June 29, 2008

For the past three weeks we have been traveling with Abraham and Sarah, walking with them in their journey with God. We’ve watched them leave their homeland, learn of a promised yet improbable son, and deal with intra-family rivalries. In the meantime we’ve skipped over numerous other stories of faith, trust, heroism, fear, and bargains struck with God. The epic story of Abraham and Sarah is rich, full, and intriguing. Abraham’s faith and trust in God has been used for millennia by Jews, Muslims and Christians as the gold standard of what faith in God looks like. And yet today, this faith takes a dangerous turn, a turn that startles us just as it startles a bound and helpless Isaac. Today we arrive at one of the most troubling stories in Abraham’s life, the near sacrifice of Isaac on a mountain; a story which at first blush appears to tell us of God’s call for a faith that overwhelms human reason and justice.

How could it be that God would call Abraham to kill his son, the son that he and Sarah have so desperately longed for, the son they have rejoiced over, the son through whom God had promised to make a great nation and bless all the people of the earth? Just what sort of test is God putting Abraham to as he trudges into the wilderness with wood, fire, and an threatening knife?

The fact is Abraham has been tested and tried by God before. Yet his previous testing has been filled with questions and concerns voiced to God. In the past Abraham has argued with God to save entire cities, he has been heartbroken over Sarah’s demand that his other son Ishmael be sent away so that Isaac might not loose his inheritance. Abraham and Sarah have struggled with and questioned God’s plan, laughing at the very thought of Sarah becoming pregnant in her old age. Time and again as Abraham has struggled with God’s demands, God has proven loving, faithful, and just.

But today Abraham seems to have forgotten this way of relating with God. Abraham doesn’t bat an eye at the thought of taking his own son’s life. We hear in the scripture that Abraham had over three days of travel to arrive at the mountain, three days to question, to think, to plead. Yet Abraham remains conspicuously silent throughout the journey; silent with those who travel with him uttering a mere 11 words; silent with God even though up until now Abraham’s relationship with God has been filled with conversation. Abraham seems to break relationship with God. In place of questioning, arguing, talking, or even bargaining with God Abraham simply acts.

None of us would doubt for a moment that God is testing Abraham. But what sort of test is God giving him? As we will see God’s test is not about trust and faith as Abraham assumes it is. Instead this test is about how Abraham will relate with God, how Abraham understands the God he serves.

Jack Moline, a professor of Judaica at Virginia Theological Seminary and a rabbi in Alexandria, Virginia explains the test in the following excerpt of a midrashic sermon—a story written to explain a Biblical story,

“Abrahaaaaaam!”

Abraham startled, “Here I am.”

“What did you think you were doing?”

“I was doing Your will.”

God paused for a moment or an eternity; it was hard to tell the difference.  Then God spoke to Abraham and said, “This was not my will.” 

Abraham responded, “It was Your instruction.  It was Your voice.  How can you say it was not Your will?”

A sigh emerged from the heavens which shook the foundation of the earth.  “After all we have been through together, how could you assume that I could ask for the sacrifice of your child?  I promised you, I made a covenant with you – you wear it in your flesh through circumcision—to make you numerous and a blessing.  Was it not You who called me the Judge of all the earth, and it was you who demanded I do justice!  You bargained with Me to save two cesspools of iniquity for the sake of ten righteous people, people you and I both knew never were and never would be.  And you never raised a voice for your own son?”

“You are God,” said Abraham. “You are limitless.  If You will it, the absurd becomes obligatory.  If You command me to jump into the abyss of madness, then how can I pretend to cherish the bedrock of sanity?”

“No, no, no!” responded the Holy One.  “I am all that is righteous.  I cannot be other than all that is righteous.  I am all that and only that which is necessary to maintain morality!  If I can violate that code, you cannot call me God – rather, you must call me Demon.  You must call me Accuser.  You must call me Satan.” 

A terror gripped Abraham when he heard those words.   “Have I blasphemed?” he asked in wide-eyed panic. 

“Oh, Abraham,” responded the Source of Life. “On the contrary.  You have been created in My image and you have reflected back to me the limits of My creations.  It was indeed I who decided to test you – not to see if you were faithful, but to see if you were wise.  I see now that your faith is greater than your wisdom.  Do you not see that if I can suspend righteousness, then I can suspend anything, including My covenant with you.”

“Then why do I desire Your presence?” cried Abraham. 

“You can desire that connection, Abraham, but you shall never again have it.  Neither shall any human being.  For you have caused Me to see that even though you are created in My image, you are not my help-mate.  Even you, who have perceived more than anyone My essence, cannot meet Me on My terms.  If you can think that I would command you to sacrifice your own son, then others would have Me command them to torture, poison, to burn children much less dear to them.  I have lifted My eyes, and I have seen.  After this day, I will always watch over you, but I shall never again speak to you, for you cannot hear Me.”

 For Rabbi Moline the story of Isaac’s near sacrifice is a story which shows the danger of blind and unquestioning faith. In this story where Abraham assumes his faith is being tested and thus fails to struggle with and understand God we see the danger of relating with God not in a living relationship but in a system of rote, unthinking obedience. What God has called Abraham and his descendants to is a life of relationship with God, a life of hearing God and seeking to understand God, a life of struggling with the realities of the world and the realities of God, not a life of passive, unthinking obedience.

This type of faith, this type of inter-relational life should come as no surprise. We need only think of Jacob, the grandson of Abraham from whom the Jewish people take the name Israel. He went so far is his relationship with God as to wrestled with God. His relationship with God was so close, so personal that it led to grappling and physical struggle. Similarly, we need only think of Jesus, who was God incarnate, very man yet very God. As he kneeled in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was to die Jesus struggled with his Father, he bargained, “take this cup from me”. Jesus struggled to the point where one Gospel reports his sweat became like drops of blood. Unthinking obedience, mindless action such as Abraham’s is anything but what God calls us to.

The history of God’s relationship with humanity has embodied this very form of interactive, relational faith. Time and again God struggles with his chosen people. He struggles to help Abraham understand what faith is, God struggles to help the people of Israel understand that a life of faith is not blind obedience to laws and ceremonies but rather a heart that yearns for and seeks after the justice of God even when such justice might challenge the status quo. Time and again God struggles and strives with his people, seeking to bring them back to a living, loving, thoughtful, relationship.

God’s struggle with his beloved people is fully and completely incarnate in Jesus Christ, who walked among us, taught us, challenged us, upset traditional codes and mores. God struggles with us to the point of returning to this very story of Abraham and Isaac, as God sees his own Son bound, with wood placed upon his scarred back, heading off to a mountain for sacrifice just as Isaac walked with his father. God goes so far as to sacrifice himself to show us that God desires relationship which is based upon more than blind obedience.

All too often, when challenges and difficulties appear in the midst of our lives we assume that God is testing us. As Christians we believe that God works all things for good for those who love God, but does this mean that God wills evil, that God wills hurt? Our Old Testament reading answers with a resounding NO. We see that while God states that Abraham clearly “fears God” Abraham does not understand God. Abraham is human, he is fallible and is thus capable of the most grievous, even deadly of errors, to think that God wills evil. Our God does call us to faith, our God does call us to obedience, but this faith is not thoughtless. This faith is born out of a life-giving, challenging relationship with God where we struggle with God’s Word, where we seek to understand what seems incomprehensible, where we need the presence of other faithful Christians so as to hear God’s life-giving voice just as Abraham heard it as he raised the knife to strike his son.

My friends, life is full of tests, full of difficulties. Life is also filled with God’s presence with us in the midst of these tests. Our challenge is to remain connected to God. Our challenge is to live our lives in such a way that they are filled with meaning and thought. All too often we walk through life in a blind and unthinking state. How often have we glanced at the front page of the paper, and instead of grappling with the brokenness of the world simply flipped to the Sports page? How often do we utter the prayers and participate in worship through rote memorization and not hearing the living voice of God calling out to us as it called out to Abraham? May our eyes be opened as his eyes were, may our faith be renewed, may we live ever in a living, loving relationship with the God who reaches out to us even in the midst of pain, adversity, and challenge.