I admit, quite freely and without coercion: I have a lot of trouble with the story in Genesis 22. What father who loves his son would submit to sacrifice him? I get to preach on this text on Saturday night (the narrative lectionary) and I don't know, yet, how my interpretation of the story will go over.
Does the fact that I struggle with this story reveal the nature of this text; namely, that one's life of faith is one of struggling and listening to God? I find it not so difficult to say that I struggle with a text from scripture, but how many people who sit in the pews want to know that I don't have all the answers for life? Frankly, from my perspective, I want to hear words from a preacher that reveal vulnerability and challenge.
Maybe the kernel of faith of this text lay in its ability to speak to all of humanity about our personal and communal perceptions of God. Maybe, just maybe, the ideas that I have about God and the ideas that my community instill in me don't really understand God. I am more and more convinced that my meager understanding of God and what my community of faith teaches to me, pale in comparison to the reality of God that sometimes smacks me in the face.
Literarily speaking, this story foreshadows the impact of God's willingness to submit to sacrifice of self for all of humanity in a world that knows nothing more than violence. As Isaac's life is spared for father Abraham, God will submit to the same kind of sacrificial love and yet not stay the knife. Death will come to Jesus, in the Gospels, and God will place the imprimatur of approval on Jesus' own death by Resurrection on the third day. All of this reveals the extent of God's compassion for all of humanity; God's willingness to go the "extra mile".
Come struggle with us Saturday night at 5pm. We will struggle with the challenge of why God allows such an atrocity and why people of faith allow such a text of terror to be part of holy writ.
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