Readings (Track 1)
Looking back at God’s deliverance at the Red Sea, one of the psalms: “Your way was in the sea, / and your paths in the great waters, / yet your footsteps were not seen” (77:19). One reader summarizes: “God makes a way where there is no way.” God makes a way where there is no way: that’s perhaps the most important thing to learn from our first reading.
The story gives us something of both God’s and Abraham’s perspectives; let’s look at both.
God’s perspective. “After these things God tested Abraham.” Why a test, and why such an extreme test? Recall the project as announced in Genesis 12: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” God’s future with the human family is riding on Abraham. As Mark Twain put it, “Some folk say not to put all your eggs in one basket. I say: ‘Put all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket!”
Why such an extreme test? Well, recall Abraham’s servant’s words: “The LORD has greatly blessed my master, and he has become wealthy; he has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male and female slaves, camels and donkeys.” So is Abraham serving God for God’s sake, or for the flocks and herds? Throughout the history of Israel and the Church this has been one of the recurrent core questions. Pick your favorite worst moment in the Church’s history, and this issue is probably at the core. What was the bottom line in the Spanish conquest of the Americas: God or Gold? We have “In God we trust” on our currency. Really? And in which god are we trusting? As the Book of Job frames the question, is God worth serving for nothing? At least, please God, may Abraham, the Father of the faithful, get it right.
So I think we hear sheer relief on God’s part toward the end of the story: “The angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, ‘By myself I have sworn, says the LORD: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.’”
No less intense, of course, was the experience from Abraham’s perspective.
Our issue, how God could command human sacrifice, would not have been Abraham’s. While prohibited in the Law of Moses, it does not seem to have died out in popular religion until the destruction of the Temple in the 6th Century BC.
Rather, the issue both for Abraham and the Bible itself: what happens when the promise of God and the command of God are in conflict. “I will make of you a great nation;” and just how is the sacrifice of Isaac part of that?
Gideon —one of the judges—with God’s promise to deliver Israel from the Midianites. And what does God command? Get rid of most of your army.
Ahaz —King of Judah— caught between a very hungry Egyptian Empire and an equally hungry Assyrian Empire. Isaiah the prophet issues God’s command: call all your ambassadors home, tear up the mutual assistance treaties, trust in God alone.
Jesus, with “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased,” ringing in his ears. If there was ever a mandate for action, there it was. And so he meets the tempter in the wilderness, and the command of God as recorded in the Law of Moses vetos all the tempter’s suggestions for putting the Kingdom on the fast track.
If Jesus is not going to turn stones into bread, not going to let the angels deliver him very miraculously & very publicly, not going to negotiate with the one credible power broker this side of heaven, what future does Jesus’ Kingdom have?
God has given us some breathtaking promises. An almost inevitably —that’s why there are so many stories of this in the Bible— we encounter situations in which the promise of God and the command of God are in conflict.
In countries where it’s dangerous to be a Christian, Christian parents face this challenge. Raise our son or daughter as a Christian, or let the local mosque/temple/party headquarters handle their formation? In other contexts there’s still the challenge captured by Thomas More in Bolt’s A Man for all Seasons: “But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought…” Nevertheless we raise our children to be more like Thomas More than, say, Richard Rich, whose perjury at More’s trial greased the skids for his execution.
Sometimes it’s more narrowly focused, some version of the warning with which last week’s Gospel ended: “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
In these situations the rationale for the command may be opaque, without rhyme or reason. We need the parish around us in such moments, not only to keep us confusing God’s command with our own fears, but also, when it is God’s command, to remind us that Abraham, Gideon & Jesus don’t make bad company.
So we pick up the knife, pick up the fire, and walk with Isaac up the hill. What happens when we get there is not in our control. Abraham got a divine voice and a ram. Gideon sent the Midianites packing. Hezekiah, Ahaz’ son, was rescued from the Assyrian army. Jesus got three nails, a cross, and a crown to go with it. And on the third day that turned out to be the case of God making a way where there was no way. What is in our control is our obedience, our witness.
All well and good —some of us may be thinking— unless you’re the ram. The Jews, out of their generations of experience in serving God “for nothing” have a story about this.
Rabbi Hanina ben Dossa said: Nothing of this sacrifice was lost. The ashes were dispersed in the Temple’s sanctuary; the sinews David used as cords for his harp; the skin was claimed by the prophet Elijah to clothe himself; as for the two horns, the smaller one called the people together at the foot of Mt Sinai, and the larger one will resound one day announcing the coming of the Messiah.”[1]
And so we follow this God who makes a way where there is no way into the coming week.
[1] Wiesel Messengers of God 101.
With Jacob at Bethel 