losers: those who survive and those who don’t. And so conflict, strife, arises because no one wants to be on the losing side!

Lot’s Sensory Vision

As this problem makes itself known to Abram and Lot, Abram proposes a bold plan, one that had clearly not occured to the herdsmen! “Let there be no strife between you and me...” he says. So Abraham proposes a rather generous offer. “Lot,” he says, “Look at all of the land you can see before you. You choose where you want to go, and I’ll let you have that land, and I’ll take the land in the other direction.” And so the text says that Lot

“lifts up his eyes and saw that the plain of the Jordan was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt.”

Lot looks upon the land, and he sees a lush green valley, well watered, that would provide for him and his people.

“So Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward.”

At first read, this might seem like a pleasant and peaceful solution to a daunting problem. But on closer inspection, some things begin to look a little off. Firstly, Lot’s response to Abram’s generous offer seems excessively rude. In this culture, you always let the elders go first. Abram should have been the one to choose where to go first, not Lot. Lot also takes the more promising land for himself and leaves Abram the land that they’d previously had to leave because of famine.

This is basically a “last two slices of pizza” scenario. Every time you order pizza with your friends or family, you end up with two slices left: the huge, generous slice with all the meat, 20 slices of pepperoni piled onto this one slice, and then the mutant sliver slice you wouldn’t feed to your dog. And when you get to the last two slices, you can feel the other person across from you eyeing the big slice. But, being the polite person you are, you let them make the first move, and of course, they leave you with the mutant sliver slice. They could have offered to split the big slice, but instead they take it all for themselves.

This is what Lot does: he takes that nice slice of land with all the water and leaves Abram the mutant sliver slice that looks unappealing.

There’s even more going here than just rudeness though. Lot looks at this land, and he begins to think that it reminds him of the garden of the Lord, and like Egypt. So, in a sense, Lot is making the same kind of choice that Abram made in the last passage. He’s leaving the promised land and choosing to go to the land that looks more promising to him. And then he journeys eastward. Now, going east has not worked out well for anyone in the story so far. This land looked like the Garden of the Lord, yet it was in the direction farthest from it! And then the story leaves us with this daunting foreshadowing,

“Lot saw the plain… in the direction of Zoar, this was before the LORD had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.... Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the Plain and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD.”

This promised land Lot has chosen suddenly doesn’t sound so promising. Something is definitely not right with this land! Of course, anyone living in Israel reading this would know that the plain of Jordan isn’t the oasis that Lot saw it to be. It’s a desert with nothing there!

But, when Lot chooses this land that certainly looks promising, Abram doesn’t argue, he doesn’t complain. He is content to stay in the land that God had promised him. See, while Lot looked at the land and the threat of scarcity by sight, but Abram looked by faith in the promise of God. Abram had learned his lesson well in Egypt. While this plain east of the Jordan looked like the “Garden of the Lord”, Lot failed to realize that the thing that made the garden so plentiful, fruitful, and good was, well, the LORD!”

Abram’s Promise Vision

But, when Lot chooses this land that certainly looks promising, Abram doesn’t argue, he doesn’t complain. He is content to stay in the land that God had promised him. See, while Lot looked at the land and the threat of scarcity by sight, but Abram looked by faith in the promise of God. Abram had learned his lesson well in Egypt. While this plain east of the Jordan looked like the “Garden of the Lord”, Lot failed to realize that the thing that made the garden so plentiful, fruitful, and good was, well, the LORD!”

And so, as Lot and Abram separate, God comes down to remind Abram of the promise. Lot lifted up his eyes and saw a plain watered and plentiful. But God says to Abram,

“Lift up your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.”

This was something that Lot couldn’t see. It’s something even Abram couldn’t see by sight. No, to see the fruitful, eternal land full of his descendants, Abram had to see by faith. Lot relied on sensory vision, but Abram relied on promise vision.

Jesus: Storing up Treasure

Jesus tells us a parable of this dynamic between sensory vision and promise vision. A young man approaches Jesus tells him, “Teacher, tell my brother to give me my share of the family inheritance!” Jesus is, of course, a little taken aback. “Who told you that was my Job?” But, wise as always, Jesus seizes this opportunity to teach us about the kingdom of God. “Take care!” Jesus warns, “Guard against greed, for life is more than mere abundance of possessions.” Then Jesus shares this parable with the young man and those standing around:

“A rich man had a good crop one year, and his farm produced a lot of wheat and grain. The man saw all this excess, the abundance of his crops, and he had so much that he couldn’t figure out what to do with it all. Finally, a thought struck him. “I know what i’ll do,” he said, “I’ll just build bigger barns and silos, and I’ll store up all of my abundant crops. That way I won’t ever have to worry about about not having enough. I’ll have grain stored up for many, many years! That very night, however, the man died. And, coming before God, the Lord said to him, “You fool! All these things you’ve stored up, what good are they to you now?”

So, Jesus concludes, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. Because life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Look at the birds, and how God feeds them. Look at the flowers and how God clothes them.

“For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The man in this parable, unlike Abram and Lot, has abundance. Whereas the land did not provide enough for Abram and Lot, this rich man’s land had provided much more than he needed. Nevertheless, this man was still familiar with the threat of scarcity. Food wasn’t scarce at the moment, but he knew it may not always be that way. One year, his crops might not produce so much. Maybe then he’ll need his crops from this year. So the threat of scarcity dominated this man’s life, even in the midst of abundance! And, just like Lot, this man chose the worldly approach. He looked with his eyes, and saw what seemed like a perfectly solid plan. But, as Lot found out, the land that looks most promising may not stay that way. After storing up all that grain, the man died. What then? What good was building the bigger barns? What good was heaping up all that wealth only for it to rot away?

Scarcity and the Promise

The threat of scarcity has dominated and controlled everything humanity does as far back as we can remember. It is perhaps one of the most devastating effects of the curse of sin.

in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

“cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;”

18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;

That word, “toil” is “isabon” in Hebrew. It literally means “hardship”. It’s the fear that, after a long day of hard work, you might not come home to a meal. After a season of plowing and tilling the ground, the farm might not produce. It’s the threat of scarcity, and all of humanity knows it well.

It’s an attempt to combat scarcity that drives economic policies (whether capitalist or Marxist), foreign and domestic policy, and even personal social interaction. The whole world revolves around trying to figure out a solution to the problem of scarcity. Unfortunately, too often the world’s solution to scarcity has been the same as the herdsmen of Lot and Abram: conflict, competition, aggression, violence.

We look for the solution with our eyes, with sensory vision, but not with promise vision. We fail to trust that the LORD will provide.