Ah, the story of Abraham and Isaac- a story that has been debated over and re-interpreted for hundreds of years by people who simply want to know why God tested Abraham in such a way and asked him to do the unthinkable- sacrifice his very own child- the child that he had waited for his entire life, and who came as a gift from God. Isaac, which means “laughter” becomes a symbol of the unthinkable when we hear this scripture. It’s nothing less than disturbing, horrific, and down right scary- yet it is in front of us today. When I saw that it was one of the scriptures in our lectionary this week for me to choose from, my first instinct was to skip over it, ignore it, deny it. But as I read through the other selections, my eyes kept coming back to Genesis, calling me to accept the challenge of bringing some kind of message to you all about it.
So I thought, I read, I debated, I thought some more, asked a lot of questions, and finally decided on the message I want you to take with you today: Sometimes, there are no easy answers. I could stand here and talk about sacrifices that we make in our own lives. I could talk about how we should be willing to give up meaningful things in order to come to a more full relationship with God, I could preach about how God provides for us even in the most tragic situations- we’ve all heard those sermons and messages before, and they are good messages. But they still don’t address the real issue of why God would test Abraham in this way- why God would give Abraham the gift of Isaac and then ask him to do the unthinkable. So maybe there are no real answers, but only questions: What kind of God would do this? What kind of father would hear this voice in his head and follow it? What was Isaac thinking? God? Abraham? Why do we have these stories in the Bible?
I think that this story is part of our faith and the faith of millions of people around the world because it gets us to think about the fact that our faith is not a perfect, shiny, and happy thing all the time. Our faith isn’t neatly wrapped up in a bow and given to us. Our faith can sometimes be a challenge. It’s not always about having the answers, but asking the questions. Sometimes faith is about staring into the abyss and asking God to walk alongside us as we try to understand the mysteries of life and faith- the ups and downs, the laughter and sadness, the comedy and tragedy of life. As our words of reflection said today, perhaps the ugly and tortured nature of this story is meant to be. It’s an ugly story, but in the end, perhaps it’s not about the ugliness, but about a man who would have done the unthinkable for his faith, and about a God who had the redeeming final word of life and salvation.
Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish Christian philosopher and theologian in the 1800s wrote a famous book about Abraham and Isaac entitled, “Fear and Trembling,” focusing on the idea that Abraham worked out his salvation with fear and trembling. In his writings, he talks of several scenarios for Abraham and Isaac. First, he imagines that Abraham yells at Isaac while he is on the altar that this is not God’s doing, but Abraham’s doing- Abraham would rather have Isaac think of him as the monster rather than to blame God. Second, Abraham and Isaac make the trip up the mountain in silence, build the altar, wield the knife, Abraham goes to kill Isaac, and as the Genesis story unfolds, a ram is provided at the last minute. However, Kierkegaard wants us to imagine the consequences of these actions, saying that Abraham is deeply traumatized and psychologically scarred for the rest of his life, and maybe, in his extreme act of faith, even loses his faith. We might imagine the same for Isaac.
In another scenario, Abraham throws himself on the ground and asks God to forgive him his sin of being willing to sacrifice Isaac, thinking that Abraham wrongly believed that God had told him to sacrifice Isaac. We have to remember here that in Abraham’s time, unfortunately child sacrifice was not uncommon. Could Abraham have reverted back to his old ways and culture and mistook God’s command? Was this God’s way of making a new covenant and a new people that would no longer offer their own children to appease angry gods?
Either way we look at it, this story leaves a lot of unanswered questions and hits home for all of us. Today, Abraham would be arrested for his actions. We hear the horrific news stories all too often about parents hearing a voice, supposedly from God telling them to harm their children or worse. When I was in college, I took a class called “Retelling the Bible” where we were asked to address this challenging text in our own creative way. I called my poem, “A Modern Abraham”:
I can still hear her footsteps on the stairs
as I watched afternoon cartoons
after school
She paused, looking awkward in her pink bathrobe
Pink was never her color
She called me for a bath
I didn’t want to feel the water on my skin,
but I didn’t want to be denied my cartoons tomorrow
so I obeyed
I don’t know what happened next
The water was running and I was without air
it replaced my breath
I thought I heard my father’s voice under the water as he ran in
screaming at the top of his lungs, his footsteps rumbling the tub
or was it God?
Suddenly air filled my lungs
I was taken from the water
my baptism suddenly came to mind
my father embraced me and thanked God
My mother was on the floor sobbing
her pink bathrobe soaking wet
she reached for my father’s feet as we turned
and walked away
I never saw her again.
I got chills when I went back to read what I had written- the images, the unthinkable act of violence, the psychological state of the mother, and the saving of the child. And the consequences of her actions, but for her and the child- and I asked myself, was the saving action God’s doing? Just coincidence? And I realized that this was my own way of wrestling with this text, putting it in a modern context, and realizing for myself that with Abraham and Isaac, along with the horrific acts we hear of today, that sometimes there are no easy answers.
But if we look at it in its own context- a man who has been called by God to leave his home to an unknown land to make a new covenant and a new people with God, who stands up to God at Sodom and Gomorrah, who is willing to make the physical mark of circumcision to show his commitment, and finally, a man who is willing to give up his son for his faith, we see a story of impossible sacrifice, an unthinkable kind of faith. From the beginning of Abraham’s story to the end, we see a man with a relationship with God that comes before anything else, and we simply cannot understand this radical kind of faith that would come before our own flesh and blood.
Abraham’s story from beginning to end is also a story of God reaching into this man’s life, stirring him to the core physically and emotionally, teaching him, guiding him to become the founding father of multitudes of people, as many as grains of sand or stars in the sky. Abraham’s God is a God of promises, tough love, even violence, and ultimately, redemption. It is true that Abraham works out his faith with fear and trembling. We hope with all of our being that such tests of faith will never come to us, and they probably won’t. We hope to get even a small glimpse of understanding of this story and what we may gain from it.
So how will we address this difficult story as part of our faith? These stories are meant to challenge us, to provoke us, to try to understand the complexities of our faith and the God we serve. Faith is not always about having the answers, but about asking those tough questions. And when we ask them, we might find that we are stronger in our faith for having been challenged, for taking that journey, for being ok with the fact that sometimes our faith is looking into the abyss and wondering what’s out there. And we have the hope that God is there in the darkness, ready to take our hand, to lead us, to show us the way. I think that even through the most challenging scriptures in the Bible, those stumbling blocks, that God’s story is ultimately one of redemption, although this is not always our personal experience. I don’t know about you, but I will continue to wrestle with God on what it all means, but I am glad that Abraham and Isaac's story is in scripture and is part of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is an invitation to wrestle with God on acts of injustice, the way in which God calls us, and to explore more deeply. It is an invitation to serve God in love rather than blind fear or obedience.
So what is the good news of this challenging text? That is up to you to decide! May God be with you as you explore the challenging, complex, sometimes scary abyss that is our faith, and may you know that sometimes it’s ok to come to the conclusion that there are no easy answers.
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