After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:
“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.”
2 But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”
4 Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” 5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
7 He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”
8 But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”
9 So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
10 Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.11 Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”
God has made promises to some interesting people just 15 chapters into Genesis. He set a mark upon Cain, a murderer, to keep people from killing him, and promised vengeance seven times over should anyone do so (Gen. 4:15); he swore to Noah, who was really kind of a social oddball, to never destroy the Earth through flood again and gave his descendants dominion over everything (Gen. chapter 9); and now he’s promising an already extremely rich guy-not exactly our typical prototype of hero-even more blessings. Also, while not exactly a promise, he did set up Adam and Eve – the first people to explicitly disobey him – for life outside the Garden of Eden when he clothed them in skins (Gen 3:21).
So, I see rebellious children, a murderer, a misfit who later becomes the first drunkard, and the Biblical equivalent of a lonely billionaire here. That’s just one way, and admittedly a rather pessimistic way, of looking at it. But I list them like that to illustrate a point: Even those blessed with direct promises from God are not “perfect Christians.” To be fair, they wouldn’t be Christians at all back then, they wouldn’t even be Jewish yet – since these stories pre-date either religion. But my point is this: God cares about all of us. And belittling others or excluding others from our Faith because they are not “good” enough is so far removed from what God wants.
I feel I’m quickly turning into an apologetic for Prosperity Theology, but even at that risk I do want to make a point of saying that acceptance goes all ways: Do not scorn a person who has achieved success who wants to connect with Christianity. I see individuals eyeing successful people with suspicion. I have been blessed to meet many successful entrepreneurs in my life, and they have enriched my life in many ways. It’s scary to reach out to someone seemingly “above” you – there is always that risk of being rejected. I’ve definitely been snubbed myself. But don’t scorn somebody first to keep them from scorning you. Extend that hand of friendship. Blessings of all kinds might be exchanged, as between Abram and Melchizedek. If not, and they scorn you, then it’s fully on them.
Alright, enough of the “poor, misunderstood rich people” admonishments. I just felt I had to acknowledge it. You know who else we need to acknowledge? Everyone. Even the most abhorrent. Even Cain, the first murderer, received protection from God. Now, I’m not arguing for no corrective actions, as a parent I can tell you the mayhem that would ensue if there were no time-outs or toys taken away from time to time. But again, as a parent, particularly a parent of an Autistic child, I can tell you that solely punitive actions have no lasting effect for creating good behavior. This is why I applaud those reaching to out inmates and recently released peoples, those advocating for prison reform, and defense attorneys working on behalf of not only those in the wrong place at the wrong time but also those who have committed truly horrible deeds. Again, God saw fit to protect Cain, even after Cain murdered his brother, so shouldn’t we also be respectful of our own brothers and sisters, no matter how misled they are?
It looks like I just wrote several hundred words defending rich people and felons…which isn’t really what I meant to do when I started this blog post, but I’m standing by it. Because the main point, once more, is this: We don’t need to be perfect to receive God’s love. Even Abram, the “father of all believers” wasn’t perfect – he denied his wife twice calling her “his sister” (once we’ve seen, the other time is coming up) to save his own skin. The first time I guess I can understand…but after God sends a plague on Pharaoh’s household because of it, you’re really going to try that again? Come on. But I digress. One last time, because it always bears saying again: No one is perfect, but that doesn’t make us any less deserving of God’s love.
God vs. The Patriarchy 