“Do What?”
A Sermon on Genesis 22:1-14
What was I thinking?
Seriously. When I decided that
this was the text on which I should focus our thinking this morning, what was I
thinking? Because this is hard
stuff.
I don’t preach often, but I do preach often enough to have a
sort of rhythm to my sermon-writing—a way of listening, reading, studying, and
writing that eventually leads to this thing we call a sermon. But this text was different.
Now maybe it’s arrogant of me to think that because it was
hard for me, it is hard for others as well.
But because it was hard for me, and because it IS a hard text, I wanted
to share with you a bit about how I worked through it.
Once I had committed to preach from this passage today—about
a month or so ago—I started living with it in my head. I read it a few times here and there, and
really, that’s when the anxiety began.
Just thinking about
having to make some bit of sense of this horrific account would make me
squirm. But I persisted. I wrestled.
I procrastinated. And on about
Thursday, when I could really procrastinate no more, I dove in and began my
attempts at reconciling this story of Abraham and his God—this God who asks of
him the unthinkable--the God who we worship…the God whom we have come to know
in Jesus Christ…with our own stories.
First, I tried to look at the story as a mother, as Sarah—a
mother who is not mentioned at all in the narrative, but one who surely was
aware of what was going on.I laid this narrative beside the reality of my
week—walking beside a friend through the death of her own son Michael, gone too
young, in his early 30’s.
“God did not will this,” I told myself over and over in my
head as I carried this family in my heart this past week. “God did not cause
this,” became my internal mantra as I tried to be present for her in whatever
way I could.
And really, that only made this story more difficult, because
as I embraced and leaned on a God who was mourning with my friend over the death
of her son, I became more and more certain that God would never have asked this
of Abraham. And yet the story is
there.
These musings made it impossible to tell the story from
Sarah’s perspective because I honestly think that if Sarah had had a clue about
what was going on, she never would have allowed Abraham to take the first step
up that mountain. And the story would
have been told and recorded very differently over the years.
And so I couldn’t get into Sarah’s head at all.
So I tried to get into Abraham’s head. I read and re-read the
story, searching for some clue as to Abraham’s emotions, his feelings, his
doubt, his uncertainty, his anger…something.
Anything…but there was nothing there.
There was this vacuum of emotions—unlike the Abraham we have come to
know earlier in Genesis who doubted God’s promise in Chapter 15, and laughed
out loud when God told him that Sarah, age 90, would have a child.
Today’s narrative tells us that this same God who made unbelievable
promises to Abraham—promises that he surely still doubted from time to time
despite the fact that Isaac had, in fact, become a reality—was now asking that
Isaac be given as a burnt offering.
And I couldn’t really seem to get into Abraham’s head at
all.
So I sought out other voices.
The commentaries had packaged it up a bit too neatly for me,
the sermon blogs that I often consult left me with more questions than answers,
and the few of my clergy Facebook friends who had committed to preach from this
text were struggling as well. I read
comments and encouragement from folks in the same perpetual state of perplexity
in which I found myself, and so I moved on.
Friday morning, I asked our oldest son Adam why he thought
God would ask this of Abraham. His
response…humorous but not altogether helpful…was that God must have done it because
Isaac’s car insurance and college tuition was going to be too much of a burden
on his parents and he was trying to ease their load. Not at all helpful with the text, but it does
give us all insight into the mind workings of a 17 year old young man.
My final outside voice before I sat down to write was Joel. Now
I think is a wonderful preacher, and he constantly amazes my dad with how he
can find new things in the same Bible that he, my dad, has been reading for
years.
The conversation began Friday night over dinner, carried us
to the movie theater, then was suspended for a few hours while we went to the
movie then picked up our younger two sons who had returned from a weeklong middle
school church retreat. It resumed just after 11:00 PM Friday night,
and it grew heated as Joel shared his own take on the text, and I wrestled some
more.
Finally, at 2AM, I put my wrestling aside and lay my head on
the pillow, hoping for clarity or brilliance or enlightenment to come while I
slept. It did not. So I woke up yesterday morning and wrestled
some more. And here’s where I
landed.
GOD
Did God really intend to test Abraham in this way? Did God really ask for a child
sacrifice? Sacrifice alone is a
difficult concept for us to understand in our context, but we know that it was a part of the ancient Jewish
rituals.
But human sacrifice?
Especially a child?
Despite the fact that the Israelites had been warned NOT to
offer child sacrifices, it was this time, a part of some ancient rituals.
And
this is where it’s helpful to look at what scholars say. In OT Survey class in
seminary, Walter Brueggemann cautioned us not to bring our own modernist, 21st
century assumptions to our analysis of the text b/c we simply don't know from
experience what life was like then.
At
some point, we have to move on from the details to the larger picture. Difficult texts like this cannot be ignored, but at some
point, it is okay to move from wrestling with the “why” and the “how” to the
“what.” We can linger on the “Why did
God ask this of Abraham?” or even “did God really ask this of Abraham?” for a
time, because the wrestling is good. But
as with everything we read in scripture, our focus should eventually come to
rest on what the story tells us about GOD.
And this text tells us that despite the difficulties life brings our
way, God is faithful, and God provides.
OBEDIENCE
Abraham was obedient.
Although the text doesn’t tell us how Abraham questioned or doubted the
message he received to sacrifice Isaac, I am quite sure he did. But tradition
told him that God required sacrifice.
Tradition told him that God demanded obedience. And his commitment to tradition is what, I
think, allowed him to take his beloved son Isaac and bind him to the
altar.
Is Abraham willing to give up the promise that is wrapped up
in Isaac’s very life to allow God to be the one in control, to allow God to
fulfill the promise in God’s own good yet often frustrating time? Apparently
so. In following what he believes God is
commanding him to do, Abraham chooses to turn is life, his very future, over to
God.
Abraham is
obedient But so is Isaac.
Can you imagine what he must have been thinking as his father
bound him to the altar? We’re told very
little about him in this story, but as several people have pointed out to me
this week, after their journey down from the mountain, Isaac and Abraham have
little to do with each other anymore.
There is no record of Isaac having anything to do with his father until Abraham’s
death a few chapters later.
Can you blame him?
Whether we identify with Isaac in this story, or with
Abraham, the story calls us to listen--for God’s voice amidst the trials and
tribulations of life, and to do the sometimes very difficult things that God
calls us, demands us, to do. .
FAITH
As I read and re-read the passage, looking for some sign of
Abraham’s heart, I found a glimmer in one little phrase in verse 5.
“Then Abraham said to (the two young
men traveling with them), “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go
over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.”
WE will worship, and WE will come back to you. Like so much
of the biblical narrative, the heart of this message is not in the part of the
text that first attracts our attention—the notion of Abraham sacrificing his
son, but in that tiny word “we,” telling us that Abraham thought that both he
and Isaac would actually return.
I don’t think Abraham ever expected that God would actually
require this of him. When he tells Isaac, in verse 8, that God will provide the
offering, I think he truly did believe that God would provide it. And God did.
With every step
Abraham took, from the time he walked out of his camp, away from his home, away
from his wife Sarah, and up the mountain, he trusted in God’s providence. Not with a shallow faith that produces
blind obedience, but with the gift of a deep faith that scripture tells us has
been “reckoned to him as righteousness.”
From The Message, Romans 4:3:
“Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the
turning point. He trusted God to set him
right instead of trying to be right on his own.” (Romans 4:3, The Message)
CLOSING
The stories found in these pages are hard. And whether we believe that they are true
stories and happened just as they are told on these pages, or that they are
stories that were told to pass on a deep truth about the God to whom they all
point, we cannot ignore them. We must
wrestle with them.
Just as a few generations later, Abraham’s grandson Jacob
wrestled with God in the night, so too must we wrestle with these stories, with
this Bible…with this God. And as we
wrestle, keep this in mind. In the end,
God is faithful. God provides, and grace
abounds.
This is a difficult story to hear. It’s not one we should
ignore or gloss over, but we should ultimately end up focusing NOT on the horrific
nature of it, but on what matters most—that Abraham trusted and God
provided.
What difficult thing is God calling you to do? Whatever it is, my prayer for you this day is
that you are able to step out in obedience, with the deep faith of Abraham,
trusting that no matter what happens on the mountains or in the valleys of
life, God is faithful. God will
provide. And grace abounds.
