Abraham Part 7 - Circumcision

So – here we are.

A baptismal Sunday. Busy church – lots of visitors, some of whom may not be in church very often.

And especially on a Sunday like this I want to bring a good message. Something that’s relevant and connects with where people are.

So............ Circumcision!

Not really the subject I would have chosen for today, but a couple of months ago I got myself organised for all the Sundays between now and Christmas and this is where we happen to be as we follow the story of Abram.

But these seemingly unpromising texts often have more to say to us than we’d realise at first, and I think that’s the case today.

So for the sake of those of you who are visitors, let me bring you up to speed with where we’re at.

Christians, Jews and Muslims all trace their spiritual ancestry back to a man called Abram who lived something like 4000 years ago, and week by week, we’ve been following his story as it’s set out in the book of Genesis.

And the story begins when Abram and his wife Sarai receive a call from God to leave their homeland and travel to Caanan, where God promises to bless them with land and descendants.

But the fulfilment of those promises ended up taking far longer than they’d expected; and two weeks ago, we read Genesis 16 where a frustrated Sarai, ten years into their stay in Caanan and still childless, gave Abram her maidservant Hagar to sleep with in the hope that they could start a family through her. That was one of the ways infertile couples did things in the ancient world.

But although Hagar produced a son for Abram, a boy they called Ishmael, the tensions around this pregnancy and this child were awful. Sarai wasn’t happy, and as a consequence neither was Abram.

But as we join the story today, God re-iterates his promises to Abram and reassures him that things are still on course. But this time round there are a couple of new elements in what God has to say.

Abram’s described as fathering nations: not just descendants. And for the first time, Sarai’s reassured that she herself will bear Abram a son.

So Ishmael, who’s 13 by this stage, isn’t the end of the story. There’s another son to come, and if you know your Old Testament, you’’ll know that that boy, Sarai’s boy, would be called Isaac.

So from the line of Abram and Ishmael come the Arab peoples, and eventually Islam. From the line of Abram and Isaac come the race of people we call the Jews, and the religion of Judaism. And from the line of Abram and his descendant Jesus come the spiritual race of people called Christians.

So with that destiny in view, God gives Abram the new name ‘Abraham’ – which means father of nations.

And at the same time, Sarai becomes ‘Sarah’, which means Princess. A suitable name for the mother of future kings.

But there’s another development in this re-statement of the promise that’s different from what’s gone before.

Up until now, God’s acted unilaterally in bringing the promise to Abram.

But now God’s asking for a greater commitment from Abram, and summoning him to be an active partner in this covenant.

“I covenant to be your God, and to bless you with the land and the descendants I’ve promised you” says God.

“And in response, I want you and your male descendants to be circumcised, as a sign of the covenant that you’ve entered into with me”.

Now that might sound like a strange command to our ears; but we have to hear it in its original context.

Circumcision was already quite widely practised in Abram’s day, but more often than not it was associated with puberty and the transition to manhood and marriage. And that’s still the case in some cultures, even today. In his autobiography, Nelson Mandela tells the story of his circumcision at the age of 16 – without it he wouldn’t have been considered a man among his tribe, and he wouldn’t have been able to inherit anything from his father.

But setting aside what we think of the issue – and it is a controversial practice – there’s no denying that leaving a permanent mark on your body of one kind or another, makes powerful statement. And it has done for generations.

For today’s teenagers, tattoos are often a statement of rebellion and independence. But in many cultures, including the Maori, tattooing started out as a religious practice.

The problem is once a tattoo’s there, it’s there, unless you go in for laser treatment. So if you’re going to get one you’d better make sure it’s one you can live with!

 


And piercings are more popular than ever before, whether you’re talking about something that’s discrete but slightly subversive like an eyebrow - Or alternatively the face-full of hardware approach on the right!

Why do folk do these things to themselves?

 

To make a statement. They’re saying ‘this is who I am. this is the way of life I choose”.

And in that sense, they’re not a million miles away from the kind of religious rite that we’re talking about this morning.

For Abram and his community, circumcision became a sign of belonging. It marked them out as the people who’d been drawn into this covenant with God.

And the instruction to circumcise on the eighth day, and not at puberty, was a sign that these children belonged to God from the very beginning of their lives.

Incidentally, as a wee aside, why the eighth day?

Well, whether this is co-incidence or part of a plan I’ll leave you to judge, but scientific research has established that two of the essential clotting agents in your blood – vitamin K and prothrombin – are dangerously low for the first few days after birth, leaving the newborn baby susceptible to the risks of bleeding. But once the baby’s liver function has fully kicked in, the clotting agents are produced and they reach their optimum concentration on – the eighth day. There’s no better day to be cut, if you have to be cut.

And to this day, both Jews and Muslims continue this practice that their forefather Abram received. A sign in their flesh to remind them of who it is they belong to and what they have to do in response.

“I Am God Almighty” says God in verse 1. That’s who they belong to. And what do they have to do? “Walk before me and be blameless”.

Now let’s pause for a wee minute and think about those words “walk before me”. 

What does God mean there, do you think?

As I thought about it, I found myself picturing a catwalk at a fashion show or a stage in the theatre. The people who are up there doing their thing are doing it in a way that’s mindful of the audience – they’re aware that they’re on show.

So when God says “walk before me”, what he’s saying is “Live out your life mindful of me. Live out your days in a God-conscious way, and live them as well and faithfully as you can”.

That’s what it’s all about. In and of itself, circumcision doesn’t really mean anything or do anything. What it does do is remind the circumcised to live out their days mindful of God. And I think that’s why God gave that particular sign to Abram and his descendants.

Now here’s the thing.

Any ritual or ceremony, over time, can lose something of its meaning.

I've told this before, but like all good stories bears repeating…

A woman was preparing a roast in the kitchen with her daughter, and before she wrapped it up in tin foil, she carved off the last quarter or an inch from each end of joint and set the meat to the side.

 

"What are you doing that for?" asked her daughter. "It makes the meat taste better" said her mother. "My mother always said that a fresh cut gave more flavour in the cooking".

 

"That's nonsense!" said the daughter. So they went and asked the grandmother about it to verify the story. "Yes - that's right!" she said. "My mother always did the same".

 

So they sought out the great-grandmother. "Great-Granny, do you remember when you were cooking a roast? Why did you cut off the ends before you put it in the oven? Was it to make it taste better?". "No!" she laughed. "My roasting tin was never big enough!"

 

The ritual, in that family, had become separated from its meaning.

Now come forward with me 2000 years from the time of Abraham.

A new movement’s begun within the family of Judaism; a movement centred around the man they called Jesus. He himself was a Jew, as were his followers, but he was persecuted and put to death by his own religious leaders because they felt threatened by him. But growing numbers of people are coming to believe that he’d risen from the dead and that he was God’s messiah.

Some of these new believers are Jews, but many are non Jews. And one of the burning questions for the early church was ‘are these non-Jews who believe in Jesus required to obey all the Jewish laws – laws about diet, and customs and circumcision”?

The Apostle Paul, who was himself a Jew and persecuted the church before his conversion, said ‘no’ – they’re not. And in his letter to the church in Galatia – a church struggling with this very issue, he says “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love”.

Here, 2000 years after Abraham, Paul is saying the same thing all over again. Circumcision, at the end of the day, counts for nothing. What counts is faith expressing itself through love. What counts is that you live out your life mindful of God, and walk before him as well and as faithfully as you can.

The danger of a practice like circumcision is that we keep the ritual but forget what it really means.

And in Christianity, it’s no different with the practice of baptism.

I spent a good few years studying what you might call sacramental theology. The religious theory behind the sacraments. And I have to say, a good amount of it sounded rather like people with too much time on their hands debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

And after all that study, I came to the conclusion that baptism, like circumcision, is of no value in itself unless it leads us to walk before God and live well and faithfully in this life.

Baptism, without discipleship, is as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Unless it issues in discipleship, it counts for nothing. The only thing that counts, says Paul, is faith, expressing itself through love.

I’m aware, as we read through the story of Abraham that anyone with half a brain must wonder sometimes where Abraham’s God is. This God who keeps popping up and having face-to-face conversations with people. Why doesn’t he do that with me? Or better still, why doesn’t he do that with Richard Dawkins?

Part of the answer to that, I think, is that in Christ God gave us his definitive word for all time.

You want to know that God is with you and for you? Look at the lengths he went to to come and live among us in Christ. Look at where that journey took him – to the pain and suffering of the cross, where he died to take upon himself the consequences of your sin and mine.

It’s a covenant that God made at the cross: a new covenant sealed by Christ’s blood.

But just like today’s covenant with Abram, it’s bilateral. A response is required. A response of faith and discipleship. And without that in adulthood, our baptism has very little meaning.

“Walk before me” God says to Abram. Live out your life in a God-conscious, God-faithful way. That’s what circumcision is meant to signify. That’s what baptism is meant to signify.

 

 

In very old churches, the font is often near the front door of the building to signify that baptism’s the way in to the family of the church. And that’s good theology, as long as we remember that baptism is the beginning of a journey and not the end of one.

You may have undergone the rite of baptism, as a child or as an adult, but the real question is - are you living out of your baptism? Are you making your way through life conscious of God? Consciously serving him.

The only thing that counts, says Paul, is faith expressing itself through love.

May God bless us with a faith which does just that.