God's Promise to Abram: Descendants as Numerous as the Stars

After these events, the Lord's word came to Abram in a vision. Don't Be Afraid Abram I am your protector you reward will be very great. But Abram said Lord God, what can you possibly give me since I still have no children? The head of my household is Eleazar a man from Damascus.

He continued if you haven't given me any children the head of my household will be my heir. The Lord's word came immediately to him. This man will not be your air. Your air will definitely be your very own biological child.

Then he brought Abram outside and said look up at the sky and count the Stars if you think you can count them. They continued this is how many children you will have.

Abram trust the Lord and the Lord recognize Abrams high moral character

Karen's the reading

about 5 years ago my family and I were invited by some friends of ours to attend to Friday evening service at one of the Jewish temples in Austin. It was a wonderful experience for us. And I know I'm still very grateful that we were invited.

Anything for the same as the word my church, of course, the member of the congregation sunroof chairs. They had worship books containing prayers like this one that I'm picture. I took a she took this picture at why was hair do you brush a book containing prayers and ceremonies and him's just like our two the rabbi got up and gave a sermon at one point. A young adult spoke about a recent trip to the Holy Land.

And there was time after the service for food and drink to get to know the community better.

Of course, there were things that were different to the songs were often in Hebrew and there was a fire burning in the sanctuary. That was kept a burning all year long never extinguished. And the Torah scroll was kept in a place of honor behind the pulpit this picture that I have is actually of the place where the Torah scroll is kept the cropping a little weird so you can't see it. It's right below on the picture of the Ten Commandments inside this metal case and the case of open during the service and then closed when when not when the service was not in going on. But I'm perhaps the biggest difference was the guard booth at the entrance to the property where guards stopped all the cars that came in to check to see why they were there to see if they were part of the congregation or if they knew somebody because it had problems in the past with vandalism with terrorism domestic terrorism. Especially that time that was a lot going on there had been shootings and other Jewish temples around the country.

But what surprised me more than anything else with a moment in the service? When the congregation staying a particular him.

It went something like this.

Shema Israel. I don't know. I don't know.

Translate to hear Israel. The Lord is one God or maybe more directly here o Israel. The Lord Is Our God the Lord is one. This is a quote from Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the pentateuch, which is the Fed of the first five books of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. The pentateuch is traditionally thought to have been written by Moses.

What was meaning to me? And the reason why I can still sing the song. Is it the Christian church in Berkeley that I had been attending while I was there that have been so important in my moved to Christianity and in teaching me about form of Christianity that was Universalist in Theology and accepting and everything in that exact same him with this exact same music every week, which meant that I was able to sing along with the Jewish congregation at least for that one line because this one line came in the middle of a bigger him, unfortunately, and I didn't know the rest of it, but I knew that one line and it in that moment, I felt a connection with that Jewish congregation that went deeper than just my friendship with another member. It was a reminder to me of just how closely Christianity and Judaism are related to one another.

And that brings us to our reading today into the the topic of our reading. Abram or Abraham Who is Abram who is Abraham? Genesis the books. This is from is the story of the history of the Jewish people where they came from it's a story of creation and a story of familial ties and tribal

tribal ties in in tribal membership and it starts with the story of Adam and Eve which can we missed last week the first the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and they're expelled from the Garden of Eden and they have two sons Cain and Abel. And Cain slays Abel and cursed and so they have a third son's death. And from Seth through a line of several descendants eventually comes Noah. And in the time of Noah God is angry with the people. He's angry that that recreated the the world is a God sends a flood and wiped out all of creation except for Noah and Noah's family and God tells Noah to take two of every animal and seven of the animal that are used also in in sacrifices so that no one could still sacrifice animals and they were still the end of left to repopulate gut tells me where they take all of the animals on the Ark in and out of the big boat. And once the play is over Noah and his family repopulate the Earth and then many generations later one of Noah's descendants if a man named Tara, And then Tara son is Abram one of her sons. Tara has another son mejor and that is important leader in the story, but Anyways Tara's son is Abram. now to be completely honest, I don't believe the Genesis is a literal description of historical events. I think that Genesis is a book of of Mythology the book of of Mythology describing the the history in the cultural history of the Jewish people. And so I don't. I want to think about the story in that way and I think there's a really important keys to that in here. And I don't I don't know if a if Abraham were Abraham really existed everything before Abraham Abraham. I think it's definitely mythology the story immediately before the story of Abraham in the Bible After the flood is the story of the Tower of Babel which describes how it how it comes that a group of people who are all descended from one person from one family of Noah to all spoke the same language could suddenly become multiple nations in the world golf be different languages and the Tower of Babel is very likely to do. Be related to an actual Tower and it was built on top of that in it in a minute. But but I don't know if a broom or Abraham really existed, but I don't think it matters to be honest. It doesn't matter whether Abram Abraham really existed what matters of the story that it that the tell which is about the history of a people. What are the reasons why I think it's likely that Abraham is not a real person is Abraham's name to Abram in Hebrew means exalted father. And later when Abram give birth to his son Isaac. God give him a new name Abraham, which means father of the nations are father of a multitude of people. Neighbor's wife is sterile eye and Sarai in Hebrew means princess and then when Sarah I give birth again God give her a new name of Sarah which means mother of a multitude or mother of the nation. So Abraham and Sarah literally mean father and mother of the nation's right. So the names are very very much mythological kind of in in the way that they are so I don't think that Avery was a real person. Your brother was a real person, but I don't think it really matters for the story. However, I think that probably there's a grain of Truth in here. This is probably a cultural memory of the peoples who would later become the Jewish Jewish people and where they came from and how they came into being and being told through one person that really were talking about the existence of migration of a people that large What's so important about Abraham or Abraham for us? Especially as Universalist is this bit the comes before the line we have today. That it's goes. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse and in you all the families of the Earth shall be blessed.

God is telling this to Abram and and God is not saying all your descendants shall be blessed gods of all the families of the Earth shall be blessed in you.

so where did Abram come from? Abraham's father came from or of the Chaldeans were told no or we don't exactly know where it is. This is a map of the of the Mesopotamia if you will have that this area of the world and their two possibilities or there was a large city in the southeast of Mesopotamia called or that was very well documented in the archaeology archaeological evidence. That was part of the akkadian Empire, which was a very large very large empire of the time and the story that of Genesis take place in What's called the Greek Dark Age, which is the time after they were there a bunch of of civilizations that had collapsed in this area of the world and there were several hundred years where everything was kind of in collapse before they started up again. And so it's possible that the story is is remembering migration of people out of the akkadian Empire and into Buy the land of Canaan. The other option is there was an area called or North East Canaan near her on which is the next city that they go Ortho Abraham's father migrated from war of the Chaldean to her on when they removed as a child and Abram grows up in her on we don't know for sure. If Abraham goes up in her on which is in the north Northeast of a cannon and then God Appears to a room and tells him to leave his family and to leave behind his people and to go to the land that God will show him and so Abram leave everything behind takes his wife their eye and his nephew lot and all their possessions than household members and believe his family and his you know, what everything he's known growing up. When he is 75 years old. He leaves and goes to can How many rides in Canaan you write with a check them and he at shechem got appears to him and says I gave this land to your descendants info Abram builds and all through there and worship and then he travels on to Bethel and build an altar there and worships and then a famine forces him to flee all the way into Egypt and then he returned from YouTube later back to Bethel and worship and then he said a little place called memory and Hebron, which is not on this map of personally, but I know any bills another alter they're going to war breaks out and his nephew lot to settle someplace else at the point in Sodom. His nephew lot is captured during the war in Stow. Abraham takes all of his all of his family and Men then they go and they rescue lot and then they return to memory and keep them and that's for week start this reading for the reading. begin photocopy actual texture

So after this event actually been to the war the Lord word came to him in a vision that don't be afraid. I am your protector. Your reward will be very great. And Abram said the Lord God. What can you possibly give me since I still have no children? So God had previously promised Abraham that God would make Abram which would give him children would give him land would get him wealth and Status all these things and Abram has many of these things now, he win his trip to Egypt. He gained a lot of money and a lot of prestige. He has all this land but he has no children. What can you give me? I don't have any children and he says the head of my household and they'll either a man from Damascus and this translation is not very good at that desk. But what the text actually says is that this is a slave in his household. This is somebody that he owns that he has that he has given his inheritance do and this might seem strange but this was actually a standard occurrence in this area and the archaeological evidence tells us about it that a childless couple might adopt either. Free one person or slave to kind of care for them in their old age. And then after they died that person would bury them and carry out all the necessary funeral customs and in turn they would inherit all their property. But so this is what what are you know, he doesn't have a child of his own and he said that since you haven't given me any children the head of my household in the air in the Lord can't come back and Liam said this man will not be your air. Your air will definitely be your very own biological child.

And then he didn't. Xterra side and said it's look up at the sky and count the Stars. If you think you can count them, this is how many children you will have. Abram trusted the Lord and the Lord recognize Abrams high moral character again, the translations of the weird here at the kind of standard phrase is the Lord recognized as righteousness of God Steve Abrams belief. That was Abraham's trust in God, even though God is not actually given him the thing that God promised Abraham trust in God and so God sees that as as righteousness on Abrams side.

So what is all the tell us? What what is what is the importance of this? You know for the Jewish people Abram again who is Lady name was changed to Abraham. And Abraham is able to hear more often much more often than a bowl, of course representing an ancestral parent and belonging to the descendant of Abraham with a way for the Jewish people to differentiate themselves from the other tribal groups that surrounded them. They were literally all from the same family if these books were written by Moses as tradition claims than they would have been written by a group of people who were leaving Egypt. After years of Oppression and they were riding down their oral tradition. I think it's much more likely that rather than being written by Moses. They were actually written by multiple authors over many years again writing down oral Traditions that have been passed down for a long time. But either way the point is that this idea that all this whole people were One Tribe one family that came from Abraham with a way to unite them and a way to fall apart from the other people around them in and in Canton. However, that Christians and especially universalists. It means something very different when we say that we are descendants of Abraham our existence of Abraham. Some of us may very well be actual descendants of the Jewish tribes, but for many of us, that's not the case. Rather our focus is on being part of a spiritual family part of Abraham's spiritual family. Earlier in the story before this God told Abraham that his descendants would be and number like the sand of the seashore. and then this verse God says Abraham's descendants will be in number like the stars in the sky. You can kind of fuses it as an expansion on the first one and some people see this as that the stand of the of the world were like his physical descendants in the star of the sky were like his spiritual descendants.

The important that I think is that Abraham when he said out he was 75 and he was a hundred years old before Sarah. I finally gave birth to his son Isaac and over 25 years. He had faith in God. The God would give him a son and Heir even though he had no proof even though there was no way for him to know for sure that it would happen.

The quote Wilbur Williams who who wrote a good description of this passage. God works through things events and circumstances, but Faith must not be anchored in these. If it is then when these do not materialize or turn out the way I expected Faith weekends. if our hope is in a cause and the cause fails Our Hope falters our trust must always be rooted and fixed in the person of God.

What made Abram special? Was not his family or where he was or who you know what he did in his life in his his actions. What made Abram special was the he believed he believed in God he had Faith his parents were not monotheistic. And in some way this is all we hear we hear God's call on Abram to leave his family of origin to leave everything. He's known and to go out into the wilderness. And to serve God and he believed he had faith and he did it and this is where later on Mini including Paul look at the idea of Faith through Grace instead of Faith through works. Then I mean salvation through Grace instead of Salvation through works. And so This is the important part he believed.

so even when things seem bad and we can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

What's not lose? Hope?

Let us instead have faith in God. Let us remember that we are the descendants of the father of all who believe? Hazard all the world