Abraham – Practical Theology Today

Distracted…

I can easily get distracted and sidetracked. I’m guessing I’m not alone. Though never diagnosed with an attention disorder, I would be willing to bet I might land somewhere on the spectrum. The advent of the internet has not been my friend. My top CliftonStrengths (Intellection, Connectedness, Ideation, Context, Input) make me ripe and susceptible to internet rabbit trails that deter me from intended purposes. Again, I’m guessing I’m not alone. It must be a human vulnerability that the satan is well aware of. Distraction might be his best work!

Consider how he distracted the original humans in the Garden.

They were tasked with caring for part of God’s kingdom, the earth they inhabited. The satan distracted them with a shiny object, and they bit. The result? They lost focus of the original intent to serve as kingdom stewards. It reminds me of the old saying:

When distracted by the swarming alligators, it’s hard to remember that the original intent was to drain the swamp.

Not only did Adam and Eve lose sight of their calling, but their action created fissures in the kingdom on Earth. The created order was broken. So, God embarked on a project of new creation. His desire to continue to use his created image-bearers to be stewards and workers in the redemption project, even though they got distracted, is fascinating. As discussed in the last post…

God chose Abram and his descendants to be catalysts in the redemption of the kingdom. They would be workers for God’s kingdom. God would bless Abram and his descendants for the express purpose of, in turn, blessing the image-bearers around them. Abram and his offspring were to help reestablish God’s will “on earth as in heaven.” Ambassadors for the kingdom, as it were.

Well, the people got distracted again. They appeared to have lost sight of the original intent as ambassadors. They liked the idea of being blessed. But being a blessing to the peoples around them somehow got lost. As we all tend to do, they got distracted by helping God in ways he didn’t ask. A synopsis…

God promised Abram that his descendants would outnumber the stars in the sky or the sands on the seashore. Accordingly, God renamed him Abraham, meaning “father of many [nations].” Abraham got distracted by the reality that he and his wife, Sarah, were very old, beyond child-bearing age. Taking things into their own hands, Sarah suggested that Abraham sleep with her servant, Hagar. Cultural custom allowed such an arrangement, deeming the child “theirs” if the baby was birthed onto Sarah’s lap. Abraham bit, and Ishmael was born.

Ultimately, Abraham and Sarah had a child of their own – Isaac. Once Issac was weaned (evidence that he had avoided the dangers of infant mortality?), Sarah had Hagar and Ishmael sent away. But God, in his generosity, took care of them in their exile. Arabic Islam tradition holds that Abraham fathered their nation through Ishmael.

Issac fathered twins Jacob and Esau. Esau was the first-born and thus the rightful heir. Jacob was a hustler and a deceiver (his name actually means “deceiver”). Apparently, his mom, Rebekah, was a deceiver too. Together, they tricked Isaac into giving Jacob, her favorite, the first-born blessing.

However, the heir apparent to the Abrahamic “blessed to be a blessing” calling got sidetracked for a few years. A lot of years, in fact. Escaping the wrath of Esau, Jacob ended up on his uncle Laban’s sheep ranch. The hustler negotiated a deal with Laban for the hand of his daughter Rachel, who he fell for down at the watering hole. Jacob agreed to work for his uncle for seven years to earn Rachel as his wife. However, Laban tricked the trickster, and Jacob found himself married to Rachel’s sister, Leah. Argh!

Long story short, Jacob ended up with Rachel as his wife, too, but it cost him several more years of his life serving Laban. As you can imagine, being married to two sisters created some interesting familial dynamics. God’s image-bearing ambassadors were not only sidetracked but appeared headed for derailment. Ultimately, the now humbled Jacob returned with his dysfunctional tribe to his homeland to face Esau. Much to his surprise, Esau ran to embrace Jacob!

(As I write, I can’t help but think of Jesus’ parable of the prodigal brothers. In this case, it is the older brother who surprisingly runs to embrace the wayward younger brother. Perhaps he was stepping into the role his late father once held.)

After returning to his homeland, Jacob wrestled with a man (some think it was God or an angel) for an entire night. (Who among us hasn’t wrestled with God in some manner over the years?) Jacob would not let the man go, even after experiencing a significant hip pointer. He demanded God’s blessing, WHICH HE RECEIVED! God, in his generosity, continued to work with his flawed image-bearing ambassadors and recognized Jacob as the rightful heir.

God renamed Jacob “Israel.” Israel means “let God prevail” or “struggle with God.” God changed Jacob’s name to signify that he had become someone different and was now seeking God instead of relying on deception.

The name Israel was significant because it represented the covenant between God and Jacob and the promise that he would receive the same blessings as Abraham and Isaac. The mission of Abraham’s descendants to bless the nations was back in motion. The redemption project was back on track.

Or was it?

On Earth as in Heaven…

In the previous post, I described an upcoming series exploring my broad understanding of the kingdom of God, the kingdom Jesus ushered in and proclaimed…

Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:14-15)

What was this kingdom that Jesus proclaimed, and why didn’t his hearers ask, “What kingdom?” So, apparently, they had some kind of understanding of God’s kingdom. It wasn’t necessarily “news” to Jesus’ first-century hearers. However, it appears that Jesus’ proclamation was that his news about the kingdom might be new and fresh – good news.

Let’s start with an understanding of God’s kingdom through the ages.

We should start with the description of a kingdom. Dallas Willard in The Scandal of the Kingdom¹ offers a simple definition of a kingdom…

A kingdom is a society of people with a structure in which there is one person, a king or queen, to whom all the citizens offer loyalty, service and respect. The sovereign’s part of this relationship is to provide care, protection, and service for the good of the people.

In his book The Divine Conspiracy², Willard describes the kingdom of God as the range of God’s effective will, where what God wants done is done. This “effective reign” is present wherever God’s will is actively carried out. To Willard, the kingdom of God is not just a spiritual or internal experience but encompasses all aspects of life, including social, political, and personal domains.

Genesis 1. Starting with the creation story, which we are quite familiar with, we see God as the creator. His kingdom encompassed the entire universe, including the third rock from the sun that we inhabit. To the ancients, God resided in the heavens (note “the heavens,” not heaven). One could also say he lived in “the sky.” Since the sky, to them, was everything above the Earth (think atmosphere), God wasn’t far away as we tend to believe today. At the time of creation, it wouldn’t be a leap to assume God’s will (reign) was on earth as in heaven (where have we heard that before?).

Integral to God’s creative activity was the creation of his image-bearers (Genesis 1:27)…

So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

He entrusted his image-bearers to care for his earthly kingdom according to his will. (Think, Thy will be done on earth as in heaven.) They were tasked as stewards to care for the Earth in a way that reflected God’s heart – both environmental and relational stewardship. By definition, a steward is someone employed to manage another’s property. They were workers in and for God’s kingdom. They were to be fruitful and multiply, adding to the number of those serving the kingdom.

Genesis 3. We know what happened next. The image-bearers decided they had a better idea of how to steward the planet. With the encouragement of the serpent, they decided they could manage things as well as God. The serpent got Adam and Eve to take their eyes off God and his will with an enticement to “become like God” (Genesis 3:5). The rest is, as we say, history.

Their decision (sin) meant that the kingdom of God on earth was broken and in need of redemption. One result was that the relational closeness Adam and Eve experienced with God was broken. God’s kingdom didn’t cease to exist. God was still the king of the universe. But, things were not on earth as in heaven! The entirety of the scriptures post-Genesis 3 is the story of God’s redemption (new creation) project, using his image-bearers to assist in the process.

Genesis 12. God kicked his restoration project into full swing by singling out Abram as his ambassador…

²“I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
³I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you.”

This King/ambassador relationship with these kingdom people was a covenantal relationship, sealed by God himself (see Smoking Pot in the Old Testament). There is a theme/thread woven throughout the entire redemption story known as the covenant formula. The formula is integral to gaining an understanding of and seeing the kingdom of God throughout the biblical narrative. It can be found throughout scripture as some form of…

I will be your God, and you will be my people.

We will pick up Abram’s story in the next post. Meanwhile, you might want to check out the wealth and richness of covenant formula instances. I created a Google Doc with a list of such Biblical occurrences for your perusal. (When I discovered this thematic thread, it was a game-changer!)

¹ Willard, D. (2024). The scandal of the kingdom : how the parables of Jesus revolutionize life with God. Zondervan Books.

² Willard, Dallas. The divine conspiracy: rediscovering our hidden life in God. HarperOne, 1998.

95 Years, 262 Days

That’s how long my mom, Gloria Hinkle, lived on this earth before passing into Eternity on June 9, 2021. I was privileged to give the Meditation at her Memorial Service. This is what I shared with friends and family…

What does one say when privileged to speak at his 95-year-old mom’s memorial service? Frankly, it’s something I’ve pondered over the past several years, knowing such an opportunity might present itself. Every time I would think about it, I honestly came up blank. Knowing that our creative juices get going under deadline, I posed a question to my mom. Shortly after she turned 95, I asked her what her target completion date was. Mom just grinned and said emphatically, “well, not 100!” Turns out that her target completion date was 95 years, 262 days.

There was one theme that kept running through the minds of my siblings, spouses, and me as we shared with friends and extended family the events of the last week of mom’s life. It was present again last night at the visitation. That theme was an overwhelming sense of blessing.

More than wondering what I might say at my mom’s memorial service, I wondered what the last days of her long-lived life might look like. It was an absolute blessing that mom’s mind was sharp to the very end. It was an absolute blessing that she did not suffer or linger in a vegetative state. She died peacefully, a week after a minor stroke – truly a blessing.

Last Friday, a week ago yesterday, mom was able to leave the hospital to return to Guardian Angels Care Center, which has been her home for the past four years. When she left Mercy Hospital, there was a sense that, with some therapy, she might be able to live for quite some time and be able to communicate adequately. But mom’s target completion date wasn’t 100.

Looking back, we suspect she used all of her remaining energy to get back home to the Care Center, to be among those who had cared for her these past years, to be with those who were an absolute blessing to her. To any Guardian Angels representatives among us today, please know what a blessing you have been to her and to us, her family – especially during a pandemic.

The concept of blessing is foundational to our faith and is dispersed throughout the Bible, both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. Many Psalms include phrases like, “Bless the Lord, O my soul.” We are quite familiar with the benediction that begins with, “May the Lord bless you and keep you…” In his Sermon on the Mount, in the part we know as The Beatitudes, Jesus described those who are blessed in God’s economy – the poor, the hungry, those who mourn, etc. In that same Sermon he also told his followers to bless those who curse them.

Several years ago I was contemplating the fact that in the Old Testament, blessings seemed to be a two-way affair – God blessing humanity and people blessing God. As I started to look at occurrences of the word “bless” in the Old Testament, I discovered that God was the original “blesser”…

After creation, God blessed Adam and Eve. After creation, God also blessed the Sabbath. After the flood, God blessed Noah in a similar fashion as he blessed Adam and Eve. Noah, then in turn, responded with, “Blessed be the Lord,” the first example of humanity blessing God

On the surface, it kinda sounds like a mutual admiration society – God and humans blessing each other. I figured there must be more to it than mutual admiration. Being a dabbler in Hebrew (the operative word is “dabbler”), I decided to see what I could uncover about this word bless. This is what I discovered – the basic Hebrew word for bless is barak. Barak is the word for “knee” and implies kneeling.

This makes some sense. Throughout history, one approached royalty on bended knee – out of reverence, out of respect, out of humility. In Philippians 2, we read “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” – bended knee. So we bless God with great reverence, literally and figuratively, on bended knee.

So, blessing God makes sense but what of God blessing us? What does that look like? What immediately comes to my mind is the story of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. During his last Passover meal with his disciples (which we know as the Last Supper) we read…

“Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end…Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist…and began to wash his disciples’ feet.”

Picture this! Jesus knew full well who he was as God incarnate – that all power and authority had been given to him. This Jesus showed the full extent of his love and began to wash his disciples’ feet, presumably on his knees. Picture it! The God of the universe, the Lord of lords, the King of kings on his knees, serving his own creation! What a picture of blessing! And what a picture of servitude!

Jesus was simply fulfilling and living out God’s vocational call of Abraham a few thousand years before. God told Abraham he would bless him and his descendants so they, in turn, could be a blessing to the rest of the world. The task of the Israelites in God’s kingdom project was to simply bless those around them as they were blessed by God. Pretty simple, pretty straightforward, and pretty clear. They were blessed to be a blessing.

When he washed his disciples’ feet, Jesus modeled for his followers what he wanted them to be about – blessing others by serving them. Makes me think of the two great commandments – Love God, love (or bless?) others. How can we love others? By blessing them, by serving them.

Looking back, I think that our mom understood the “blessed to be a blessing” concept more than we may have realized. Over the years, she quietly served those around her – often from her kitchen. On dairy farms in the mid-20^th century, the role of the housewife was to serve the workers of the farm, which involved more than just meals. Clean clothes miraculously showed up in our drawers. As did patched jeans. Mom’s quiet servitude was a blessing to all of us.

That blessing, that quiet servitude, spilled over to those around her – to her neighbors, to her church, to her community (I believe mom was a charter member of the CAER board, the Elk River, MN, food shelf). And it spilled into Guardian Angels Care Center four years ago. We know she was a blessing to many there because the staff told us as much. One small example of mom blessing the staff at the Care Center: She weekly served the activities staff, setting up for Thursday Bingo. (It was important for us to plan our visits with her as to not conflict with her weekly job.)

Blessed to be a blessing. What a amazing concept! God ordained the idea with Abraham. Jesus fulfilled it and passed it onto his followers. As a follower, Gloria Hinkle quietly lived it out. What might our world look like of we all took to heart our God-given vocation to simply be a blessing to those around us? God, help us do exactly that! Amen.

Smoking Pot in the Old Testament

In the previous post (Dot-to-Dot) we discussed a theme woven throughout scripture: “I will be your God and you will be my people” stated in some manner, shape, or form. This was God’s covenant promise to the people he called (Abraham and his decedents) to to be a blessing to the world and participate in his project of “putting creation back to rights” (NT Wright).

One of the most obscure, unknown stories in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, is probably one of the most significant stories. In Genesis 15, Abram (soon to be renamed Abraham) asked God a question we all ask from time to time: “How do I know what you are saying is true?” So the LORD (Yahweh) said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” 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.

Wait! Abram cut the animals in two and arranged them in two rows? God didn’t tell him to do that!! Why did he? Because in Abram’s world 4000 or so years ago, this was how contracts were signed. The parties would each bring and split animals in two, arrange them in rows, putting the birds together in a single pile at the head of the two rows.

The two parties would then each take a smoking pot or torch of some sort and simultaneously light their respective rows of animal parts on fire. They would meet at the end of the rows and together light the pile of birds afire. Basically they were saying, “If I should break this covenant, may I be drawn and quartered and burnt in a similar fashion.” They took their contracts pretty serious!

Abram apparently knew that God was about to sign a promise or covenant with him. What he didn’t know was how the signing would take place. As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain…” and then went on to describe the future and His commitment to Abram and his descendants. When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram.

God signed both sides of the agreement while Abram slept!

That’s a covenant, Yahweh style. God did/does it all. All Abram did was show up. God did the rest. It was all about God and not so much about Abram. God was serious when he said, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” He is the promise-maker.

And he is also the promise-keeper. Fast forward a couple thousand years and we witness God as promise-keeper, this time through Jesus. God’s first promise was to Adam and Eve. He promised them everything (including the tree of life) but their desire to become like God cost them their life. They chose death over life. God honored their choice and death reigned – ultimately resulting in His own son’s death. With Jesus’ resurrection, death was defeated and the original promise was again on the table. Humanity didn’t hold up its end of the promise, but God held up his end of the covenant and fulfilled our part! “I will be your God and you will be my people.”

In Jesus, we see the smoking pot all over again. Jesus did it all. We just show up. It’s that simple. Imagine our world if we remembered to just show up and give him permission to hold up his end of the deal! It’s really all about God, not so much about us. “For God is at work within you, helping you want to obey him, and then helping you do what he wants.” (Philippians 2:13, TLB)