Sermon for July 2, 2023 – The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Genesis 22:1-14, Psalm 13, Romans 6:12-23, Matthew 10:40-42

There is a Yiddish folk tale that goes something like this: Why did God not send an angel to tell Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? Because God knew that no angel would take on such a task. Instead, the angels said, “If you want to command death, do it yourself.”

Our journey with Abraham continues in the Genesis story named in our Christian tradition as “the sacrifice of Isaac” or as it is also known in Jewish tradition “the binding of Isaac.” The slight difference in the naming of this story hints at the different lenses through which we might view this story. It has sparked heated debate over the centuries. Is it a story of an abusive God, a misguided Abraham, religious violence at its worst? Or is it a story of faith and obedience?

This is a foundational story for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and at face value it is a bit horrifying—that Abraham would plan to kill his son as an act of faith and that God would command it. I confess as I was reading this text again, I kept going back to the Hebrew, wondering if perhaps we have been reading it wrong, if there is another way of translating verse 2. I spent over an hour with an interlinear copy of Genesis and a Hebrew scripture dictionary hoping for an easy way out. There isn’t. The text is surprisingly unambiguous. “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, that is, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him up there as a burnt offering.” As I sat with this I don’t know which is worse—that God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, or that Abraham seemingly complies without protest.

Compounding the ethical problem is the practical one. Isaac is the long-awaited child of the promise and at this point, he is the only one left in Abraham’s household through whom God’s covenant promises could be realized. Lot, Abraham’s nephew, chose to separate from Abraham and his family and strike out on his own. Though with some protest, Abraham complied with God’s insistence that Ishmael be sent away. And now this. The final hope that Abraham and Sarah have for “a great name” is to be snuffed out at God’s command. To the human mind, this is incomprehensible.

However, if we are willing to sit with this story we might be able to hold our horror in tension with what is really beautiful in this text.

A lot has happened between Genesis 12, when Abraham was first called out of land of origin, and this narrative here which functions as a book-end to the stories that focus on his life. This story, then, is the climax of all of the events that have preceded it, before the story of God focuses on a different character.

Throughout the narratives of Abraham’s life, the pressing question is that of progeny. How will Abraham produce a son when Sarah is barren? We are relieved when Sarah gives birth to Isaac and God affirms that this is the one through whom his promises will be realized.

This primary theme, however, is complimented and complicated by a sub-theme, that is, the wavering faith of Abraham. At the beginning of the narrative, Abraham responds to God without hesitation, packing up and going to the land that God would show him. A few chapters later, Abraham believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness.

At other times, however, Abraham acts in ways that suggest doubt. Twice, out of fear, he tries to pass off his wife as his sister and Sarah ends up in the bedroom of the local ruler. So worried about producing an heir, he sleeps with a woman other than his wife, albeit at Sarah’s bidding. He laughs when God tells him that Sarah would bear a child and that she would become the mother of nations. Throughout, there are indications that Abraham still doesn’t quite trust God to accomplish what he promised, or believe that God is a god of his word.

So, God asks Abraham to demonstrate his faith by trusting God with his hopes, his future, his deepest longings, his only son whom he loves. Our opening verse describes it as a test, signaling to the us that God had no intention of going through with it. The messenger of the Lord stays Abraham’s hand, preventing him from killing his son. God never wanted child sacrifice after all. Rather, he wanted Abraham to face his own conflicted and divided loyalties.

The test serves its purpose and leaves an indelible mark on both God and Abraham. Abraham now knows, in the profoundest of ways, that life with God is a gift, and God’s blessing is freely bestowed. He need not do anything - God will provide—generously, bountifully, wondrously. All he has to do is look up to see that God has been there all along, guiding his steps, directing his paths, and making a future for him.

But God now knows something too. God learns that Abraham fears him. This is the first time the narrator describes Abraham’s demeanor toward God in this way. Prior to this, the text depicts Abraham as listening to and obeying God. But in Genesis 21:12, God experiences from Abraham more—respect, awe, and a healthy dose of fear and trembling appropriate to a divine-human relationship.

Something changes between Abraham and God that day. Abraham learns to trust and fear God. And God proves that God can be trusted. In the history of God’s relationship with human beings, God would demonstrate this time and again. In the end, God’s commitment to fulfilling his promises to Abraham and bringing about his redemptive purposes would end up costing God dearly. For while Abraham’s son is spared, God would give his own son to up to death. This too was an act of provision on God’s part—a provision that would ultimately fulfill what God started in Abraham, that is, the restoration of blessing to the nations and to the world.

Because Christ died, our relationship with God has forever been changed. Whatever sin, whatever guilt, whatever brokenness we carry, Christ has dealt with and abolished it in the cross. Through our baptism we were in a covenantal relationship, where as we have seen, God keeps up God’s end of the bargain. So it is then, that this story invites us then, to a posture of fear and awe as well as profound gratitude for God’s faithfulness to his covenantal promises and the redemption we have through him. Amen.