Abraham Buries Sarah (Genesis 23)

-


Sarah dies at the age of 127. We read about this at the beginning of Genesis 23. She dies in Canaan, away from home. The loss is profound for Abraham. Genesis 23:2 offers such a tender description. Abraham goes to her to mourn and weep over her. He sits shiva, in other words. This tender picture of individual grief and loss comes amid the often-hard story of Genesis, full of falls, failures, folly, and forsakenness in the wilderness.

This kind of grief, it can’t be stopped. Yes, there are different kinds of losses we experience. The loss of a sense of safety, the loss of a job, the loss of hopes coming true, the loss of our preferred political campaign, the loss of a good vacation. But there are levels of grief. Losing a child, losing a parent, losing a spouse – that is next level grief, and it must be especially honored.

The rest of the chapter focuses on the task of burying Sarah. A beloved husband, Abraham wants the perfect spot for his wife’s burial land and landscape. He specifies – “the cave of Machpelah, which belongs to [Ephron] and is at the end of his field.” It is a beautiful spot even to this day which now houses a temple structure.

Abraham, a foreigner in Hebron there in the land of Canaan, must negotiate with the local people in Hebron, the Hittites. Genesis 23:3-20 tells the tale of that negotiation.

Abraham asks the Hittites for a burial plot for Sarah. He is quick to make clear he’s willing to pay fair price.

The Hittites respect Abraham as a “mighty prince among us,” and are very sympathetic to Abraham’s loss, They generously offer land for Abraham to bury his beloved wife.

Appreciative of their generosity, yet with the ideal spot for Sarah picked out, Abraham asks the people for help in getting Ephron to sell him that ideal spot. He asks the Hittites to intercede on his behalf by going to Ephron to ask that some of his land be given to Abraham.

Ephron happens to hear Abraham’s request to the people. Ephron like his people is gracious and offers the special plot of land for Sarah’s burial. The implication is that Abraham can have the land without charge. But Abraham insists on paying full market price.

Ephron accepts the deal, but only because Abraham insists. He says this about the transaction – “My lord, listen to me; a piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver—what is that between you and me? Bury your dead.”

That phrase, “listen to me,” it appears several times. Yes, it is a conversational thing in ancient Hebrew. But in the context of grief, that plea for the one in front of you to listen, it is packed with a wallop of human truth. That’s what grieving people need most, to be heard. That’s what we all need, especially when we’re hurting, to be heard.

This transaction – yes, it is a transaction. Real estate is being exchanged for monies. But the transaction is replete with humanity. Abraham’s grief is presumed. 

The other repeating refrain is, “bury your dead.” These people, foreigners to Abraham, they treat him with kindness and dignity. Again, we see the Bible point to the vitalness of hospitality across geographic and cultural boundaries.

At the end of this human and humane interaction with the Hittites and Ephron, Abraham through his tears buries his beloved wife in Hebron in Canaan land. The spot becomes the burial ground of Abraham’s people thereafter.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Wholy Holy" (Marvin Gaye)

-
Image
Columbia Memorial Hospital faced the Catskills in the distance and stood just a half mile from the first living room I remember. The apartment possessed only two bedrooms, already too small for my father, mother, two older sisters, and newborn me. In a couple years, when my dad got a better job, we’d move. If child-bearing wasn’t what it was (and remains), I imagine my mom might have walked me home that week. But childbirth, rightly called labor, exhausts thoroughly. And with three kids all under five years of age and with a husband often working, parenthood never stopped exhausting my mother. April 10 th  of 1971 brought unseasonably wintry weather, a pointed, probing wind across the river and our city of the same name. And the alley off of Worth Avenue in downtown Hudson, New York included a steep hill up. My mom didn’t walk me home.   1971, historically speaking, isn’t notorious or notable for things like military or terrorist attacks, political assassinations, or the end...
Read more

Mustard Seed Farming & a Country Made Whole

-
Image
Before I begin, I should let you know that in keeping with the theme of this service, I wrote this reflection in pencil on paper first. Wendell Berry is famous for eschewing computers for the primitive pencil and paper. Unlike Berry, however, I did not ask my wife Holly to type and print it out. There are some places to which I am not willing to follow even Wendell Berry. Also in keeping with the Wendell Berry theme, who is a Baptist, I will be using the traditional Baptist three-point sermon format that I heard growing up. Dylan had a guitar, three chords, and the truth. I have scripture, three points, and the truth. Now, I will say no need to fear hellfire and brimstone. This is a pretty interfaith and farmer-friendly sermon J Anyway, here we go. This morning’s scripture comes from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13, vs. 31-32. I use the Douay-Rheims Translation: "Another parable he proposed unto them, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, w...
Read more

The Garden of the Church & The Wilderness of Politics

-
Image
In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson responded to a question  written to him by the Danbury Baptist Association, asking him why he doesn’t “proclaim national days of fasting and thanksiving, as had been done by Washington and Adams before him.” Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists wrote this: “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” In the 1644, more than 160 years before Jefferson, Roger Williams, one of the most important early Americans in U.S. history and America’s first Baptist, wrote this in a letter to John Cotton: “When they [the Church] have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the ...
Read more