After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.
When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” Genesis 21:1-3, 22:1-14 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator; Christ, our Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit, our Renewer and Re-creator. Amen.
Blessings. We talked a lot about blessings last week, didn’t we? As we read through the story of creation and heard, once again, the narrative of God’s creativity and loving care in designing a world of order and fruitfulness, it’s hard not to think of how richly God blessed humanity with all of the beauty and diversity of creation. The goodness of such creation. Six times in the story, God looks at what God has created and declares it “good!”
And, then, it all falls apart.
There’s a progression of violence in the early chapters of Genesis. It begins with Cain and Abel and continues to escalate as all of humanity spirals downward into greater and greater conflict and destruction. People are setting up empires to oppress the masses. Entire systems perpetuate injustice.
And, then, we meet Abraham. The primary actor in our story today.
Abraham’s story is unusual. If you remember it from our lessons this past summer, it is Abraham who left his father’s household in Mesopotamia and moved to Canaan. Abraham, who had been called by God to make this journey.
People in Abraham’s time didn’t just do that. They had a cyclical view of history. They believed that everything that had happened would happen again. That somewhere in that cycle you died and then your kids continued the cycle. And that nothing changed. The cycle continued. Over and over and over again.
But, Abraham is different. He leaves. He steps out of the cycle. And walks into a new future. Leaving home. And leaving an entire way of life. Abraham has a destiny, a destiny planned by God. A plan to father a new kind of people to usher in a new era for humanity. One based in love and not violence or power. One that would bless all people.
How do you do this? How do you form a new kind of people who will take the world in a new direction? Well, as Rob Bell, a contemporary theologian, writes, “You have kids!”
And that’s what Abraham and Sarah did. Have kids. Well, not at first. Because, at first, Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was barren. Worried that God’s plan might go awry, Sarah and Abraham tried to fix things. And the result was that Abraham had a son with Sarah’s servant, Hagar. Ishmael, they named him.
But, this wasn’t exactly God’s plan. What was God’s plan would that this new nation would come from Abraham and Sarah. And, so God promised them a child. A son. It is here, where our story begins today. With their son, Isaac, meaning “laughter.” And with God keeping God’s promise to them. Not only the promise of the son. But also the promise that through that son that they had been blessed with--through Isaac they would become a great people. That through these blessings, they would bless others.
Isaac makes it through childhood, which alone is a great feat. And, perhaps just when it begins to feel to Abraham, that everything is right with the world and that maybe, just maybe, this plan of God’s is really real. Once again, it all falls apart. Or so it seems.
Genesis 22 opens with this verse. “After all these things, God tested Abraham.” It’s such an interesting phrase, isn’t it--”after all these things.” After Abraham has broken the cycle, followed God’s command into an unknown future, trusted in the promise of God to give him a son and to make a great nation out of him. After all of these things, God decides to test Abraham. As though Abraham hasn’t already passed test after test.
We hear a lot about God testing us. We need to step back a little bit here and thing about that word “test.” It has such a negative connotation, doesn’t it. It always gets applied to us in our lives when something bad is happening or things seem to be going wrong. “God is testing me,” we might say in response. As if God wants to see whether or not we’ll be faithful through the suffering. Or as though God is sadistic--that God wants to test how much we love God.
But that’s not what this is. Here, this test is like the tests that you used to take in school (or that you still do). Tests that are intended to measure your progress. To make sure you’re ready. Ready to move onto the next step of learning. Tests help us identify our readiness for what is next to come. It’s the same here with Abraham. God comes to Abraham to see if he is ready to move onto the next step. To really become the “father or nations.”
“Abraham, Abraham,” God calls. And Abraham answers, “Here I am!” In the Hebrew, the word is heneni. It’s not just saying, “Hey, I’m here. I’m present.” It is Abraham saying to God, “I’m here. I’m at your disposal. Tell me to do whatever you want and I will do it.”
And so, God tells him to take his son. His only son. To “please” take his son. You see, it’s not a command, it’s a request. Abraham has a choice here. A choice of whether or not to follow God’s request. Or to refuse it. If he was going to do what God asked of him, it would have to be done willingly.
Abraham is silent. Perhaps he was just stunned. But, there is no argument. No resistance. Perhaps it is just silent resignation. But, Abraham does it. He packs up the wood and places it on the donkey. Then, gathers two young servants and Isaac. And he moves toward the mountain. To build an altar. Abraham, who already has a history of building altars and who is experienced at making sacrifices--Abraham begins the journey.
At the bottom of the mountain, they stop. And Abraham takes the wood and puts it on Isaac’s back. As they begin up the mountain, Isaac has a moment of realization. “Father, father,” he says to Abraham. “Heneni,” Abraham answers. “Here I am. Fully for you, my son.”
Isaac has noticed that they have everything they need, except for one thing. The lamb. There is no lamb for the burnt offering. What will they use? He asks his father. And Abraham, still stunned, mumbles, “God will provide.”
I wonder what Isaac’s reaction was when his father began to bound him up and then to place him on top of the altar they had built together. Did he resist? Did he try to run away? Was his pleading, or crying, or struggling? Or was there just placid, stunned submission, like his father. The one he trusted with his very life.
Or what was Abraham thinking as he looked into Isaac’s eyes. Into “Laughter’s” eyes. Eyes that had always watched for Abraham as he returned each day from the pastures. Eyes that had held the promise of a nation, of heirs, of God. Eyes now filled with terror and trust at the same time. How they must have pierced Abraham to his very core!
And, then, just as Abraham is ready to make the sacrifice. Of his son. Abraham hears God, “Abraham, Abraham.” And once again, for the third time, Abraham responds, “Heneni. Here I am.”
How close they came. Abraham pulls Isaac into a deep embrace. And then sees the ram off in the distance. Yes, God has provided.
It is horrifying, isn’t it. We have no concept of what it means to participate in such an act. What kind of religion would demand child sacrifice? Yet, this was the world in which Abraham lived. The gods that people worshipped in his time and place demanded all kinds of offerings from their worshipers, including blood sacrifice. Sacrifice in exchange for the favor of the gods. But interrupting what would have been a normal practice, God is saying, “Enough! No more of this!”
And, yet, if I’m honest, I have to question whether I would want to even have a relationship with a God that would ask me to do that, to do something so repulsive, to sacrifice my own child. Of course, that’s not to say that we don’t sacrifice our children to various gods every day, depending upon what we teach in our own homes. To sacrifice our children to OUR gods. Those things we think are important. Our own priorities that become the gods our children are sacrificed to--the god of money, or of power, or of envy, or of competition or consumerism, or violence, or prejudice.
Yet, Abraham’s story isn’t so much about a man sacrificing his child, but a man who risks everything for his belief in God. Abraham had been given a promise--that he would be the father of multitudes. That many nations would come from him, that his descendents would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens and the grains of sand on the seashore. Isaac was the physical representation of that promise from God.
What if the sacrifice was more about whether Abraham believed that God was big enough to carry out the promise. That even if Abraham destroyed the physical sign of that promise by sacrificing Isaac, God would still carry out the plan. That Abraham’s God was big enough.
The minute Abraham showed that he trusted God to carry out the plan, even without Isaac, the physical sign of that plan. The minute Abraham did this, he passed the test. He was ready to go onto the next step. To truly become the “father of many nations.” Because Abraham understood. He understood that everything he had--his son, his family, and even everything he would ever have- it was all ultimately a gift from God. That it didn’t belong to him. But, that it all belonged to God.
We tend to hold tightest onto those things that are the most dear to us. Our own Isaacs. Our homes. Our 401k’s. Whether those things are, those things that we think will bring us security and comfort.
And, we thank God for them. We have lists of those blessings in the fellowship hall. Lists we created last week that we thank God for.
Yet, we grip them so tightly that they end up bound on the altar of our choice. Just like Abraham’s hand must have trembled at the thought of losing Isaac, so we tremble at the thought of losing these things. Or of giving any of it away. Not just money, but all our gifts. All those gifts God has given us--teaching, caring, listening to someone, serving, leading.
We don’t realize. Or we simply forget. That none of it belongs to us. None of it, including even our church, belongs to us. It all belongs to God.
That’s what the test was for Abraham. That’s what the test is for us. We have to be willing to give up part of who we are and to step into who God tells us we are. To be willing to believe that God is big enough. Bigger than what we can see or even imagine. And that God is able to do more than we can even ask or think.
A few thousand years later (after all these things), when Abraham’s descendants were as numerous as stars, there was a similar scene. But this time, it would be God’s own son who would walk up the side of the mountain, carrying the wood for his own death, his own altar of sacrifice. And this time, God would not stop it. God wouldn’t be spared the pain of God’s own son dying, wouldn’t even reach down to cover Jesus’ eyes that were so full of terror and trust at the same time.
This was God’s gift to us. “For God so loved the world…” And God did it to birth new life for us. Through Jesus’ death. A new covenant. A new promise. Between God and humanity. One that can’t be broken, even if we try to destroy it ourselves. This is the promise and gift we have through Jesus Christ in our baptisms. Life.
So, after all these things. After church and Sunday school, maybe this afternoon when you’re enjoying a beautiful, warm afternoon--probably one of the last before autumn begins. As you’re thinking about everything that has happened, and you’re giving thanks for every blessing that you’ve been given and the many people who have blessed you. Think about this story. And know that God’s Spirit lives within you. It’s that Spirit you know that you hear deep inside saying, “Take what I have given you and offer it back to me.” That’s the test for you. The test of your trust. The test of the question: Is your God big enough?
Amen.
Preached September 17, 2017, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Readings: Gen. 21:1-3, 22:1-14; John 1:29
*With special appreciation to Rev. Linda Pepe and her blog, Theological Stew.
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