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(Based on Genesis 12:1-4 and Romans 4:1-5,13-17) ABRAHAM AND OTHER SINNERS
Religious leaders are in the news these days and, as usual, the reports about them are not casting a terribly favorable light upon those of us who choose institutionalized religion as our means of acting out our faith commitments and feeding our spiritual hungers. An interesting new feature being displayed in this current presidential campaign is that clergy from both sides of the political aisle and both ends of the theological continuum have been cited for outrageous assertions, incendiary comments, and, I=m sorry, in one or two instances, just plain lunacy.
In our era of political correctness writ large, the preacher in her/his pulpit becomes new fodder for those vultures of media scrutiny who apparently scour every facet of political candidates= lives, including now their places of worship for potentially scandalous sound-bytes which, taken out of context and presented denuded of the exegetical framework in which they were spoken can, as we have seen, be damaging to those candidates simply by their pew-sitting presence.
Most of you recall the infamous AScopes Monkey Trial@ of 1925, where celebrated attorney Clarence Darrow defended a Dayton, Tennessee school teacher who had included the Theory of Evolution in his lessons. The prosecution, led by equally famous attorney three-time presidential candidate, and life-long Presbyterian William Jennings Bryan, sought to discredit Darrow by labeling him an agnostic. Darrow responded with this statement: AI do not consider it an insult but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure.@
There doesn=t seem to be much that irritates people more than a person, most especially a representative of the clergy who is certain of the truth; and, the public seems to delight in the traditional press and now the You-Tube predators exposing what they interpret to be the fraud or hypocrisy of these clerics whose homiletical theatrics, pompous rhetoric, or moral conceit ultimately tarnishes the reputation of those who committed the crime of simply being present to listen. So, if any of you have any aspirations at all of running for public office, beware. These services are videotaped. Who knows what I might say in some spirit-filled flight of homiletical eloquence, which could blow your chances for future political achievement? Don=t say I didn=t warn you.
Some folks are getting pretty disgusted with the shallowness of it all. One statement I read recently quoted a religious leader as being in favor of the political, cultural, and theological right simply opting out of this election, quarantine was the word he used, quarantining themselves from the moral decay, watching from the sidelines while the rest of us continue to rot away in our ever-expanding orgy of decadence and debauchery. I must admit to the temptation of such a choice in my darkest moments. Perhaps the time has come for a renewed intentional separation of church and state, for the two of them don=t seem to get along very well when held under the hard scrutiny of the national eye of the political voyeur.
Yet, in support of not throwing the baby out with the bath water, I wonder whether we have to choose between the extremes of too much religion in the public arena, or none at all. Whereas I have myself made the distinction between religion and spirituality from this pulpit, a distinction that might be one of the quotes which might make its way ontoYou-Tube, I have devoted my vocational life to organized religion, so I hope I can still affirm some of its more positive aspects. And one of those aspects, certainly, is to lift up biblical models of human behavior which display, not religious certainty in every respect, but robust doubt and chronic imperfection which should give us hope, not for perfect politicians or inerrant clergy, but rather hope that God does not require perfection or inerracy when God chooses people for leadership.
Now I believe that education is a good thing, even for Protestants who really don=t want to know that much more about their religion, who prefer, at least within the religious context, the application of the maxim that it is research, and not nicotine, that gives cancer to laboratory rats. But to understand more about the elements of the biblical story is, I am convinced, not simply the amassing of useless knowledge for the ultimate purpose of religious certitude. New doors into the nature of life, the meaning of who we are, and resolution of a whole lot of human misery can be opened simply by expanding our horizons a little into the true nature of our believing.
Towards that end, today I don=t want to talk any more about politics, but about faith. Faith as it is defined biblically, which is one of the brightest jewels in the crown of the Christian religion. To understand our identity as religious people, and the appropriate presentation of our religious faith to a skeptical and doubting world, we need to learn more about our faith as people of faith. This is learning which can be misused, to be sure, but which presents us with wondrous opportunities to move beyond rote, tired participation in one form of orthodoxy or another, to a genuine and authentic witness for the power and goodness of what we believe. And one of the first things to be learned, I am joyful to announce, is that our faith is for imperfect people, doubting people, questioning people, flawed people, people who sometimes say and do hurtful and irresponsible things at inappropriate times. It is for people with loud-mouthed clergy, and it is, perhaps especially, for loud-mouthed clergy.
For writers in both the Old and New Testaments, the bellwether of the person of faith who, at the time, happens to be neither a clergyperson nor an affiliate with any particular organized religion, is Abraham. Abraham is not a priest, nor a politician. He is a wealthy nomadic herdsman, a successful small businessman of his time. God appears to Abraham out of the blue one day, in the comfort of his current residence in Haran, in Mesopotamia, tells Abraham to pull up his tent pegs, pack up his family and belongings, gather his herds together, and take off into the unknown, beginning a journey whose destination Abraham did not know and did not ask, and which God did not tell. ASo Abraham went,@ is the simple but profound biblical description of the response of obedient faith made by this patriarch of our faith.
Father Abraham. The name evokes warm Sunday School memories of the patriarchal figure, wise and dependable, solid as an oak in faith and practice. Most Jews, Christians, and Muslims regard the character of Abraham with respect and adulation, as did writers in the Bible like St. Paul, as well we all should. But there is more to the story. For I submit to you that, for all his emulative value as a model for faith, Abraham also serves as the ideal biblical model for sinner, for the flawed, imperfect leader who stands tall in obedience to God, but also stumbles in his character; and if we can consider that possibility, I think we will begin to understand how the nature of biblical obedience and religious application is never a discipline of absolutes, nor are those who live by those disciplines perfect in doing so. Neither unwavering certainty nor crippling doubt describe the religious enterprise, and God does not choose as leaders and models those people who represent either of those extremes.
Abraham was a sinner, that is, he did and said things which tended to keep him apart from God in many ways, which frustrated God=s attempts to help Abraham to trust God=s plan for him and his family. Sin is defined biblically as that which keep us separate from God; sin is anything we do or don=t do, anything in our characters as human beings, which keeps God distant, which fails to recognize God=s presence in the world, God=s concern for our individual lives, God=s trustworthiness as a resource for our decision-making.
There are biblical stories which illustrate Abraham=s life as a sinner. The story read today, about Abraham=s abrupt departure from his home at God=s command and venturing into the wilderness is not one of those stories; that one was about Abraham=s faith. But there=s another story a little later on in Genesis, a story that you rarely hear told in the warm fuzzy centers of Church School for children. For this is not a children=s story; it is one for adults, and its content is for audiences of adult people of faith; it is content which would not have helped Abraham get elected to public office.
A famine is in progress in Canaan and Abraham decides to fold his tents and move into Egypt where the famine is less severe. On the way he encounters a problem. His wife, Sarah, is very beautiful, and Abraham fears for his life should he be accosted by someone who might kill him in order to possess his wife. So Abraham passes Sarah off as his sister. Sure enough, when he enters Egypt, Pharaoh himself is smitten by Sarah=s beauty, and is deceived by Abraham into thinking she is his sister and so is fair game for Pharaoh=s harem. Sarah moves into Pharaoh=s household, Abraham receives a fortune in compensation for Sarah, and the story might have ended there were it not for the timely intervention of God who sends plagues and other miseries into Pharaoh=s household. After some investigation, Pharaoh discovers that Sarah is actually Abraham=s wife and his liaison with her is actually adultery, an act sorely frowned upon by the Living God. Knowing the truth, Pharaoh tosses Abraham, Sarah, bag and baggage out of Egypt.
Now this little story is significant in terms of the question, Awhere is the sin?@ What makes Abraham a sinner here? You might think it was lying, cheating, selling his wife into sexual slavery, and receiving a king=s ransom for his trouble. But you=d be wrong. That is not the basis for sin in this account. A man like Abraham in his time could do pretty much whatever he wanted with his wife, who was little more than a possession. From our perspective, Abraham=s behavior is shocking and reprehensible, not to mention sinful. Viewed from within the context of his time, however, Abraham has done nothing wrong.
The sin here lies in Abraham=s failure to include God in his decision, to trust that God would deliver him and not let him be killed. It was a life and death decision, and those are the kinds of decisions that we humans find it very difficult to entrust God with completely. But Abraham was not every man. Abraham trusted God with blind obedience when God called Abraham out on this journey of faith, and now, and so you=d think Abraham would continue that impressive habit of unquestioning faith; but, when the first crisis arises, Abraham consults only his own wits and wisdom in order to save his life. That failure to turn to and involve the Living God in a critical time had the effect of increasing or maintaining the distance between Abraham and God, and that is sin. Abraham has sinned because he has not understood that the reason God called him on this journey was to decrease the distance between God and humanity, not increase it, to counsel and interact with and pray to God as a life choice, not as an afterthought.
In the next chapter of Genesis, another story occurs where Abraham does consult God before a difficult decision is made. And, though I won=t go into its details, suffice it to say that God is pleased with the decision Abraham makes in this story, and the passage closes with what is probably the most significant and telling statement in the Old Testament regarding Abraham and faith: AAnd (Abraham) believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.@(Gen 15:6) Did you notice that that=s the same verse St. Paul uses in today=s Epistle Reading to illustrate Abraham=s faith? Paul=s point is that Abraham could have done many good works, made many wise and practical decisions, like in the story about Pharaoh, and received the praise of people for his good judgment. But what was most praiseworthy about Abraham was that eventually he learned to trust God to do things God=s way, and thus, in this instance, acted to decrease the gap between himself and God, and that is what counteracts the effects of sin and so that is the value of faith: the opposite of sin, it brings us closer to God.
Okay, here=s the point. We don=t want our leaders to be sinners. We can=t allow our leaders to be sinners. They are required by us to be Abrahams of the first story, the faithful, rock-steady, values-motivated icons of stability, strength, courage, and clear-sighted vision. We don=t allow them to be the later Abraham, the flawed, imperfect, selfish, and untrusting model of three-dimensional humanity. If they come forth with an errant word, a hasty gesture, a questionable relationship, a flawed memory, or even association with or endorsement by a clerical popinjay, their political aspirations could evaporate.
Thank God, that God does not judge us by the same standards. Thank God that the Bible is brutally, painfully honest about the full humanity of the characters God has chosen to bear the responsibilities for salvation. Thank God that Abraham looks more like us, rather than like a polished, perfect prima donna whose character resembles nothing of what we know and experience. The Biblical story is our story because of this very detail. Abraham was a sinner, and so are we. Abraham did things which kept him separate from God and so do we. Abraham was, nonetheless, chosen and beloved by God, entrusted with the awesome and wondrous task of bearing the Good News that was intended by God to bring God=s people back home.
If we are like Abraham, then, along with being flawed, we also carry with us the possibility of being faithful like Abraham. Of letting God come closer, of trusting God more intentionally, of using our faith as an active response to a world that always lures us away from the One who made us, who loves us, and who redeems our lives to be abundant and eternal.
AMEN.
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