I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
Around me like circles on water.
Wendell Berry
Well in this study we find oaks playing a prominent role...
The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northwards and southwards and eastwards and westwards; for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring[a] for ever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.’
So Abram moved his tent, and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the Lord.
Genesis 13: 14-18 (NRSVA)
In the introductory blog post introducing this series I discussed the “species” of tree being referred to in the story of Eve and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. No-one goes down to the greengrocers and asks for two pounds of the “fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” But there is an extent that we all know something more mysterious and mythological is being referred to here.
But in this passage, the trees under which a number of key events take place in the life of Abraham and Sarah are referred to as the "Oaks" of Mamre. Most English translations go with “Oaks”, but there is a pesky footnote that says “or terebinths”. The New International Version chickens out and just calls them “great trees” and the word in Hebrew implies something “great” or “big”. It is generally applied to the Terebinth, a deciduous relative of the cashew or pistachio which historically gave us turpentine... But Terebinths (until the advent of arboretums and tropical greenhouses) didn’t grow in England. There the ubiquitous “great tree” was the oak. There are oaks in the middle east but they are small shrubby things, and Biblical Hebrew distinguishes these from terebinths, which aren’t that much bigger. So when the time came for the Old Testament to be translated into English the translators generally went for the more familiar “oaks.”, although they aren’t always consistent.
And this raises an issue not just about the technicalities of Biblical translation and the accuracy of it, but of “translating" the gospel from one culture to another. Take this whole story. How can we “translate” this story of a nomadic tent dwelling man and woman of perhaps 4000 years ago and apply it to modern life?
By the way, for those who have done a pilgrimage to the “Holy Land” there is, apparently a site referred to as "Abraham’s oak" near in a monastery near Hebron, and it is actually an oak (although the tree is definitely not 4000 years old and this site is a different location from the place identified as Mamre by Herod the Great, Josephus, Constantine the Great, early Church historians and Christian pilgrims until the mid-12th century, which is a few kilometres north). Legend says that "Abraham's Oak" will die before the “Anti-Christ” appears... and sadly the main trunk seems to have been dead since the mid-1990s, But in 1997, a small sprig was seen growing near the withered oak, in 1998 a root sprout appeared, and since 2016 Russian botanists have been working to save it, although, among the many problems in the area, the Monastery where the oak is has been a source of recent tension between Russia and Palestinian authorities.
But getting back to Abraham and Sarah camping out under these great trees. If they were terebinths this was a good idea, not only because of the shade they provided, but also because of the seeds which could be roasted and eaten, the turpentine resin which could be used for all sorts of purposes, and the fact that such trees only grow where there is moist soil ie near a good source of water.
Abraham and Sarah were blessed in many ways, with wealth, land and livestock. But not with a child – an important thing for a woman of her day. Indeed the first thing we really learn about Sarah, or Sarai as she was known at that point, is that “Sarai was barren; she had no child (Genesis 11:30).
But shortly before Abraham and Sarah settled by the oaks or terebinths of Mamre, God been promised that even though they were old, and she was apparently barren, they would have a child and that their offspring would be so numerous they would be “like the dust of the earth' (Genesis 13:16).
In the introductory piece on my blog I suggest that the main fault of Eve in the Garden of Eden was deciding to ignore God and to take a short cut to gain knowledge. In this story Abraham, and more importantly Sarah took the fateful decision to take a short cut to turn this promise into a reality. Abraham may be the patriarch of three major faith groupings; Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but he made some chronically poor decisions at times. Twice we find him passing his wife off as his sister, because, although she was past pensionable age she must have still been a very alluring woman, in that powerful men were very keen to have her as their wife, with almost fatal consequences on both occasions. Both times Sarai/h went along with this ill-conceived notion, but when it came to hurrying on the creation of this great nation, it was Sarah who took the lead, suggesting that Abraham could use Hagar, an Egyptian slave that they had presumably picked up on their ill-fated trip to that country, as a “surrogate.” This is a massively disturbing story from a contemporary perspective and Sarah doesn’t come out of it looking good, no matter how beautiful she was for her age... despite it all being her idea she struggled with jealousy and behaved appallingly towards Hagar and later her son Ishmael. But despite this, later, under those same trees Sarah and Abraham had another encounter with God, which is reassuring for those of us who consistently make wrong decisions due to impatience, envy and other human frailties:
The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, ‘My lord, if I find favour with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.’
So they said, ‘Do as you have said.’
And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, ‘Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.’ Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.
They said to him, ‘Where is your wife Sarah?’
They said to him, ‘Where is your wife Sarah?’
And he said, ‘There, in the tent.’
Then one said, ‘I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.’ And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him.
Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?’
The Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh, and say, “Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?” Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.’
But Sarah denied, saying, ‘I did not laugh’; for she was afraid.
He said, ‘Oh yes, you did laugh.’
Genesis 18: 1-15 (NRSVA)
This is quite a strange story for us, by any stretch of the imagination. God and/or his angels have come to the "oaks" of Mamre in the disguise of three strangers to whom, according to the custom of the day, Abraham (and indirectly Sarah) offered hospitality. And again in keeping with the customs of the day their guests offered a blessing, promising that by the following year they would have a son, Sarah laughed at the prospect, although she denied it, and well she should. She was now well past the menopause or, as the Bible coyly puts it, 'It had ceased to be with her after the manner of women,” while she says of Abraham “'My husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” (Genesis 18:11 - 12) - without specifying what "pleasure" she is referring to...
Some people laugh at the ridiculous... some because they are nervous... I am renowned for my loud laugh... But how often does laughter hide pain... And to Sarah who, by this time had forgotten the promise of God regarding Abraham’s descendants, or doubted that it could possibly come true, this must have seemed like the cruellest of jokes.
But after the allotted time we are told:
The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Now Sarah said, ‘God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.’ And she said, ‘Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.’
Genesis 18: 1-15: 21: 1-7 (NRSVA)
This time, the promise was fulfilled and Sarah did indeed have a child, Isaac (which means 'he laughs'). I have baptised many children with strange names, but never one called "laughter."
Woody Allen once said "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans..."
I doubt that God laughed at Abraham and Sarah's attempts to short-cut his plans... But here Sarah laughs twice: The first when she hears the foolish notion that at her age she will have a child within a year, without the aid of IVF, and later when it actually happens... according to God’s plans and timing, not hers.
Sadly Sarah's laughter and joy ultimately produced yet more misery for Hagar (it has actually been the focus of the Daily Lectionary as I write this) and the repercussions are a whole other story, which I suppose I could tell in another episode in this series given that Hagar later left her resulting son Ishmael under an unspecified bush in the wilderness, expecting death to claim both of them. It didn’t and the supposed consequences rumble down to the present day...
Did Sarah ever reflect on her lack of faith to God and her appalling treatment of Hagar? We don't know. In a monologue I wrote many years ago entitled "Laughter and Tears" I put words into her mouth suggesting that she might have done... to a degree... but actually we read nothing more of Sarah between Hagar's banishment and Sarah's death after a long life.
When she does die (Genesis 23), we are told, in the first description of a burial in scripture, that she is interred in a plot which her husband Abraham specifically negotiates to purchase:
So the field of Ephron in Machpelah, which was to the east of Mamre, the field with the cave that was in it and all the trees that were in the field, throughout its whole area, passed to Abraham as a possession... After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah facing Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan.
Genesis 23: 17-19 (NRSVA)
Today most burial plots are in anonymous civic cemeteries, but increasing numbers of people are investing in "natural" burials often in woodland, or, after a cremation, scatter or bury ashes in places that were important to the deceased and to those that mourn their passing, and frequently this is under a tree somewhere. "Thin places..."
Today we recognise that trees, woodlands and forests have an important part to play in the environmental well-being of this world. But Clare Hayns suggests that there is another dimension:
“Perhaps they remind us of God's permanence and stability, especially comforting in times of change and uncertainty.”
In the light of some of Sarah’s poor decision making, and ours, both as individuals and as a people, cutting down ancient woodland for faster journeys (more short-cuts) and entire forests for financial gain - perhaps we need to remember that God’s purposes are worked out over periods of time that are even more than the lifespan of a tree... even a great oak.
PRAYER
Faithful God,We thank you that you know our deepest longings,
and hear our voiced and unvoiced prayers.
As you heard your daughter Sarah so many centuries ago.
We pray that you would hear us
today as we speak to you of all that we desire,
As you heard your daughter Sarah so many centuries ago.
We pray that you would hear us
today as we speak to you of all that we desire,
that we might trust in you and your perfect timing,
and that you might shape our will
so that it is in tune with yours. Amen
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