Abraham hosts and negotiates at COP29 (Gen 18)

by Lowell Bliss, Director of Eden Vigil Institute for Environmental Leadership

(This Climate Bible Study was first published in the November 2024 newsletter of Climate Intercessors)

We are a little over a week away from the convening of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. We commend to you Climate Intercessor’s “Three Strategic Prayers for COP29” (downloadable here). “O Triune God, please immerse COP29 in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” We chose to feature Rublev’s famous icon “The Trinity,” an invitation since the 15th Century to come gather with the Lord and contemplate the providential care of his gentle might. The icon has also carried the title “The Hospitality of Abraham,” as it depicts the three angels who meet with Abraham beneath the Oaks of Mamre, a story told in Genesis 18.  In the run-up to COP29, here are four observations from Genesis 18:

The Lord visits us. Abraham may have “looked up and saw three men” (18:2), but the text is more explicit than usual: “The Lord (Yahweh) appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre” (18:1). Most scholars believe that this was what is called a theophany, God appearing momentarily in human form. The speaker among the three was God, while the other two are described in Gen. 19:1 as the angels who went on to visit Sodom.  Our first set of strategic prayers for COP29 are for leadership, the so-called COP Troika. Whether the COP29 leadership has been co-opted by fossil fuel interests, are inadequate to the task of international diplomacy, or simply cowed by the challenge of the climate crisis—we truly need the Lord God Almighty to show up in Baku and exercise leadership.

New life is still possible for old processes. In this story, Sarah famously laughs when she overhears the Lord say that in one year’s time, she will bear a son. “Will I really have a child, now that I am old?” (18:13). Twenty-nine, as in COP29, doesn’t feel like an old age for a string of climate summits. The Paris Agreement itself only went into full effect four years ago. Nonetheless, I sense a fatigue among veteran climate negotiators and activists. Many stalwarts of previous COPs, like Christiana Figueres the architect of the Paris Agreement, aren’t even going to COP29. Regardless, I think we can say that the Industrial Age is old, and “late stage capitalism” is called late stage for a reason. As promised or predicted, Sarah and Abraham did have a child in their old age. They named him Isaac which means “one who laughs or rejoices.” There is no indication that his birth was a miracle in the traditional sense. Isaac was conceived the way all of us were, and yet we are led to believe that God came alongside this old couple and strengthened human processes. Our second set of strategic prayers for COP29 are for the three key efforts of the negotiations: climate finance, fossil fuel phase-out, and ambitious NDCs. The negotiations at a COP are a decidedly human process, but we can pray that God will come alongside negotiators so that in the end all of his creation may rejoice.

A nation’s greatness involves turning from injustice. We are likely familiar with this story of the three men visiting Abraham and Sarah and promising them a son. We are also likely familiar with the story of when Abraham negotiated with God that Sodom and Gomorrah might be spared if there were 50 righteous citizens or 45 or 40 or 30 or 20 or, finally, at least ten. But did you know that these are not two separate stories? Both are contained in this one event beneath the Oaks of Mamre, both are narrated in Genesis 18. Abraham is walking out with his three visitors when God describes a future for Abraham: “Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him” (18:18). But God goes on to explain why he is choosing to choose this man: “so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just” (18:19). So listen up, President Harris or President Trump. Listen up, President Putin. Listen up, Prime Minister Netanyahu. Listen up, Azerbaijan president Aliyev who seems to boast more about the prestige of hosting a COP than he does calling the nations to climate action. The Lord demands justice.

God invites negotiation. In a famous verse about intercessory prayer, Hebrews 4:16 reads: “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” God’s mighty throne is characterized by grace, by a favour that we don’t need to try and merit. We find mercy there. For this reason, I’ve always been leery when I find myself negotiating with God in prayer, which is essentially what is happening when I remind him of what a good boy I’ve been, or when I explain to him the soundness of my request’s logic, or when I try to game out what I perceive as stinginess on his part. Nonetheless, I think there can be a maturing of our prayer life where God himself highlights the “confidence” phrases in these verses. “Come boldly,” the King James Version says.  Abraham came boldly, and humbly, and he came back again and again and again and again. Like any good negotiator, he appealed to the other party according to the best attributes of that party. “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (18:25).  At COP29, the “Blue Zone” is reserved for those who have UN credentials to enter it, as do many of our colleagues who will be there as observers, but even within the Blue Zone, some rooms are reserved only for negotiators. We all have access, however, to God’s throne of grace, and I believe the climate crisis has worsened and the implementation of the Paris Agreement has slowed to the point where all intercessors must now consider taking up the role of negotiator with God.  “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” (18:23).  In the end, as we all know, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. It’s easy, however, to miss (and perhaps misinterpret) this little verse in Chapter 19: “But God had listened to Abraham’s request and kept Lot safe, removing him from the disaster that engulfed the cities on the plain.”  God apparently went beyond the “deal” he struck with Abraham in order to save at least one family, and Scripture credits that salvation to Abraham’s request. I am beginning to think of hope like water. There are certain popularized laws of physics: “water takes the shape of the container in which it is kept,” and “water always finds its way to the lowest point.” If hope is like water, then our prayers are the work of shaping containers and changing topographies.  It makes sense that sometimes this shaping means we exert pressure on God himself. He invites boldness.