Third Sunday After Pentecost: June 29, 2014, Proper 8

Old Testament Reading: Genesis 22:1-14

        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.”

Reflections: This is one of many troubling passages in Genesis. The text itself states several times that God is testing Abraham; but we know that God searches the heart—God doesn’t need to test Abraham to know that he is faithful. Some scholars point out that the story recalls a practice of child sacrifice later prohibited by God (but continued for some time among neighboring peoples). Other scholars point out that old Abraham would never have been able to bind the boy without Isaac’s own submission.

        Much can be (and is) said. Perhaps stories like this are not intended to be immediately clear. Stories like this give us something to chew on, to struggle with. At one point in my life, I felt this particular tale open up for me.

        In the early 1980’s, I was on the verge of traveling to India to visit a Catholic monastic-style community. I had learned of its leader, Dom Bede Griffiths (a British Catholic monk) through an unlikely series of events that I won’t go into here.

        One day after having spent several years saving money for the trip, my mother gave me a meaningful look and told me that dad’s pickup needed a new engine (the amazing, old slant-6 had taken us hundreds of thousands of miles). The cost of a new engine was almost exactly the amount that I had put aside for my journey.

        The truck did need the engine; after the ravages of the recession in the 1980’s, my dad was without a full time job, scavenging whatever work he could while my mom as much as she could. I was an only child, had a steady job, and (I am ashamed to say) had been making little contribution to the family. Weighing against this, however, was the fact that I knew in my heart that God was calling me to India, and Dom Bede was weak and fragile; I was afraid he’d die before I got there. And yet…God also seemed to be asking me to help my father.

        As I struggled with my inner conflicts, one day the story of the Sacrifice of Isaac suddenly came to mind and illuminated my own dilemma. Abraham was asked to give up his son. But Isaac represented more than his son; Isaac was the very thing God had promised. The contradiction must have been unbearable. It was for me.

        In case you’re wondering, I did buy the engine (the truck would go over 1,000,000 miles before it was done), I did start saving all over again, and I did get to India before Dom Bede died. But for me the point wasn’t “Everything turned out okay in the end.” The point was that God calls us to love. Not to love because of what we can get—or even for what God promises—but for the sake of Love itself, for the God who is that Love. As Fr. Robert Johnson said last week, “The reward for doing God’s will—is doing God’s will.”