No Longer Name
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

March 16, 2003

There are familiar stories lurking behind the paragraphs here back from the future. Abram knew he needed a son to fulfill God’s promise that his descendants would become a great and populous nation. Sarai was barren, unable to bear children it seemed, a common affliction among important Old Testament women. Let’s put it this way: no unimportant woman is ever observed to be barren; and if you are identified as a barren one, you won’t be for long.

Abram and Sarai were losing confidence in God’s attention to her biological time clock. They decided to fix it and Sarai gave one of her maid servants, Hagar, to Abram to conceive a child. Not usually the modern solution, of course, but it worked and the son born was named Ishmael, “God has heard.” As the story unfolds this solution will unhappily unravel, but that is for another day.

Ishmael has been born and the action picks up again in the next sentence when he has become thirteen - virtually the same sequence in the narrative of Jesus’ upbringing.

Jesus would encounter the clarification of his destiny in the Jerusalem Temple, far away from home. Abram was at home, or perhaps at tent, when the text blithely states that the Lord appeared to Abram. One imagines by the relaxation of the narrator that this appearance is a regular item on the schedule, every Toonie Tuesday perhaps.

Somebody has spent the time counting, I’m sure, but there really are not that many occasions in the Biblical narrative when God confronts a human being. We have heard all the biggies and assume that there was a different atmosphere back then, a simpler time when radio waves didn’t block out God’s voice. Still this appearance is not a casual occurrence: no communication had taken place for 13 years and there is no reason for this time and place being chosen. It is ordinary and extraordinary.

The Lord begins as we would by giving a name, “I am God Almighty” or “El Shaddai” - an ancient title perhaps from the old country out of which Abram had journeyed what seemed so long ago. The narrator identifies the appearing deity as the Lord or Yahweh, yet the Lord wanted to be more intimate with Abram and calls himself an old nickname - the God of the Mountains - one that would make Abram know this was the real thing from back home.

I will make my covenant between me and you, God goes on. It’s my covenant, remember; human beings are not the ones to negotiate bargains with God. Nothing is heard from Abram, as has been usually the case, but when God repeats his pledge to make Abram “exceedingly numerous” he falls down upon his face. He isn’t fainting, but demonstrating the most complete humility possible, and probably a little desperate self-protection by hiding his face. For when one sees God directly, the human in you can’t take the difference and you die.

The covenant is hard to define, for it should not be reduced to a legal contract with obligations and penalties. It is a commitment by both sides to a higher way of living. This covenant seems to be all about names. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham. As for your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.

Your name is not incidental or just a bunch of letters. A new name means you are someone different and new, doing something entirely different, entirely new.

Priests normally adopt a saint’s name - I know a Sidney, Aloysius, Patrick, Kallistos, Columba, Ephrem, Alexander. The custom for women in our society to take on the last name of their husband, a clear sign that one’s status has changed. How long before you could answer to your new name being awakened in the middle of the night?

Other societies give an additional name to a person at baptism, and others still give a new name upon maturity or great accomplishment. There are the really descriptive names one doesn’t ask for, like Ivan the Terrible or Dennis the Menace.

It only really works if you are given a new name to signify your new situation, not if you choose it yourself. My friend Sidney still had to get his name approved and given to him at his ordination.

The covenant made between Abram and Sarai and God no longer has much specific meaning for us in the Christian Church. It is true that as spiritual descendants of Abraham and Sarah, we are a multitude of nations. Nevertheless, we are more interested in how we should be covenanting with God in matters of living the godly life of faith. How then shall we live?

As fellow pilgrims in this congregation how do we covenant together to be faithful to this encounter with God? I am not a fan of the term “Mission Statement,” even though “mission” has a good history as a churchy word. I prefer “covenant”; it’s the Congregationalist coming out. What are we trying to do in our covenant: save our individual souls, save everybody else’s soul, educate ourselves and our children in a moral way of life, fight against injustice and immorality imbedded in the way our society operates? All of the above?

We have worked out our words strenuously five years ago. “Accepting the challenge of Christ’s call to be his disciples, we worship together, care for each other, welcome strangers, and strive to be his living presence in our community.”

Everybody wants to tell you that it’s the context that gives you the most important meaning, the clearest interpretation, and they are generally right. Being confronted by God and receiving a new covenant owes a lot to context.

Here is Abram and Sarah, 99 and 89, and God appears to them with a mission statement. 99 has never been young as a human being. For a church like Knox-Metropolitan this can be a frightening situation, and a marvelous opportunity.

You think you’re too old to make a difference anymore? Think again, for God is no respecter of age. After all, none of us knows how much time we have left, Abraham and Sarah certainly didn’t. When God confronts you with a mission and a covenant, God will take care of the time issue.

Most of the really good things you and I do are not long-term projects, requiring decades to fulfill. That has been at times our excuse, that we don’t have the decades of younger adults and adolescents. Yet to help tutor a struggling student takes only a few sessions to make a difference; to listen to a troubled friend or stranger requires a matter of minutes or hours; to visit someone ill at home or hospital, or visiting a prisoner in jail only takes a hour or two.

No one asks for your curricula vitae of loving relationships: you only need show them your love right now.

God can surprise you and lay a covenant upon you to do something different when you are too old, when you are too young, when you are lacking in self-confidence, when you aren’t properly educated, and even when you are too educated. Sarah would laugh when she heard the particulars of God’s covenant with her and her husband. We will probably laugh too, but God is laughing with you, and God has a plan for you and me, when we least expect it.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan