Sophie
is a Polish woman during the Second World War. She was sent to Auschwitz with
her young son and daughter. The defining moment in this story is one of Sophie
and her children, standing in line with all the other prisoners, waiting to be
processed when a German officer approaches her. He offers Sophie a choice:
which one of your children should die? Choose or they will both be taken. She
chose her daughter.
Then
there is Toni Morrison’s story, Beloved.
Sethe is a runaway slave living in Cincinnati with her four children. When the
master hunts her down, Sethe grabs her children and runs to the toolshed. She
knows she would rather they not live than to see them returned to slavery and
so she aims to take things into her own hands. The youngest, a two-year-old
girl, is killed before Sethe’s hand is stopped.
These
are stories I think about when I try to imagine the circumstances under which a
parent would sacrifice his or her child. Both of these novels, you should know,
are based on true stories. They would have to be, for who would dare make up
such a thing?
I have to ask the question, because the story of the binding of
Isaac – although it undoubtedly points to a meaning larger than itself –
doesn’t allow me to easily move beyond the pivotal event. And the rescue of
Abraham and Isaac at the last moment doesn’t offer much relief. The story is a
trauma – to Abraham, to Isaac, and to everyone who hears it.
It is a story that changes everything. Abraham will no longer be
the same. Isaac will not be the same. Even we are not the same after hearing
it. And Sarah? It might be that Sarah never learned just what exactly happened
on Mount Moriah, which would be a blessing, but she definitely knew that her
husband and son were not the same when they returned.
In fact, this is a different Abraham that we see in this story,
from the moment God calls him out. Abraham, who is sometimes a lively
conversation partner with God, is now silent. Abraham, who experienced feelings
of deep distress when Ishmael was banished from the camp, is now detached,
unaffected.
He resembles an automaton – a creation without a will of his own,
whose only purpose was to serve the commands of the creator. He seemed almost
inhuman. We can imagine this Abraham silently and stone-faced, marching up the
mountain, speaking only when necessary,
Isaac asks where is the
lamb? Abraham answers God will
provide. We see him focused, deliberate. We see him standing over the boy
on the altar they have made, raising his arm high above his head, clutching the
knife as he looks down at the face of his son.
We can even imagine Abraham being so tuned out to the world around
him that he doesn’t hear the voice of the angel telling him to stop! This is
our fear as we listen to the story. Like the phone call from the governor,
ordering a stay of execution, that comes a moment too late. Because death
cannot be undone.
It seems almost incredible that Abraham actually does hear the
command and he stops his hand in midair. God provides a ram in the thicket as a
proper sacrifice. Isaac’s life is saved.
Abraham is saved from being the man who kills laughter.
And we are all saved from the dreadful possibility of a God who
would demand human sacrifice.
It is a story about testing, but I don’t like that. The notion
that God would test us in such horrific ways is deeply troubling. To take one’s
beloved children right up to the edge and then stop – as if to say, “just
kidding!” – this feels cruel to me.
Would our God really test us like this?
Yet, when I consider the stories of Sophie and Sethe, I am
reminded that evil will certainly test us. Evil will confront us with tests in some
horrific ways.
And here is where I find the pieces fit together to make meaning.
It took a long time for the people of Israel to get to know their
God. Many generations of evolving, slowly, by trial and error, to figure out
just who this God is. Just what this God wants from them. For a long time, generations,
they were casting around, sampling other gods, other religious practices. Such
as human sacrifice.
They thought: Other people are doing it. They wondered: Is this
what we should do? Would this be an acceptable, an effective, form of worship?
Would it? Really?
Let me ask you: Would a God who loves us and cares for us desire
such a thing? Would the God of Israel demand such a sacrifice from us?
Finally, emphatically, the answer was no.
It was a hard lesson to learn for the people. Trust is not easily
come by. Faith is hard earned. We look at Abraham as a mountain of a man, a
model figure of faith. But back then I am sure Abraham was floundering. Struggling.
Isaac said to him, Dad, where is the lamb for the sacrifice? And
Abraham said to Isaac, God will provide.
God will provide, said Abraham, with no earthly idea of what, of
how this story ends.
And then – at last – he knew it. God will provide a better way.
It took some time for the people to understand this – a lot of
time. But eventually, centuries later, they put it down in these stories,
stories that would be handed down through the generations. Stories that would
say:
There once was a time when the people lived in fear – fear of the
evil that surrounded them, fear of evil that might take hold of them, control
them. And the greatest fear of all: that their God would be a heartless, cruel
master over them; one who would take from them what was most precious to them.
And they wondered: Is it possible?
And the answer was no. God will provide a better way.
And even today, in our world, the struggle against evil is real,
it is constant. And our only hope is the knowledge that God will provide a
better way.
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