A Sermon Based Upon Genesis 22: 1-14, NRSV
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
5th Sunday in Lent, March 18th, 2018
If you were watching TV between 1963 and
1997, you may remember your favorite TV show being interrupted with a loud, long,
alarming tone. These words followed: “This
is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.
For the next sixty (or thirty) seconds, this station will conduct a test
of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test. If this had not been a test, you would have
been instructed...” Now that I think
about it, that was a big ‘if’.
Our
final story from the life of Abraham begins: “After these things God tested Abraham” (1). It is
the strangest, most outrageous test anyone could imagine. No wonder the person writing this story had
to clarify this right up front. Even
though God did not allow Abraham to actually carry out the sacrifice of his
only son, why would a loving God demand such a thing as a test?
However you interpret this story, it is,
without a doubt, one of the most powerful, profound, and disturbing stories in
all of the Bible, and in all of literature, for that matter. It doesn't fit even the lowest form of ethic in
most any society, so how could such an outlandish ‘test’ like this point to how
our own faith might also be tested?
THE
SON YOU DEARLY LOVE (2)
One thing is clear. This story will only be understood as it
relates to Abraham’s story as a whole. Abraham’s story is about living toward a
promise. The original promise given to
Abraham, and to Sarah, a childless couple, is that they would be given a child
and that their descendants from this child would be as numerous as the stars. Included in this promise was also that they would
be given a land and the land would be inhabited by their descendants. That land
came to be called, as we know, the Promised Land, because it was based on the
promise first given to Abraham.
What's more, Abraham and Sarah, throughout
their lives, were called to trust that God is able to give what he promises. So, they were leave behind the life that they
have been living, a prosperous life in Ur of Chaldees, and to start a new life
as nomads, leaving everything behind, trusting only that God keeps the promise.
Their lives were all about God’s
promise.
As children of Abraham, we are people who
also are called to live by God’s promise.
We read the story of Abraham and Sarah as an example of our faith-story
too. Why do we do this? Well, deep down, we know what living by
God’s promise means. Look at little
children! It is just wonderful how they
greet each day with expectation. They
journey into this world with great anticipation. They dream about who they will be, and what
their life will be, in the wonderful world that is waiting for them. The world
for them holds a great promise. Can’t
we all remember the ‘great expectations’ we have had as children, youth, or
young adults?
We know that life gives us a promise of
goodness. Human sin can limit that
promise, or as we grow older, we may narrow our expectations, but we still believe
and live toward a promise. We still
believe that life is supposed to be good and that even in aging, suffering or
death, it will be alright. So when we
read that Abraham received a promise that life would be good, for him, his
people and the world, we know what that means. The story of Abraham and Sarah is the story that
mirrors the hopes, dreams, and promise of human life.
Interestingly, Abraham and Sarah went almost
all their lives before they received the fulfillment of their promise. Abraham was 75 years old and Sarah was 65
years old when the angel first visited them and told them they were going to
have a baby. They waited another twenty-five
years for the angel to return and tell them, now is the time. Isaac was finally born to Abraham when he was
100 years old. Sarah was ninety years
old, when she gave birth. It was a miracle. They could not possibly, through biological
means, produce this child. It was,
beyond doubt, God’s ‘gift of grace’ to them.
Abraham’s story, as unique as it seems,
is still our story too. For, life hold
great promise. But the fulfillment of this
promise is never automatic. Even when ‘God is for us,’ there can still be much
against us. For many people, the
promise will not come true without God’s help.
The fulfillment of the promise of our life, ultimately comes from God. There are no guarantees in life, except that
God will fulfill his promise. Even when
it seems that the promise remains unfulfilled, God is working ‘for us’ within
and against our situation. That's the
point of this story. Abraham and Sarah are called to trust their
lives and their future to God.
When we have so many options, so many
blessings, and much prosperity in our lives, it’s harder for us to see the
value of God’s promise. But when you
face insurmountable problems, when you realize your own limits or failures, or
if you or a family member in your home is up against something you cannot
change, think how your own understanding would change. What if you had a disease that you had to
live with, or that there was little hope for?
Would God’s promise be less or more in your life? At least for the child I saw on the news the
other day, who had a rare skin disease, he seemed have a maturity most children
don’t. He seemed to understand better
than most that his life belonged to God. What could be the ‘test’ in your life that
reminds you that the promise comes from God? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4313747/
GOD
HIMSELF WILL PROVIDE THEM LAMB (8)
It is wishful thinking that we gain the
promise of our life, without the test? Wouldn’t it be a nice ‘Hollywood Ending’, if
the story of Abraham could end with an old childless couple finally having a
baby? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to bring
the story to a happy end with the promise fulfilled, and with all the
descendants, who are as numerous as the stars, all fulfilling God’s promise ‘in
perfect harmony’? But Abraham’s story
doesn't end like that; no story does.
The promise of life that came to Abraham, also comes to us, but it also
comes with challenges, detours, and tests of faith. This is how we must understand what it meant,
when God says, "Abraham, take your
son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and
offer him there as a burnt offering on a mountain of which I will tell
you." We are not to think of
child sacrifice here, because the point here is ‘theological’ not ‘ethical’. The point here is not God demanding that Abraham
prove his devotion by giving God his child child! No, the point here is that God is reminding
Abraham that everything, even this precious child, the child of promise, always belongs God. Think of it this way, with this other
biblical word: "The Lord has given.
The Lord has taken away. Blessed be the
name of the Lord."
The command to sacrifice Isaac is a ‘test’
to whether or not Abraham really understands and trusts that his life is in
God's hands, even after Abraham gets what he needs and wants. God is the Creator and Giver of Life. We may have
children, but we do not ‘create life’. This is what it means to say, "The Lord gives. The Lord takes away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord."
No matter what we have in life; all life, all gifts, even the most precious
gifts of our children, including our life too---it all comes from, belongs to,
and returns to God. God is the source of
life and God is our destiny.
This same message is underscored throughout the Bible, most beautifully
expressed in the 90th psalm, “Lord, you
have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were
brought forth, or ever you formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to
everlasting thou art God” (Psalm 90:
1-2). Right after this comes more
sobering insight: “You sweep them
away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; in the
morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. (Ps. 90:5-6 NRS).
The
Psalmist is saying that this is what the
promise of life is like. Even a life of
promise has limits. He continues,
“So
teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” This wisdom always
begins with this: "The Lord gives.
The Lord takes away." Life and Life’s promise belongs to God. Even the gift of life, forever remains a
gift.
The New Testament wisdom is not any
different. Jesus called the man a ‘fool’ who built barns and filled them
to insure his future. When he built his
last barn, and thought his future was now secure, this is when God said to him,
"Fool, Tonight your soul is
required of you" (Luk3 12:20).
Or what about those words of First Peter, echoing both Jesus and the
Psalmist: “You have been born anew, not
of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of
God. For ‘All flesh is like grass and
all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower
falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever.’ That word is the good news
that was announced to you (1 Pet. 1:23-25 NRS). Here,
throughout the Bible, the first and last lesson of biblical wisdom remains the
same: "The Lord gives. The Lord
takes away." All that we are,
all that we have, and all that we ever hope to be, comes from God and returns
to God.
When God tested Abraham, the ‘test’ was
about the ultimate ‘ownership’ of the
promise. Like Abraham, we are given
God’s promise, but the promise still belongs to God. This means that even when we receive the
promise of life, we still can’t own it. We
are stewards, managers, and custodians of the promise, but the promise still belongs
to God.
Like Abraham, you and I, are also be
tested as to whether or not we know this, believe this, trust this, or live
this: that all things come from God and ultimately depend on God. That's the test. That is the ultimate test for any one of us. Are you able to let go of everything in the
trust that the Lord owns and will continue to deliver on the promise? That is the meaning of the offering of Isaac. Do we trust this God who gives us the gift and
promise of life? Will we continue to trust
that God gives us the promise, no matter what happens in this life?
Martin Luther rediscovered this radical,
biblical understanding of faith, and coined the phrase, "We are saved by our trusting in God's grace
alone." He also wrote a hymn, "A Mighty Fortress is Our
God," where he spoke of complete, radical, unreserved faith in
God: “Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also. “ This is exactly what Abraham was called to
do at the beginning of the story, to "let
goods go." He was called to leave Ur of Chaldees, leave all his
possessions, and travel the world as a nomad, trusting in God alone, that God
would lead him to the fulfillment of the promise. Now, at the age of 100, at the end of the
story, Abraham is now being called to "let
kindred go." And when God
asked Abraham to “take your son, your
only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him
there as a burnt offering on one of
the mountains of which I shall tell you" (22:2), as any loving parent knows, God was then asking him to let ‘this mortal life’ go, even his own
life.
Of course, none of us would ever want to
go there; where our own child is taken from us.
But it does happen in life. As I
said earlier, a child can be born with a terrible, incurable disease. A child, your child too, can be, God forbid,
killed tragically in an accident. What about all those innocent children
senselessly murdered at Sandy Hook, or at First Baptist Sutherland Springs, or
those children who die unexpectedly, or suffer physical, emotional, or mental
illnesses, and parents have to give them up and release them to God?
My wife and I adopted a wonderful little
girl, who had all sorts of promise in her.
She had such amazing energy and personality. She traveled, experienced the world, before
she could talk. She spoke two languages,
fluently. She was smart, strong, with
all kinds of promise, then, at the age of 11, her brain began to fall
apart. She struggled socially, then
academically, and then her life was at risk.
She had to be put in a home for girls, for her own protection. She spent time in counseling, mental
evaluations, and then, there was medicine.
None of it worked. She wouldn’t
take it. She finally got married. Lost her three children (our grandchildren),
and her husband too. She doesn’t have
contact with them, or with us. “Mom, Dad, I’m not like you! I can’t think like you, or be like you, she
always said.” She’s never been rebellious or mean to
us. She’s always polite, but she can’t
be who she knows she’s supposed to be.
She’s the kindest, most caring, mixed up minded person. Now that she’s almost thirty, all we can do,
is give her back to the God who gave her to us. It hurts, but we also find healing and hope,
too, when we release her, and give her back to God. “The
Lord gives…The Lord takes away. Blessed Be the Name of the Lord! In other words: Thank God anyway. Trust God anyway. Hope in God, anyway!
NOW
I KNOW THAT YOU FEAR GOD
Fortunately, putting our trust in God is
intended to ‘give’ not ‘take’. This is
why Abraham’s test ends with life, not death.
As Isaac is laid on the altar, Abraham was fully prepared to carry out
the command. He trusted that he ‘Lord
would provide’, but he did not know how.
But then, the voice of God intervenes, saying, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for NOW I
KNOW THAT YOU FEAR GOD, since you have not withheld your son, your only son,
from me...And behold, there was a ram standing by. Abraham took the ram, and
offered it as a burnt offering instead of his son (12-13)."
The last line in the story is most
important. It shows us what it means
that Abraham ‘fears God’. It does not mean that Abraham is afraid of
God, but it means Abraham trusts, respects, and lives to follow and obey God
for his life. So, after Abraham ‘offers the ram’ as his sacrifice
instead of his son, Abraham then named
that place, "The Lord will provide”
(14). This line is repeated to
reflect the ‘trust’ that God demands and that life demands, if he (or we) would
find hope and promise in life. "The Lord will provide." The
God who gives us life in the first place, is able to give it to us again.
When I preach this story, I don’t preach
it with great excitement. It is not
really a hero story. It is such a
difficult story. It is a story which
symbolizes the hard, overwhelming tests of faith that come to our own
lives. And I not only think of those
who have been able to pass the tests, like Abraham, or like Jesus, but I also
think and pray for those have failed test of faith, and may be going through
the test right now, and don’t know whether or not, they can maintain trust and
faith in God.
I think of that young 17 year old girl,
who committed suicide in a church on day I had preached my first sermon. Some in the family came to get me after the
service. It was a painful and hard way
to begin my ministry. Later, learned that
she pulled the trigger on her life, because she could not measure up to the
successes of her younger sister. The loss of hope, of faith, and even love was
heartbreaking. Her parents were
devastated. I also think of many
others, who have been through the tests of life’s struggles, having bad
parents, bad illnesses, or just plain ole bad luck in life. Some of these get through by the ‘skin of
their teeth’, but a lot of them loss faith altogether. If you listen closely to the stories of
people who don’t come to church, you’ll often hear expressions of hurt. What does this story say to a person
struggling with a life or a faith that does not turn out as we want, or even as
it should? Can still believe, no matter
what happens, or whose fault it is, or isn’t, that the God who has given us
life in the first place, can give it to us again? If we lose all that we have, all the things which
bring us hope or security---all the things that bring us pleasure, meaning,
purpose, and beauty in our life, can we let them go? Can we give them to God?
We constantly see pain and loss in this
world. It could be pain of refugees
losing their homes, the pain of
immigrates trying to find a one, people losing their loved ones in wars,
violence, or natural disasters like
earthquakes, floods, fires, or hurricanes.
Sometimes I also think of my own grandparents and parents, who also
lived through the great depression. Some
of them kept faith, and others of them loss faith altogether. I also think of some of you, who have been
through loss yourself---who have lost those precious to you, or who are right
now, dealing with the loss yourself, either loss of physical health, loss of
children, spouses, or others who mean so much to you. I am
one of you. I’m not immune to loss
either. In some ways, we are all facing
the same ‘test’ Abraham faced. And the
question that comes to us, is will we be able to say and believe the same thing
Abraham believed: “The Lord will provide!”
I have been privileged to know many of
those people, those who have lost their future, everything that they worked
for. It is just amazing. They say, "The
Lord will provide." Have you observed someone like that? Aren’t you amazed at people who keep faith,
no matter what? Mark Trotter, whom I owe
credit for much of this sermon, tells of an article he once read by Paul
O'Brien. O’Brien once wrote an article
reflecting about people who had experienced tremendous losses in their life. He focused particularly on literary
personalities, and how they coped with it. He talked about William Thackery, once wrote a
manuscript for a novel, which was accidently destroyed by a servant. Upon
hearing the news, Thackery simply sat down and started writing again. O’Brien also wrote about a Chinese scholar,
Zhu Guangquan, who painstakingly translated Hegel's philosophical works into
Chinese. Then, during the "reign of
terror", when communism took over China, his home was searched, and the manuscript
was confiscated. He announced that he would simply start translating again.
O'Brien marveled at their resolve, concluding
that what Thackery and Professor Zhu have in common is a belief, a trust, that
their lives are not their own, but that they live for a larger, greater purpose. And just like these men, while we are all
responsible for what we do, we are not responsible for the outcomes of what we
do. We cannot control the future. We cannot control the outcomes. We cannot determine what happens. The future belongs to an outcome that is
greater than ‘me’, or ‘you’, and ‘us’.
Isn’t this why Jesus said,
“Whoever comes after me, must deny himself?” That’s sounds a little like ‘sacrificing
Isaac’, doesn’t it? We give ourselves to
God, and we trust that God can give us our lives back again.
T. S. Eliot, the great poet, once wrote
that half the harm in the world is done
by people who want to feel important. That's where the problem comes in. We all want to feel important. We want to be somebody. We want to have something. There is nothing wrong with that. We are all born that way. We want our lives to have meaning, purpose,
and significance, but the problem comes in when fail to give ourselves to God’s
greater purpose, which can only be given and received by grace. We go after life. We try to seize life. We try to control it. We try to squeeze everything out of it. We try to gain the lime light. It becomes hard for us to imagine, especially
in a culture with so much, that life is not finally about what we gain, have or
want, but that life is about what we give, sacrifice, let go of, and devote to
God’s greater purposes. The models that are often held up to us in our
culture, are the models of people with oversized egos who talk about me, me, me
all the time, without apology and without embarrassment. Who could believe that you could really have a
life, or that this big world, or even this great universe, could ever have
really just been about you? How dumb is
that?
Who doesn’t love the story about
Muhammad Ali, who was on airplane. The flight attendant said to him before they
took off, "Please fasten your seat
belt." He said to the flight attendant, "Superman don't need no seat belt." The flight attendant said,
"Superman don't need no airplane
either. Please, fasten your seatbelt."
The greatest disease of this world comes
into play, not when we find ourselves up against losses, struggles, and tests
of faith. No, the greatest disease in
this world is when we try to reduce life down to just what I have, what I feel,
or what I want. While there is a lot of
psychology still be discovered about why a person would enter into a church and
gun down innocent people, or why a man would randomly shoot people on a street,
or why a person would get so hurt, so sick, or so angry, that they would lash
out and take all kinds of people down with them, what we need to know is that this is the kind
of sickness that begins to surface, in a society bows down before the god of
‘me, me, me’!’
In a more positive note, think about a
basketball game, a baseball game, soccer or football game, where after the game
is over, the star player or players are being interviewed about their amazing
feats, but he or she is constantly reminding the viewers, that after this win,
it was never about just one play, or one or a couple of players, but that it was always about the team or
another player. It was only when the
players thought more about the ‘team’ than about themselves, that they were
able to win the game. Only when they
gave up thinking about accolades, records, or self-achievements, were they able
to gain what the game was about. Once
when Al McGuire was coach of Marquette University, they won the NCAA
championship. How did it happen? McGuire said that one day he took their best
player, Butch Lee aside. Butch was an
extraordinarily gifted player, who had difficulty sharing anything with anybody
else, so Coach McGuire said, "Butch,
the game is forty minutes long. If you divide that between two teams, it means
that each team has the ball about twenty minutes. There are five players on
each team. That means that each player has the ball about four minutes. Now Butch, I know what you can do with that
ball for four minutes. But what I
don't know is what you are going to do for the other thirty-six minutes. CAN YOU LET SOMEBODY ELSE HAVE THE
BALL?"
Whatever we say about Abraham’s test, or
his life, or even his child, it was never about Abraham nor was it really about
Isaac (Isaac never amounted to much in the biblical story). No, this story is not about these people, but
it was about faith and trust. It was
about giving everything to God, so that
God can give you back what you could never gain for yourself.
So, this is my final question for us
today: Can you let your life go? Can you decrease so that somebody else
can increase? Are you mature enough? Are you trusting enough? Can you let go, and go where God leads? This is what the Bible means by faithful. Are you mature enough realize that when you
let your of your life, your ego, your opinion, or your will , you will still
shine in God’s future? If you sacrifice;
if you give, do you believe the Lord will still provide?
The most difficult application of this
kind of test is when we have to let go of someone we love. It is no accident that the great task of
grief work is called "letting go." It is only by letting go, that you
can find life again. You’ve got to give
everything to this God who is the only one who can promise to give what you
lose back again. This is why Abraham called the name of the
place of faith, "The Lord Will
Provide." "Not as the world gives do I give to you,” Jesus
said. Jesus
assures us again, that in God’s way and in God’s time, “The Lord will provide,” even if it’s not in the way we expect or anticipate.
This is the ‘place’ of faith and trust,
that is our only hope.
James Angell, a Presbyterian minister,
was awakened on Saturday night, in the middle of the night, with a phone call. It was the Saturday before Easter. The phone
call was the Highway Patrol telling him that his twenty-one year old daughter,
Susan, has been killed in an automobile accident. Susan was on her way home. She was going to
spend Easter Sunday with her mother and father. She was killed on the way home.
With courage and with faith that should
make us marvel, Jim Angell, just a few hours after receiving that news, entered
his pulpit on that Sunday morning, and preached on the victory that Christ has
given us over death through his Resurrection. Later he wrote a book about those days, a
beautiful little book called, O Susan!
In that book, he said there is a long
period when the loss seems to be more than you can bear. It is like you are at
the end of the rope, and you have to hold on while you tie a knot at the end,
for something to keep holding on to.
Then, he said, in that dark moment, something
happens. It happens to people in in
different ways and at different times. But
for him it happened this way. A dear and trusted friend came into his study one
day, and talked bluntly to him. He said, "Jim, you've got to face this. For the rest of your life this is a fact
that you just have to live with. You can do two things about it. You can use it, use your fresh depth of
feeling to make life finer, or you can let it crush you, and go through the
rest of your life whimpering.
Angell wrote that those words from his
friend reminded him of the words of the hymn, "Shun not the struggle, face
it. 'Tis God's gift." This gift is not the accident. It’s not the
tragedy and it’s not the sorrow. These
are not God's gift, but God’s gift is the grace, the power to use those events
to find hope, and to learn how to trust. This is what Abraham was doing when he told
his servants, as he left the donkeys to go up on the mountain alone with his
son. He told them, in trust and faith: “We will worship, and then we will come back
to you” (5).
What did Abraham meant is exactly what Jim
Angell realized, when he had to let his daughter go. When he found the grace and faith to let her
go, this is when he found life again. We know Abraham passed the test, just like we will
know it too. We know it when we walk
through both life and death, and can still say, “The Lord gives….The Lords takes away… but whatever happens, "The Lord will provide." Amen.
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