Abraham
Loser Take All
Who overcomes by force hath overcome but half his foe.
— John Milton
Conflict is inevitable. The only people who aren't conflicted are the few isolated lighthouse keepers, Basque sheepherders, Cistercian monks, Salmon River recluses, Saquatches and other die-hard loners.
If you live in the real world you're going to fall out of phase with someone this week, or most likely, this day. You can count on it. The question is not how to avoid conflict, but how to manage it.
Moses had a good word on the subject. He tells a story about Abram and his nephew Lot and how Abram resolved their differences. It's another example of how our difficulties can be overcome and turned into good.
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The trouble with Abram
The trouble between Abram and Lot began with an agreement to lie. Abraham and Sarah made a promise to one another that they would tell no one they were married whenever his life was on the line (Genesis 20:13).
Sarah was a beautiful woman, and Abram was certain that wherever they went men would covet her and kill him, which was the way things were done back then. If you wanted someone's wife, you made a widow out of her.
So Abraham said to Sarah: "This is the kindness which you will show to me: everywhere we go, say of me, 'He is my brother'" (20:13 NASB).
The lie was a half-truth: Sarah was his half-sister, "the daughter of his mother though not the daughter of his father," as Abraham once lamely explained (20:12). But it was still a lie; Sarah was his wife.
That deceit was Abraham's ace in the hole, his alternative to faith, his fall-back plan in case God didn't come through. But a lie can never grow old; truth inevitably displaces it. Abraham and Sarah were revealed as man and wife, a disclosure that almost cost them their lives.
God, however, whose job it is to undo our stupidity, stepped in and averted the consequences of Abram's lying. As one of Israel's poets put it, he remembered his covenant with Abraham, reproved the king, and would not let him touch his anointed one or do his prophet any harm (Psalm 105:15). It's enough to say that God saved Abram without relying on the patriarch's deceit.
In Egypt Abram gained new perspective. There he learned that though God may ask us to do things that look dangerous, he has promised eternal protection, and there is no reason to doubt his word. Our safety never depends on making ourselves safe, but rather on remaining in God's will. That's the safest place in the world.
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Back to Bethel
Genesis 13 traces Abram's pilgrimage by stages as he journeyed from Egypt through the Negev back to Bethel:
So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him . . . And he went on his journey to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the LORD (13:1-4).
Abram's pilgrimage was more than a journey through space; it was a walk through time: back to Bethel, all the way back to the origins of his faith.
Bethel was the place where Abram had built his altar "in the beginning," an altar that was conspicuously absent in Egypt. Abram came back to the place of worship where once again he "called on the name of the LORD." It's good that he did. He needed all of God for the trouble that lay ahead.
The problem was too much of a good thing. "Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold" (13:2). Abram was betrayed by his affluence. Sarah's dowry, which the Pharaoh had allowed Abram to keep, set up the subsequent conflict with Lot.
Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. And quarreling arose between Abram's herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time (13:5-7).
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Once again the land failed Abram. The first time it failed him through famine. This time there wasn't enough of it to go around. That's what brought Abram and Lot into conflict.
Each time their herdsmen moved their flocks they found themselves in competition with one another and "quarreling arose." That's when the shouting began.
Abram, however, rather than engage in a shouting match with his nephew suggested they sit down and talk about their problem and do something about it;
Let's not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers (13:8).
"Brothers!" That makes all the difference in the world. Brothers have to get along with one another.
Jesus said, "If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. Settle matters quickly with your adversary" (Matthew 5:23-25).
Furthermore, "the Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time" (13:7). Perhaps, Moses' editorial comment means nothing more than Canaanite competition for grass, but I think he had something else in mind. It was important for Abram to deal with this disunity between brothers because the Canaanites were looking on!
Abram was a missionary. The Lord had said to him,
Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and
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whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:1-3).
Abram's task was to bring salvation to the inhabitants of the land. God loved the Canaanites, even though most of them were dirty old men. He wanted these people to see the difference his presence could make in a man. It was important that Abram and Lot settle their differences and manifest God's goodness to the world.
Grace or grass
There is a spate of books and articles these days on conflict management. Many of them contain wisdom, another instance in which "the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light" (Luke 16:8). I find them helpful to read and apply.
To some degree these studies represent an elaboration of Paul's admonition to keep our conversations "full of grace, seasoned with salt" (Colossians 4:6). They help us communicate with grace and sensitivity so that we serve up communication like a savory meal.
But grace adds something more — more than secular studies can ever supply. Once again Jesus' words come to mind: "What are you doing more than others?" (Matthew 5:47). Authentic Christianity has that "more than" quality about it. This is the missing element in most secular treatments of this theme.
This is what Abram, God's man, did. He said to Lot,
"Is not the whole land before you? Let's part company. If you go to the left, I'll go to the right; if you go to the right, I'll go to the left."
Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the LORD,
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like the land of Egypt, towards Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the LORD (Genesis 13:9-13).
Abram was the patriarch of the clan and held all the cards. God had given him the title deed to all the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:6). It was his by divine right. Yet he let Lot choose. Abram displayed the humility and generosity of faith.
Lot's choice betrayed his self-interest: He "chose for himself." The Jordan valley looked good on the surface. It was a quiet pastoral scene, but nearby was Sodom, the seductive city that eventually claimed Lot and his family, drew them down and ruined them. There, as Lord Byron pointed out, Lot tasted "the apples on the Dead Sea's shore, all ashes to the taste."
You might conclude at this point that Abram was like one of those men Robert Bly describes as weak, wimpy push-overs. But you'd be wrong. Abram never picked a fight, but he never backed away from one either. When push came to shove, Abram could be fierce.
Shortly after this occasion Lot and his family were captured in a raid on Sodom. Abram armed his household servants and went after them. Never mind that the raiding party was composed of the armies of four of the greatest kings in the Middle East, Abram pursued the invaders through the night, raided their camp, and rescued his nephew Lot (see Genesis 14:1-16).
No, Abram was no soft man. That's not what this story is about. Nor is this a story about grazing rights and grass. It is about grace and God's way to settle our deepest differences.
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The fundamental problem
We keep asking ourselves: "How can I find satisfaction?" It's life's fundamental question.
It's not wrong to want satisfaction. God created us with a thousand necessities, and he will see to it that we will get what's coming to us — in this life or the next. He is the source and the satisfaction of our longings.
The problem is not that we want satisfaction; it's that we pursue it as though everything depends on it. If there is any gratification to be gained we must get it.
When we approach problems in this way, our efforts to fulfill ourselves inevitably clash with someone else — a spouse, a child, a colleague — who is trying to fulfill himself or herself, and our drives get frustrated. The person who sabotages us becomes our rival, our obstacle to progress. That person is in our way! We get angry and we refuse to yield.
Disunity comes because we insist on our way and refuse to yield ground. If you look beneath the surface of every divorce, every church split, every dissolution of friendship, you will see this pattern. That's why we can't successfully arbitrate or arrange compromises, except for short periods of time, because our drive for satisfaction sets up a prideful resistance that keeps us at odds with one another. "Only by pride cometh contention," the proverb states, "but with the well advised is wisdom" (Proverbs 13:10 KJV).
Here is wisdom: when conflict cannot be resolved reasonably, when there is no other way to seek reconciliation, we must yield our position even though by so doing we are wronged (see 1 Corinthians 6:1-7). What's called for is what the Bible calls "meekness." Meekness is not weakness or mildness but controlled strength. It is a willingness to give up what we call our rights, our preferences, our privileges in the interests of a better thing. It is a gentle, yielding spirit that meets hard hearts and stubborn wills with quiet forbearance.
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When rights are wrong
We have certain inalienable rights. Paul makes that very clear. In his own defense he wrote to the Corinthian church, "Don't we [apostles] have the right to food and drink? Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas? Do not Barnabas and I have a right to refrain from working?" (1 Corinthians 9:4-6).
But, the apostle continues, "We did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ" (1 Corinthians 9:12). There are certain times when insisting on rights is dead wrong. In some situations the right thing is to give our rights away and wait for God to satisfy us in some other way.
We're never called upon to sacrifice right principles. "The wisdom that comes from heaven is first pure; then peace-loving." We do not seek peace at all costs. Purity always comes first. But when we have reached an impasse in our efforts to reconcile with a brother or sister; when there's nothing more we can do to bring peace, we can yield. The weak have to defend their rights; the strong can yield. This is the grace of giving up.
The God who would be man
Paul has a mind-boggling word on this subject:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others (Philippians 2:3-4).
Do nothing for yourself? Considers others better than yourself? What a strange doctrine in a world where might makes right and assertiveness makes the man.
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This call to humility and self-effacement is so unbelievable, Paul had to corroborate it from the example of Christ. He elaborates from an ancient creed:
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:5-8).
This is one of the greatest and most moving descriptions ever given of Jesus, a poetic description of what Christians call the Incarnation — the incredible fact that God himself became a man.
Two ideas appear in the creed, based on the two main verbs: "[Jesus] made himself nothing" ("he emptied himself") and "he humbled himself" (2:8).
Jesus was always God. He never ceased to be God at any time. But, as Paul explains, he "did not consider equality with God something to be grasped," but "emptied himself." The word means just that; it was used in ancient times of emptying containers, pouring out their contents until nothing was left.
The next verb describes and explains that emptying. Jesus "emptied himself [by] taking the very nature of a servant." The word for "nature" here is the same word used in verse 6: "Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped . . ." The two nouns link two ideas together: he who was essentially God took on the essential nature of a slave.
And then, having become a servant to all, our Lord "humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death
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on a cross!" Jesus' willingness to serve us sent him all the way. This "mind" as Paul calls it, must be our mind-set as well.
It is in giving that we receive; it is in dying that we live.
- St. Francis of Assisi
Here's the rub: when we face some hard-headed antagonist who will not back down, will we follow our natural instincts and fight back, or will we adopt Jesus' attitude and yield? If we are God's men, we will waive our rights and yield. But not to worry. God will pay us back by the oldest and oddest paradox in the world: we gain ground by giving up.
Jesus said, "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39). If we set out to find ourselves — if we seek our own satisfaction — we will always be left with an empty and unfulfilled heart. Only when we forget ourselves and devote ourselves to another's fulfillment will we find our own souls running over with satisfaction. This is one of the fundamental mysteries of life, but it is confirmed every day.
When Jesus gave in
God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11).
God exalts the humble, Peter insists (1 Peter 5:5). It was true for Jesus; it was true for Abram.
The LORD said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, "Lift up your eyes from where you are and look
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north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you" (Genesis 13:14-17).
After Lot's claim came God's grant. The Lord showed Abram the Promised Land in panorama, then told him to possess it: "Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land," an ancient symbolic rite by which Abram staked a personal claim to his estate. A walk of faith indeed! Abram grasped for himself "how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ" (Ephesians 3:18).
Lot chose for himself and lost everything in the world; Abram let God choose and he got the earth with heaven thrown in. As martyred missionary Jim Elliot wrote, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
Do we dare?
But you say, "If I do not stand up for my rights, I'll lose out." So what? You may lose a few of your possessions, perhaps a little prestige and position, but you'll not be a loser. The Lord is standing by; he will never permit you to suffer eternal loss. He will compensate you for all you have lost through courtesy and kindness. And he is here now to give you peace and satisfaction for the present.
"I tell you the truth," Jesus said, "no one who has [given up anything for my sake] will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life" (Luke 18:30). That comes from the One who cannot lie.
T.S. Eliot wrote these provocative and challenging lines:
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Do we dare? do we dare?
Is it time to climb the stair?
Do we dare to try this radical high road to conflict resolution? Are we willing to give up to gain a greater thing? Do we dare? Do we dare?
