Stories of the Patriarchs

           I am think of the stories in Genesis 12-35 today. The caution one needs to have in these stories of the Patriarchs is to refuse the temptation to important too much later theology into their story. If we see value in discerning the ways of the God of Israel into these vignettes from family life, then we need to be modest about their theological implications. The period of the Patriarchs was simply one of a family struggling to find two significant things. One was progeny. The typical account of barrenness is a clear statement as to how fragile life could be for the nomadic family. Children were the primary way the nomad could think of connecting with something beyond him or her. Connecting to the future with a sense of hope is an important connection for human beings to make. The struggle to offer the gift of children to the future was quite real. Two was to own land. In agrarian society, owning land was vital. Ownership made the clan at home.

            Beyond these two objectives, we find the struggle of a family to work out its relationships. Abraham and Lot must deal with discord. Abraham must let his son and servant-girl depart from the clan in order to appease his wife. Jacob deceives his brother and his father, departs from his parents, experiences deception at the hands of a relative, and carries with him the guilt of what he had done. In order for this family to survive, it would need forgiveness. Esau is the one who extends forgiveness.

            The meaning of their lives would move in quite different directions than they, their immediate descendants, or their neighbors, could have envisioned. These stories remind us that the meaning of human life is never completed, even at death

            Why would a sacred text, achieving its final formation in the exilic period, want to remember such mundane stories?

            For a sacred text, these stories remind readers of the risk God has taken. God has entrusted to weak and frail human beings the task of faithfully carrying out the divine purpose. These stories remind us of the patience of God in working with imperfect creatures over long periods in order to bring a family, a people, or a world, to the place God wants. Think of it. Abraham was anxious and fearful. Sarah was mean-spirited. Abraham showed lack of courage in facing his wife when she had done wrong. Jacob deceived others. Yet, these actions did not define who they were. In fact, these actions, honestly recorded for posterity, awaited a further fulfillment they could not imagine. In the case of the Patriarchs, their commitment to work out the mundane, intimate, and often dysfunctional family matters opened them to a future they never imagined. They did not know of covenants, laws, priests, kings, temples, Sabbath, circumcision, and the like. They did not offer the future a set of theological ideas or systems. What they did offer was their imperfect lives. In the process, unknown to themselves, they became the family that prepared the way for a new people of God.