When you think of the word “righteousness,” what comes to mind? Impeccable moral behavior? Fastidious religious practice? A sense of superiority or smugness? It’s a word that’s become rather loaded for us, and not always in a positive way.
In today’s passage, we find a verse that the Apostle Paul will use to make his case for a law-free mission to the Gentiles (Gal 3:6; Rom 4:3), since God deems Abram righteous centuries before Moses and the Torah’s 613 commandments come along. So what constitutes Abram’s “righteousness”?
Put simply, Abram sets aside his own plans for progeny and trusts God’s unlikely promise of offspring. Against the evidence in view (Abram and Sarai are older than dirt at this point), against his own instinct to problem-solve (we’ll adopt!), Abram heeds God’s command to “look up” and marvel at God’s ability to take a circumstance that’s beyond hope and make of it the unfathomable. And that, we learn, is what’s so righteous about him.
Not that he’s got the trusting piece completely figured out, though. Notice that, when God promises land in the very next verse, Abram asks for proof. Like us, Abram combines fits of utter trust with a “show-me” approach. And how does God respond to that test? God complies, and then confirms in formal terms the promise of land.
As a footnote, I’d like to point out some textual ambiguity about the terms of that covenant. Put simply, the Hebrew text does not say that God gave Abram “the land of” the groups listed in vv.19-21; the phrase is an interpretive addition by the NRSV translators. Another possible reading has God giving Abram the land “together with” those groups. What a difference a preposition makes.
- When have you trusted God by “looking up” out of your circumstance to find unfathomable hope?
- When have you tested God, seeking some kind of sign to confirm God’s promise?
- What other details did you notice in today’s reading?
Prayer: Gracious God, thank you for your covenant promises to us. Forgive us for our part-time trust. Teach us the joy of letting go and looking up. Amen.
Breath Prayer: Look // toward heaven.
