Bobbi Salkeld: It's there in our fear and our pain that God reaches through pharaohs and plagues, heartbreaks and failures, wrong turns and betrayals to say to you, keep going. It is not over yet. We are at the start of the series that will take us all the way to Advent. It's called Big Promises, Small Steps and it's about Abraham, Sarah and the formation of God's people in Genesis. Genesis is divided in two.
The first 11 chapters are what we call the primeval or primordial history. Sounds kind of spooky? These are the stories, the poems and myths that lay out the beginning of beginnings, creation, first families, nations and violence. Then the last nearly 40 chapters of Genesis is the particular history of ancient Israel before they had the law, priests before tabernacles and temples. In Genesis 12 to 50, we get the stories of the matriarchs and the patriarchs.
And Jeremy brought us into Abraham's story last week by taking a look at Abraham's, well, his dead dad, Terah. And before Terah dies at the age of 205, he leaves Ur with his family to go to the land of Canaan. And what's so interesting to me is that it isn't until his dad is out of the picture that Abraham hears the voice of the Lord. Like it's almost instantaneous in the text. We read at the end of chapter 11, Terah died in Haran.
Period. Chapter 12. Now the Lord said to Abram. And sure, we don't know what kind of dad Terah was. Maybe he was outstanding like many of you in the room.
But what if he wasn't? Like, what if he was an anxious and loud dad? What if he was domineering and cruel? What if after he died, the paternal noise around Abram's head was silenced? And only then could Abraham hear the voice of the Lord.
That's the interpretation that occurred to me last week. That there can be voices in our lives that need to be silenced, put to death as it were before we can hear the voice of life calling us like Abram to bigger blessing. And that was just last week. If you were at the 7PM service, you heard me work out this interpretation during the q and r in real time. Super fun.
We post the q and r from 7PM on YouTube every week. It is worth checking out if only to get to see often Jeremy and I surprised at what the other person just said. Super fun. Today though we are gonna pick up the second half of Genesis 12 but first let us pray. Loving God, we thank you for the gifts of this day, for friends at church, warm coffee in our cups, all of the modes of transportation that brought us here, a chill of a new season, a little bit of space to think big thoughts about you.
So as the stress of the week gone by or the week to come claws for our attention, we take this collective pause to simply be right here, right now, Present to a room full of people not like us, present to some of the longing that we feel, present to a faith that keeps changing and still somehow also stays the same. So as we breathe in together, we breathe in your steadfast love. And as we breathe out, we breathe out some of our need to control. God, will you meet us here as your beauty establishes the work of our hands. Amen.
So what happens when you're riding high on the words that God speaks to you? Words that say, go from your country and your kindred to the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse those who curse you.
In you, all families of the earth shall be blessed. What happens when you're riding high on holy words like that? What happens is you mess it up a little, of course. Today, we are gonna talk about desperate times, the problem of beauty, when the truth comes out and dodge, as in the truth, not the truck, obviously. Genesis 12 starting in verse 10.
Now there was a famine in the land and Abraham went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, this is his wife. Then they will kill me, but let you live. Just like last week, there will be times when I refer to Abram and Sarai as Abraham and Sarah.
It's not that confusing. Right? But I reserve the right to go back and forth until Yahweh changes their names in Genesis 17. Now our inciting incident in this matriarch and patriarch scene is a famine. Ancient Canaan was known for drought, and Egypt was fertile because of the predictability of the Nile to irrigate the land.
Now we are meant to see threat and danger here, but the story is about more than water. On the doorstep of Egypt, after I imagine our long, hot, dry days under the scorching sun, Abraham looks around at what he owns and the family with him, and he calculates that he might have another problem on his hands, his 65 year old wife can still turn heads. Oh, yes, she can. And that smells trouble for Abe. Before we get to Abram's plan in Egypt, I want to introduce the design of a type scene.
Now, we are going to face some shady dealings by our patriarch today. But what's more important, even in the moral of the story, is what kind of story it is. Part of the point of today is that this is a matriarch in danger type scene. As in, mama's in trouble. And this isn't its only occurrence.
We actually get six matriarch in danger stories across Genesis. Sarai in Egypt, Sarah in Gerar, Rebecca in Gerar, Hagar in the wilderness, Rachel and Leah in Laban's household, and Tamar in Canaan. But specifically, for our story today, source critics have wondered if the stories about Sarah in Genesis twelve and twenty plus the story of Rebecca and Gerar in chapter 26 are all the same story just messed around with. And maybe that's true. But what if there's more to it?
What if it's a lesson we need to hear over and over and over again? A matriarch in danger story carries the wisdom of survival. Because of her place and time, Sarai is terrifyingly vulnerable, how very human to be used, to be blamed, to be so key to a story, but not truly considered therein. As far as Abraham is concerned, Sarah could get him killed. And what's more, there goes the blessing that God promised to fulfill.
If you ask me, I can't help but think Abraham loses the plot here. God points Abraham toward the promised land and then Abraham gets maybe a little hungry and he hightails it to Egypt putting everything he's supposed to love and protect in danger. And still and still, we will see what God does with Abraham's rascally ways. Abraham says to Sarai, tell the Egyptians that you are my sister so that I will be greeted well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you. When Abraham came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman.
And when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. He treated Abraham well for her sake, and Abraham acquired sheep and cattle, male and female, donkeys, male and female servants and camels. So what on earth is going on here? Wives as sisters? Ill gotten wealth?
Let's dig in. After Abraham left Ur, he stopped over in Haran, and Haran was the center of Hurrian culture. And what you need to know was that Hurrian culture practiced endogamy, that is marrying within one's own clan. Another way to say that is that sibling ties were not only as strong as marital ties, they were stronger. Abraham seems to use everything he can to protect himself.
He hides behind Sarai's beauty. He uses a cultural practice to layer on familial ties. And in Egypt, he trades his wife for wealth. Let me also mention the verb here. It's passive, and it means to be led away.
So you can't deny the coercion. In fact, this kind of moral malformation repeats itself in the story. Just as Sarai is abused by Abram, Sarai will go on to abuse her handmaid Hagar in Genesis 16, where we find the same verb, lekach, when we read that Sarai takes and gives Hagar to Abram. So remember, Sarai was taken and pimped out to Pharaoh by her intimate partner. Of course, that harmed her.
And instead of paying a therapist, like, $200 an hour, she repeats the cycle. Please, please, don't try to iron out what's wrinkled here. And don't listen to anyone who tries to paint these moments as heroic. They are human. Problematic texts welcome your problematic life to God's story.
A little sidebar here. One of my favorite biblical scholars, Phyllis Tribble, passed away a couple of weeks ago at the age of 92. And in an incredible book she wrote called Texts of Terror, she wrote, if art imitates life, scripture reflects it in both holiness and horror. Her work rescued me. So I just wanna say rest in peace and power, my girl, Phyllis Tribble.
Alright. I want to talk about the problem of beauty for a moment. I'm not talking about beauty that brings us wonder, that makes us feel alive and connected, that moves our soul and inspires great art. I'm talking about its shadow side. What happens to the power of beauty when we distort it, when we reduce it, portion it out, pay for it?
Earlier this year, I attended a lecture called Gender Lightbulb Moments in Ministry by the academic Katie Steves. And it was put on by Calgary's own Flourishing Congregations Institute. And Katie researches what makes ministry different for women in pastoral work. And the number one light bulb moment as in a moment of epiphany that illuminates difference was how much women who preach, lead, prepare budgets, work for boards, hire staff, end up having to talk about not their work, not their sermons, not their prayers, but what they wear. How they look, the shade of their lip stick.
Now hear me. There is often nothing wrong with a compliment. Compliments are these little social gestures we use to draw closer to one another, and that is so beautiful. The problem is when that's all that we use, when it becomes a reduction of the person and their work, when it reveals a beauty standard that is impossible to uphold. Now this is gonna sound a little bit weird.
It's not like I think I'm hot stuff. But holy cow, this kind of unwanted attention has never not dogged me in my work. Just this week, our staff team was out at the Covenant Fall Retreat in Canmore. And the Covenant is our denomination, and it was such a great time. And in a session, I shared a couple of comments about preaching complicated texts through the lens of trauma.
This is something I care so much about and I have worked very hard at in my life, making sure that my sermons do not perpetuate harm. And during a social time, someone approached me and I thought, oh, yeah. Here we go. This person wants to talk to me about how I preach complicated texts. I basically wait around at parties so people will ask me that.
I am that fun. But instead, they said, Bobby, I love your hair. I want hair like yours. Now, I am not saying that we shouldn't compliment each other. I am just saying that if we only ever talk about how we look, we will not go any deeper.
We're not building our shared life, not talking about what really matters, not marveling at the state of our gorgeous souls. So do this for me. Check-in with yourself about how you relate to the women and the girls in your life? That goes for all of us. Is it primarily about their appearance?
If you offer a compliment, could you match that with a question about something deeper? Talk to us about our work, our thoughts, our achievements. There are many. Beauty is only half of the blessing. And more importantly, it is so susceptible to the politics of keeping people in their place.
Also, I know I have great hair. I do not need to talk about it all day. Let's carry on. So even though Abram seems to get away with this distortion of beauty, trading in his wife for protection and reaping rewards while Pharaoh does God knows what with Sarai's body, We need to remember the fullness of blessing. The blessing is never meant to stop at Abram.
Remember? I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. So goes the Abrahamic covenant. And Ellen Davis points out that we never actually get a definition of blessing in the text. We can infer, however, that it has everything to do with a commitment to one's will, to the flourishing of another.
In other words, my blessing takes nothing away from your blessing. Now let's see how that works out for our guy, Pharaoh. But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram's wife Sarai. So Pharaoh summoned Abraham. What have you done to me?
He said. Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say she is my sister so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go.
When blessing only goes one way, harm comes to Pharaoh. Abram's scheme blesses and protects him, but Pharaoh was cursed to summon Abram back to his senses. And in this provocative grace, God meets Abram when the truth comes out. Now, there is something bigger going on here. Maybe you've started to put it together.
Sure. This is a story of the first patriarch and matriarch struggling through life as migrants on the move. There's famine on one side and hostile forces on the other. But here's the bigger situation. This story in Genesis 12 is primed to make sure that ancient Israel sees themselves in Sarai.
The tales of Abraham and Sarai were written down by Israel after their exile in Babylon in May. The writers, they do this incredible thing. They reach back to their nations, very beginning, to course correct their identity. They construct the story of Sarai in Egypt to foreshadow the story of Exodus. This story is about that story is about their story.
It is not random. It's not coincidence. It's revelation. It is truth. See Pharaoh struck down by plagues.
See how hard it is to be heard when you're oppressed. See that Abram's words to Sarai, you, they will let live. Map onto Pharaoh's words in Exodus one about sparing the daughters but killing the Israelite sons. Let the daughters live. Sarai isn't just a victim of power players here.
She is a sign that the vulnerable, the forgotten, the exiled, the beaten down, the silenced are remembered and they are liberated by God. As my Old Testament professor, Ian Proven, said, fortunately, God cares more about Sarah than Abraham does. Now, I wanna be careful here. Just because God speaks up for Sarai doesn't mean that she doesn't suffer. She does.
And the damage done to her will wreak havoc down the road. God witnesses suffering. Anytime you've been forced into a situation you did not want, anytime someone used you to get ahead, anytime the land could not sustain the promise of all of our flourishing, God witnesses our suffering, but I am sorry to say, does not prevent it in the first place. There is this wildness, this brutality to being alive. There just is.
So what if? What if in all of the ways that we are so afraid, Afraid of getting found out, afraid of not having enough, afraid our story is going to pieces, afraid we're being used, afraid of another person's violence, afraid that the ones we love don't really love us back. That it's there in our fear and our pain that God reaches through pharaohs and plagues, heartbreaks and failures, wrong turns and betrayals to say to you, keep going. It is not over yet. Maybe you are a Sarai in this story.
Maybe you've been pushed and pulled for so long now, you've lost your own voice to say what it is that you need. Hear God speak as words form in your own throat. Maybe you are an Abram, buckling under the weight of what you were asked to provide, thinking you need to mastermind a plan all by yourself, feeling small when the world tells you to be big. Hear God speak as you reconsider a plan to keep mutual blessing in everything that you try. Maybe you are a pharaoh.
You have power, but it's being manipulated. Maybe you're on your way to becoming a crueler version of yourself. Maybe a hard heart is forming in you. Hear God speak through the questions you know you need to ask about how you got all that privilege in the first place. Thankfully, we're only ever taking these small steps in light of God's big promises.
Small steps, they're pretty easy to redirect. So here's how it ends for Abram and Sarai today. Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men and they sent him on his way with his wife and everything he had. End scene. You don't have to flip far in the bible to run into the trouble that ancient Israel faces over and over and over again in all of the ways that they dodge their demise.
This text was meant to remind them that God shows up in one form or another to rescue them. It is a ceaseless cycle, not so concerned with how perfect our devotion is to God, but how perfect God's devotion is to us. Let us pray. Loving God, every one of us can, like, really remember a moment, big or small, that we are pretty glad we survived too. Maybe it's been a depression, conflict, a loss.
Maybe it's been war, poverty, addiction. In the story of Sarai in Egypt, we remember that even as we struggle, you never ever quit us. And as we look to Jesus who shows us who you are, we hold so much gratitude for divine life with us in spirit. So we pray spirit of the living God present with us now, enter the places of our longing, our failure, our weakness, and heal us of all that harms us. Amen.
Jeremy Duncan: Hey, Jeremy here, and thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at Commons, you can head to our website, commons.church, for more information. You can find us on all of the socials commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we are posting content regularly for the community. You can also join our Discord server.
Head to commons.churchdiscord for the invite, and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week. We'll talk to you soon.