It pretty much was a given that at some point I would get behind on my strict "daily reading and posting" policy. Just Easter...just the resurrection of my Lord and Savior from the grave. No big deal. This past week was full of beauty and grace, but was also full of two, two and a half hour long services for the Triduum, and then this whole thing had to be celebrated. You know, with family and all that :). Well, back to business.
Abram. Now the Bible scales down from a focus on all humankind and our covenants with God, down to the scale of a single human family, a single human tribe. After the Tower of Babel, our human unity was destroyed (later to be brought back together), and not all of us wanted to be "God's chosen." We were a single family under Adam and Eve, then split into a "good branch" and an "evil branch". After Noah and the Re-Creation, we did the very same thing. This time, however, God's new covenant with us affected His response...He foiled the plans of the wicked without destroying the innocent. After that, we were suddenly broken up into tribes, nations that speak various languages and have differing cultures. One of them would come to shine out as a beacon of hope for us, one tribe among many as Noah's family was one family unit among many.
Abram's family had left Sin City (Ur) and had settled down to live somewhere else, but God had even bigger plans in mind. The men of the Tower of Babel tried to build cities, ziggurats, civilization on their own terms, in their own name (shem). But God made promises to Abram indicating that He is the source of greatness, of Name, of blessing. If Abram will follow Him into uncertain territory, that obedience will make blessings follow. Abram can do nothing alone that will make him great, but God will do that for him if he steps out of his comfort zone in faith and obedience. God hasn't covenanted with Abram yet, seems to be waiting for Abram's faithfulness, but the hint of that is there in these promises.
God seems to lead Abram, Sarai, Lot, their stuff, and their various hangers-on quite a long way, and Abram is faithful to him the whole time. Every time they stop, it seems, Abram is building another "altar to the Lord" and calling His Name. Abram's willingness to built altars to God and not monuments to himself, call on the Lord's name and not exalt his own is what makes him special and worthy of monuments and exaltation. The last shall be first. He who humbles himself will be exalted.
Of course, Abram's not totally a stand-up guy, it seems. He does tell at the very least a "half-truth", a "white lie" in order to protect his wife. Sarai was at the very least related to Abram, and given that you could call just about any relative "brother" or "sister" in that language and culture, it might not have been a lie at all. No matter what, doing this was not his finest moment. He wasn't quite at the point of full trust in God to keep His promises and preserve his life and his stuff.
There was a famine and Abram did what he needed to do, leaving the Promised Land of Canaan for Egypt (sounds like a theme that will be repeated...) in order to do the responsible thing and keep his little tribe going. Their little fib appears to work...Abram gets rich off of Sarai's place in the Pharaoh's harem, and Abram's name really does become "great" in the way the world thinks about it. Then God begins to set things straight with a some unnamed plagues (second verse will be the same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse...), and suddenly the ephemeral nature of worldly glory and riches becomes all too clear to everyone. Got it, people? God hands out the real gifts, the real glory that lasts. Anything can destroy what you think you've built, but if God says He will make your name great, He will do so in a way that is impossible for us to imagine.
Thus, Abram makes an Exodus from Egypt, retraces his steps back to where he praised God before in Bethel and picks himself up after his mistake. The saints, according to the song, are just the sinners that fall down and get up. As he is doing so, Lot who has been with him the whole way so far refuses to "get back up" after their fall. He doesn't really learn anything from the episode in Egypt and doesn't recognize the hand of God in making people and places great or low. His hangers-on start having arguments with Abram's hangers-on and Abram realizes he needs to cut this guy loose. He responds in generosity, telling Lot he can have the land he wants. Lot chooses what sounds like paradise (actually described as being like the Garden, or Egypt which was really a very sweet place to live then) but it isn't Canaan. It isn't the Promised Land. He chooses what glitters, not the gold. He chooses to associate himself with Sodom, another Sin City, and gets right back into the thick of it, rejoining the everlasting climb up the ladder of worldly success.
For his generosity and faithfulness, God promises that the true treasure will be Abram's. He may think he just gave up his best hope, but the land and reward that God offers is a diamond in the rough. God rewards us with what truly matters. The "prosperity gospel" isn't truth...God rewards those faithful to Him, but not always with material riches or success, or even health. We aren't supposed to take the lack of these things as an indication of God's disfavor. He gives us what He knows to be the right thing for us. And Abram does what he knows how to do to claim the promise for himself - he builds yet another altar. The overall lesson for the day seems to be "when in doubt, build an altar." Worshipping God is always a good idea.
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