Abraham ... "On How to Deal with Loot."

If you were indeed making a movie about the rescue of Lot, there would be a whole bunch of action and old fashioned fighting. BAM! POW! WHAM! Abraham pursued the kings who had nabbed nephew Lot with three hundred and eighteen fighting men. Such a specific number...always an evocative question when the Bible, so big on symbolic numbers, names a particular figure.

I've got no clue on this one. 318. Any guesses?

But still, big action scene. Three hundred and eighteen caped crusaders, fighting four kings and their fighting dudes, winning the battle and freeing Lot. And Lot's stuff. And apparently, other people's stuff as well.

Two things then happen at the end of chapter 14...two things that probably wouldn't make good action movie, but that I find very significant.

First, the king of Salem, a dude named Melchizedek, demonstrates that he is priest as well as king. He blesses Abraham, and he breaks out the bread and wine in the earliest recorded celebration of communion. Before you chide me for calling it communion yea these thousand and more years before Jesus invents the tradition, remember that Melchizedek gets an honorable mention in the New Testament in Hebrews 7, where Christ is described as a priest in the order of Melchizedek. Mel's name even means "king of righteousness" and Salem means "peace" or "wholeness."

So perhaps he is a symbolic figure.

But the interesting piece to me comes when Abraham offers Mel a tithe...one tenth of, well, "everything." Mel gives Abraham a blessing, and Abraham offers him a tenth of his loot.

It would appear that it is Abe's own personal loot he is tithing, because Abraham flat refuses a share in the loot from the adventure. The king of Sodom, another king entirely, offers Abraham a share of the loot they've captured--and Abraham refuses. He accepts reimbursement for expenses incurred and nothing more.

The Bible is a wacky book, no doubt, but this is one of the wackier spots. What kind of person takes a pass on perfectly good loot? A nutcase who is already trying to GIVE AWAY one tenth of what he's got?

For Abraham, there are things more important than continuing to accumulate. He's already successful. After all, the 318 action figures were from his own household. But he knows when to tithe to a righteous priest, and he knows that accepting loot is sometimes too pricey in relational cost.

What do we do when the loot is fresh before us? Do we know when to walk away?

Rescue Me

I've been thinking a lot lately about how we live as community, especially in terms of economics. Issues of taxes, healthcare, education and the role of government in business have been plastered all over the headlines, day after day.

I'm reminded of the time I lived in a retirement community, and people would occasionally say to me, "I shouldn't have to pay taxes to run the schools. I don't have any children in school."

I would begin to think of how these current school children were the ones who would soon be supplying our food, our medical care, selling us cars, running our water treatment plants, fixing our electrical infrastructure. I wanted them smart and educated.

I'm also a big believer in health insurance. The money of the many pays for the tremendously expensive needs of the few. Then those people, having been saved sometimes from death and certainly many times from financial disaster, turn around and help us in other ways. I think of the countless people who have profoundly touched my life after surviving major surgery or receiving medicines for chronic illness.

In chapter 14 of Genesis there is a delightfully violent little story about Abram's nephew, Lot, getting captured in a local war. Nine kings of small kingdoms began to skirmish, four kings against five, in rebellion and counterstrike, battling from the hill country to the desert. In the midst of it Lot, seemingly minding his own business, gets carried off, along with all his possessions.

(There is a graphic little piece in 14:10 where the marching into battle turns into fleeing for life, and in the midst of the fleeing, a bunch of people fall into tar pits. It is this kind of detail that certain people enjoy...if you don't believe me, look to Hollywood. People have not changed much in many thousand years. Running, terrified people falling in tar pits makes for "good" film.)

Anyway, Abram, hanging out under the trees of Mamre, hears of his nephew's capture. He could have just stayed under the trees, but he forms a rescue party. During the night he divides his trained men for attack and routs the enemy. Great word, rout.

He gets back all the men, women, loot and possessions of Lot and his company.

There is something very Star Trek about going back for the captured friend. I have watched episode after episode across the years in which the crew members leave their own relative safety to risk their lives to go bring another crew member home.

Most of the time in real life this happens in quiet ways behind the scenes, and no one ever knows the cost. Every day I visit hospice patients and I see the ways in which the family and friends who care for them sacrifice their time, their energy, their sleep, their sanity and sometimes their own health to give needed care for the sick and dying member of their community.

If you look down the street in your suburban neighborhood, in all likelyhood one of those houses has this drama playing out even now. You would never know it from the curb.

We sacrifice and risk for members of our family, for members of our crew. Sometimes in very hands on ways, sometimes in the flow of money to taxes and insurance premiums. But in each case, we are living out the model of Abram. How can one sit in comfortable shade when another is in mortal danger?

Staying Alive

In Genesis 12, Abram and Sarai and their traveling band flee starvation during a famine by heading towards Egypt...a story that will repeat on a grand scale later on, eventually leading to the whole Moses phenomenon. Here in chapter 12, we run into another repeating story, the "if they know you are my wife they will kill me to get to you, so just pretend you're my sister, okay?" story. A story important enough to tell over again with other characters in a few chapters, but odd enough that most preachers don't use it as a Sunday morning text.

What to do with this subterfuge and handing over to haremdom? (Not to mention the uncomfortable detail that Sarai doesn't have to entirely lie when she says she is Abram's sister...they hadn't yet discovered the genetic woes of inbreeding.)

Perhaps it is as basic as taking the story at face value. Abram says it plainly. "I know you are beautiful woman, and when the Egyptians see you, they will kill me. Say you are my sister, that it may go better for me, and that my life will be spared on your account."

This was no trip down the interstate to Disney World. Travel was risk.

For perspective, here is an excerpt from Volume 1, Number 2 of the National Geographic Magazine, published in 1889. In this excerpt, the President of the National Geographic Society, Gardiner G. Hubbard, writes about Europeans exploring Africa.

"...travelers in ever-increasing numbers have entered Africa on every side. Some who have entered...have been lost in its wilds and two or three years after have emerged on the opposite coast; others have passed from the coast, and have never been heard from...."
"Stanley started from Zanzibar on his search for Livingstone with two white men, but returned alone. Cameron set out by the same path with two companions, but upon reaching the lake region, he was alone..."
"Probably every second man, stricken down by fever or accident, has left his bones to bleach along the road."

When God said, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you," it was no simple journey.

Lives were constantly at stake.

Sarai was very beautiful. And for her sake, Pharoah dealt well with Abram.

One less set of bones bleaching along the roadside.

Haran Haran

Late in Genesis 11, after a bunch of begatting and geneaology, we meet Terah. Terah was the father of three sons: (1) Abram, who will later become Abraham, the father of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, (2) Nahor, who was named after his granddaddy, and (3) Haran.

Today, let us ponder number three son, Haran. Haran was the father of Lot. Lot will become famous for traveling with his uncle Abraham and for living in Somom and Gommorrah, for losing his wife to saltdom, for sleeping with his daughters and becoming the ancestor of enemy nations. Many cool things.

Haran becomes famous for nothing, which is to say, not famous at all. But here at the end of chapter 11, his name pops up with odd regularity. Haran is the son of Terah. Haran is the name of Nahor's (number two son) father-in-law. Haran is the name of the town where papa Terah dies. For a small number of verses, everything comes up Haran. Haran Haran Haran.

I'm struck by the pain in verse 11:28. "Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans." Maybe it is because I've seen too often the pain of parents outliving their children. Maybe it is because he died before they ever left to see the world. But it strikes me as so deeply sad.

Perhaps when they did travel, they named the place they first settled after this lost son and brother and father. They took his memory with them. The place became Haran.

The invisible character, the memory that makes the journey. The grief between the lines.

Haran, Haran, Haran. Someone remembered him.

The Bible Baby Name Book

Genesis 10

Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth.
Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech and Tiras.
Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah.
Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim.
Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan.
Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah and Sabteca.
Sheba and Dedan.
Nimrod!
Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, Casluhim and Caphtorim.
Sidon, Heth and a bunch of ___ites.
Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud and Aram.
Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash.
Shelah.
Eber.
Peleg, Joktan.
Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah and Jobab.

In conclusion, I plan to write a musical comedy about Noah's grandsons, the sons of Japheth, because they have simply the best names in the bunch:
Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech and Tiras.
The brothers Uz, Hul, Gether and Mash come in a close second.

Speaking in Tongues and Bio-diversity

Read Genesis 11 and this will make more sense.

I have always loved the multitasking of the Biblical writers. They tell rich stories that make a whole variety of important points, while sneaking in some general mocking of their enemies. Christians, morally above this sort of behavior, like to pretend the mocking is not there, and skip right to the moral of the story. Actually, modern Christianity works a whole lot better if you don't actually read the original stories and just summarize the nice points. More on this later, when we discuss "getting back to the family values of the Bible." Oy.

Anyway...the story of the tower of Babel is a VERY thinly disguised thumbing of the nose at the Babylonians, who take our heroes into exile hundreds of years later in the story. Which makes it a bit of an anachronism, unless you stop to think that the exile was the impetus for writing all these stories down in the first place. The religious tradition and the culture of the exiles was threatened, so they had to be more intentional about passing their tradition and stories along to the next generation.

So...

Babel=Babylon....

Tower of Babel=Babylonian ziggurat tower.

Hmmmmmm. Draw your own conclusions.

But aside from that...you have a story of people banding together in a common effort to prove the greatness of human accomplishment. When we work together with our technology and effort, we can climb to the very heavens! Who needs God?

When the movie "Titanic" came out in the late nineties, it became the Babel movie for me. People, proud of their scientific and engineering prowess, build the humongous and "unsinkable" ship that sinks on its maiden voyage.

Perhaps it is the same people who decorate their children's rooms with Noah's ark who can watch "Titanic" and see only romance and ignore all the drowning. Regardless, it all goes down to a lack of humility ending in disaster.

But lately, I've begun to think there is more to it than just pride.

This summer, having read Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," I am struck more by the similarities between Babel and our food industries. Our great industrial and scientific minds are decreasing the diversity of our food supply. They are engineering the genetics of the plants that we eat, so that we are increasingly dependent on a few companies and their particular seeds. To really think this through, you need to read Kingsolver's book. Don't worry, it is very funny and delightful to read. That helps with the disturbing parts about the narrowing of our biodiversity.

So here's my thought. I have come to believe, partly with Kingsolver's help, that the different languages given to the people at Babel are NOT A PUNISHMENT. Rather, I believe that God digs diversity, and wants us to dig it too.

Look at the plants. God invents hundreds of types of potatos. Hundreds. If you grow hundreds of varieties, letting them mingle happily together, then when blight comes, some 'taters will be resistant to the blight.

Or look at it in the realm of economics, as an argument against monopolies. In fields where you've got lots of competition and lots of different think tanks, people come up with more innovations. Perhaps it was back when I was being brainwashed in high school in my "Americanism vs. Communism" class...but I remember learning at some point that American computer science had progressed more quickly than that in the Soviet Union, because of the competition in the free market.

Anyway, don't sue me because I'm tap dancing in so very many fields where I have only enough knowledge to be dangerous. But think about it. What if the languages are not a punishment? What if they are a return to God's joyful plan for humanity?

Diversity = good.
Babylonian-there-is-no-proper-way-to-think-except-the-way-the-empire-tells-you = bad.

Power to the hack theologians everywhere!

Begat

Genesis suffers more than most Biblical books from a bad case of the genealogies. You'll be cruising along fairly nicely with the narrative, only to bog down in a list of alien names strung together like popcorn on a Christmas tree.

There are occasional little unexplained snippets of stories...Jubal the musician...Tubal-cain the metalworker...Lamech the killer in self-defense...Enoch who walked with God...Nimrod the potentate and mighty hunter. But mostly just names, one after another, in father to son succession.

While I don't tend to linger too long in the genealogies and generally skim right over them, I'm glad they are there. They serve to remind us that these are not independent or isolated tales, but are instead all part of the BIG PICTURE. By tracing all of humanity to Noah and Mrs. Noah, or farther back to Adam and Eve, we're reminded that at the family reunion, we're all part of the same clan. Even the people we love to hate are tied into the same genealogical web.

All the great enemies of the Old Testament show up in these early chapters of Genesis. The Canaanites (9:22), the Philistines (10:14) and a whole mess of other folks with funny names and a violent place to hold in the story ahead.

The ancient people who told these stories understood something basic: no matter how reprehensible your enemy might be, in the long run, they are no more than distant cousins. Sometimes the family connection is even closer than that.

We go about our business of oppression and warfare by dehumanizing our enemies. What would it mean to adopt them back into the family tree...to look into their faces and trace the family resemblances...to look into their hearts and see parts of ourselves?