| A Test and a Sacrifice |
October 22, 2000 |
God begins to engage Abraham before he has his name.
When he was Abram.
God calls, Abram responds.
A conversation begins.
That is the time in which he lives.
God talks to people.
Abraham gets busy and really goes to work for God.
Hears a call and gets into hands-on stuff.
God identifies him as righteous, because he trusts God.
A conversation deepens.
Abraham and his wife, Sarah, do not have children.
Which is convenient...to be called by God it is much easier to not
have kids.
You can come and go.
You can follow your call.
It is easier than trying to tote yard-apes with you.
Not to mention being up late, up early, chasing them
and cleaning up after them.
Takes a lot of energy to raise children.
Abraham is taking his work for God so seriously that he has
pretty much turned his back on the child Ishmael he sired after
having sexual relations with his intern (maidservant Hagar).
Later this child and his mother will be sent into the desert with
a loaf of bread and a flask of water.
God, being the strange God, uses this child as the beginning of the
nation Islam.
Common ancestry.
If you'll allow me a moment of departure, we need to be careful
in the coming weeks to not demonize the people of the nation
Islam.
As we allow ourselves to believe we are so far from them, we need to
remember our common ancestry...Abraham... Islamic people through
Ishmael...
So Abraham's not being an attentive father, and he has the time
to work from dawn to dusk.
The last thing a professional person taking their direction
seriously needs, is a family.
I've always thought God had a wicked sense of humor.
Just a slow audience.
Case in point...
One day God appears to Abraham...he is an old man...
and God appears to him one day and says, "your wife Sarah
shall have a son."
And anyone who has studied this text knows "Sarah"
means, "God laughed."
And I'm sure God did.
I have this image of a party in heaven...
God and the angels around the punch bowl.
The conversation is waning.
God decides to entertain...gathers the angels, says,
"Watch this...ha ha ha ha ha ha...")
So now Sarah is pregnant, but Abraham is busy doing the work he
was called to.
He's not very attentive.
He's too busy.
There are the people of Sodom to be rescued from the judgement of
God.
Sodom is wicked as a city, and God is ready to take it out.
(Gen. 18:16)
Abraham argues with God.
Says, "If I can find fifty righteous men in the
city...will you save it?"
God says, "ok, fifty."
Abraham says, "Uh, what about
45...40...30...20...10..."
God says, "Ok, for 10 righteous people I'll save the
city."
Abraham begins to canvas the city.
Finds only one righteous man, Lot...
Tells him to take his family and flee...and the city is destroyed.
And then there is king Abimelech...
a king that, well, would be regarded as less than righteous.
He had this desire...
any woman that was not connected to a man by marriage he saw as
his.
He would take her for his pleasure.
(Genesis 20:1-18)
Because he is an alien in the land, Abraham tells the king that
Sarah is his sister, and the king takes Sarah as his own.
Abraham could run for office...
he's pretty good at covering his behind.
Saving his skin.
He has political savvy.
Fortunately, God intervenes in the name of preserving marriage
and after some tense moments, and a fine example of quick thinking
on his feet,
Abraham parlays King Abimelech into a friend who
provides land for Abraham and his offspring to settle.
Abraham is busy.
And then this child with whom Sarah was pregnant, is born.
They name him Isaac.
And his mother, Sarah, says,
"God has brought laughter for me:
everyone who hears will laugh with me....
who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse
children?
Yet I have borne this son in my old age."
(Genesis 21:6-7)
She is overjoyed.
Having children does that.
If you let it.
Having children can redirect your life.
Divert your momentum.
If you let it.
It can refocus loyalty.
It can reorder priorities.
Or it can be a speed bump that you slow down for and then move
past.
And Isaac grew.
Abraham continued in building a nation.
Genesis 22,
the passage we heard a few moments ago, begins with
these words...
"After these things, God tested Abraham.
God said to him,
"Abraham."
And he said,
"Here I am!"
And 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 will show
you."
This is where I begin to weep.
For Abraham said nothing.
Abraham who had the guts to argue for the lives of the wicked people
of Sodom.
Abraham who took on God in an argument he only half
believed in for people he didn't know.
Abraham, said nothing.
In fact, the text continues and says
"Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey,
took his wood, his servants and his son, and set out for the place God
showed him..."
This is where my heart sinks... because he said nothing.
I guess we could argue that Abraham trusted God enough to be
silently obedient -- but the passages preceding this passage don't
support that.
Abraham didn't keep quiet when he felt God was wrong or indifferent
or demanding.
Abraham, said nothing.
Abraham had a soft heart for people and showed great
skill at building beneficial connections in the world...
And now, when the request is to sacrifice his family, his
response is silent acquiescence.
It is easy to sacrifice family... it happens every day.
In adult book stores and online porn sites, family is
sacrificed.
Using cell phones and palm pilots and laptop computers we
are able to be at work before we're at work...when we are still with
our kids... quality time is sacrificed.
Time at the table, time in the car.
Sacrificed.
Children are sacrificed in the fights of divorcing
parents.
The invitation to go in early, work through lunch and stay late.
Happens every day.
The temptation to declare ourselves independent and not call mom
and dad.
Those who aren't married, who don't have kids... telling each other
we are just too busy to call, to write, to visit, to e-mail, to
talk... neglecting relationships close to us.
It is easy to sacrifice family, whoever that is for you.
Happens every day.
Now, I've just offered you a different reading of this
passage... a different take on the story.
Most of what I've heard is that this text is about silent
obedience to God.
That the test...and I've heard it preached this way... the test is
are you willing to sacrifice what is closest to you?
And in the end, God does say,
"Because you have not withheld your only son, I will make
your offspring multiply."
But this is a promise God already made to Abraham...made it back
when his name was Abram... back when he called Abram to go and build
a nation... said,
"Leave your country, your people and your father's household
and go to the land I will show you.
I will make your offspring into a great nation and I will
bless you;
Genesis 12:1-2
To take our story of Abraham's test at face value
would mean we believe God is reworking the promise?
I think not.
And there's this other thing... this is Jewish scripture...we
Christians have been grafted onto the ancient faith... but this is
Jewish scripture...the Torah.
and I find it difficult to believe that the Jewish faith, which
celebrates family and community connection above all things as a
sign of God's blessing, would include such a
flagrant slap in the face to these cornerstones of faith, family and
community.
I think there is a second message.
See, Old Testament writers were pretty deep.
They often wrote on several levels.
We're looking for a more subtle reading of the story, some way to
get at the deeper layers.
I heard Jewish theologian Rabbi Dayle Friedman make just such a
point in a lecture he gave about Genesis,
"Oftentimes characters do receive God's blessing, but not
all of it.
And in Genesis the authors write in their own interpretation
of the blessing received, and often leave out the
blessing missed, a missing piece so blatant it begs to be
noticed."
What he is saying...
Sometimes when we read the bible we need to pay close
attention to what it tells us about what happened.
And sometimes we need to pay even closer attention to what it
doesn't tell us.
And I think there may have been a second side to Abraham's test.
Here's why.
As we read Genesis we read about Abraham arguing with
God a lot, the image is of an ongoing lover's quarrel.
Abraham takes on God on behalf of people he doesn't know.
Abraham is an advocate and a nation builder.
Abraham is important to God's work in the world.
And he and God converse freely.
What a wonderful example of a right relationship with God.
And then there's this story...
a father is invited to sacrifice his son in obedience to the power
that sustains him...
and he silently goes that road.
I think the part of the test Abraham missed, and we miss...
I think the subtle meaning of the text, left out to be made glaring
and obvious...
are you willing, in the midst of obedience, to speak
up in the face of power that you fear...
are you willing to speak up on behalf of those who will be
sacrificed in your obedience?
Be obedient to God's call as you hear it, but don't be
silent...
Question, converse, clarify that you are talking with the almighty
God, even argue with God...
it was when Abraham did these things that he was close to God and
called righteous.
I think Abraham, in being silent...
in his silent obedience, in his silent willingness to sacrifice his
child,
failed this part of the test.
Here's why I think that.
After this test, for the remainder of Abraham's life,
God doesn't talk to him anymore.
God is silent.
And the surest sign of God's wrath, is God's silence.
|
