I like what I can’t have, if God says that I must wait to have it, or that I myself can’t have it at all. That is not a welcome idea to people who are taught to snatch happiness wherever they can find it. But biblical faith offers to each generation of God’s people such a choice: either the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God (Heb. 11:10), which by definition we can’t have right now, or the pleasures of sin for a short time (Heb. 11:25), which is the alternative to people without hope in God.

The good that we long for and that satisfies our deepest longing cannot be found in our present circumstances. It lies in the future. What we mistake for that ultimate good are echoes from a distant voice, calling to us from the future, or smells that make us hungry, coming from preparations for a banquet to which we are invited in the future.

Over and over scripture beckons us to engage the present moment in light of that future good. For most of us this is an acquired taste. We need to be reminded and encouraged. We make many missteps. Forgiveness, repentance, and starting over characterize the discipline necessary to say from the heart, “I like what I can’t have, if God says that I must wait to have it, or that I myself can’t have it at all.”

Learning to live like this can be painfully ordinary, unglamorous, even tedious. Genesis 23 offers a case study of what I am talking about. It also bears directly on an important aspect of the grace of giving, which is our theme this month.

High Hopes and the Real World
Genesis 23:1-2 says that Sarah lived to be a hundred and twenty-seven years old. She died at Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham, who had been through so much with her, went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her. Before long, Abraham would also be gathered to his fathers.

When there is a death in the family, details are endless. Fill out this form and that form. Go to this place and that place. Talk to this solemn face and that solemn face. It borders on a mockery of grief. It was the same with Abraham.

He had to purchase a grave site; not just for Sarah, but for himself and his descendants. It was not a simple matter. He had to negotiate the purchase publicly according to local custom. It was all very polite and very subtle. To people in a hurry it would be very tedious. Verses 3-4 get us into the negotiations.

Then Abraham rose from beside his dead wife and spoke to the Hittites. He said, “I am an alien and a stranger among you.” That was both a fact and an appeal to their pity. “Sell me some property for a burial site here so I can bury my dead.”

Notice that Abraham did not say how much property he wished to buy or how much he was willing to pay. The Hittite response betrays nothing commercial in what was going on.

Verses 5-6 say, The Hittites replied to Abraham, “Sir, listen to us. You are a mighty prince among us. Bury the dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will refuse you his tomb for burying your dead.” Notice that no Hittite is mentioned by name. The bait was in the water, and the fish had gathered; but no bites – not yet. The Hittite response might be paraphrased as follows. “Sell you land! We won’t hear of it; not at a time like this. A man of your stature should just feel free to take one of our family plots. We’ll be glad to do that for you.” But they didn’t mean it, and it would have been a faux pas of the first magnitude on Abraham’s part to accept their offer. It reminds me of times in my childhood, when unwanted company unexpectedly came to visit our home.

Momma and daddy didn’t especially like them. I had to be there, because that was the polite thing to do. My parents put a good face on it. They served refreshments and carried on conversation. Finally, the company got ready to leave, and to my horror, one of my parents would say, “Aw, y’all don’t have to go, do you?”

Everything in me just died, when my mom would say that. (My dad seldom said that.) I knew they had both been wanting the company to go for an hour. But what do they say? “Aw, y’all don’t have to go, do you?” Yes, momma, they do have to go.

The company’s response also belonged to my education into the social intricacies of my people. They knew exactly what to say. “Oh, thank you, but we’ve go to be going; we got things to do.” It would have been a social blunder to stay.

Abraham knew all about the polite social fiction of saying one thing and meaning its opposite. He ignored the Hittite offer. In verse seven negotiations began to heat up. Then Abraham rose and bowed down before the people of the land, the Hittites. He was really getting into it.

Verses 8-9 report: He said to them, “If you are willing to let me bury my dead, then listen to me and intercede with Ephron, son of Zohar, on my behalf.” Notice! He didn’t address Ephron directly, even though he was there in the crowd. “Intercede with Ephron, son of Zohar, on my behalf, so he will sell me the cave at Machpelah, which belongs to him and is in the end of his field. Ask him to sell it to me for the full price as a burial site among you.”

Matters were getting much more specific, although the amount of money had not yet been named. Abraham had not been free to address Ephron directly. That would have been unacceptably blunt. He had to leave Ephron a way to save face, in case he didn’t want to sell to Abraham.

Fortunately, Ephron liked what he heard. He answered Abraham directly, a sure sign that he was ready to sell. But you would never know it from Ephron’s actual words. Verse 10 says that Ephron the Hittite was sitting among his people, and he replied to Abraham in the hearing of all the Hittites who had come to the gate of the city.

In the Bible important legal transactions took place at the gate of the city. The fact that Ephron spoke in the hearing of all the Hittites meant that what he said was to be considered as binding.

What he actually said is in verse eleven: “No, my lord,” he said, “listen to me; I give you the cave that is in it. I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead.” Can’t you see Ephron saying these final words with dramatic emphasis and sitting down with a flourish to the approving murmurs of his Hittite brethren? No one can say that Ephron, son of Zohar, is not a magnanimous man.

That, of course, was the whole point of this speech. But woe to Abraham or anyone else who took seriously his offer of free land. Abraham did not. With stately civility and complete awareness of his surroundings, he brought negotiations to a head.

Verses 12-13: Again Abraham bowed down before the people of the land, and he said to Ephron in their hearing (he too was serious), “Listen to me, if you will. I will pay the price of the field. Accept it from me so I can bury my dead there.”

Abraham had negotiated in good faith and good form. Social custom had been satisfied, except for one more deprecating remark by Ephron in verses 14-15. Ephron answered Abraham, “Listen to me, my lord; the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver. But what is that between you and me?”

Nothing. Nothing at all, so long as Abraham paid. Verse 16: Abraham agreed to Ephron’s terms and (on his own scales, you may be sure) weighed out for him the price he had named in the hearing of the Hittites: four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weight current among the merchants, who, you may be sure, double-checked it on their scales.

Genesis 23 is painfully ordinary, almost secular. God is never mentioned in this chapter Had you noticed that? Does it strike you as strange? How could such a story find its way into Holy Scripture? What purpose does it serve? The curious, tedious repetitions at the end of the chapter may help.

Verses 17-18 sound formal, as if taken from a legal document. So Ephron’s field in Machpelah near Mamre – both the field and the cave in it, and all the trees within the borders of the field – was deeded to Abraham as his property in the presence of all the Hittites who had come to the gate of the city.

Verse 19 confirms Abraham’s ownership by a most solemn act. Afterward Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of Machpelah near Mamre (which is at Hebron) in the land of Canaan.

In case anyone wasn’t listening, verse 20 says for the third time in four verses that the field and the cave in it were deeded to Abraham by the Hittites as a burial site. These last four verses force us to pay attention in to Abraham’s ownership of the property in question.

Twice it is said that it was deeded to Abraham; once that it is now his property; once and most telling, that it resides in the land of Canaan. The land of Canaan – that was the Promised Land, wasn’t it, stretching from Egypt in the south to the Euphrates River in the north and which Abraham and his descendants were to possess?

In the 137^th year of his life, after wandering in and out of the land of Canaan for more than sixty years, for the first time, he possessed a piece of the Promised Land; the first and only piece he ever possessed. That possession is the point of Genesis 23.

Abraham’s actual holdings were paltry compared to God’s promises. God had said, “I will give you this land.” Abraham departed this world with only one field and a cave and some trees he could call his own. And God didn’t give it to him. Abraham bought it with good silver, and he had to bargain for it at that.

But that’s why Genesis 23 is here. Faith saw in a negotiated burial site for Sarah the first concrete achievement of God’s promise to give the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants. It wasn’t much, and it was all very ordinary; but the book of Genesis saw it as confirmation that God would make good on His promise to Abraham.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
In the New Testament book of Hebrews, chapter 11 and verse 39 neatly sums up the reality of Abraham’s experience. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what they had been promised. Abraham could have said, “I like what I can’t have, if God says that I must wait to have it, or that I myself can’t have it at all.”

The next verse in Hebrews 11:40 is even more astonishing. None of them, said verse 39, received what they had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. God had something better for those who came later. Abraham would have to wait for that better day to reach his own full potential.

Do we have the faith to defer our own fulfillment until those who come later make it possible? It may well be that we will be called on to do that here at BVBC. I’d like to tell that story, and I begin with a photograph.

It is a late summer or early autumn day in 1975, shortly after noon on Sunday. The place is 7 Mount Lebanon Road, Talleyville, DE. Yours truly is turning over the first shovel of dirt to kick off BVBC’s first building program. These are some of the people who a generation ago planted the congregation and the building that we call home. They are not around to enjoy what this church has become. Most of the adults in the picture have died and gone to heaven; others have moved away; all those children have grown up and live elsewhere; I am the only one in the picture still living in Delaware.

The second adult man from the left is Bob Jacks, who was chairman of the board. The man to his right, our left in the camel-colored coat is Ralph Warner. The second adult man from the right is Wes Bates. Ralph from Bell Telephone and Wes from DuPont had retired, and they took personally what was being built here and where the money was going. For them it was like giving birth to a baby. One or both of them was on site everyday, unofficial straw bosses of this work site.

Here is a picture of their baby in February, 1976, about seven months before it opened for the first time. There was no wing on the west side. What you see is all we had in 1976. That’s all we needed then.

The first service in the new sanctuary was a funeral service for Evelyn Sharp’s father, Luther. For 30 years this sanctuary has been a place of profound human joy and sorrow, and the intersecting point of heaven and earth for thousands of people.

A generation from now, in 2035, many different eyes will be looking at images of some of us; and they will be talking about the action we took in 2005 that bore so decisively on the future of BVBC.

More than fifteen acres of property in the Rt. 202 corridor may be available to us to buy. That’s four times the amount of property available to us at present. The story of how we got to this point goes back to last September, and some day we want to tell the whole story.

It will cost millions to buy this property. We don’t yet know how many millions. We do know that 15 acres in the Rt. 202 corridor are difficult to come by, and to have the exclusive right to buy them is already a blessing conferred on this congregation.

Unless the deal falls through, which could happen, the property is ours, if we want it. If we want it, we will be called on to sacrifice to have it. Lying ahead will be profound moments of spiritual growth for many of us, as we determine before God the sacrifices we are willing to make.

Like Abraham of old, we will make them with no assurance that any of us will be here in 2035 to see what our sacrifices made possible for the generation to whom we will pass the baton, and who will fight different spiritual battles and exploit new opportunities and challenges.

But, then, that’s all right, isn’t it? We like what we can’t have, if God says that we must wait to have it, or that we ourselves can’t have it at all. God has something better for those who will come after us. We will have to wait for that better day to reach the full potential of our sacrificial acts today. I am prepared to sacrifice. How about you?