Letter to Abraham (Gen 17 and 18)

Dear Abraham,

 

This letter is a bit awkward because I found myself reading and reading, not knowing when to stop or what to focus on. I’ve decided to focus on Gen 17 & 18 although because of how we put chapters in it would have been more useful to stop part way through chapter 18 but I want to keep to whole chapters in these letters.

Were you scared when the Lord appeared to you? Was it like a vision or a real thing? I ask because the way it is described it could have been either.

I find it interesting that your name changed almost signifying that you were changing. Yet, I read on in Genesis and find out that you repeated some mistakes you made before the name change.

The covenant is interesting and yet somehow I find it disturbing. God is promising you other people’s land. You came in as an alien, and in our terms that could be called migrant and God says you will have the land of that country. With our history of empire and the way in which the Palestinians have been displaced I find that disturbing. Yet, I think the idea of covenant is great.

I think I have to be careful not to think to hard about this, as with so much in Genesis, because it shows the dual nature of the bible and of my faith as well as, I guess, life in general. There is much we celebrate that if we examine closely is based upon things we find disturbing. Life appears to be based on grey.

The slavery thing is in there aswell and this is something else reading with 21^st century eyes I feel awkward with. Yes, you were being told to include them but you were also forcing your own cultural standards upon them by circumcising them. I know there is a hygiene argument some have linked to this practice but I worry about that especially as these days it is used to justify FGM, which we know is a wrong practice. On FGM I find it interesting that there are some Christian groups who use religion to justify this when it is not in the bible.

I am glad that Ishmael gets blessed, even though he is not who the covenant is going to be established with.

I wonder what it was like the day he got circumcised. Reading this it says he and the other slaves in the house were circumcised. What was his status? He was your son but his mother was a slave.

When the Lord came to you again at Mamre you gave them hospitality. That probably sums up the good side of you that you were happy to welcome strangers and talk with them.

What was your conversation with Sarah like? She seems to have lied and denied laughing at what she thought was  a daft idea, when everybody knew she had laughed.

Then the men go towards Sodom, a place which seems to be wicked due to their view of foreigners (but that is for another letter).

I am fascinated by you bargaining with God and getting him down to a reasonable number of good men. It again makes me wonder what God was like that you seem to have calmed down a vengeful and somewhat blood thirsty God.

As you can tell reading this your story tests my faith and view of God. I am forced to see that God is beyond my understanding and those who criticise him may have a point. Yet, I also see that things are complicated and the fact that he established his covenant with you, who were clearly not perfect, gives me hope.