Smoking Fire Pot

March 16, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“Smoking Fire Pot” based on Genesis 15: 1-12 and 17-18 and Luke 13:31-35

On first glance, there isn’t much in our two scripture lessons today that jumps out as relevant. The Genesis story of the Abrahamic covenant is definitely an ancient story and frankly reads as a little creepy. The Lukan narrative about Jesus is obscure and feels out of context even to the gospel itself.

Luckily, first glances aren’t the only way to read scripture. One is permitted to dig into them until they start speaking important truths. And, these ones will do it, if you let them.

There is a passage in Jeremiah 31 about the “new covenant” that God is going to make with the people:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

The new covenant is different from the prior covenants because the people had the ability to mess up the other ones, but in this “new covenant” God is going to ensure that the covenant is successful and not be dependent on the whims of people.

The ways that many people talk about the Bible today, saying the “Old Testament” and “New Testament” which amounts to the “Old Covenant” and “New Covenant” reflect an understanding from Christianity that Jeremiah’s new covenant came into being with Jesus and transformed how they interacted with God. It was no longer about the people’s failure, but instead about God’s faithfulness. (Note that I’m not particularly fond of this language, as I don’t think that the Hebrew Bible was “replaced” by the Christian Testament, and proclaiming it is ends up being really dismissive of our Jewish siblings in faith.)

Except, if we’re honest, the Genesis 15 covenant between God and Abraham is more like that “new covenant” than like the ones we think of as the “old” ones. And Genesis 15 is – to state the obvious – rather early in the Bible.

Covenants are a form of contract between two parties. It was common enough that when the contract was being finalized animals would be cut in two and the two parties would walk between them to symbolize that if they broke covenant they deserved to die.

But in Genesis 15 something weird happens. First of all, it helps to know that in Genesis 14 Abraham won a battle that gave him the right to spoils, but he didn’t take the spoils as a way to indicate that he credited God with his victory. So in Genesis 15, God is pleased with Abraham and promises good things. But Abraham points out that good things aren’t that great for him when his family lacks an heir. God promises Abraham an heir. Abraham asks for proof.

Then Abraham, as instructed by God, gathers a bunch of animals and cuts them in two for a covenantal ritual. And then Abraham falls asleep – possibly a sleep given to him by God. And then either while he is sleeping or after he awakes (unclear) he sees “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.” That is, he sees a sign that God walks the covenant – alone. God takes responsibility for making this happen, and them promises Abrahams descendants what would come to be called the promised land.1

Abraham isn’t asked to do anything, to promise anything, to enact anything. It is all God. Which is exactly like that “new covenant” that comes up so much later. Which is to suggest that God has known all along that people weren’t particularly dependable covenantal partners, and God has been working to make things good for us anyway – all along.

I think this also leaves space for us to work alongside God, an idea I find important in faith, but it does give us a little space to remember that God is God and we are not and God can make good things happen with or without us and is going to do so! Which I find a bit of a relief.

Quite a while passes between Genesis and Luke. In the meantime Abraham does end up with descendants, and they do become quite numerous, and they do enter the promised land – and lose it – and get it back again. In the time of Luke the “promised land” is occupied by the descendants of Abraham but overseen by Rome which is rather complicated. And the center of the promised land is Jerusalem, the capital, and the center of the capital is the temple, Jesus is a faithful Jewish man who sees the holiness of the land, the capital, the temple, and sees the temple as the center of the world. And Luke, whoever he was, writes after the destruction of the temple and the capital, with grief for the Jerusalem massacre present in his words.

So when we hear Jesus lamenting, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” we can hear it in it Luke’s grief and a wish for the Jerusalem of old. It fits, as well, that while Jerusalem was the center of Jesus’s world, Jesus knew that it was corrupted by the influence of the empire, and he grieved what the city should have been!

But, I think the most interesting piece of this Luke passage is the part about the Pharisees. In Disciple we’ve been reading Matthew for two weeks and boy oh boy does Matthew like to diss on the pharisees. But Luke isn’t presenting them as a problem here. In fact, he is presenting them as allies. They give Jesus a real warning, one that they didn’t have to offer. The Pharisees were NOT a part of the power-sharing arrangement with Rome, like Jesus they didn’t approve of it. Jesus knew Herod was dangerous, he didn’t need to be told, but he probably appreciated that they cared.2

Biblical Scholar Richard Swanson summarizes the conversation they have this way:

“After you go,” says Jesus, “tell that fox I’m a little busy right now.” The scene plays best if the allies laugh. “Okay, we’ll do that very thing,” they say, “as soon as we see Old Foxy Pants. Which will be, ummm, never.” 3

The Pharisees joined Jesus in his lament of Jerusalem, they were actually his allies. Swanson concludes, “The Messiah has more allies than you might imagine. So do you. Recognizing that is how you prepare to welcome the one coming in the Name of the God Whose Name Is Mercy.”4

Which is to say, Genesis tells us that God is on our side.

Luke tells us that expected allies are with us.

They both remind us that we’re not alone, we’re not solely responsible for bringing the kindom, that we are able to rely on God and others along the way. And I don’t know about you, but I’m on board with those reminders. We are not alone. We have allies who care. We are in God’s care. God, who is working for good.

So much that is out in the world is meant to divide us, but God is here to unite us, and remind us that we’re in this together. Thanks be to God. Amen