“In God We Trust” – Sermon on June 29, 2014
Genesis 22: 1-14 After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And Abraham said, “Here I am.” God 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.” Isaac 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.” The angel 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.”
The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.”
Matthew 10: 37- 42 Jesus said, “If you love your father and mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will save it. Those who welcome you are welcoming me. And when they welcome me they are welcoming God who sent me. If you welcome a prophet because he is a man of God, you will be given the same reward a prophet gets. And if you welcome good and godly men because of their godliness, you will be given a reward like theirs. And if, as my representatives, you give even a cup of cold water to a little child, you will surely be rewarded.
“In God We Trust” – Sermon on June 29, 2014
Does anyone here know anyone who doesn’t go to church anymore? People who maybe even grew up going to church, but at some point began questioning the things they heard there – began especially questioning the bible. “Come on,” they might say, “can you really expect me to believe that the world was made in 7 days? That there was a Garden of Eden, a man named Noah who took pairs of every living creature onto a boat to repopulate the world after a great flood?” When someone expresses skepticism about these things, it is easy for me to engage in conversation about the truths within the stories, to explore what these stories might be saying about humankind or about God, or about the world. My faith can easily withstand the fantastical nature of many bible stories because I am not so much concerned about the facts as I am about the truth, and I believe these stories hold important truths.
Where I do struggle in my faith and the truth of scripture is in readings like those we heard today. Are people familiar with the first reading, from Genesis? It is often called the binding of Isaac. It is a hard story to enter into, isn’t it? Isaac is the son of Abraham and Sarah, though he is not Abraham’s only son. Abraham is an old man at this point. He was old when Isaac was conceived, and Isaac is now old enough to carry all the wood for the fire. What would you say, twelve years old? Hard to imagine all the things that are left unsaid – did Isaac resist as he was being bound, did he cry out? How was he bound, did Abraham talk to him, or was this all done in silent weeping?
And then in our Gospel reading we have Jesus demanding that his followers love him best of all, more than parents, more than children, and we hear those harsh words that those who won’t devote themselves this way, those who won’t pick up the cross, are not worthy of belonging to him. And so yes, I can see how these texts are an atheist’s or agnostic’s dream – just the ones to point to as evidence of the ridiculousness of the bible or religion. Just the ones to point to to posit a harsh, vengeful, even abusive God. Yes, these are difficult texts.
Now I believe that not everything in the bible contains divine truth, but I do think it is important to take the texts seriously, to spend time with them, to search for truth in them before just dismissing them. And so I invite you to explore these passages with me in that spirit. Is there even a kernel of truth and light in these texts, something that is hard to translate from that place and time into our context, but is still important?
Let’s go back to the Genesis reading. God has decided to test Abraham, to see if Abraham truly feared, or revered him. God called Abraham years ago, and has been promising to make a great nation of him. God told Abraham to leave his country and kindred and go where God tells him and do what God asks him to do. And Abraham does…. sort of. He leaves his country, but takes his kin, as well as all his many belongings, including slaves. He goes where God tells him to go, but he also takes an awful lot into his own hands. God promises to watch out for Abraham, to bless those that bless him and curse those that curse him. But Abraham develops his own plan for staying in the good graces of the leaders of the places he goes. He tells his beautiful wife Sarah to say she is his sister, so that “things will go well” for Abraham as others try to woo his “sister.” God promises Abraham descendents that number the stars in the sky, but when it looks like Sarah’s child-bearing years are passing, she encourages Abraham to have a child with her maid, and he does. And when Sarah finally has her own promised child, she becomes jealous of Ishmael, Abraham’s older son, and gets Abe to send the boy and his mother out into the wilderness. They have trusted God, but only up to a point. They have used their own experience and reasoning to determine that God was asleep at the wheel or something, and set out to make the promised things happen.
Can anyone else relate to that? Sure, I’ll turn my will and my life over to God. Oops, that was a mistake – I’d better take back the reins. Surely God did not intend for this or that to happen. God must not have been paying attention. I guess God really is too busy to be paying close attention to me. I think I know what God wants for me, so I’m just going to set my mind to doing / achieving / getting that.
But even with Abraham’s hesitation, even though he and his wife often would not let go and let God, God continued to covenant with Abraham, to look out for him, to fulfill all the promises God made to him. And now, after Abraham has taken another foray to another land where Abraham claims Sarah is his sister, God decides to “test” him. Now the test is awful. Not only does it seem cruel and pointless, It makes no sense. God has promised Abraham all these descendents through the child of Sarah. They have the promised child, so important to carrying on the line, and not God says he must be sacrificed.
Something in Abraham has changed by this point. Perhaps he has been reflecting on his journey, noticing the times he did not trust God, the times he listened to his wife, or his own doubts instead of leaning on the promises of God. Perhaps he recognizes the unnecessary suffering they have all experienced because of this. The rivalry between Sarah and her servant Hagar when Hagar conceived Abraham’s son, the jealousy over that son Ishmael. What impact did it have on Abraham and Sarah when he sent her off to foreign men as his sister? Yes, perhaps he has reflected, and promised himself that from now on, no matter what, he would trust in God, who had been steadfast if not always speedy in fulfilling promises. He is ready for the test. He trusts God fully. I suspect he doesn’t know how, but he trusts that God will bring good out of this, that God’s promises will continue to be fulfilled. And so he tells his helpers that “they” will return after worship, tells Isaac that God will provide the sacrifice. He does more than go through the motions, he commits himself to this incomprehensible deed.
I’m sure a truth in this passage, one message for us, is that God is trustworthy, and God will provide. But is there more? I could relate to one of the commentators I read, who said, “As a preacher I tend to try to convince people of God’s love by making God sound very safe and nice and unthreatening.” He goes on to tell about a man who said to him, “I’ve decided that I and my family are looking for another church. Because when I look at that God, the God of Abraham, I feel like I’m near a real God, not the sort of dignified, businesslike, Rotary Club god we chatter on about here on Sunday mornings. Abraham’s God could blow a man to bits, give and then take a child, ask for everything from a person and then want more. I want to know that God.” Is there some part of us that longs for more than safety, more than attachment to people and things that are always impermanent?
In the Gospel reading Jesus also lifts up the notion of sacrificing people or relationships. He’s not saying to make a burnt offering of them, but he is saying not to love them more than him. He is saying that he calls people to take up their cross, which means, I think, to challenge the way things are, to follow God’s call even when it means letting go of life as we know it, even when it means letting go of safety and security.
It’s interesting to consider the meaning of the word sacrifice. It derives from Latin sacrum facere, facere = to make, and sacrum = sacred. To sacrifice something means to make it sacred. God didn’t ask Abraham to kill Isaac, but asked to make something sacred. It is a mistake to think of sacrificing as giving something up. Sacrifice is always about making something or someone, holy. When we fast, giving up food, or give up a particular beloved thing or behavior during Lent, we seek to make our lives more holy by turning from those temporary, more surface pleasures, turning to God who is the only thing that is permanent, the most real being / experience there is.
Yes, God’s test of Abraham is shocking, and I hope that it never really happened, but it is possible to use this story to think about where we draw the line on our faithfulness, to consider how much we trust God, and how deeply attached we are to relationship with people and things that can not come close to lifting us to the divine and eternal life we are created to experience.
Frankly, I don’t know what to make of the words in the Gospel about being unworthy of belonging to Christ if we are not yet in the same place as Abraham. I wonder if it is a statement that lives lived that way are unworthy of us as God’s beloved children? And I also focus on the second part of the reading about welcoming God by welcoming people of God, even with an act as simple as giving a cup of water to a child. That’s not such a difficult demand. I think it is more than giving the cup of water though. It is, I believe, about recognizing the holiness of the people of God, about revering God through revering God’s messengers and children.
Yes, these passages are difficult, but that just might be a sign of how far we are from God’s kindom. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get there – as individuals and as a society. God has promised, God has made our relationships and attachments holy through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus. We are invited to participate in bringing about the kindom – by putting God / Jesus first, by letting our relationships with parents, children, jobs, pleasures, be mediated through the love of Christ, a love that is unselfish, that is joyful, non-manipulative. Anything less is unworthy of us as God’s children. But, as God did with Abraham, he will keep calling to us, keep guiding us, keep inviting us to this new holy life no matter how long it takes us to trust it. God’s promises will be fulfilled, and there’s nothing we can do about it. May it be so.
