Strangers, Sojourners, and the God Who Keeps His Promises

We Are All Strangers and Sojourners

The Torah portion called in Hebrew "Chayei Sarah" — "the Life of Sarah" — starts in Genesis 23:1 and ends in Genesis 25:18. Although the parasha is called Chayei Sarah, we read in this portion about the death of Sarah. Sarah dies at the age of 127 years old.

Before we get into the story itself, I would like to highlight a text from 1 Corinthians 15, that opens up something worth pausing on:

In a print Bible, the last two verses are in a different script and in italics. Why? When the biblical texts have a different font or script or color, the publishers of our translations are trying to say something to us, and it would be expected for us to dig and find out why! In this case it is because Paul is bringing into his own text a quotation from two Hebrew prophets — the two Scripture passages are combined: Isaiah 25:8 and Hosea 13:14.

Our lives are not limited to this physical world, that is a corruptible world. Everything that we see and feel and smell and touch in this world is corruptible. In fact, according to Isaiah the prophet and also the book of Revelation, the whole world, the solar system, is corruptible and not eternal. I enjoyed reading "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. In his book Stephen Hawking makes it clear that our universe, like other universes in the vast expanse of space, is not endless. Stars are born and stars die, universes along the Milky Way are sometimes many millions of years old, but some become a "black hole" or a "black dwarf." Well, we have Isaiah in the 8th Century BCE stating clearly the following:

This paradigm has to influence our lives and remind us what the Bible states several times. In our lives and in our minds we must remember that we are all "strangers and sojourners." Living with the idea that we have nothing permanent in this life and in this world is a very powerful force. It gives us strength to take and receive the difficult moments of our lives with a coolness that gives confidence and comfort when there is a loss or difficulty. No matter how hard things can be in this life, we know that it is all temporary, and that there is another world better and with no illness or criminals. The material things in life have a much less importance, and even if we collect them and love them, we know that they are but a trifle. There are other advantages that we have if we really internalize and accept these biblical facts. One of which is to learn to invest and stress the things that will bless us eternally and not only temporarily.

Abraham — A Stranger Who Never Claimed What Was His

This brings us back to Abraham our father. Although God promised the land of Canaan to Abraham and his seed as an eternal possession — a promise repeated more than twenty times in the book of Genesis alone — Abraham didn't own legally one square yard of land in this land. Now that Sarah his wife died, he needs a place to bury his beloved wife.

Sarah stands out from every other woman in the Bible. She is a woman most involved in every aspect of her husband's life and activity. There is not one story in the life of Abraham that Sarah was not somehow involved in, and influenced the outcome of, every one of the events in Abraham's life. She was really the most liberated woman, who was as important to the life and narrative of her husband Abraham as much, or even more, than anyone else in his life.

And now she is gone. Abraham does not claim the land that God has given him. He wants to pay for it — he wants to buy it at the full price, even above the full market price. Abraham approaches the Hittites, who are also settlers in this land far from their homeland in the mountains of Anatolia, with a humility that doesn't reflect the fact that God has already four times promised him and his seed this land of Canaan. He does not face the Hittites and say, "This is my land. The creator of the Universe, the owner of the whole Earth, gave it to me!" He comes with great humility and says:

This is one of the most important lessons in this Torah portion. None of us will live to see the full fruits of our work, of our endeavors. Great change is never the work of one generation, especially in the Middle East. The next generation will see the fruits of the seed that you have planted in your youth.

We walk this world as strangers, holding lightly what is temporary, and by faith fixing our eyes on what God has promised beyond.