Last Sunday I was the guest preacher at Irving Park Lutheran Church. Though my usual philosophy of substituting is to keep the sermon short and sweet, this week I actually preached a longer sermon than I would normally. The Old Testament text was the Binding of Isaac, one of the most challenging texts in the whole Bible, and I wanted to give the lesson its due. Jay commented, "When you are only at a church for one week you don't have to hold anything back!" So true. Thanks to Pr. Brooke Peterson for inviting me and the good people of Irving Park Lutheran for their warm hospitality.
Genesis 22:1-14, Romans 6:12-23, Matthew 10:40-42
Second Sunday after Pentecost, June 26th 2011
Irving Park Lutheran Church, Chicago, IL
Pr. Katie Hines-Shah
Grace and peace to you from God our Creator and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.
For those of you who might be wondering how Pastor Peterson got taller and became brunette over the last week, let me introduce myself. My name is Pr. Katie Hines-Shah. I'm part of Pr. Peterson's text study and having recently moved to Chicago from Berkeley I'm currently between churches and available to fill in. Pr. Peterson is off for some well-deserved rest and relaxation and I'm happy to be here with all of you.
I am especially happy to be here with all of you knowing how summer has a tendency to thin the ranks in the pews. Between the warm weather, vacation, baseball games, and street fairs there are many reasons not to attend church. When pastor is on vacation and some yahoo from California is filling in even stalwart members might be tempted to sleep in. Let me just be the first to say to you, the faithful, it is good to be here with everyone at Irving Park Lutheran who is going to heaven.
I am joking. But there is a grain of truth in everything I just said. As we enter into the summer and into the long green season of Pentecost it bears noting: Being a Christian can be hard work. It is easy to be a Christian on Easter and Christmas when the whole western world is in tune with our festivities and feasts. It is in the ordinary time when faith can become a slog and when our commitment can be tested.
I've been thinking about the slog of the ordinary a lot lately. As I have been on what we're calling my sabbatical for the last six months I've been focusing a great deal on having a healthy body, specifically on loosing weight.
The specific plan I've been following is the usual weight loss advice - basically a long slog of eat-less exercise-more. One small twist is that on this diet you are allowed to eat most fruits and vegetables freely. It's a pretty good way to nudge people toward better habits. But, of course, some people get creative.
Recently I read an on line post about a woman who claimed to be following the diet yet was frustrated by not loosing any weight. When other dieters asked her about her habits, specifically involving fruit and vegetable eating she said, "Oh, I don't like fruits or vegetables. Whenever I get hungry I just think, "Hmm, I'm hungry enough to eat an apple - an apple has about 80 calories - and then I eat 80 calories of candy instead." Hmmm - I wonder why the diet wasn't working for her...
Of course anything worthwhile may be challenging at times. Going to college is fun during parties and football games, less so during finals and while writing papers. Everyone loves a wedding, but the actual work of marriage is less glamorous. Baby showers T-Ball games and Christmas morning are great with kids. The chicken pox, orthodontist appointments, and calls from the principal somewhat less so. I'm sure you can come up with many other examples.
So today, on a slow summer Sunday during ordinary time, when we are confronted with one of the most difficult texts in the entirety of the Bible, it would be easy to reach for the candy of the short and sweet text from the Gospel of Matthew. But we are not going to do that my sisters and brothers! Not today! Because we are the few, the faithful, the people who come to church during the summer - and we are up for the challenge! Let me here an Amen here!
So here goes.
The Binding of Isaac, as I have said before, is among the most challenging texts of the Bible, so I am going to tell you upfront, we are not going to cover it completely to anyone's satisfaction here today. If Soren Kierkegaard couldn't do it in a whole book, than Pr. Katie and the good people of Irving Park Lutheran are not going to accomplish it in twelve minutes. But that's okay. Texts like this are the sorts of spiritual food that we can continue to chew on our whole lives long. The three great monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have and thought and wondered and dreamt this story for literally thousands of years. We will find something of value here.
I'll recap the back-story briefly. Abram, a desert nomad, and his barren wife Sarai are chosen by God. God gives them new names, Abraham and Sarah, and sends them to a new land with the promise that through them a great nation will be born. Yet as the years pass, Sarah has no children. Only when they are quite old, grandparent age really, is God's promise fulfilled. Sarah becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son. They name the boy "Laughter" or Isaac in their language.
Fast-forward to today's text. Once again God speaks to Abraham but this time he tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering to God. Abraham prepares to obey. As they near the mountain of sacrifice Abraham directs Isaac to carry the wood for the offering up the mountain himself. Abraham prepares the altar, binds Isaac on top of it, and prepares to kill him with a knife. At the last moment an angel stays Abraham's hand and Isaac is spared. God provides a ram for Abraham to sacrifice instead. Here ends the reading.
As a parent, a parent of an only son, it's hard to recount this story. I imagine it's hard for many of you to hear it too. But as I said before, faith, like any worthwhile endeavor, isn't easy. We are ready to work hard to see what this story might be telling us today.
First let us consider the story from Abraham's point of view. Abraham, up until recently had done really well for himself, when it came to the basics. God has given Abraham flocks and slaves, land and a good wife - just about everything. But without a son born in wedlock, in the ancient world Abraham was nothing. The son God gives him, the boy named laughter, Isaac, secures Abraham’s legacy. But then comes the challenge. God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son. Will Abraham do it? Can he obey?
Abraham's obedience to God as centerpiece of this story, his submission to God's will, is the classic Muslim way of interpreting this text. And though none of us have faced Abraham's dilemma, perhaps in a small way we can relate. There are times when we are called to be obedient, even when we do not understand the ends of a plan. Indeed there are times we are called to obey because we cannot understand the places in which we find ourselves.
Some examples: A small child is grabbed before she can chase a ball into the street. A soldier is given an order not knowing all of the general's plans. A college student is told he must take science math and English before he can graduate. An addict is told to "Fake it until you make it." Perhaps the end of such obedience will become clear, perhaps not. The people involved trust that those making the rules have a greater vision than they do.
There is an old hymn that goes, "Our lives are just one page, God sees from age to age." Though it rankles our American spirit of independence, there is truth to what St. Paul says in the epistle. Our choice is not whether or not to be slaves, it is who we would be slaves to. We are always giving obedience to someone or something. God seems most likely to have our best interests at heart.
Indeed we who are gathered here today know the value of obedience. There are people here today who can tell you that coming to church on Sundays, saying their prayers and reading their Bibles has saved their marriages, kept them off drugs, given them hope. I know these people are here because they are in every church. They know that being obedient to God, however hard and counterintuitive it might sometimes be, has value. They know that putting God first sometimes puts the rest of life in better order. And perhaps this message, Abraham's message, is a good lesson for us today.
But it isn't the end of the story. You see, there's Isaac's point of view too. Renaissance art and our own imaginings often depict Isaac as a child, a boy of six or eight. Yet following Biblical chronology the Isaac in the story is at least a strapping teenager or even, according to the Talmud, as old as 37. Abraham himself was already in his 90s when Isaac was born and is over 100 when the story begins. There's simply no way such frail, elderly man could have forced Isaac onto the altar. We conclude that Isaac must have gone willingly to what he imagined would be his death.
This is the traditional Christian view of this text. Isaac, who carries the wood himself up Mt. Moriah, becomes a forerunner to Jesus who carries his own cross up Golgotha. And, though none of us have walked in Isaac's shoes, perhaps, in some small way, we can relate. We have all sometimes sacrificed something important to us for the greater good.
Some examples. A dieter gives up a piece of cake to fit into a smaller pair of jeans. A student gives up his place in the orchestra so that he can better focus on his studies. A spouse gives up a job to move for a partner's career. A parent gives up a hobby to spend more time helping out around the house.
We who are gathered here today know something of sacrifice. Jesus does not sugarcoat the call of the disciple. Jesus tells his followers; Jesus tells us we may be called to give up prosperity, security, and even family to follow his way. We have all given up something to be part of a congregation. We have given our time to committee meetings, to worship, and to study. We have given our talents in the choir, teaching Sunday School, organizing the food pantry. We have given our treasure - our tithes sustain this place and nourish the world. It isn't easy, but we think, like St. Paul, that faith is worth the cost. Life in Christ leads to eternal life, both here and in the world to come. What could be greater than that?
But this is not the end of the story either. There is one more piece to keep in mind. In the ancient world archeologists and historians tell us that child sacrifice was not uncommon. Abraham and Isaac may not have been surprised at the initial command of the story. As the story reaches its climax, however, Abraham's hand is stayed and Isaac is spared. God intervenes in the midst of disaster.
This is the traditional Jewish way of viewing this story, and, at least for me, it speaks most clearly. Jewish writings say that this isn't a story about Abraham's obedience, or Isaac's willingness to be sacrificed. The heart of the Genesis story instead is this: God provides for us and brings hope when all seems lost. Indeed, I think many of us, most of us, know this experience too. Whatever else has brought us to church, this is what keeps us here.
Author Annie Lammott writes about being an alcoholic, in a dead end relationship, and going broke. Yet she felt the presence of God nudging at her door "like a stray cat," until she couldn't help but let God in. And on that day her life changed for the better.
I know other examples. A woman's partner has a stroke and she prays that God will let her live, no matter the cost. And though the partner has lost her short-term memory and life is not easy, the woman says, "I thank God every day for her life." A ministry student looses her mother to cancer and years later finds that God uses the experience she has to help minister to others. If God can bring healing from death itself, what can our God not achieve?
The God of Abraham and Isaac, like the God of Noah, proclaims a new rule: Other gods may demand obedience, sacrifice, and death. Our God, in the words of Paul, will be a God of freedom, grace, and life. Indeed Isaac becomes a Christian allegory for humanity when he is saved by an innocent ram (lamb) who we see as Christ's own self.
Are you with me here? Because this is big stuff. And perhaps it's time to take a step back and take a breath. Being a Christian, like any worthwhile endeavor, can be difficult. But that doesn't always mean it has to be.
An example: I told you before that I have been dieting. For five months I have done a number of little things - measuring my yogurt, counting my potato chips, paying attention to how much time I spend on the treadmill. Little things, baby steps, yet added together they pay off. Since January I've lost 29 pounds. I know, I can hardly believe it myself.
Today's Gospel comes from section of Matthew where Jesus warns his disciples that there will be challenges, some greater than others. But that doesn't mean that some are unimportant. Everyone has work to do.
Not everyone will be called to be a prophet. But welcoming a prophet is important. Not everyone will be known as a righteous person. But those who aid a righteous person's work will do good too. Even if you think of yourself as just a little one, even if you offer nothing more than a cup of cold water, God has use for you in God's kingdom.
As this summer begins what might you do to further the kingdom? Can you commit to weekly worship, daily prayer, or regular Bible study? Are you ready to sign up to be a Sunday School teacher, an altar guild member, a food pantry worker? Can you write a letter to your congressperson or call your senator about an important issue? Will you be faithful to your pledge or offer additional gifts to Lutheran World Relief or Lutheran Social Services? Can you share a kind word with your neighbor or coworker, spouse or child? Truly I tell you, these little things make a difference in the kingdom of God.
God is a God of life. God will never call on us to an obedience to kill like Abraham's. God will never ask us to sacrifice ourselves needlessly die like Isaac. God calls us to obey and to sacrifice so that life might be more abundant for all. And more that that, beyond the challenges that the world will inevitably send our way, God will walk with us providing hope.
This summer may we be faithful in small ways. God give us courage to live the life of faith and to see such hope.
Thanks be to God,
Amen
