Abraham is quite an interesting character. Chances are you’ve heard of him before. Father Abraham. He is an important figure in three of the world’s major religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He’s considered by some to be the world’s first monotheist, the first person to consider that there might be only one God. He is the father of Isaac and Ishmael, the grandfather of Jacob and Esau. Most of us know the story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac, how Abraham was willing to offer up even his own beloved son, if that’s what God demanded. Many of us have heard how Abraham was called by God to leave his homeland and start a new nation that would become Israel. Some of us know the story of how Abraham pleaded with God to spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction. But I’ll bet that very few of us know the story we heard today, the story of Abram and the Smoking Fire Pot.

It happens quite early in the story of Abraham, while he was still called Abram, before God changed his name, but Abram was already quite old. He had already been promised by God that he would be the father of a great nation, that his descendants would inherit a new land. But now Abram and his wife Sarai are getting on in years. They are both very much too old to be having children, and yet despite God’s promises, they are still childless. Abram thinks he will soon die, and all the property that he has accumulated with God’s help will pass on to one of his servants, because he has no children to inherit.

Abram had a very special relationship with God. He seems to have been able to talk with God, to have direct conversations with God, at least from time to time. But Abram is not the sort of man who is afraid to question God, afraid even to second guess God. And so, as the years go on, and as the promise still goes unfulfilled, Abram challenges God. Abram asks God for a sign, for some sort of assurance that God will do what God has said. And that is when we get this very strange story.

These days, if we want assurance that someone will follow through on their word, we might settle for a handshake. Even better is to write up a contract. Lawyers and courts are the guardians of truth and fidelity, or at least the ones who bring down punishment on those who do break their word.

Of course, the ancient world was pretty light on lawyers. If someone in Abraham’s day wanted to get assurances from someone, they didn’t have any lawyers to call, no courts to petition. They had to find other ways to ensure someone was telling the truth, that they would live up to their word. And so they used various kinds of oaths and curses and covenants. They would swear by objects they considered powerful, or call down destruction from the gods on themselves if they were found to be lying.

One of the types of oaths that was practiced in the ancient Middle East is the one we hear about today in Genesis. It sounds a bit gruesome to our modern ears. Animals would be slaughtered and then cut apart right down the middle. Then the two sides of each animal would be laid out on either side, forming a pathway between the divided pieces. This meant, of course, that all of the guts and innards were exposed in the most graphic of ways. The person who was making the promise would then pass in between the divided carcasses, as if to say, “Let the same thing happen to me as has happened to these animals if I break my promise.” Passing through the middle sealed the covenant. And as you can imagine by the gore and the expense involved, this was a particularly strong form of covenant ceremony.

This sort of ceremony was fairly well known in ancient Mesopotamia, but the story we heard today is very strange indeed. It starts out as expected. Abram slaughters the necessary animals. He cuts each of them down the middle. He lays out the pieces in the appropriate manner. He even shoos away the birds when they come to pick at the carcasses. But there is no one there to make that gruesome and fateful walk. There is no one there to make the covenant.

But as night falls, and the darkness surrounds, something amazing happens. A torch and a smoking fire pot appear, and they pass between the divided animals. God has arrived to make the covenant Godself. Think about that for a minute. God is making a promise to Abram. God is having to prove to Abram that God is actually telling the truth. God is asking to be cursed if the covenant is broken. It’s very strange, and rather unseemly, for God to be in a position of having to prove Godself to a human being.

And yet, that is precisely what God does. Abram doesn’t have to do anything. God is making all of the promises. God is assuring Abram that God will do what God has said. God even appears in a physical form to make the covenant oath.

This isn’t the only covenant that God makes with humanity. You may remember some of the others. God’s covenant with all people through Noah that God will never again destroy the whole earth through flood. God’s covenant to Moses that brings the law and liberates the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt. God’s covenant to David that his kingdom will never end. God’s covenant to Jeremiah that God will write the law on the very hearts of the people. And the new covenant in Jesus Christ, a promise of new birth through water and the Spirit, a promise of inclusion in God’s family for not just the favored Jewish people, but for all people, regardless to race or station.

And just like the covenant that God makes with Abram, the covenant that God makes through Jesus Christ is a lopsided covenant. We receive more from God than we give back. And God remains faithful to the promises even when we are less than faithful. We sin and fall short of God’s hopes for us over and over again, but God remains faithful. God always offers grace. We try to ignore God, we fail to spend time deepening our relationship with God, but God remains faithful. God continually reaches out to us, calling us back into God’s presence. We hurt our neighbors and hurt our earth through our own greed and indifference, but God remains faithful. God offers us forgiveness and calls us to repentance, a chance to make things right.

Like Abraham, our father in the faith, we are a covenant people. We rely on the promises that God has made. And while God remains faithful even when we are not, God’s faithfulness calls us to ever greater faithfulness. God’s grace offered to us calls us to offer grace to others, and to ourselves. God’s forgiveness offered to us calls us to forgive others. God’s provision for our lives calls us to see to the provision of those around us. We are a covenant people. And God’s covenant with us forms our identity. We are God’s people, brought into God’s family through Jesus Christ. Let us be shaped by God’s promises, and may we seek always to live as the people God has called us to be.