March 12, 2006
Lent 2 B
Genesis 7:1-17
March 12, 2006
An Everlasting Covenant: The Promise to Abraham
Children of God, heirs of Abraham, Sisters and Brothers in Christ;
As Christians, we have a proud ancestry. It is a heritage that we share with others from a multitude of nations all over the world. It is an inheritance based on a promise that God made to Abraham nearly 4000 years ago—a promise that is as reliable today as it was on the day it was given.
Last week, our Old Testament lesson taught us about the promise, or covenant, that God made with Noah. After the great flood, God promised never to destroy the earth again, and put the rainbow in the sky as a reminder of that promise—a promise that has been kept. Today we learn about God’s promise to Abraham—and to his descendants—an everlasting covenant of blessing.
Today’s Old Testament reading takes place about 25 years after Abraham first met the one true God back in his homeland of Ur, not too far from modern-day Baghdad. God calls a 75 year old man named Abraham, or Abram as he was known then, out of his comfort zone. Abram is called away from his home, his people, and his religion to be the father of something new. Abram was the first monotheist—the first to know and believe in God, and God alone. God set him on a journey, and gave him three promises to sustain him along the way.
God promises Abram these three things;
1) I will make of you a great nation.
2) I will give you a land of your own.
3) Through you, all nations will be blessed.
This is known as the three-fold promise to Abraham, and it sustained him through 25 years of wandering and wondering; wondering when the promise would be fulfilled, wondering when he’d ever hear from this mysterious God again. Finally, when Abram is almost 100 years old, God speaks again, and reiterates the promise—which has gotten even better.
Childless old Abram will become the ancestor of many nations. His shriveled old wife Sarai will give rise to nations, and kings of nations. God seals the covenant by giving them new names—Abraham and Sarah. And sure enough, against all odds, Sarah and Abraham have a son in their old age, a son named Isaac. But there’s more to the story. Through Isaac, the nation of Israel is born. But Isaac is not the only son that Abraham had, and not the first. First there was Ishmael. Remember Ishmael? Through him, a nation was also born.
You’re probably pretty familiar with the branch of the Abraham’s family that the Bible tells us about. Abraham and Sarah begat Isaac, who begat Jacob, who begat the 12 tribes of Israel, who became the Jewish people. Christianity grew out of Judaism, so all of us can trace ourselves back to Abraham, our Father in the Faith. And so we also are heirs to the promise given to Abraham, an everlasting covenant of blessing, and an obligation to BE a blessing. That is our heritage and birthright as members of this family. That is the heritage and birthright of all members of this family, including those on the other side of our Family Tree of Faith, the descendants of Ishmael.
Who was Ishmael? Ishmael was the first son of Abraham, born to him by Sarah’s maid, Hagar. In the ancient world, when a woman couldn’t give birth, it was common for her to give her maid to her husband, in order to produce a child. And that’s exactly what Sarah did. Impatient for a child, Sarah sent Hagar to Abraham, and the result was Ishmael. Things worked out pretty well for the little family until Isaac came along, and then Sarah got worried that Ishmael would be a threat to her son. So Ishmael and his mother Hagar were sent away. Far away. Tradition holds that Ishmael became the ancestor of the Arab peoples—direct descendants of Abraham, heirs, with us, to the promise.
As we remain entangled in a war in the Middle East, it seems essential to me that we understand how closely we are connected to those in the Arab world, and especially to those who claim Islam as their faith.
Abraham is the father of three great faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Abraham has become the father of many nations, as God promised. But we are nations who fail to be a blessing to one another, as God stipulated in his promise to Abraham. We are nations who judge and condemn one another, often out of ignorance and prejudice. This morning I want to try and do what I can about the ignorance.
What do you know about Islam? Most of us only know what we see in the news, and the news doesn’t tell the whole story. The Islam that we hear about in the news is most often the radical, fundamental fringe of Islam. Ordinary everyday Muslims are as boring as mainline Christians like us, who never make the news. It’s always those on the “edge” of any religious group who get attention. Let’s hope that we are not judged by the Christian groups that get on TV—the polygamists, and cults who commit suicide because they believe the end of the world is here. Religions cannot be judged by the sensationalist, publicity-seeking actions of their more unstable members. So let’s take a look at the Islam that we do not see, in order to get a truer picture of the religion of choice for one-fifth of the world’s population.
First, a little background. Islam is based on the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, who was born around the year 570 AD, that is, 570 years after the birth of Christ. When Mohammed was 40 years old, he received his first revelation from Allah, or God. Over the next 23 years, Allah’s revelations to Mohammed were written down and became the Koran, the holy book of Islam. Mohammed was influenced by the two monotheistic religions that were dominant in the region, Judaism and Christianity. Abraham, our Father in the Faith, became the model of faith for Islam, because Abraham surrendered to God.
In Arabic, to surrender is “asalama”, from which the name “Islam” is taken. Those who surrender to the will of God follow the religion of Islam. They are called Muslims, those who surrender.
The fundamental belief, or creed of Islam is this; “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.” Just as we confess our belief in the one and only God in our Creeds, so do the Muslims. From this confession of faith follow five requirements, or Pillars of Islam. These are designed to make faith a part of daily life, rather than something separate from it. I’d like to outline those five pillars for you. They are: 1) Prayer, 2) Almsgiving, 3) Fasting, 4) Pilgrimage, and 5) the Struggle for the Faith, also known as Jihad.
The first Pillar of Islam is prayer, which is to be performed at least five times a day. Imagine—five times a day—stop whatever you are doing and surrender yourself and what is important to you to God. Can you imagine doing that—Publicly? Where everyone can see? This is true surrender to God, despite what society thinks. Even the Muslim posture of prayer is one of surrender, which leaves the believer vulnerable before God and the world. Muslims bow down on the ground to pray, leaving their backs vulnerable. Even in the violent political climate in many Muslim lands, they willingly do this five times a day, giving us an example to learn from.
Next is almsgiving, or charity, setting aside money for those in need. When Christians are encouraged to give 10% of their income—the Biblical tithe, to the church, they are apt to ask, “Is that before or after taxes?” No such question exists in Islam. Muslims are required to give 2.5% of their total wealth—income, house, cars, jewelry, investments, everything—each and every year. Figure out what your accumulated assets are and imagine surrendering 2.5% of that every year. The tithe, as challenging as it can be for us, starts to look like a bargain. If you have a net worth of $500,000, under Islamic principles, you would surrender $12,500 in alms annually. By contrast, the Biblical tithe requires only 10% of your income. Net worth has nothing to do with it. So if you have accumulated your net worth of $500,000 by making $50,000 a year, all the tithe requires is $5,000. Again, we can learn from the Muslim example of generosity.
The third Pillar of Islam is fasting. You may have heard of the month of Ramadan. During this month, Muslims abstain from food and drink from sun-up to sun-down. This is done out of devotion to God, and can make our attempts at Lenten fasting look lame in comparison. What have you given up for Lent? Chocolate? Perhaps a greater sacrifice is in order.
The next pillar is Pilgrimage, known as the haj. Each Muslim who is able is required to make a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca, as a re-enactment of the sacred events of the past. Christians used to do something similar in Medieval Times, making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, if at all possible. Some of these pilgrimages took violent forms, which we know as the Crusades, a sad and unfortunate part of Christian history. As the Church today, we still try to connect to the Holy Land each year, without leaving home, as we re-enact the sacred events of Holy Week—Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.
The four out of five pillars of Islam that we have reviewed so far—Prayer, Almsgiving, Fasting, and Pilgrimage— show us that mainstream Islam is not something strange, or something to be feared. These are things that we, as Christians, also strive to do. They show us that the religion of Islam is not something separate from life, but a complete system of life, encompassing all of existence. But there is yet one more pillar. It is the one that we hear the most about, and the one that is most mis-understood. It is called Jihad.
When we hear the word jihad in the West, we instantly think Holy War, terrorism, revenge. But that is not what it means. The Arabic word jihad simply means “struggle.” In religious terms, that means the struggle that each believer undergoes in order to keep the faith. Jihad is the struggle of faith, the struggle for Allah. But it can also be interpreted as the struggle to establish Islam as the one true religion. And it can be interpreted as a defensive struggle if Islam is threatened. This is the starting point for Islamic fundamentalists.
Islam teaches that those who die in the way of Allah will become martyrs, and will gain paradise. Radical fundamentalists have latched onto this belief, and taken it to mean that they are going straight to heaven if they are killed fighting for Allah. But that’s not quite what the Prophet Mohammed said. He said that those who die in the way of Allah will become martyrs. Those who die a natural death in the way of Allah will become martyrs. Those who die of the plague or cholera in the way of Allah will become martyrs. Those who cling to the faith, like Abraham did, will become martyrs. God’s reward is for the faithful. And faith takes patience.
Abraham was very, very patient. And so God made an everlasting covenant with Abraham, and with the descendants of Abraham, who became a multitude of nations. God promised that they would be blessed, and that through them, all nations would be blessed.
Children of God, heirs of Abraham, sisters and brothers in Christ; you have been blessed to be a blessing. May God give you the faith and patience of Abraham, as you struggle each day to live out the promise. AMEN