Look Up

Genesis 22:1-14

I am indebted to a large list of resources for this sermon- Dr. Ellen Davis’s sermon at Duke Chapel, the Rev. Ben Madison’s article for Mockingbird (CW: foster care), My Jewish Learning’s article The Binding of Isaac, My Jewish Learning’s article Seeing the Ram, this week’s Pulpit Fiction podcast episode, and conversations with parishioners. Please note that this sermon and the passage it refers to deals with child sacrifice and abuse. No matter what any preacher or religious leader might have told you, please know this: physical, verbal, emotional, or sexual violence are NOT God’s dream for you, and should never be part of faithful Christian relationships or ANY relationships. If you or someone you love is experiencing violence in their home or relationship, please visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline or call 1-800-799-7233 or contact me directly for help finding services where you live. Help and safety are possible, and you are worthy of both.

The binding of Isaac has been disturbing people for over 4000 years. As part of Genesis, it is one of the first stories of what we now know as the Bible to have been written down. Even before that, it was being told and memorized and passed down from generation to generation. Abraham’s choices about his children and God’s words to him have been discussed around fires and in gathering places and in seminaries and monasteries for longer than the human mind can fathom. Countless books and poems and works of art have been created about it, and just this week I’ve read six sermons and articles and listened to two podcast episodes about it. I have yet to find someone who likes this story. In fact, one of the sermons I read was by a very famous Old Testament scholar who said she would like to remove this entire chapter from the Bible on the basis that it is way too off-putting. She has not been the only person, over the course of history, to make the argument, and yet this story remains. For 4000 years, for some reason, the story of divinely mandated child sacrifice and an angelically delivered last-minute change of plans has remained in our collective consciousness. For some reason, as much as we hate it, we have chosen not to forget Isaac, or Abraham, or the complicated relationship between an unreliable narrator and the God he worshipped. We are still reading this story, so there must be something important amidst all the shock and disgust.

I will not pretend that I am about to solve the problem of this story for you. I can’t, or someone would have done it already. As I mentioned, there are nearly 4000 years of writings on this story, and we keep wrestling with it or else avoiding it altogether. Abraham’s willingness to both believe in a God who would ask him to murder his own son, and to then do such a thing, has been enough for many to dismiss the entirety of the Hebrew Bible as irrelevant to Christianity. It has been enough for some to reject the entire religious enterprise of the three major monotheistic religions, all of whom share this story and these characters in common. Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scholars who are much smarter and more well-read than me have a lot of ideas about why on earth we would tell such a story in the first place, and what it tells us about God and humanity. I’d like to offer just a few of those ideas and invite you to ponder them with me and 4000 years’ worth of ancestors.

First, let us recall who exactly Abraham and Isaac are. Abraham has been called, along with his wife Sarah, to leave everything and everyone behind in their homeland and journey to a new place that the Lord will provide for them. Abraham has been given a promise from God, that he will be the father of as many descendants as there are stars in the sky. Isaac is the fulfilment of that promise, a child who will carry on his lineage and the covenant relationship with their God. Abraham, however, consistently chooses to hedge his bets in the off chance that God does not make good on the promise. Rather than trust in God’s promised protection, Abraham lies about the identity of his wife, opening her up to mistreatment by powerful men in a foreign land not once but twice. Rather than trust in the fertility God has promised him with his wife, Abraham fathers a child with an enslaved young woman, and then casts her and the child aside at the first opportunity. Abraham fully admits that it is Isaac, not Ishmael his firstborn, who he considers to be his only son and heir. Abraham may be the father of the covenant faith, but he is not exactly a perfect role model.

So, one could see why, when hearing this story of Abraham nearly killing his own child, faithful people over the millennia have come to different conclusions about whether or not Abraham was even actually asked to do it. Perhaps, like so many believers of so many religions, Abraham made a choice based on what he thought his God would expect from him, only to discover that the violent impulse was a human one, not a divine command. Perhaps Abraham assumed, like other contemporary religions of his day, that his God expected child sacrifice, and was only able to understand in hindsight how out of character such a thing would be from the God who gave him not one but two children near the end of his long life. But the text itself records the sacrifice as a decree from the voice of God, and for all this time no editor has chosen to edit that or give God a chance to save face. So as much as we might let our imaginations fill in the blanks, we must reckon with the words on the page.

Abraham does not dawdle but rises early and gathers all the ingredients for the horrible deed quickly. He brings two young men, servants of his household, and a donkey to carry the load. When they reach the place of sacrifice, Abraham tells the two servants to stay behind. Abraham tells them “The boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” We, he tells them. The boy and I, we will come back to you. Maybe he’s just covering up the shame of what he believes he is about to do, or maybe it’s more than that. Maybe on some level, Abraham is finally starting to trust that God will keep God’s promises. Maybe Abraham trusts that, although he does not yet know how, God will send him back home with his precious promised son by his side. Maybe in this moment, Abraham is making his own promise, to return Isaac to the mother who named him and fiercely protected him. Maybe.

Abraham may not be a paragon of parenthood, but he does choose not to hand his son the knife or the flame that could injure him on the way. He may not be making the choice we want him to make, but Abraham speaks tenderly to Isaac, calling him the affectionate name for “my son” when addressing him. It feels important to acknowledge that Abraham loved his son. I think it’s important to admit that we can love someone and hurt them too. Too much abuse goes unnamed when we believe it cannot coexist with love.

When bright young Isaac asks his father a question, Abraham tells his son something important about God that will shape the rest of their lives and beyond. God will provide. Abraham has no idea how right he is, how prophetic.  There is a Jewish midrash that the ram provided to Abraham was always there. Not that it miraculously appeared after the intervention of the angel, but that it had been stuck in that thicket from the moment Abraham and Isaac arrived on the site. Why else would God choose that particular place for Abraham to stop and worship? Abraham said it himself; God would provide the offering. So, perhaps the ram was always there, hiding in plain sight. Perhaps Abraham is so focused on what he believes God wants from him, on the knife in his hand and the child on the altar, that he does not see what God has provided. Perhaps Abraham is not listening, and that is why the angel has to shout his name twice in order to stop his hand. Abraham is still stuck, trusting himself more than he trusts God, and he almost makes an unfathomable mistake because of it. But then he looks up. Abraham looks up, and that change in perspective changes everything. Abraham looks up from the single-minded practice of violent religion, and sees another way, another choice.

How often would looking up make all the difference in the world? How often could one small perspective shift save a life, or a multitude of lives, or the planet on which we depend for every breath? So many people in this world are barreling through life with their heads down, so sure of what God expects of them, unable to see the better way God has provided. So many of us are carrying a knife or a flame, ready to sacrifice others on the altar of our fear. We have let our lives become too loud to hear the voices of the messengers calling for us to stop, to do no harm, to look up. If this much hated, much distrusted, much discussed story teaches us anything at all, I hope it teaches us to look up, to look again, to find a better way. God will always provide one.