I am afraid I am going to repeat myself because I have often mentioned that the Book of Genesis was written during the Exile, when the Jews were living in captivity in Babylon, after they had lost their land, their city and their temple. We have already talked about how putting their stories into writing would help the Jews preserve their sense of identity among foreigners and foreign gods, and also we have seen how these stories would help them cope and keep their faith alive after they had lost so much. And yet, I have to mention this point again today because it seems to me absolutely necessary to understand that to be able to enter the difficult narrative of “the sacrifice of Abraham”. To tell you the truth, this past week, I have been a little bit discouraged with the incredible amount of commentaries that have been written on this passage of the Scriptures, all of them pondering how God could make this terrible demand on Abraham. Most authors tried very hard to make sense of it, plus or less successfully, while some of them gave up entirely on the story- a priest said plainly that he had decided to never ever preach about this passage because he couldn’t accept such a cruel God. I can’t say he was absolutely wrong in saying that God is cruel in this story, but pretending the story isn’t here is not very helpful either.
In fact, what occurred to me, as I was reading again and again about all the possible meanings of the story, and as I was also trying to make sense of it, what happened is that I have started to wonder if actually we don’t miss the whole point of the story by trying so hard to find its meaning. I have started to wonder if the sense of dread, absurdity and terror that can easily fill us while reading the story, instead begging to be dismissed, isn’t actually the whole point of the story. Because this is indeed a story of dread, absurdity and terror: God giving a son, the “unique”, the “beloved one”, as the author mentions, only to have him sacrificed a few chapters later. Why would God make a promise, only to take it away, and in the worst way possible? It does not make any sense. Well, “Exactly“. It all looks like it does not make any sense, and this is exactly how I think the Jewish people would have felt during the Exile in Babylon: Why would God make them the promise of a people, of a land and a holy city, why would God give them all these things they longed for during centuries, all of this only to take take it all away at the hands of their enemies? Why would God ask them to renounce everything they held so dear? Wouldn’t it be awfully cruel of God to do such a thing? In this perspective, if you will, the story of Abraham sacrificing his son was their way to process in faith what was happening to them.
And so, before going any further, I think this is what we need to be able to do as well if we want to understand a little bit more this passage: Rather than rushing to try to give it a meaning, we need to sit with those unpleasant thoughts that fill our hearts as we hear the story. And as we pay attention to those feelings, they may not seem so unfamiliar after all. Yes, we are well educated Christians who certainly have believed for millenniums that sacrificing children is certainly not the way to go. And yet, can’t we relate, just a little bit, to this fear and even terror that God would ask us to renounce or take away from us what we hold the most dear? Haven’t we ever had the sneaking suspicion that maybe God is not the one we believe God is, that God can be cruel and unfair, that maybe God does not care about us the way we are taught God does? One theologian says that, lurking in the pages of the Bible, there is a “dark God”casting a shadow on the gracious God we have come to confess. I think this is pretty accurate, and I think it’s in the Bible for a reason, because sometimes this is just how it is, this is just how we feel: a tragedy occurs and life stops making sense, the world stops making sense, and God stops making sense with it. The Jews in Babylon would listen to the story and know exactly how Abraham was feeling. And I think we know that too.
And so the Jews told this story in Babylon because it was good to be able to relate to Abraham’s experience, Abraham the father of all the faithful ones. If God stopped making sense to Abraham, maybe it was all right for the Jews to question their faith too. And then, if Abraham came to the other side of this time of trial, maybe the Jews could imitate him too. Maybe they would come on the other side too. And maybe that’s a first point of the story: In the midst of all this nonsense, Abraham’s response to God is faith. Abraham does not refuse God’s demand even if he cannot find the meaning of it. He acts to the best of his knowledge in trust and obedience, going on his way in spite of the pain, waiting on God to sort it all out. And maybe that’s already a response for us as well, that when everything stops making sense, we still should be willing to do to the best of our abilities, and to the best of our understanding. But mainly I think the story is about God, about “waiting on God” to see what it is exactly that God has to say. God will stop Abraham’s hand at the last minute because of course it does not make any sense to sacrifice Isaac. God does not give to take away. To me this is actually the meaning of the story, that yes indeed nothing about it makes sense and so, surely, this is certainly not what is going on. God abandoning his people in Babylon, it does not make sense as certainly as it wouldn‘t make any sense that God would ask Abraham to slay his son. If anything, it’s just a test. And so, it’s a terrible story of course, but this is a very good story in time where all seem lost, when you sit in the midst of the ruins of what you used to call your life. The exiles with come back from Babylon and rebuild the holy city as surely as Isaac was unbound, jumped off the altar and went down the mountain to get married and have his two babies, Esau and Jacob, Jacob who will father the people of Israel, the offspring God promised to Abraham.
All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well said Jesus to the mystic Julian of Norwich. This trust, this is to me what faith is all about. Waiting on God, acting to the best of our knowledge and to the best of our abilities, trusting that God will overcome evil and death and fulfill God’s promises, even when nothing make sense anymore. Some will say that maybe it does not make any sense to believe in spite of everything, when everything seems to prove us wrong, but maybe this is the only thing that actually makes sense in the world in which we live. We have a very short passage of Matthew’s Gospel today, that is the conclusion of the text we have read from these past two weeks: Jesus sending his disciples on a mission to the people of Israel, bringing them the hope of the kingdom of God at a time when again, the Jews seemed to have lost everything in the hands of the Romans. Bringing the hope of the kingdom in the world we live in, this is certainly what we are invited to do as Christians, and we can certainly remember that on this day where we celebrate Jeri’s baptism. As she professes her faith, so we renew also our commitment. And after all we have said about Abraham’s heroic faith, I love it that Jesus tells the disciples that it can be as simple as offering a cup of water. This is for exceptional circumstances and this is for right here and right now. Jesus reminds us that nothing is small when done in faith, nothing is lost when done in love and there is nothing that cannot make sense when we have hope.