Damariscotta Baptist Church

“Fooled Into False Edens”

“So Abram went, as the Lord had told him;”

Abram goes into the land of promise. He arrives at a high place in Canaan. He receives God’s blessings along with a promise of seed and land. Abram pitches tents on hilltops and worships Yahweh at sacred trees and meets with Him. All is good, until….. the testing occurs. Which leads
to failures. Abram enters into a series of testing and failures which in today’s Scripture results in some kind of division. Sound familiar? Think Cain and Abel. Think sons of Noah, separating. The story repeats itself. We have brothers or people not able to be together anymore, and so they go their separate ways. We have read this narrative before. We can already guess there is going to be some kind of crisis that is going to ruin everything unless God steps in and gets involved. That’s the expectation, but each story will have its own twist. 

Abram has his Eden garden experience where everything was just as Yahweh had said it would be. However, just like in Eden, there was a test. 

Abram failed the test and headed down to Egypt. In our north-oriented maps we think of Abram literally going down in direction, but the word for going down in this context has to do with concepts that we will see unfold such as going down to a place of slavery, the grave and death. Whereas going up, out of Egypt, is going to where there’s life and freedom. 

Abram and his wife were following the theme of what happened in Genesis 3, they were leaving the place God had promised them. Sarai can’t be very happy with her cowardly, insensitive husband. She has to play “sister” and because of her beauty, Pharaoh, the king of Egypt takes her to be his wife. Pharoah treats Abram well by giving him sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants and camels. Quite the payoff. 

Think about Eden, Sarai is the tree, Abram plays the role of the snake and Pharaoh plays the role of Adam, or human and does what is right in his own eyes. 

The story unfolds with God sending plagues on Pharaoh for acting human. Abram not only gets his wife back, but he gets a lot richer for his deception as he returns north. However, all of this gain Abram received through ill motives is going to create a lot of trouble for him and his family. Was it worth it? In the end it only hurts himself and the other people around him. 

How one gains wealth, whether through trusting God or through the schemes and plans of personal choices will determine the consequences. 

Abram’s story continues with today’s Scripture, verse 1, 

So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. 

Abram returns “up” to Negev, the southern portion of the land he had been promised. Oh yeah, we are reminded his nephew Lot was still with him. He was in the background while in Egypt, but he comes to the foreground as they return. Why? The next sentence explains where Lot comes in, 

Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.

Well, we could say that Yahweh had promised Abram that he would bless him, but the means by which Abram obtained it wasn’t in Yahweh’s plans. But it looks like Abram is getting his act back together because we read 

“From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord.”

Abram returns to calling on the name of the LORD. It’s like we are returning to Eden. They are back to where they started, but at this point we are told that both Abram and Lot are loaded with a lot of stuff. How Lot got his stuff the narrator doesn’t explain. 

By the way, do you remember what Yahweh said to Abram before he left Haran? 

“Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.”

What category does Lot belong in?  

“Father’s household”

Now we could be sympathetic and think that Abram had taken in his nephew because he was an orphan, remember, his father had died. That would be a good thing. But it wasn’t like Lot didn’t have other family members to help him out. 

His grandfather, Terakh, Abram’s father, was still alive. It’s interesting that the narrator tells us that “Abram did as God commanded him, and Lot went with him.”  

Well, mostly Abram did what God told him. 

Does it come back to haunt him? 

Could we call this three-quarters trust and obedience?

Well, there is a problem in Denmark, 

“But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together.”

There happens to be another Hebrew word play that is going on in this chapter, it is with the Hebrew word for “one”, “ekhad.” The variation of the word for one, “yakhdav”. is used which means, “together as one.” Because they had so many possessions they were unable to dwell together as one. 

They’ve been fruitful and they have multiplied, but their abundance was creating division, not unity. 

Oh, and remember how Abram got all of his abundance? Here’s what’s happening, 

“And quarreling arose between Abram’s herders and Lot’s.”

The narrator also throws in this information, 

“The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time.” What does that have to do with this? Information we will use later. 

In the meantime, Abram says to Lot, 

“Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives.”

Another Hebrew word, “akhim” putting the word “one” and the word “brother” together so that it means, “together as one.” 

The problem was they were a family that was trying to be one, but it was hard, because all of their stuff was getting in the way. Like that never happens! 

How many family quarrels exist because of arguments over stuff?

Abram seems to be the logical one and asks Lot to look around, 

“Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”

Lot lifts his eyes and looks around. He looks out over the valley of Jordan and it, 

“..was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt.” 

The narrator fills in the fact that “(This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)” because that was the valley he was looking at. 

Notice, it was “like the garden of the Lord,” and “like the land of Egypt.” This is the narrator’s way of filling us in on the fact that Egypt is Eden. So if you didn’t catch this fact before, you should have it by now. 

What does Lot do? He looks at what he sees as beautiful and good in his eyes and chooses the valley of the Jordan. He left and went toward the east. Oh no! Not East! Hint! Hint! Things don’t go well for those who travel east. 

Two brothers who want to be together, but can’t because of all of their wealth. Their abundance was supposed to be a blessing, but part of it’s ill-gotten and it’s causing conflict between the brothers. They decide to separate but the one who was not chosen, leaves and goes east to a city. Can you see where this is going? 

We have two brothers, a chosen and a non-chosen, and they separate and the non-chosen goes east, to the city of Sodom. Then the narrator throws in a commentary on the city of Sodom, 

“Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord.”

In case you don’t recall, Sodom is going to get toasted in a few chapters. And the Hebrew word here describing Sodom is the word for “ruin” which is one of the most repeated words in the flood narrative, about the ruin God’s going to cause on the land. 

Lot goes eastward, just like Cain did, just like Nimrod and his descendants did. Hyperlink, right back to chapter 4 that leads to a city of blood, whose outcry rises up to God, and God is compelled to respond, which will repeat itself later on. 

Back to Lot, “to lift your eyes and to see what you think is Eden, but is really not Eden,” is actually returning us back to the Cain story. Remember, Cain built himself a city to protect himself, but God had already told him that He would protect him. He even gave Cain a sign. Theologians haven’t figured out what the sign actually was, but that’s not the point. The point is God gave him a sign for him to remember that God said He would protect him. But Cain decided to get his own kind of protection in the form of a city. Cain was after his own version of Eden using his own plan. In this case, Lot is after what he thinks is Eden, but in reality it is the opposite of Eden, but it looks like Eden. 

Now, Eden could actually look like Eden, and unless you are trusting in God’s wisdom, you will not know the difference. 

Fooled into false Edens. It happens every day. 

“Lot lifted his eyes, and saw what was good.” 

Exactly what the woman did back in chapter 3. 

But I thought we were redoing the Cain and Abel story? 

We continue reading, “And so Lot chooses for himself”

The last time that phrase was read was “When the sons of God saw the daughters of Adam, that they were good, and they took for themselves all that they chose.” 

To choose for oneself. 

We actually have hyperlinks to three failure stories from Genesis 1 – 11. Chapters 3, 4 and 6 are all bundled together.

This is just the beginning. 

The rest of Genesis brings back the rival brother motif, the inability of brothers to tolerate each other or 

tolerate that one brother might be the chosen one over the others, to receive a blessing. 

God doesn’t see it that way, remember what He said to Cain, Genesis 4:7, 

“If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?”

We have many stories to read, 

Jacob and Esau,

Joseph and his brothers,

the northern tribes and the southern kingdom,

Israel and Judah,

David and Jonathan,

Oh and don’t forget the women, 

Sarah and Hagar,

Rachel and Leah.

As we explore the Bible we discover this is a key part of the human condition,

Finding a way to exist together and share God’s blessings.  

It’s difficult. 

It’s been difficult since humanity began. 

We read portraits of people doing terrible things to each other and hurting each other, but then there are also moments where people will come together as one, and we get to experience a little bit of Eden. This is the Bible’s way of exploring corporate sin, communal sin, the inability of tribes and families and whole communities to live together as one, and share the blessings of Eden. This is the Bible’s way of diagnosing the human condition. The symptoms are demonstrated through what one does with wealth; the inability of families to live together, and the idea of false Edens. 

Check in time.

Abram begins getting into trouble when he decides to take things into his own hands and do things his way, instead of waiting and trusting in God. 

Sound familiar? 

When we do things on our own strength, or when we try to go for our own plans, it generally doesn’t work out. And even when it looks like it has, through the world’s eyes, it results in heavy burdens. Jesus put it like this in Matthew 11:28-30,

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

How do you know when you have made a poor choice?

When a choice keeps leading to division or strife or pain.

We should be asking ourselves, 

“How did I get here?” 

“Was I really led here? 

Maybe this is a mess of my own making, because I redefined good and evil in a way that was convenient for me. 

Verus…

The abundance and the blessing that comes as a sheer gift and is not experienced as a burden. 

It’s never too late to drop your yoke and pick up Jesus’. 

Let’s pray.