LAKE JAMES
NORTH CAROLINA
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LAKE JAMES NORTH CAROLINA
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Lent II + 3/12/06 + St. Paul’s Church, Lake James
“God tested Abraham and said to him, ‘take your son, your only son Isaac whom you love. Go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt sacrifice.” What did we think, what did we feel, as those words were read? A former curate of mine used to say that he wondered why people don’t rise in horror when that story is heard! What about you? Some years ago, I visited a museum where there was an exhibit depicting an ancient shrine used for human sacrifices. There were photographs of the ruins, but even more interesting was a life-sized model of the temple with steps leading to a large stone altar. Next to the model was an artist’s rendition of what the scene was probably like as a priest raised a knife to kill the person who lay bound and terrified on the altar. I felt a great repugnance but also that fascination which, some forty or fifty years ago produced so many grade B films on that theme. Perhaps some of you can remember (as I do) Saturday afternoons at a local movie theatre watching the brave hero save the beautiful girl from her scheduled death on a pagan altar in a jungle. The Hebrews of Abraham’s day were a small tribe surrounded by a Canaanite majority and subject to the strong cultural and religious influences which usually beset any minority group. One particular feature of Canaanite worship was human sacrifice, a practice stoutly resisted by the Hebrews. It can be especially difficult for us in the 21st century to understand the values of ancient cultures concerning children. Quite simply, children were thought of as simply being property, the property of their fathers, who also had other possessions such as houses, land, animals, and yes, wives – a mind-set which is important to remember as we consider today’s reading from Genesis. In those days, for a male Hebrew to be the father of many offspring was a mark of distinction, but, by the same toke, to be the father of no children, was a great disgrace. Remember, God had once made a promise to Abraham, assuring him that he would be the father of many. At the time that promise was made, Abraham was already an old man and Sarah, his wife, was seemingly far beyond the age to bear children. They had lived long years under the cloud of being childless, suffering the shame and pain which went with being barren. Still, when God made the promise to Abraham, Abraham believed God. So, long years later, the birth of Isaac seemed to be a vindication of Abraham’s faith, a sign that God was finally making good on his promise. After all their years of waiting and hoping, Abraham and Sarah seemed about to enter a new phase of life, one of joy and fulfillment. But, like a soap opera, things didn’t go smoothly, and suddenly, we hear the dread words of today’s Bible reading: “Take your son, your only and beloved son Isaac, and offer him as a burnt sacrifice!” It is relatively easy to trust God (or anyone else) if we can understand how and why something we are asked to do may bring about a desired result. To diet faithfully should result in a loss of weight. To read the Bible regularly should bring a deeper understanding of our faith and its roots as well as greater knowledge of the Scriptures. Saving money should help with financial security. But how hard it is to trust when the outcome is uncertain, the risks pronounced, the costs are high, when we are not even clear as to the point of it all. For Abraham, the killing of his only son would mean not only the loss of a beloved child, but seemingly the destruction of the very person on whom he was relying for the fulfillment of God’s promise of many descendents. Rather than counting on what he had understood to be the means God would use for keeping his promise, Abraham was being asked to trust in God, and only in God. What does the Church intend us to understand by having this Old Testament lesson read, combined as it is, with our Gospel reading? What meaning are we to find in them? The original reason for the Genesis story was to explain to the Jews why they didn’t include human sacrifice in their worship and why that custom was so horrible. Through the centuries, however, Jewish emphasis went from just a condemnation of human sacrifice to an added interest in Isaac’s willingness to surrender his life. Later, the early Church saw that as a prefiguring of the Passover Lamb, a model of the death of Jesus. Since there had never been a Hebrew tradition that the Messiah would be killed, the Abraham story with its haunting words “Take your son, your only and beloved son…” served for St. Paul and the other first Christian theologians as a necessary “bridge” for the belief that the sacrificial death of Jesus on the Cross was an atonement for the sin of the world. When we, as modern day Christians, hear those chilling words “Take your son, your only and beloved son…” we are apt to relate them immediately to the biblical references to Jesus as the only begotten Son, the beloved of the Father. In that, we find a parallel between the Genesis story and today’s Gospel, except (and what an exception it is) that where Isaac was redeemed by a ram, God gave His Son to redeem us! Consider Our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel: “Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel’s, will save it.” If Abraham had just said “no!” to God, what kind of existence would Abraham and Isaac have had from that point on? What meaning would they have found in their lives? Would Abraham have saved or lost Isaac’s life – as well as his own? At its root, the word “sacrifice” means a total surrender of something precious. Today, we are vividly reminded that what God asks us to give up, to surrender, is whatever may keep us from obedience to His will. That’s true for us as individuals, and it’s true for this parish, for this diocese, for the American Church, for the entire world-wide Anglican Communion, and, of course, for all other Christians as well. Having been trained, as Father John and I both were in what is now the “old” prayer book, there are phrases which keep coming back to me and, in this context, I think of the wonderful statement in the old Prayer of Consecration which says: “and here, we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto Thee…” In the light of the Abraham story and the straight talk of today’s Gospel, offering the totality of who we are, who we really are, including our souls and bodies, to God – well, isn’t that what being a Christian is about?
+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The Reverend Alfred T. K. Zadig, Sr. |
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This page last modified on Friday, April 11, 2008 09:39 PM |
