Texts: Genesis 16:1-15, 21:1-19                                                                   W 4^th Lent Midweek

The Fruit of Two Trees, Part II

            In the name of him who sees and hears us in all our times of want and need, dear friends in Christ:  We have, in our Lenten meditations, been reflecting upon the two the fundamentally different ways the Bible presents for people to approach God and carry on a relationship with him.  One of these ways is according to the Law, which describes what man’s obligations toward God are.  Its focus is on human work and effort.  And if the Law were kept perfectly, whole and undefiled, well, then a person would have a proper relationship with the Lord.  But if the Law is not kept perfectly, then it can only condemn a person for his failure to obey.  It is powerless to restore a relationship with God that is broken by sin.  After sin, the Law’s only power is to bring death. Because of that, we can thank the Lord that he has provided sinners like us another way to approach him; namely the Gospel.  It describes what God does for man without condition, without obligation, and without any inherent worthiness on our part.  The Gospel is God’s work for us done only out of his own goodness, grace, and longsuffering love.  And the Gospel can and does fix what’s broken:  through it sin is forgiven, relationships are repaired, and life is restored.

And thus far we have seen how these two different approaches have been set before us even from the very beginning of the Scripture in the stories of the two trees in the Garden of Eden, in the sacrifices offered by the two brothers Cain and Able, and last week in the story of what happened some time after the flood when Noah had a little too much wine to drink.  And by now it should be evident that another consistent theme is developing:  that is, we naturally favor the Law.  When given a choice between the two approaches for relating to the Lord, people will select the Law just about every time – even though it always only brings them trouble, condemnation, and death.  Adam and Eve literally picked Law over Gospel right off the tree, and so did Cain – that’s how he wanted to approach the Lord.  And last week we saw that people naturally want to deal with one another according to the Law as well.  When Noah fell into a sinful and shameful situation, there was somebody standing by ready to point out his disgrace, ridicule him, and spread the news of it around.  That’s almost always the case because at heart we all love the law and want to justify ourselves according to it – and that’s easier when we can point at someone else’s failures and say, “Well at least I’m better than him.”  But we also saw that others dealt with Noah according to the Gospel.  They intervened to end Noah’s disgrace and cover his shame; showing that those who live by the Gospel want to extend it to others.

            This evening’s Scripture selections continue to shed more light on the tension between Law and Gospel in the life of a believer; and how they each have a place – and how they need to be kept in their proper places.

            God called Abraham when he was seventy-five years old. And this is pure Gospel.  Abraham was idol-worshipping pagan; but the Lord chose him and called him, the Lord reveled himself to him, and he gave Abraham a number of gracious promises.  Specifically, the Lord told him that he was going to make a great nation of his descendants, and give them a good and spacious land as their lasting inheritance. More importantly, the Lord promised Abraham that he would bring the Savior into this world through him.  And by the power of the Spirit, Abraham believed the Lord’s promises.  Acting only on trust in what God told him, Abraham got Sarah his wife, gathered their belongings, and stepped out in faith to travel to the Promised Land. 

He was very pleased with what he found when he got there.  It was everything he had been told and more.  And the Lord had him walk the length and breadth of it to inspect it. It was splendid.  And the Lord told Abraham, “All this I am going to give to you and your descendants.”  What was Abraham’s’ part?  Only to trust in what God had said.  And he did – at least at first.  He set up his tent in a nice spot, got himself comfortable … and he waited.  For ten long years he waited … and the longer he waited, the more anxious and worried he became.  God had promised this land to him and his descendants – but at present, it was full of other people – people who owned the land and who weren’t particularly willing to give Abraham even a piece of it.  But the biggest problem, as you probably know, was that Abraham didn’t have any descendants to inherit the land – not even one.  “Now, how in the world is the Lord going to give all this to me and my descendants – not to mention bring the Savior of the world through my line – if I don’t have any children?”  Time was running out.  Abraham was now eighty-five.  That was old in his day.  And his wife Sarah, at seventy-five had long since passed the years of her fertility – if indeed she had ever been fertile to begin with.  Though they’d tried for decades, she’d never shown any signs of beginning a pregnancy much less bringing it to term.  But by now her formerly fruitless womb was as good as dead.

It came at last to the day when Abraham, his trust in the promise failing, decided it was time to take matters into his own hands.  He considered a legal solution to the problem.  “If I don’t have any natural descendants, perhaps the promise might still be fulfilled if I adopt my head servant. I’ll make him my son and legal heir. That’s probably what the Lord wanted me to do all along.”  It didn’t make Abraham very happy – he really had his heart set on having his own child – but it seemed it was not to be.  So with some sadness and frustration, and no doubt feeling a bit cheated, he began to make the arrangements.  That’s when the Lord came calling.  “What are you doing, Abraham?”  “I’m helping to fulfill the promise you gave me, Lord.  I figured somebody should be working on it.  Thanks for asking.”  “Abraham, I told you that the promise was for you and your descendants – your natural descendants.  You are going to have a child of your own.  This is my work, not yours.  Trust me.  I’ll take care of it.”

            Abraham was overjoyed with this news.  He believed it and shared it with his wife Sarah.  And I imagine that she must have been pleased – for him, anyway; but internally she was probably heartbroken.  “Yes”, she thinks, “he can still father a child – but not by me.” To make the promise come true for him, she concludes that she must share her husband with another.  It happened that by law and common custom of the day, a childless woman of substance could have a child by proxy through one of her servant girls.  And Sarah just happens to be in the possession of an Egyptian maiden named Hagar who is youthful, and pretty, and apparently quite fertile … and how it must have pained Sarah to offer her to her husband in her own place.  But because she loves him she makes this sacrifice. And  I suppose she has to make the offer because he loves her too much to ask – but the fact that he so readily agrees seems to indicate that it’s more or less what he had in mind to begin with. 

But now, stepping out of the story for some theological analysis, we need to see that the two women represent the two approaches to God:  Law and Gospel.  In Sarah we see the covenant of the Gospel.  It’s the original, longstanding covenant of love and commitment. And we know too that ultimately she will conceive and bear a child – but only through God’s work – and only after he brings to life that which is “dead”:  the couple’s natural ability to produce offspring.  Hagar, on the other hand, is the Law.  In her we see what people are able to do with their own abilities. And it’s no coincidence that Hagar is the servant of Sarah:  that’s the proper place for the Law.  It’s supposed to serve the Gospel by showing us our sin and the futility of attempting to approach the Lord by the Law.  It’s meant to show us that we need a different solution – a better solution that does not rely on what we do – because what we do will never be good enough or acceptable to God.  And in that way Law is supposed to lead us to the Gospel – what God does for us without our help or involvement.  All we do is trust in what God has said he will do.

The problem comes when this trust is put to the test of time.  We don’t like having to wait.  We want rapid results and quick fixes – we want to see, not have faith in the unseen.  And rather than continue to wait and trust in hope, especially when it doesn’t look like there’s any possible way for God to do what he promised, it’s so tempting to think, “Well, maybe the Lord wants me to do my part.  Surely there’s something I can do to speed things up and make the promise come true.”  But you see it’s at that point when trust in God and Gospel has failed.  Faith is being placed instead on human effort – on Law. That’s what Abraham does when he takes Hagar to mother his child – he’s trusting in the couple’s own natural abilities to produce an heir.  And as soon as he does, sure enough, he gets results:  Hagar conceives.  The Law always does – but it’s the fruit of the wrong tree, so to speak. Nevertheless it looks to Abraham as if the promise of God is coming true – all thanks to his clever plan and participation.

And see what happens immediately:  as soon as she conceives, Hagar the slave girl begins taking on airs. She no longer wants to submit herself to Sarah, as she should.  “After all”, she thinks, “I’m the fruitful one.  I’m the mother of the child of promise.  I can do what Sarah can’t – so why should I listen to her?  And Abraham won’t do anything to me because he wants to protect his child.”   This is the way it happens, when we turn to Law for results:  we get them – but then Law wants to move out of it’s place as the Gospel’s servant.  It wants supremacy for itself.  And though the Gospel tries to force it back to its proper place, it’s too late.  Pandora’s Box has been opened.  It’s like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube.  Soon Law is off and running on its own.  Like the child that is the fruit of her womb, when the Law produces results she is as stubborn and uncontrollable as a wild donkey, set against every man, and living in hostility toward all.  It takes the Lord’s own intervention to get her back under control and send her back to her proper place as the servant of the Gospel.

Let me apply this in practical terms to make it clearer.  This is just one of thousands of possible illustrations. But suppose a church decides it wants to raise money for a particular mission project.  Week after week the pastor encourages the congregation to give by preaching the Gospel and telling them of the privilege they now have to share the saving word they have received with others.  But the results are always minimal:  just a couple of bucks and some loose change.  So, in frustration, the pastor decides to turn up the heat and apply the Law.  The next Sunday he preaches a scathing message about the luxuries we all enjoy, the terrible waste we make of our resources, the poor souls going to hell every day because you failed to contribute, how that other smaller church down the road has given so much more, and how the Lord will certainly reward those who give generously.  All Law and not a word of Gospel.  But guess what?  It works (or at least it seems to).  This time the mission offering is substantial.  So what’s he going to do next time he wants results of any kind? Suppose he wants to improve attendance at church, or get his members to spend more time in Bible study and prayer, or just to get them to live more godly and righteous lives – all things we would admit are good goals.  There’s nothing wrong with the intentions.   But to get results, he will use the Law.  But to use the Law to produce results is to shake the fruit off the wrong tree.  The fruit of the Law can only bring death.  What this pastor and congregation fail to understand is that the Lord can do a whole lot more with a couple of bucks and some loose change given in love for the Gospel’s sake than people can do with a hundred million dollars given under the Law’s motivations.

As the Lord directed, Hagar returned to Sarah and Abraham, and she gave birth to her son Ishmael.  He was the delight of Abraham’s life.  And that makes sense because not only was he Abraham’s son, he was his proudest achievement – his part of making the promise of God come true.  But then some fourteen years later the Lord returned to Abraham. He said that now at last he was going to fulfill his word and give Abraham the son he had promised.  “I’ve already got it covered,” Abraham said, “Here’s my boy Ishmael:  he’ll be a man soon.”  But the Lord told him, “No, not him.  Your wife Sarah will bear you a child.  He’s the one through whom I fulfill the promise I made to you.  Remember?  This is my work, not yours.  You are to trust in what I say and in not what you do.”

            This time Abraham fell down laughing.  He thought it was a big joke.  He couldn’t imagine how the Lord planned to make him a father at 99 years of age.  Sarah, now 89, also laughed when she heard the news.  They just couldn’t believe it.  But it was one year later that they were laughing again – this time not in unbelief and scorn, but for joy in what God had done for them.  They even named the child Isaac, which means “he laughs” – and I can’t help but think the reference is to God who laughs both at the foolishness of his people, and for joy in what he does for them.

But all is not well in Abraham’s home.  There’s growing tension between Sarah and Hagar and their respective sons – the fruit of the two trees, as it were.  Abraham is trying to live at peace with both under the same roof; but it just won’t work.  It comes to a head at the festival celebrating Isaac’s weaning, which in that culture would have taken place somewhere between his second and third year. So by now, Ishmael is about seventeen. He’s just reaching the strength of manhood—and he is incredibly jealous of his toddler half brother who seems to be getting all the attention that was once his.  We’re told that he mocked Isaac – and the idea there is that he’s belittling him and showing contempt for what he thinks of his rival.  And what we’ve got going on here is the child or fruit of the Law laughing at the fruit of the Gospel that seems so small and insignificant by comparison.  It’s the hundred million dollars making fun of the two dollars and change.  Sarah (the Gospel) sees this and realizes that it can’t be allowed to go on.  She tells Abraham that it’s time to send Hagar and her son packing – they can be no part of the inheritance God has planned for Isaac and those who like him are given birth by the Lord according to his promise.

This breaks Abraham’s heart.  He loves Ishmael.  He’s his son – and what’s more (and theologically significant for us) he’s the living symbol of Abraham’s own strength and manhood.  He is the fruit of Abraham’s best intentions and efforts to please God by his own power.  He’s so proud of him.  He doesn’t want to let him go.  But the Lord tells Abraham to listen to his wife.  She’s right:  the Law and its fruit, even the best works of man, can never be part of the inheritance the Lord has planned for his faithful people.  That comes only by the Lord’s work – the fruit of the Gospel – which ultimately is Jesus Christ and him crucified.  The inheritance goes to not to those who work; but to those who with simple faith trust in him.  Abraham can’t have it both ways.  And the point of the story is that neither can we.  The Law has its place:  it’s to serve the Gospel of Jesus Christ by leading us to it – and there its work ends. If due to our impatience or lack of faith it is used improperly or for other purposes it will get out of hand. And if that happens, the only solution will be to cast it out along with its very pleasing but deadly fruit.  May our gracious Father impress this lesson upon us, that we may be faithful to him and trust in his promises until, in his good time and pleasure, he may bring them all to fulfillment through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!