this sermon ended the sermon series on the Abraham/Sarah/Isaac stories. I have never preached these texts before, so it was fun to dig into them.
I could have made more of the Ishmael/Isaac point by drawing a specific parallel to our world today and the Christian/Muslim tensions, but thought I would let that point be made in a more subtle way. I had a couple of people comment that if Isaac and Ishmael could be there together at the funeral that might be a good model for Muslim/Christian relations today, which suggests that some people got the implicit message of the text.
At one point, the sermon had a point connecting Abraham's purchase of the burial land with Jeremiah's purchase of land when the enemy was threatening Jerusalem. I did not use it because I decided that Jeremiah's purchase was not common knowledge among the listeners, and to tell the background to that story would complicate the sermon more than it needed to be.
Genesis 25: 1-7 Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. 2 She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. 3 Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan. The sons of Dedan were Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim. 4 The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. All these were the children of Keturah. 5 Abraham gave all he had to Isaac. 6 But to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, while he was still living, and he sent them away from his son Isaac, eastward to the east country. 7 This is the length of Abraham’s life, one hundred seventy-five years. 8 Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. 9 His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, east of Mamre, 10 the field that Abraham purchased from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried, with his wife Sarah. 11 After the death of Abraham God blessed his son Isaac. And Isaac settled at Beer-lahai-roi.
“The End?” July 30, 2017; Genesis 25: 1-7; SAPC, Denton
Introduction: We reach the end of the preaching series on the Abraham/Sarah stories, noted, of course, by the reading of the funeral stories for Abraham and Sarah.
As I worked on the sermon, I kept remembering stores about funerals I have done.
One time we had to take the body to a cemetery about 45 minutes away. the funeral home director had been assured that we could see the cemetery from the highway. Not really. We found ourselves wandering country roads - the hearse in the lead and the van with the family and the minister following. I later learned that we kept driving while the funeral home director was waiting for a phone call back from his partner who was hurriedly calling the cemetery to get better directions. I always wondered if anyone was looking out the window of that farmhouse where the hearse pulled in and turned away and the drove away!what the person thought about the hearse that pulled in
two funerals with Confederate flags;
showed up at the wrong cemetery one time - I was wondering where everyone was. Until the day I left OH, the family member would remind me about the day i showed up at the wrong cemetery;
thing holding the casket slipped in the mud and I had to jump in with the funeral home director and grab the casket - had to send my suit to the cleaners to get the mud cleaned off
I received a call one afternoon. Seems a pet hamster had died and the kids wanted a burial. Their father wanted to know if I could come do a graveside. I did. the dad dug the hole; I said a few words; and then the funeral was over.
I often learn a lot about the person who died or the persons’s family, or their relationships as I work through the funeral process with the family.
What can we learn from the funerals for Sarah and Abraham?
Move 1: Notice the place of burial.
a. When Sarah dies they have no place to bury her.
1. they do not own a plot.
2. they do not have any place to stake out as their own to bury her.
3. they do not have a columbarium sitting right outside the sanctuary like we do.
b. The lack of a place to bury Sarah provides as stark reminder that they are a wandering people.
1. they have left their homeland on a promise from God.
2. As Abraham self-describes himself: “I am a stranger and an alien residing among you.”
3. In a world where power is often defined by the land you own and control, Abraham and Sarah have nothing to show for themselves.
c. nothing to show for themselves except their faith in God.
1. That does not go without notice.
2. When Abraham asks for a plot of land to bury his wife, the Hittites note that he is a “mighty prince,” which in the Hebrew actually reads as a “prince of God.”
3. The follows a funny little exchange.
4. the hittites will sell Abraham a plot of land. After all, what’s 400 shekels between friends.
5. actually, it’s a lot.
6. But Abraham pays it and now he has a piece where he can bury his wife.
c. The story begins with Abraham, a stranger in foreign land with no place to claim as his own, and it ends with Abraham owning a piece of land as a burial place.
1. A piece of land that will become a symbol to nomadic people that they have a place.
2. Why is this important?
3. Biblical scholars tell us that this story often was told during the time of exile.
4. Generations after Abraham had died; after God’s people had claimed the Promised Land; after they had been defeated and sent into exile.
5. Exile was a time when God’s people wondered if they had a future.
6. If had any reason to hope in God.
7. In that time, they would tell this story.
8. about strangers in a foreign land who laid claim to property.
9. it became a story of their hope in the God who would not forsake them when they found themselves as exiles, stranger in a foreign land.
10. a story of the burial ground connects them back to their homeland and reminds them they are not defined by land in which they live or the property they own.
11. They are defined by the God with whom they are in covenant and the God in whom they hope.
e. We live in a different time, but that truth speaks to us as well.
1. We are not fully defined by the job we have, or the neighborhood we live in, or our ethnicity, or whatever categories our world uses to define people.
2. We are defined by whose we are.
3. We are people of the covenant who hope in the God of who has chosen to be in relationship with us and to save us.
Move 2: Ishmael and Isaac are both there dealing with the funeral details for their father Abraham.
a. They are not the only kids present.
1. You did notice that Abraham married again after his wife Sarah died.
2. Had lots of kids with his new wife Keturah and has quite a few kids.
3. after so much time of the Abraham story being spent on providing descendants, the birth of Isaac, and the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael, the tellers of the story sort of slip this on by with no comment.
4. John Calvin, one of the great Reformers, did not let it go unnoticed. He criticized Abraham in this regard; Martin Luther, another great Reformer also notices, but he suggests this reflects Abraham’s pious desire to provide many descendants (Brueggemann, Genesis, 202)
5. Sort of helps out the promise of descendants as numerous as the stars.
6. We also notice that Isaac still has special status and gets treated differently.
b. With all that being said, here are Ishmael and Isaac, both attending to their father’s funeral.
1. Were they feuding?
2. who knows.
3. I had a funeral once where two brothers were feuding over the will their mother had left. Both of the brothers routinely carried guns and had tempers. I was a bit worried about how things might go at the church and then graveside. No violence erupted, but it added some excitement to the funeral.
4. We do not know how they were getting along, but we know that Isaac and Ishmael, who had been at odds literally since birth were at this moment standing side by side at their father’s burial spot.
c. A vision of the hope and promise we have in God who calls us to reconciliation and new life.
1. We see Ishmael and Isaac there together at their father’s grave, and we believe that their differences can be overcome.
2. their past history, the injustices that one or both had suffered, the anger toward each other and fear of each other had been overwhelmed by God’s desire for reconciliation.
3. In that moment we get a glimpse of the God of new life and new opportunities, the God we know as a God of resurrection.
Move 3: From Abraham’s funeral, the story will continue with Isaac and his wife Rebekah.
a. If you read further in Genesis, you will discover:
1. Isaac and Rebekah being sent to a foreign land.
2. Isaac and Rebekah find themselves living among strangers who are asking Isaac about Rebekah, and he tells them she is his sister.
3. Isaac and Rebekah with two sons and a struggle to see which one is the one through whom the covenant will travel.
4. Isaac and Rebekah making choices as parents that make us wonder about their parenting skills.
5. It is Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac all over again.
6. It is you and I all over again.
b. And yet, and yet there is God at work.
1. In the midst of God’s people.
2. Despite God’s people.
3. Giving hope to God’s people.
4. Saving God’s people.
Conclusion: We in the Presbyterian Church call a funeral “a celebration of life” and a “witness to the resurrection.”
A celebration of Abraham and Sarah’s lives.
A witness to the God of resurrection.
Amen.
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