Sermon 6/29/08
On Fire: Sacrifice - Genesis 22:1-14
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Today, we encounter another scripture text that I find deeply troubling at first read, as I struggle to understand what we’re meant to know by this account from the Bible. The passage is a familiar one, I suspect: Abraham and Isaac, where God speaks to Abraham and tells him to sacrifice his child Isaac as a burnt offering to God. I don’t know what part of this scripture passage I find most shocking or upsetting. First, there’s the demand by God, what we often refer to as God testing Abraham, where God asks Abraham to kill his son Isaac as if Isaac is no different than an animal that would traditionally be sacrificed as an offering to God. I’m shocked – does God really test us like this? Why would God do that to us? Why would God ask something like this, just to have us demonstrate our faithfulness? Then, I’m shocked that Abraham complies with what he hears as God’s request. If I was Abraham, I’d assume that I hadn’t heard God correctly, or that I needed to better interpret or better understand the message I was getting with God. Abraham just says, “Here I am,” to God, and begins to obey and make preparations for killing his own child. Is this a model held up for us that we’re supposed to imitate? What lesson are we supposed to learn?
If you’re following the presidential race, you may have heard of the recent flap over some comments Senator Obama made in 2006 about the Bible and how things might function without separation of church and state in this country. My ears perked up because Senator Obama mentioned today’s scripture passage, talking about Abraham and Isaac. Listen to what he said:
“Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing. And if you doubt that, let me give you an example.
We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded. Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God's test of devotion.
But it's fair to say that if any of us leaving this church [today] saw Abraham on a roof of a building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham. We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that we all see, and that we all hear, be it common laws or basic reason.”
Senator Obama’s description makes me smile, imagining Abraham being turned into the police, imagining how little his claims of what God was telling him to do would hold water today. But more than that, it brings vividly to my mind all the questions I’ve raised. If we saw Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac today, we’d think he was dangerous, or mentally ill – we wouldn’t think he was following God’s plan. The story doesn’t make sense to us today, not really, at least not to me. So, like last week, we have this difficult text, and have to figure out what to do with it.
I don’t have all the answers – our worlds are so different, Abraham’s world and mine, that I don’t think I can every fully understand this passage. But I can give you some ways to look deeper into this passage that have helped me. To start with, there’s the issue of whether or not we can depend on the promises of God. This scenario asks of Abraham, in a roundabout way, if Abraham trusts in God’s promises. Remember, Abraham and Sarah had no children, but God promised Abraham that he would become a great nation, with descendants as numerous as the stars. And Abraham had two sons – Ishmael, through his slave Hagar, and Isaac. But Ishmael had recently been sent away with his mother, and only Isaac was left with Abraham, and now God was asking for a sacrifice of Isaac. Can God’s promise still be fulfilled if there is no child? If Abraham doesn’t understand how God’s promise will still be able to happen, he doesn’t say so. He just does what God asks, faithfully. He seems to trust completely that what God has promised, God will provide. Do you believe in God’s promises? As you face impossible situations and struggles, do you believe that God’s promise of love and grace unconditionally still holds true for you?
Also, this passage speaks to us about being available for God. Because Abraham trusts God, completely, and trusts God’s promises, Abraham is able to make himself available to God’s plan. In fact, Abraham’s whole story in the Bible unfolds turn by turn because Abraham makes himself available for God to act in his life. When God wants Abraham, he’s there, willing to be used by God. Three times in today’s passage, Abraham says, “Here I am.” Simple. “Here I am.” Ready, ready for God to act, available for something to happen. Are you available for God’s action in your life? Have you made yourself available? You can think of it like a basketball game maybe – I do have a few years of elementary school basketball in my background – and I remember how hard we would work to be available to whoever had the ball so that they could pass to us. We’d try to stay open – not let other players block us, always attentive to the action, always looking for how we could be available to receive a pass. Even if we didn’t have the ball, we had an active role. Abraham is available to God. As an introverted person, I sometimes struggle with making myself seem available to others, particularly in my ministry. My tendency for shyness sometimes makes it seem like I’m just not very friendly – but I want to communicate to people that I’m available if they need to talk, need to run ideas by me, or need to open up to me. I find it to be hard work – but worthwhile work. How can we work to make ourselves more available to God?
That’s something else we can learn from this text. Abraham makes himself available to God in a very specific way: He doesn’t withhold anything from God, even his precious child. Abraham thought he would never have children – Isaac was a gift to him from God, a blessing in his old age, and the promise of a family line that meant a great deal to Abraham. Isaac represents everything that is precious and important to Abraham. And even this most precious thing, Abraham does not withhold from God. When the angel speaks to Abraham and tells him not to harm Isaac in anyway, the angel says to Abraham, “now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” That “fearing God” language means something along the lines of awe and wonder at something as amazing as God. But the point is – Abraham makes everything he is, everything he has, and everything he loves, available to God – he withholds nothing. Are you withholding anything from God? I think often as people of faith struggling to be disciples, we tend to try to limit the parts of our life God can have an impact on. We make a bit of ourselves available to God, but we hold back our most precious parts – circumstances in our life we don’t want God to touch, relationships in our life we don’t want God to mess with, choices we’ve made that we don’t want God to counter or challenge. We give God part, but not all of our selves, and hold something back, often the most important things, to keep under our own control. Abraham made everything available to God’s plan and withheld nothing. We’re called to do the same, even with, or perhaps especially with, what is most precious to us.
But finally, I come back to this question of God testing us. What I struggle with most is this idea that God would somehow manipulate us – test us like we’re some sort of animals in a laboratory experiment, where God just wants to see how we might respond. When I think about God testing us, that’s what pops first into my mind, and I just can’t see this God who makes and keeps such wonderful promises of love and grace playing these games with us, and our lives, and our loved ones. So what is this testing of Abraham all about?
I started thinking about the different ways we use the word test or testing. The phrase, “testing the waters” came to my mind. If you are “testing the waters,” it means you are trying to see what a something is really like, what a situation is like, before you get too far into the situation. If you’re ready to jump in the swimming pool, you might test the waters to see what the temperature is like with one big toe before you commit to plunging in all the way. In life, you might try something out just a little before making a commitment. What if, in this story, God isn’t testing Abraham in some exercise of God’s power to emotionally string Abraham along? What if, instead, God is testing the waters with Abraham. God is looking for a disciple, a leader, a father of many generations. God needs to test the waters – is Abraham ready? Will he follow God? Is he available? Is he holding back from God? God needs to know fully.
God is looking for disciples still today, in us, and I think God is still about the work of testing the waters with us. Are you ready? Will you follow God? Are you available? Are you holding something back from God? God wants to know you fully, to know all about who you will be if you’re saying you’re ready to be a disciple. God is testing the waters. What will God find in you? Cold waters? Lukewarm disciples? Or people of faith who are on fire, ready, available, and holding nothing back?
Amen.