Proper 8 (June 26-July 2)
Texts: Genesis 22:1-14;
Matthew 10:40-42
PASSING THE TEST - LISTENING
TO THE VOICE OF THE TRUE GOD
Nearly ten years later, we still ask what kind of faith in God it takes
to fly a jetliner full of people
into buildings causing death and destruction from which our country has
still not healed?
Many millennial before that, what kind of faith in God did it take for
a man to take his only son
-- the heir that he thought he'd never even have -- onto a mountain,
bind him on an altar, raise a
knife, and prepare to plunge it into his son's heart as a sacrifice to
God?
This morning we heard one of the most important passages in the Bible -
one held dear not only
by Christians and Jews, but also by Muslims. For they take Abraham as
their Father, too, and tell
a very similar story about Abraham. The difference is that in Muslim
tradition, the story is told
with Ishmael as the child about to be sacrificed - Abraham's son with
his servant Hagar. This
passage is revered by two billion of our world's people: Christian,
Jewish, and Muslim. So it is
vital that we get its meaning right!
What is at stake is our faith in God - what kind of God do we worship
in Jesus? A God who asks
and expects us to kill?
Some interpret this story as a test of how far Abraham would go to show
his faith in God. But
what kind of God would ever ask someone to kill his beloved son? The
terrorists who
slaughtered innocent people on nine-eleven truly believed that God was
testing their faith - they
were on a holy mission. Did they fail to hear God saying in the end
that it was only a test? What
would have happened if Abraham had failed to hear the voice
of the Lord and gone through with
the sacrifice?
The point of faith is not to persevere in test after test until God
says, "Stop, I was only testing
you." The point of faith is to begin to understand who God truly
is! That's the point of the
Biblical journey - to get to know God. And looking at our lesson this
morning, wouldn't you say
that the God we get to know in Jesus Christ is not a God who tests
people by asking them to kill?
The Bible is full of stories where even God's MOST faithful
followers did not understand who
the true God is. The Gospels are full of stories with the disciples
misunderstanding. In fact a
main theme throughout the Gospels is that no one except Jesus can
really understand the God
who Jesus is introducing to them until after his
resurrection. So should we really be shocked that
Abraham and the author of Genesis 22 might have been wrong about whom
God truly is?
Abraham did, in fact, pass the test of faith. But not quite like the
author of the story - and many
subsequent generations of interpreters - think. Abraham passed the test
by not obeying the first
voice of God who asked him to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham passed the test
by finally hearing the
voice of the true God at the end of the story, the voice that
told him to stop the madness of
human sacrifice.
To help us understand, we need to know that voice of God at the
beginning of the story was a
false god, an idol. The text gives us a clue. In Hebrew, there are two
words used for God. In
verses 1, 3, 8 and 9 the word "God" appears. The general Hebrew word
for "God" is Elohim,
which is also used to refer to false gods such as in the First
Commandment: "Thou shall have no
other gods before me." In this commandment, Elohim refers to
false gods.
But at the climactic moment when God intervenes, it says "angel of the
Lord," with "LORD" in
capital letters. Tthe Hebrew word behind "LORD" is the special name for
God given to the
Hebrews through Moses in the burning bush. Moses told God he doesn't
know what to call him.
God replies, "Yahweh," that is, "I am who I am." At that point "Yahweh"
became the special
name for the one true God, Creator of the universe.
Going back to our story this morning, we are able to see a distinction
between Abraham listening
to the voice of false gods at the beginning telling Abraham to
sacrifice his son, versus listening to
the voice of the true God, Yahweh, telling Abraham to stop.
There is another point that helps us understand this passage: almost
four thousand years ago
Abraham's culture was filled with false gods that people thought were
asking them to do just
what Abraham thought he heard God ask him to do: ritual child
sacrifice. If we consider that
Abraham might have been listening to the voice of false gods at the
beginning of this story, it's
helpful to know that such false gods were very common in his time. What
is shocking to us today
was not shocking in Abraham's cultural context.
But today we are coming more and more to understand that the biblical
journey is one of constant
learning so that today in this time and culture we can hear the voice
of the true God amidst the
voices of false gods. This is what this story is showing us:
Abraham passed the test of faith in the
true God when he finally heard the voice of Yahweh say, "Stop! Don't do
it! Stop this madness
of human sacrifice. Here's a ram instead."
When we hear the Hebrew prophets in the same way Jesus did, telling us
that the true God never
wanted any kind of sacrifice, we begin to understand. Just a
few weeks ago in Matthew's Gospel
we heard that Jesus very solemnly told his followers, "Go and learn
what this means, 'I desire
mercy, not sacrifice.'" Jesus is quoting the prophet Hosea's summary of
a central prophetic point.
The prophet Micah explains it more fully:
[Yahweh says,] "With what shall I come
before the LORD, and bow myself
before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with
calves a
year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten
thousands
of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the
fruit of my
body for the sin of my soul?" He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what
does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk
humbly with your God?
"I want mercy not sacrifice." God is a God of mercy, who never asks us
to kill - even the ritual
blood sacrifice that has occurred in every recorded religion.
That's the God we learn to see in Jesus Christ, the "Lamb of God" who
put an end to all
sacrificial killing. Jesus shows us a God of profound mercy who
willingly gave the Son in order
to reveal our thirst for killing. And then God forgave
us.
Nearly four thousand years ago, Abraham passed this test. He heard the
voice of the true God
telling him to stop, don't kill. And now almost two thousand years
after the voice of our risen
Savior forgiving us for our numerous slaughters, all those
brought together on his cross, are we
ready to pass the test, too? Are we ready to stop the killing? What
could happen in our world if
two billion people who claim Abraham as their father could finally
recognize what this test of
faith is really all about?
Paul J. Nuechterlein
Delivered at Prince of Peace Lutheran,
Portage, MI, June 26, 2011