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Sermon - The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (A) - 29th June 2008
St Aidan's West Epping 8:30am
Readings:Genesis 22:1-14
The story of Abraham and Isaac is one of the strangest stories in the Bible. As we read it we can be shocked by it. The picture of a man about to kill his son because he believes he is carrying out instructions from God is the type of story that makes us recoil from anyone who expresses religious enthusiasm. It is also one of those Old Testament stories that we can find embarrassing particularly when we are trying to defend our faith to others. Some people are rightly offended by the violence of the Old Testament and particularly stories like this one with their implied child abuse. But to understand it we need to remember what comes before it and how the story is used in other parts of the Bible.
Genesis 3 begins the discussion of the question of death in the Bible. Since death enters the story due to the disobedience of Adam and Eve the question arises as to whether the human race has a future. Its survival seems poised on a knife’s edge. This is reflected in the surprise that Eve expresses after she gives birth to a Son. Though she sees herself as under a sentence of death she also experiences new life through the birth of her son. The theme of death though is pursued through Cain killing his brother Abel. It is there again the story of Noah, where all the inhabitants of the land drown except those who took advantage of the Ark. Then again, judgment falls on humanity in the story of the Tower of Babel.
So the first eleven chapters of Genesis limp along under this dark cloud. We wonder whether humanity will last another chapter. And yet there are inklings of hope as well. Genealogies are included in these chapters though they are usually left out of the lectionary. One reason why they are there is that they infuse a sense of hope. Children continue to be born. Death is balanced with new life and so there is a sense of humanity’s ongoing survival.
But the tone changes when we come to Abraham. Here the theme of life and death are played out in his own life. There is the surprising note of hope in the promise God made to Abraham. “I will make you a great nation.” This is the first time in Genesis since the pronouncement of death on Adam and Eve that God intends a future for the human race. There is a clear sense of hope here. And yet when this promise is made Abraham is no longer a young man hand he has no son of his own, only his nephew Lot As the years pass the situation doesn’t change. Abraham and Sarah are getting older and there are still no children.
In her desperation Sarah gave Abraham her servant Hagar so that he might have children by her. As a result, a boy Ishmael was born. But by then Abraham was 86 years old. However, though Abraham wanted Ishmael, he was not acceptable to God. The story continued to dray on until Abraham was 99 years old and still without an acceptable heir. At this stage God repeated his promise that Abraham would become the Father of a great nation. And yet even after that no child was born.
Years past and the situation remained unchanged. Abraham and Sarah must have considered themselves as close to death and yet they still had not seen God’s promise fulfilled. And yet the Lord appeared to Sarah in almost a parallel to the Holy Spirit coming to Mary and Sarah was found to be pregnant. The writer to the Hebrews makes the appropriate comment that “by faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”
Here were Abraham and Sarah as good as dead and yet the promise was fulfilled after so many years of waiting, perhaps half their life-times. Though seemingly close to death, new life came forward. And so we come to this remarkable story in chapter 22 where Abraham is called on to take Isaac into the wilderness and offer him as a sacrifice on one of the mountains. Isaac, in his naivety asked his father – “We have the fire and the wood but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” All Abraham could say was “God will provide.”
The climax of the story of course is the moment where Isaac is laid, bound upon the altar with Abraham poised over him with the knife about to strike the fatal blow. It seems that God brings him to the threshold of that dreadful crime before he calls a halt. And yet that picture is a double image. At one level we are appalled by such behaviour that God would call on a man to indulge in such a crime and that Abraham was prepared to participate in the activity by demonstrating every intention of following it through to its grisly end. It’s a picture that revolts us. And yet it is also a picture of a man who is now fully convinced that God can be trusted and that no matter what happens, God’s promise will be fulfilled.
Of course we are fearful of any man who behaves like this, who will do anything, literally anything because he believes it to be the will of God. And yet the difference here is that Abraham is a sane man. As soon as he sees there is an alternate course of action he takes it. It indicates that all along, though he wanted to be obedient, he too was repelled by the act and as soon as the opportunity presented itself, he pulled back, and let his son go free. This, we are told, is an example of faith though it may no be one we feel comfortable with.
The writer to the Hebrews goes on to say that Abraham was prepared to offer Isaac as a sacrifice in spite of the threat that would be to the fulfilment of the promise that God had made. But the writer says that Abraham considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead, hence, figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back. As far as the writer is concerned Isaac was as good as dead. Abraham would have sacrificed him. Its as if he was already lost to Abraham. And yet, because God intervened, Abraham received Isaac back alive. And so the promises made to Abraham were fulfilled through Isaac and his descendants.
Because of this hope of fulfilled promises, the early church was keen to develop parallels between Isaac and the ministry and death of Jesus. The image of Isaac carrying the wood for the sacrifice was compared by Tertullian to the picture of Jesus carrying his cross on the way to Golgotha. Others, like St Augustine were keen to draw out the similarity between Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac, and God sacrificing his own Son on the cross. God enters into the human story not as an observer but as a participant. God fully enters into the experience of being human through the Incarnation. So that through Jesus we know that God can empathise with our weakness because he has experienced all it means to be human including going through the experience of death. Yet on the other hand he remains God and is able to complete the act of sacrifice that Abraham has begun. But the sacrifice is made now not by a man but by God himself.
The point of sacrifice was to achieve reconciliation between us and God. But that reconciliation is achieved by God through his own sacrifice. People object to this because they say this creates the absurd idea of God sacrificing to himself. Our offences are against God so how can God settle the matter himself? But the alternative has impossible difficulties because it would require us to provide a sacrifice good enough to be acceptable to God and how could that be done? What the story of Abraham and Isaac does for us is that it enables us to take a step back and to consider the question of grace. What does God think of us? How will God treat us? We learn that it was God’s initiative to bless Abraham and his descendants. It seemed impossible. Abraham and Sarah were too old. Yet God made them wait another 20 years. How could God’s promised be fulfilled? Yet it was.
God takes the initiative to bless us though it seems to us quite impossible. Abraham does not supply the sacrifice. Instead God does. He sacrifices his own Son. Though it is hard to understand, when it comes to love, God takes the initiative. It is all down to him. Much of what God does is hard to understand. So much seems impossible. But that’s the point. That is the challenge to us. The supernatural power of this universe has revealed himself in many ways. But he has done it most clearly in the birth, life and death of his son, to reconcile us to him. So we may fully experience his love for us. The challenge to us is will we accept it? Will we believe it? Will we be transformed by it? And will we share that love with our world?