Matthew 10:40-42
There are a few stories in the Bible
that are sometimes referred to as “texts of terror.” This story from Genesis is
one of them.
It is the climax of the long story of
Abraham and Sarah. In a way, it resembles the climax of a big disaster movie, where
a disaster comes – a tsunami, a fire, a nuclear attack, or zombies from outer
space – tearing through our civilization and leaving a huge swath of wreckage
in its wake.
Usually, in the disaster movie, we
just focus on the survivors. When it’s over, the audience is washed in relief,
so thankful that we made it! On the screen there are embraces and maybe a
little wry humor, so we can leave the theatre feeling good.
We might try to do that with the
Genesis story too. Look at the survivors – Abraham and Isaac come back down
from the mountain alive. They go home to Sarah. Isaac lives to a ripe old age –
he marries and has children. So all is well.
Yet, I just can’t do it. And it’s all
because of one sentence. God calls, Abraham answers, then God says:
“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.”
I mean, what do you do with a text like this? You can
rationalize it, usually our first instinct with something this hard. You can
historically analyze the heck out of it – I have done that too. You can
spiritualize it – try to remove it from the bodily realm and just think about
the spiritual meaning.
And while all of these things – the
historical context, the spiritual meaning – are worthy conversations, they
don’t erase the plain sense of the words on the page, the flesh and blood
impact of the story.
This is your worst fear; this is the darkest corner of humanity;
the darkest shadow of every human heart.
I resist it the same way I resist the reality of evil in the
world, in all its forms. and yet it is here.
Why is this story necessary, I often wonder? Something so
difficult, so hurtful and frightening, so prone to misunderstanding? Was it
really prudent to include it in the Bible?
I am reminded of a conversation recounted by the writer Sara
Maitland, with an elderly woman she ran into on her way to the post office one
day. A local church had been struck by lightning and it was on the older
woman’s mind. She asked Sara, “Do you suppose it’s really true that God
deliberately made this happen?” Sara replied, “No, I don’t think really think
so. Do you?” The older woman said, “No I don’t think so either.” But then she
added, “He should have been more careful, though. He should have known there
would be talk.”
And that’s what I think about this story of Abraham and Isaac.
God should have known there would be all kinds of talk. God should have known
that people would be scandalized by a story like this one. They would distort
it and misuse it and misinterpret it … and just have a really hard time
understanding the how and the why of it. Really, God should have been more
careful, so such a story as this wouldn’t even be necessary.
And that is fine to think, even to say, but God will do what God
will do, not being subject to our conventions. God is too big for that. And so
stories of God, like this story of Isaac and Abraham, take us right up to the
edge without letting us fall.
But, man, that edge? I don’t really want to look over that edge.
I want to echo the feelings of the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard,
who said it was one tough calling being Abraham, God’s chosen one. It would
have been so much easier to have been cast out, rejected by the Lord.
Kierkegaard imagined that there were times when Abraham actually wished that
God would turn away from him, releasing him from this impossible burden.
The calling is, indeed, a tough one, as Jesus told his disciples
in a variety of ways. In this 10th chapter of Matthew Jesus offered
some hard teachings – words we listened to last week. That because of his
presence, families would be divided and lives would be lost. That to be worthy
of him, they each must take up their cross and follow him.
He took his disciples right up to the edge. But then he didn’t
let them fall. Jesus pulls them back with the assurance that their relationship
is for keeps.
Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and welcomes the one who sent
me, he says. We are so intertwined, you and I, that they can’t do anything to
you without also doing it to me. I am always with you in a way that backs you
up entirely and strengthens you completely. I am so much with you that our
identities are inseparable. And even more, we are both intertwined with the
Father, the one who sent me.
The Father – the one we identify as the God who said to Abraham,
“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.”
It is still a tough calling, because this is what it is. Our God
asks us to go right up to the edge and look over; to acknowledge the evil, to
never close our eyes to the suffering in the world. Yes, our God is a
scandalous God who won’t tidy things up or shove the skeletons in the closet
for the sake of our sensibilities. But in it all, through it all, God will
reach out a hand to come between us and the evil.
God stopped Abraham from the terrible
act he was so near committing, and God provided a suitable sacrifice. In
gratitude, Abraham named the mount, “The Lord Will Provide.”
The Lord will provide what we need. An
outstretched hand holding –
a ram caught in the thicket – saving
Isaac, rescuing Abraham from becoming a hollowed-out man for the rest of his
life. An outstretched hand holding –
a cup of cold water for a thirsty
traveler, the sustenance we need in a dry and weary land.
Remember this. No matter how ugly
things get in this world, God will provide.
Photo: Team building at Camp Krislund
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