Day 1 (Monday)
Genesis 17:1-14 (Sign of the Covenant, Abram Gets a New Name)
Last week, we saw Abram try to take the matter of his offspring into his own hands, and father a son with Hagar, the slave of his wife, Sarai. We saw this lead to tension between Hagar and Sarai, and to Hagar fleeing with her young son Ishmael, until the Angel of the Lord appeared to her and promised that He would be with her and her son, and that Ishmael would also become the father of a great people. So she returned to the tents of Abram and his household, and Ishmael was raised in Abram’s house. This time, we will see God come to Abram several years (13) later and renew His promises to him.
The Sign of the Covenant
17 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. 2 And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him,
4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.”
9 God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.
12 Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. 13 Both the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (The Leader should point out that, when Abram first questioned how God’s promise to him would be fulfilled, two weeks ago, God guaranteed His promise by passing visibly between the divided animals, in the form of the torch and the pot full of coals. Up to this point, Abram has not been asked to do anything specific to seal the covenant with God, apart from the obvious matter of leaving his father’s house and his homeland and going where God directed him to go. This time, after a long time of waiting, as Abram is about to turn 100 years old, God comes to him and gives him a new name, which means “father of many nations,” and commands him to take a genuinely drastic action, sealing the covenant in his own flesh, and in that of all his household, not just for that time and place, but in perpetuity. The point of this is that Abraham is past the natural age of fathering children, so the child that God will give to him and to Sarah will be begotten not of their own natural power, but only with God’s intervention, as God’s particular gift to them. We may recall what St. Paul said, that God raised up His people from one man who was as good as dead (Hebrews 11:12). Before doing so, however, God is asking Abraham to dedicate that child that will be born, and all children born in his household throughout all generations, to belong to God. Abraham’s descendants are to be God’s particular people, a royal priesthood and a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9).)
2) Where do we see Christ in this text; what is He saying or doing here?
3) Do we see ourselves and the Church in this text; what does it say about us?
4) What do you find difficult about this reading? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this reading make you think that you need to change anything in your life?
Day 2 (Wednesday)
St. John Chrysostom on the Covenant with Abraham
For our Day 2 reading, we will see St. John Chrysostom give an answer to one of the questions which often comes to mind when we read about Abraham, who spent effectively his entire life waiting for God’s promise. Why did God make him wait so long? Chrysostom provides two answers to this question, and lays the groundwork for us to understand the sign of the covenant in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Please note: we have provided the entire context here, but for those who are short on time, or who are concerned about shorter attention spans, the first and last paragraphs, with additions that we have set out in bold, will be enough to get the point across, that Abraham had been obeying God, trusting Him, and waiting for the fulfillment of the promise for 25 years.
St. John Chrysostom’s Homilies on Genesis (Homily 39)
“Now, when Abram was ninety-nine years old, God appeared to him.” (Genesis 17:1)
(4) These things…were not idly said on this occasion; instead, it was for us to be in a position to know…how the loving God wanted to make the patriarch conspicuous to everyone, and so gave evidence of a particular procrastination for such a great number of years without the just man getting upset, becoming fainthearted because of the length of time or giving up hope—rather, he was buoyed up on sound hope and thus in every way demonstrated the godliness of his attitude.
Now, we will know precisely all the patriarch’s virtue if we learn how much time elapsed in the meantime. You see, all this blessed Moses teaches us under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So what does he say? When Abram obeyed God’s direction, moved on from Charran and took himself into Canaan, he was seventy-five years old. As soon as he took possession of Canaan, God promised him he would give all the land to his descendants and would cause them to grow into such a great multitude as to defy numbering, like the sand and the stars. After this promise, many things befell the just man in the meantime, the journey down into Egypt on account of the famine, the abduction of Sarah and immediately God’s providential intervention; again, after the return from there the abuse of Sarah at the hands of the king of Gerar and the immediate assistance from God.
Though he saw all this happening to him after that promise, the just man was not upset in his thinking nor did he worry within himself why the recipient of such a great promise should encounter so many awful trials day in day out and continue for so long without children. Instead, being a godly man he could not bring himself to submit to the limitations of his own reasoning what was done by God, and so he was content and accepted willingly God’s decisions.
(5) After the tenth year he took Ishmael, his child by the maidservant, and considered that the promises had been fulfilled for him in the child. The patriarch was, you remember, the text tells us, eighty-six years old when Ishmael was born. The loving God, however, exercised the virtue of the just man for a still further period of thirteen years: when God saw that he had been purified like gold in a furnace for a long period of time, and had rendered the just man’s virtue more conspicuous and resplendent, Scripture says, “when Abram was ninety-nine years old, God appeared to him again.”
Why did God delay so long? Not simply that we should get to know the just man’s endurance and his great virtue, but for us to see as well the extraordinary degree of his power. You see, when nature lost its potency and was now useless for childbearing, his body being wasted and chilled with old age, to show his peculiar power God put into effect the promise.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 18–45, ed. Thomas P. Halton, trans. Robert C. Hill, vol. 82, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1990), 376–377.
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (Leader should point out that Chrysostom, in summing up Abraham’s life, shows us two things. First, Abraham’s faith and trust in God is shown by his patience waiting for the promise; he waited 25 years to see the promise that God gave him fulfilled. Second, it shows God’s power; He waited until no one could think or imagine that the child born to Abraham and Sarah was anything less than a miracle; in this way, Abraham’s descendants through Isaac belong to God in a special and unique way, and are His chosen instrument for the salvation of the world. Older children and adults may understand from this the purpose of the specific sign of the Covenant; in circumcision, the most visible mechanism of human reproduction is altered, dedicating all the subsequent generations of Abraham’s line to God’s particular people, connecting them to the miracle of Isaac’s birth as surely as though they were themselves Isaac, born beyond reason and expectation to parents that were, reproductively speaking “as good as dead” (Hebrews 11:12). It is also important that Abraham’s circumcision comes before Isaac’s conception; Isaac is the child of God’s promise, being both the child of Abraham AND his lawful wife Sarah, and the child born in the covenant sealed with circumcision. Finally, for advanced reflection, we may see the same point made still more clear in the Christian sacrament of baptism, which has taken the place of circumcision, and which the Church considers circumcision to prefigure and prophesy. Baptism is precisely the laying aside of the old nature and the putting on of the new, dying to the fallen and natural way of living, and being born again, born from above, through the will and action and grace and love of God. Thus, in Baptism, we all are born again as children of God, children of the Promise, children of the Covenant, in which the Lord has reconciled us perfectly to Himself in Himself. This reality is the point that circumcision points toward.)
2) Where do we see Christ in this text; what is He saying or doing here?
3) Do we see ourselves and the Church in this text; what does it say about us?
4) What do you find difficult about this reading? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this reading make you think that you need to change anything in your life?
Day 3 (Friday)
Matthew 5:21-32 (Sermon on Mount Continues – On Human Relationships)
Last time we saw the Lord preach the “Beatitudes,” a series of contrasts between the “way of the world” and the way of the Kingdom of God. We may point out that this contrast between the natural order of things and the new life and being to which God has called us is precisely the same sort of point as the covenant of circumcision, and eventually the sacrament of baptism, are conveying to us. In this passage, the Lord will continue on this theme by developing the contrast between the world and the Kingdom of God in regards to Anger, Adultery, and Divorce.
Concerning Anger
21 “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.
23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
Concerning Adultery
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.
Concerning Divorce
31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (The Leader should point out how radical and unexpected these things that Jesus is teaching truly are. The idea that God will not accept us if we have offended a brother or sister without making it right with them is a terrifying one, and requires some further discussion. It is not that someone else can “hold us hostage to God’s condemnation” simply by refusing to forgive us, but that WE must not refuse to repent for anything that we have actually done to offend someone else. If we have sinned against them, we need to repent, and try to make it right, and be open to reconciliation as far as it is in our power. So long as we have done so, their own resentment cannot trap anyone in exile from God except themselves – but we must truly do so! This is why the best approach to a conflict with someone is twofold. First, we need to ask forgiveness and offer reconciliation. God willing they respond, and we may then, at peace with one another, approach the Lord together. But if they refuse, then the second imperative comes into play: if they are unwilling to be reconciled with us, then we need not continue to subject ourselves to their abuse and anger, but it is essential that pray for them and for their good and salvation, and not harbor anger and resentment in our own heart. This is, I believe, what St. Paul means when he says in Romans 12:18: “If it is possible, [that is] so far as it lies in your power, live at peace with all people.”)
2) Where do we see Christ in this text; what is He saying or doing here?
3) Do we see ourselves and the Church in this text; what does it say about us?
4) What do you find difficult about this reading? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this reading make you think that you need to change anything in your life?