I Don't Like It!

Genesis 22:1-14

After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “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 that I shall show you.”

So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together. When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son.

But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “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 Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

It’s horribly disturbing… this story from Genesis… and I don’t like it. I don’t. A “testing” God is not the sort of God I’d pick. A “go kill your son” God is not the sort of God I’d pick either! And while we’re on what I don’t like, I also don’t like that Abraham mindlessly responds to God’s insane request to kill his son, by saying, “Alright, sure.” I don’t like ANY of it. But, there it is… this horribly disturbing, awfully confusing, terrible story… just sitting there… demanding that we deal with it. Have I mentioned I don’t like it?

Well, I don’t! Because it just sits there.  It doesn’t suggest or even ask… it INSISTS that faith in THIS God will not be simple nor can it be casual. It will be deadly serious… “Go and sacrifice your son” serious… and God must be taken as God is. God is not a buffet from which we can pick and choose the parts we want and leave the rest behind. This story DEMANDS that somehow, we, like Abraham, hold all of God together in our faith. The God who makes impossible and deadly demands, AND ALSO the God who promises to provide not just life, but a life that is as abundant as the stars in the sky and as infinite as the grains of sand on the beach. Sound impossible? You’re in good company! I haven’t been able to do it! Even Martin Luther confessed he couldn’t do it, but still the story insists that is exactly what we must do to be faithful!

Because it’s SO VERY HARD we often try to cheat and just pick just the one part of God we want for the moment. Sometimes we pick the God of deadly demands, insisting that God hate exactly the same people we hate. In those moments we dismiss any idea that God is, at the very same moment, also a God of unlimited, unconditional love and grace. In those moments we imagine that we have the power to tie God’s hand of grace-filled providing behind God’s back and send God out to do some serious smiting! But this story insists, that’s not God!

In the next moment we attempt to lock up the God of deadly demands saying, “That’s the OLD Testament God, not my God.” My God is only a God of only unlimited love and grace, compassion and forgiveness, generosity and abundance. We don’t have a God who makes deadly demands or gives life or death tests!  But this story insists, that’s not God either!

In this story, as Abraham reaches the top of the mountain in Moriah, he also reaches the pinnacle... the goal of our faith. There, he does what Luther couldn’t do… certainly what I have never been able to do! There on the mountaintop he holds together these seemingly dispirit aspects of God, and accepts that God will always be God. Abraham says “yes” to the God of impossible tests and deadly demands and walks toward the mountain of sacrifice AND with every step he is also absolutely sure… completely convinced… totally certain… that God… and this God alone without any help from Abraham, will provide exactly the right thing… and will provide it with as much generosity as God used when God put stars in the sky and sand on the beach.

I don’t know about you, but my faith is not yet an “Abraham on the mountain top” level. I still try to “help” God out, give God advice, or try to strong arm God, insisting God should do things my way in the world. It doesn’t ever work. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still try! I still want God to change the people I want changed, the way I want them to change! (maybe even some selected smiting?) I still want God to be more grace than consequences, more gospel than law, more resurrection than death, more light than darkness. And all the time God just keeps being the God of ALL of it, ALL of it... TOGETHER… grace AND consequences, law AND gospel, death AND resurrection, light AND darkness, all at the same time.

I do think, however, there is Good News in this story which calls us to what seems like an impossible destination... this mountaintop level of faith. And that is that this God of ours… this God of both command and promise, is accepting of us even though we’ve not yet reached the mountaintop. This God of both command and promise is willing to work with us. To meet  us right where we are today. To help us and hold us, pulling us and pushing us with both command and promise to move us along the Way in this life of ours. God is accepting of where we are, but is also determined that where we are, is NOT where we will stay! After all, Abraham wasn’t ALWAYS at this mountain top level of faith either, you know! There are 11 chapters before this story describing a series of epic faith plants that Abraham made as he walked toward this mountaintop!

The path toward faithfulness is a journey. Growing deeper in relationship with God takes a lifetime. It takes a lifetime to grow toward a place where we can trust that God to use both deadly serious command and unfathomable providential promise in order to keep us moving along the Way. Getting moved along by God will not always feel good. It will sometimes, actually, look and feel and BE full-on horrible! But we walk this path, just like Abraham walked his path, pushed with commands and pulled with promise, ALL while living within the covenant which God has made with each of us.  That covenant that promises each of us has been created in Divine love. That God will be with us always as we walk, and as we fall… all along the path of this life. That God will meet us where we are, but never leave us where we were found. That God will push us and pull us, not for some Divine twisted pleasure, but so that we might experience the abundant life God created us to live!  And that no matter how long it takes, God will never leave us stuck along the way. Amen.