The sacrifice Isaac offered
Commentary
Without question the story of "The Sacrifice of Isaac" is one of the most horrific in the whole Bible. Through the centuries, readers have been almost morbidly drawn to this spectacle. Painters such as Rembrandt have found here the subject for some of the most powerful and haunting images in all of Western art. The story as been analyzed by theologians, philosophers, psychologists and hosts of others, including just ordinary folk, for insight into the complexities of the relationship between the human and the divine. As much as we might want to forget that this story was even a part of our sacred tradition, we seem constantly drawn back to it like a moth drawn to the flame.
Especially for those of us who are parents, our point of connection with this story seems to always come as an identification with Abraham. How can any parent cope with even the perception that God might be demanding from us the very life of a child given to us, entrusted to us, by the Divine? We are not just talking about dedicating a child to God's future by sprinkling the waters of baptism. We are talking about using one's own hands to take the life of the child, and then watching as the flames one set destroy even the physical remains of that child. How could Abraham - especially having already lost one child to the wilderness - how could any parent consent to "The Sacrifice of Isaac"?
Frankly, most of us don't want to consider those questions. But there is another way of exploring this story that is opened by its usual title that may in fact be far more relevant to us. Grammarians will point out to you that the phrase "the sacrifice of Isaac" is actually ambiguous. It can mean either "offering Isaac as a sacrifice," or alternatively it can mean "the sacrifice that Isaac offered." How differently would we hear this story if we took that second meaning as our starting point?1 How might the story sound in Isaac's words?
Genesis 22:1-14
Most often we approach this story as one of the last episodes in Genesis about Abraham's life. Not a few commentators (especially some feminists) have noted that, even in her absence, it is the final episode in Sarah's life, for her death and burial open the following chapter. Could this threat to her long-awaited child have hastened/caused her death? (If so, then Isaac was himself a young man since the text indicates Sarah lived about 25 years after his birth; cf.17:17 and 23:1.)
Like so many details in this narrative, the text is suggestive but hardly definitive. For example, notice how Abraham tells his servants that after he and Isaac had worshiped then, "... we will come back to you" (22:5), and later told Isaac himself, "God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son" (22:8). Were these indications of Abraham's belief that God would restore Isaac to life should he die on the altar (cf. Hebrews 11:17-19), or was he hiding from everyone involved (perhaps even himself) the horror that awaited on the mountain?
Yet as much as this is Abraham's (perhaps also Sarah's) story, it is also the first episode in which Isaac plays an active role. It is difficult to pin down the ages of Abraham's sons in these stories (Ishmael is 13 when he was circumcised [17:24-25], but treated and exposed like an infant when Hagar is banished [21:8-19, esp. vv. 14-15]). Because of Isaac's actions in carrying the wood the final part of the journey (22:6) and his familiarity with and questioning about the procedures for the upcoming sacrifice (22:7-8), it seems likely that he was at least in early adolescence. Abraham must have been several years more than 100 (cf. 21:5). Certainly then, we must imagine that had Isaac been inclined to resist or flee, Abraham would not have been able to bind and place him on the altar (22:9). Not only was Abraham willing to sacrifice his son; his son was also willing to be sacrificed.
The point of hearing this story as the narrative of "the sacrifice that Isaac offered" is that it makes clear that what God ultimately asks of us is more intimate and personal than even our children. God doesn't call us to sacrifice things or relationships or others. God calls us to sacrifice ourselves, to submit our very identities to death that we might be resurrected to be the people God desires us to be (for Isaac's ongoing life as a type of resurrection, see again Hebrews 11:17-19). As Paul would phrase it, "I urge you by God's mercies, brothers and sisters, that you present yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (Romans 12:1).
This call is not some crazed suicide pact like that entered into in Jim Jones's Guyana compound or more recently by the "Heaven's Gate" cultists. Christ's death - the ultimate sacrifice which God has provided - and his resurrection - the ultimate proof of God's ability to fulfill the promise - have made our individual, physical lives just one more thing that we might hold out as a substitute. God doesn't want our death; God wants our life. And if you think that is getting off easy, then you really haven't understood what God is calling for from us.
Romans 6:12-23
Reading Genesis 22 as Isaac's sacrifice of himself on Mt. Moriah and receiving a kind of resurrection as God's response suggests some possible connections with the passage from Romans appointed for this Sunday. Isaac is one who, in a manner more closely literal than most, "presents [himself] to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present[ed his] members to God as instruments of righteousness" (6:13b). Paul concludes this section of his argument with these same themes of death and life: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (6:23).
What comes in between these images provides a powerful interpretation of what "self-sacrifice" means within the Christian tradition. In the first instance, Paul here shows that whether or not we will sacrifice or devote ourselves to a master outside of ourselves is not the issue. Everyone gives over his or her life to be either the slave of sin or the slave of God. The issue is not whether we will be enslaved/sacrificed or not, the issue is to whom we will give ourselves. To return to the imagery of Genesis, the question is which altar will we lay ourselves upon. Will we sacrifice our very being to sin, the end result of which is death? Or will we lay ourselves upon God's altar, the end result of which is resurrection life?
To shift to the metaphor that is most prominent in Paul's argument in this passage, absolute freedom is an illusion. There is no neutral position in which a person can stand and simply act in total isolation from the battle that wages in the world. All actions performed in our bodies are either "weapons" (the literal meaning of the Greek underlying the NRSV's "instruments" in 6:13) "of wickedness" or "weapons of righteousness." Like soldiers serving in combat, we may have the illusion that we control our immediate actions, but in reality we know that our actions are ultimately controlled by the commander who issues the order. We are only free to act within the constraints of those orders.
It is in that context that Paul's rhetorical question in 6:15 is to be understood: "What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!" Why should people think for a moment that because their commander is gracious that they are free to act in accord with the adversary? Indeed, Paul continues, the very actions that one performs determine one's allegiance. If your actions are just, then your allegiance must be to God. If your actions are unjust, then all the verbal protests to the contrary cannot reverse the fact that one is still under the command of or enslaved to sin.
Paul acknowledges that those who are "slaves to sin" do not perceive themselves as under some dominion outside themselves. Rather, they consider themselves "free in regard to righteousness," that is, free from the demands and constraints of God. He does not challenge this sense of freedom, but rather inquires into its "advantage." What is the benefit of a freedom that culminates in death? By the same token, one who is "enslaved to God" is nevertheless "freed from sin." Living under divine constraint is nevertheless genuine freedom, and it is a freedom that culminates in "eternal life." If freedom is ultimately about living, then there is only one genuine freedom.
Matthew 10:40-42
Although these few verses from Matthew are lacking the themes of death and resurrection found in the other lectionary texts, the theme of loyalty and reception of God's ways inherent in the Romans passage stands front and center here.
These verses comprise the second of five "teaching discourses" constructed by Matthew to parallel the "Five Books of Moses" (the first was the "Sermon on the Mount" in chs. 5-7, the final one the "Apocalyptic Discourse" of chs. 24-25; see also chs. 13 and 18). Matthew 10:5-42 is presented as Jesus' "instructions" to his 12 disciples as he sends them out to extend the ministry he has already begun (10:1-5a). Acting as his emissaries, the response that these disciples receive from those whom they encounter is then in an ultimate sense the response those people make to Jesus and finally to God (a point explicitly made in 10:40). Thus the "reward" being spoken of three times in these three verses is not merely reciprocated hospitality or thanks; it is inclusion in the realm of God's reign, the eternal "kingdom" of heaven (cf. 10:32).
Two things are striking in this passage, particularly as set over against the lectionary texts from Genesis and Romans. First, notice that those who "welcome" or "receive" the prophet or the righteous person by that receptiveness alone receive the same reward as the prophet and the righteous one. Sharing in the reward does not require that they act out the same vocation, but only that they receive the ministry that is the vocation of others. Secondly, the sign that one has received that ministry is the willingness to provide "even a cup of cold water" to those disciples who are carrying out Jesus' ministry. If knowing that these "little ones" are acting at the instruction and behest of Jesus ("in the name/by the authority of a disciple," 10:42) is not sufficient grounds for withholding one of the most basic demands of hospitality, then that person has "welcomed" this ministry and will not lose the "reward" that it brings.
Set in the context of a story about a father's willingness to sacrifice his son and that son's willingness to submit to sacrifice in response to a divine command and of Paul's argument that we are all enslaved either to sin or to God, the gospel from Matthew is genuinely "Good News." Yes, much is a stake in our response to God's commands and ministry - nothing less than the reward of eternal life under the reign of God - but the demands are not impossibly high. It is not all sacrifice and slavery; it is also as simple as receiving God's ministry and allowing it to in turn flow from us in hospitality to others.
Application
What follows is a monologue delivered in Isaac's voice, attempting to see this story as he might have related it much later in his life. The monologue uses Psalm 13, appointed for this Sunday, as a means for imagining how he might have responded to God.
"I was in my early adolescence - probably somewhere between 10 and 15 years of age - when it happened. My father, then well over 100 years old, announced one morning that we were going to a far off place to offer a sacrifice to God. Frankly, the trip seemed a bit odd; we had always before made sacrifices on some nearby hilltop. But the idea of a trip was exciting. So we left home with two servants and headed off for some mountain that not even my father seemed to know exactly where it was. After three days, he pointed out a distant mountaintop and announced that it was to be the place for the sacrifice. He directed the servants to remain with the donkey, and he and I headed off for the mountain.
"At some point as we continued to make our way toward the mountain, I finally decided to put in words a question I had been mulling over ever since we had passed the last shepherds pasturing my father's flocks. 'Father,' I said, 'I'm carrying a bundle of wood, and you have the censer pot with the fire, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?' And my father answered, 'God will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.' In his voice I heard both assurance and a foreboding sense of dread.
"At last we reached the mountaintop, my father erected stones for an altar and placed the wood that I had been carrying on my back on top. And then, with a look in his eyes that pleaded with me to trust him, and to trust what he had told me about God providing the sacrifice, he began to bind me with the ropes that had previously bundled the wood. I could have run away; I could have struggled physically and prevented him. After all, what chance did a centenarian have against a teenaged boy? But my father had always told me since before I was really even old enough to understand that God had promised and then given me to him for a purpose. Somehow he had come to the conclusion that what was happening on that mountaintop was part of that purpose, and I would try to find that same trust and faith within myself as well.
"It wasn't easy. Even though events were moving quickly, my mind was racing even faster. I now knew what was about to happen, and I wanted the absolute faith and trust in God that my father had. The instants hung like hours. 'How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart...?' I was coming to accept this as my fate, but I still did not understand it. 'Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death.'
"As my father raised the knife over me, suddenly a voice from God's messenger rang out screaming, 'Abraham, Abraham! Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him.' Then my father saw a ram trapped in a thicket, and he knew that there was the sacrifice that God had provided instead of me. We stood there together, watching the sacrifice burn, and each worshiping God in our silence. 'I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because God has dealt bountifully with me.' God had provided, and my life would be forever changed."
The question that arises from this approach to the text is whether there are parts of ourselves, our self-identity, that we haven't yet presented to God as a "living sacrifice." Maybe what we really need to sacrifice is the very idea that we have a fixed, self-identity. Maybe being a "living sacrifice" is always being open to the possibility that God will continue to resurrect us to new lives and new forms of service for others in God's name. Reach beyond things, or people or relationships - are there parts of our very selves that need to be turned over to God even at the risk of their death? It is scary, the thought that God might change our very sense of ourselves and our identity. But as Isaac learned, as Jesus learned, when we give our lives completely and unreservedly to God, "the Lord will provide" resurrection to new life.
An Alternate Application
On this Sunday before the Fourth of July, one way to approach the text from Romans would be to develop the theme of "freedom." Paul insists there is no such thing as absolute freedom; we are either slaves to sin or slaves in service to God. Perhaps a more contemporary way of expressing this idea is in terms of "rights" (freedom) and "responsibilities" (service and duty). One could relate the ideas of the political philosophy of "communitarianism" (found in the works of such writers as Amitai Etzioni2), which seeks to balance the rights of the individual with the need to serve and protect the rights of the community. True individual freedom only exists within a community of shared responsibility to protect, among other things, the rights of individuals. It is by seeking to serve in God's community that we find the freedom from sin that enables us to be the human persons God has created us to be.
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1. Although not as common in the modern period, this approach to the story was widely explored by ancient commentators, both Jewish and Christian. See the discussion in James L. Kugel, The Bible as It Was (Belknap Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1997) 173-178.
2. See for example, Amitai Etzioni, The Spirit of Community: The Reinvention of American Society (New York: Touchstone Books, 1994).
First Lesson Focus
Genesis 22:1-14
This passage in Genesis 22 - the so-called "binding of Isaac" - has disturbed Christians and Jews alike for centuries, because of the demand made by God in the story. The famous Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard even made up a series of six vignettes that altered the story to say that Abraham was out of his mind, or Abraham killed himself instead of his son, and so forth. Once the wife of Martin Luther exclaimed, "I don't believe God would ask anyone to kill his only son," to which Luther replied, "But, Katie, God did." The story is laden with a mysterious divine will beyond our comprehension, and certainly from a human point of view, it gathers up the suffering of a Jewish people, called to suffer for the sake of their election by God. Consequently, artists in almost every generation have sought to portray some portion of the story in painting or sculpture or drawing. Indeed, it has even been used as a symbol of the Holocaust during the Nazi era.
The emotional weight of the story can only be glimpsed by reading the passage aloud and by emphasizing its repetitions of love. "Your son, your only son Isaac," "his son," "his son," "my son," "my son," "his son," "your only son," "his son," - the words run like a sob through the narrative, and the impact of that unnecessary repetition is heightened by "his father," and "my father," and the repeated phrase, "So they went both of them together." The narrator does not need to tell us further of the love between father and son and of what the sacrifice is going to cost Abraham. Nor does he need to point out the silence of Sarah, who in the preceding chapter has known laughter at the birth of Isaac (Genesis 21:6). God promised the aged Abraham and Sarah a son to begin to fulfill his promise to Abraham of many descendants. And God kept his word in the spring of the year. But now God commands, sacrifice Isaac in the land of Moriah.
The emotional impact and theological shock of this story should warn the interpreter against any attempt to soften the command of God. Abraham, coming from a pagan Mesopotamian background, does not just imagine that God gives him this order. No. The story states exactly what is at stake. "God tested Abraham" (v. 1). Abraham is to be the progenitor of a multitude of descendants, through whom the Lord will bring his blessing on all the families of the earth. The test is whether or not Abraham can fill that God-given role.
So early on the morrow, Abraham sets out for the mountain of sacrifice, taking with him two servants and his only son Isaac, whom he loves. After a three-day journey, the fearful destination is reached, and Abraham and his son Isaac, whom he loves, climb the hill together. Isaac carries the wood for the burnt offering, but Abraham carries the fire and the knife, so his son will not injure himself with them. The lad wonders where they will secure an animal for an offering, but Abraham, in the assurance of steadfast faith, replies that God will himself provide the lamb. And they go both of them together.
At the summit, Abraham builds an altar, and lays on it the wood. And then he must bind his only son Isaac, whom he loves, and lay him on the wood. As Abraham raises his hand to slay his son with the knife, however, God does indeed provide through the voice of his messenger angel. "Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." A ram, caught in a thicket, is provided instead, and to this day, that site in the land of Moriah is called, "On the mount of the Lord it will be provided." In the paragraph following our text, the promise is therefore renewed to Abraham. Having proved his obedience to the Lord, Abraham and his descendants will be used by the Lord to bring his blessing on all the families of the earth.
Second Chronicles 3:1 tells us that the mountain in the land of Moriah was none other than one of the hills on which the holy city of Jerusalem was built. And there too the Lord God provided a sacrifice, did he not? There too a Son carried the wood for the sacrifice. There too Father and Son went both of them together. And there too God used one of the descendants of Abraham to keep his promise and through him to bring blessing on all the families of the earth. God has indeed provided, has he not? He has provided the Lamb that was slain, the sacrifice for all of our wrongs and weaknesses, the redemption price to release us from our bondage to our sin, death, and the devil. God gave his only begotten Son, whom he loves, to save you and me and his world, because you see, he loves us too. "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my love, my all."
Lutheran Option - Jeremiah 28:5-9
We read of a contest between two prophets in our text for the morning. The time is several years after 597 B.C. The setting is the city of Jerusalem. The two prophets are a man named Hananiah and the prophet Jeremiah, who by this time is about 57 years old. Jeremiah has been speaking the word of the Lord and suffering for it ever since he was about 18 years of age, because his fellow Israelites do not like his messages about God's judgment on them for their sins.
Like it or not, however, that judgment has begun to fall on Judah and Jerusalem. In 597 B.C., King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia captured Jerusalem and exiled its rulers, including its Davidic king Jehoiachin, and its most prominent citizens to Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar's troops emptied the Temple of its sacred vessels and treasures and largely impoverished the remaining population. Jeremiah was convinced that Babylonia was an instrument of God, that the exile would last for many years, and that the only hope for the survival of Judah was continuing submission to the Babylonian overlords. As a symbol of that submission, Jeremiah was therefore commanded by God to wear a wooden yoke.
There was, however, in Jerusalem an opposition party, and apparently Hananiah is its spokesman. He and his followers believed that with the help of Egypt, they would throw off the yoke of Babylonia within two years time and that the Judean king Jehoiachin and all of the exiles would return to the land of Palestine. As a symbol of that release, Hananiah, in the paragraph following our text, breaks the wooden yoke that Jeremiah has been wearing.
It is noteworthy that Jeremiah does not reply in anger when Hananiah contradicts his message. Instead, "Amen!" he says. "May it be so!" Jeremiah wants as much as Hananiah for his compatriots to be released from their bondage to Babylonia. Throughout his life, Jeremiah never relishes his role as a proclaimer of judgment against his countrymen and women. Indeed, sometimes Jeremiah has even tried to escape that role and to hold the words of judgment within himself (Jeremiah 20:9).
But Jeremiah is also a realist and a servant of his God. He knows that there are many false prophets proclaiming "peace, peace," when there is no peace. He knows that Judah and Jerusalem richly deserve God's judgment for their faithlessness. And above all else, he knows that God always keeps his word. Jeremiah therefore tells Hananiah that if Hananiah's words come to pass, then Hananiah will have spoken a true Word of the Lord.
In other words, good Christians, God fulfills his Word. The Lord is faithful to what he has said, whether that speaking has been through the mouth of a prophet, or from an apostle, or supremely, through his Son Jesus Christ. God has spoken many words to us, hasn't he? And we have those words preserved for us in the scriptures, where they are illumined for us by the work of the Holy Spirit. So what words do you want to choose? "Lo, I am with you always to the end of the age"? "Whoever believes in me shall never die"? "If any persons would be my disciples, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me"? "I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, you may be also"? "I will not leave you desolate"? Whatever the words of our Lord that you choose, believe me, you can count on them.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 13
This psalm is an individual lament with which almost every Christian can identify, for almost all of us have time when God seems far, perhaps even with his face "hidden" from us (v. 1). How many of us have begged God for a reply and heard none? Psalm 13 provides a text for talking about the silences of God.
Do you remember the day back in 1999 when the beepers went silent? When a communications satellite died, the signals for about 90 percent of the United States' pagers suddenly went nowhere. Some of us feel like that sometimes when we pray. As one unnamed writer put it, "Even after Christ's coming, God has painfully kept his distance that we are like spouses married to one who is frequently away on business." And W. H. Auden said, "Our dominant experience of today is of God's absence, of his distance."
We don't know why God sometimes keeps silent when we most desire to hear from him. Maybe his refusal to give us all the answers we want is an indication that God wants to relate to us not as a giver of answers but as a giver of strength. Perhaps God is silent to force us to learn hard lessons of life. We simply don't know.
But we do know that God is not always silent, and that when he does speak to us - and most of us can recall at least one time when we were conscious of guidance or a calling outside of ourselves - it is an experience that is life-changing and unforgettable.
Especially for those of us who are parents, our point of connection with this story seems to always come as an identification with Abraham. How can any parent cope with even the perception that God might be demanding from us the very life of a child given to us, entrusted to us, by the Divine? We are not just talking about dedicating a child to God's future by sprinkling the waters of baptism. We are talking about using one's own hands to take the life of the child, and then watching as the flames one set destroy even the physical remains of that child. How could Abraham - especially having already lost one child to the wilderness - how could any parent consent to "The Sacrifice of Isaac"?
Frankly, most of us don't want to consider those questions. But there is another way of exploring this story that is opened by its usual title that may in fact be far more relevant to us. Grammarians will point out to you that the phrase "the sacrifice of Isaac" is actually ambiguous. It can mean either "offering Isaac as a sacrifice," or alternatively it can mean "the sacrifice that Isaac offered." How differently would we hear this story if we took that second meaning as our starting point?1 How might the story sound in Isaac's words?
Genesis 22:1-14
Most often we approach this story as one of the last episodes in Genesis about Abraham's life. Not a few commentators (especially some feminists) have noted that, even in her absence, it is the final episode in Sarah's life, for her death and burial open the following chapter. Could this threat to her long-awaited child have hastened/caused her death? (If so, then Isaac was himself a young man since the text indicates Sarah lived about 25 years after his birth; cf.17:17 and 23:1.)
Like so many details in this narrative, the text is suggestive but hardly definitive. For example, notice how Abraham tells his servants that after he and Isaac had worshiped then, "... we will come back to you" (22:5), and later told Isaac himself, "God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son" (22:8). Were these indications of Abraham's belief that God would restore Isaac to life should he die on the altar (cf. Hebrews 11:17-19), or was he hiding from everyone involved (perhaps even himself) the horror that awaited on the mountain?
Yet as much as this is Abraham's (perhaps also Sarah's) story, it is also the first episode in which Isaac plays an active role. It is difficult to pin down the ages of Abraham's sons in these stories (Ishmael is 13 when he was circumcised [17:24-25], but treated and exposed like an infant when Hagar is banished [21:8-19, esp. vv. 14-15]). Because of Isaac's actions in carrying the wood the final part of the journey (22:6) and his familiarity with and questioning about the procedures for the upcoming sacrifice (22:7-8), it seems likely that he was at least in early adolescence. Abraham must have been several years more than 100 (cf. 21:5). Certainly then, we must imagine that had Isaac been inclined to resist or flee, Abraham would not have been able to bind and place him on the altar (22:9). Not only was Abraham willing to sacrifice his son; his son was also willing to be sacrificed.
The point of hearing this story as the narrative of "the sacrifice that Isaac offered" is that it makes clear that what God ultimately asks of us is more intimate and personal than even our children. God doesn't call us to sacrifice things or relationships or others. God calls us to sacrifice ourselves, to submit our very identities to death that we might be resurrected to be the people God desires us to be (for Isaac's ongoing life as a type of resurrection, see again Hebrews 11:17-19). As Paul would phrase it, "I urge you by God's mercies, brothers and sisters, that you present yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (Romans 12:1).
This call is not some crazed suicide pact like that entered into in Jim Jones's Guyana compound or more recently by the "Heaven's Gate" cultists. Christ's death - the ultimate sacrifice which God has provided - and his resurrection - the ultimate proof of God's ability to fulfill the promise - have made our individual, physical lives just one more thing that we might hold out as a substitute. God doesn't want our death; God wants our life. And if you think that is getting off easy, then you really haven't understood what God is calling for from us.
Romans 6:12-23
Reading Genesis 22 as Isaac's sacrifice of himself on Mt. Moriah and receiving a kind of resurrection as God's response suggests some possible connections with the passage from Romans appointed for this Sunday. Isaac is one who, in a manner more closely literal than most, "presents [himself] to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present[ed his] members to God as instruments of righteousness" (6:13b). Paul concludes this section of his argument with these same themes of death and life: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (6:23).
What comes in between these images provides a powerful interpretation of what "self-sacrifice" means within the Christian tradition. In the first instance, Paul here shows that whether or not we will sacrifice or devote ourselves to a master outside of ourselves is not the issue. Everyone gives over his or her life to be either the slave of sin or the slave of God. The issue is not whether we will be enslaved/sacrificed or not, the issue is to whom we will give ourselves. To return to the imagery of Genesis, the question is which altar will we lay ourselves upon. Will we sacrifice our very being to sin, the end result of which is death? Or will we lay ourselves upon God's altar, the end result of which is resurrection life?
To shift to the metaphor that is most prominent in Paul's argument in this passage, absolute freedom is an illusion. There is no neutral position in which a person can stand and simply act in total isolation from the battle that wages in the world. All actions performed in our bodies are either "weapons" (the literal meaning of the Greek underlying the NRSV's "instruments" in 6:13) "of wickedness" or "weapons of righteousness." Like soldiers serving in combat, we may have the illusion that we control our immediate actions, but in reality we know that our actions are ultimately controlled by the commander who issues the order. We are only free to act within the constraints of those orders.
It is in that context that Paul's rhetorical question in 6:15 is to be understood: "What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!" Why should people think for a moment that because their commander is gracious that they are free to act in accord with the adversary? Indeed, Paul continues, the very actions that one performs determine one's allegiance. If your actions are just, then your allegiance must be to God. If your actions are unjust, then all the verbal protests to the contrary cannot reverse the fact that one is still under the command of or enslaved to sin.
Paul acknowledges that those who are "slaves to sin" do not perceive themselves as under some dominion outside themselves. Rather, they consider themselves "free in regard to righteousness," that is, free from the demands and constraints of God. He does not challenge this sense of freedom, but rather inquires into its "advantage." What is the benefit of a freedom that culminates in death? By the same token, one who is "enslaved to God" is nevertheless "freed from sin." Living under divine constraint is nevertheless genuine freedom, and it is a freedom that culminates in "eternal life." If freedom is ultimately about living, then there is only one genuine freedom.
Matthew 10:40-42
Although these few verses from Matthew are lacking the themes of death and resurrection found in the other lectionary texts, the theme of loyalty and reception of God's ways inherent in the Romans passage stands front and center here.
These verses comprise the second of five "teaching discourses" constructed by Matthew to parallel the "Five Books of Moses" (the first was the "Sermon on the Mount" in chs. 5-7, the final one the "Apocalyptic Discourse" of chs. 24-25; see also chs. 13 and 18). Matthew 10:5-42 is presented as Jesus' "instructions" to his 12 disciples as he sends them out to extend the ministry he has already begun (10:1-5a). Acting as his emissaries, the response that these disciples receive from those whom they encounter is then in an ultimate sense the response those people make to Jesus and finally to God (a point explicitly made in 10:40). Thus the "reward" being spoken of three times in these three verses is not merely reciprocated hospitality or thanks; it is inclusion in the realm of God's reign, the eternal "kingdom" of heaven (cf. 10:32).
Two things are striking in this passage, particularly as set over against the lectionary texts from Genesis and Romans. First, notice that those who "welcome" or "receive" the prophet or the righteous person by that receptiveness alone receive the same reward as the prophet and the righteous one. Sharing in the reward does not require that they act out the same vocation, but only that they receive the ministry that is the vocation of others. Secondly, the sign that one has received that ministry is the willingness to provide "even a cup of cold water" to those disciples who are carrying out Jesus' ministry. If knowing that these "little ones" are acting at the instruction and behest of Jesus ("in the name/by the authority of a disciple," 10:42) is not sufficient grounds for withholding one of the most basic demands of hospitality, then that person has "welcomed" this ministry and will not lose the "reward" that it brings.
Set in the context of a story about a father's willingness to sacrifice his son and that son's willingness to submit to sacrifice in response to a divine command and of Paul's argument that we are all enslaved either to sin or to God, the gospel from Matthew is genuinely "Good News." Yes, much is a stake in our response to God's commands and ministry - nothing less than the reward of eternal life under the reign of God - but the demands are not impossibly high. It is not all sacrifice and slavery; it is also as simple as receiving God's ministry and allowing it to in turn flow from us in hospitality to others.
Application
What follows is a monologue delivered in Isaac's voice, attempting to see this story as he might have related it much later in his life. The monologue uses Psalm 13, appointed for this Sunday, as a means for imagining how he might have responded to God.
"I was in my early adolescence - probably somewhere between 10 and 15 years of age - when it happened. My father, then well over 100 years old, announced one morning that we were going to a far off place to offer a sacrifice to God. Frankly, the trip seemed a bit odd; we had always before made sacrifices on some nearby hilltop. But the idea of a trip was exciting. So we left home with two servants and headed off for some mountain that not even my father seemed to know exactly where it was. After three days, he pointed out a distant mountaintop and announced that it was to be the place for the sacrifice. He directed the servants to remain with the donkey, and he and I headed off for the mountain.
"At some point as we continued to make our way toward the mountain, I finally decided to put in words a question I had been mulling over ever since we had passed the last shepherds pasturing my father's flocks. 'Father,' I said, 'I'm carrying a bundle of wood, and you have the censer pot with the fire, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?' And my father answered, 'God will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.' In his voice I heard both assurance and a foreboding sense of dread.
"At last we reached the mountaintop, my father erected stones for an altar and placed the wood that I had been carrying on my back on top. And then, with a look in his eyes that pleaded with me to trust him, and to trust what he had told me about God providing the sacrifice, he began to bind me with the ropes that had previously bundled the wood. I could have run away; I could have struggled physically and prevented him. After all, what chance did a centenarian have against a teenaged boy? But my father had always told me since before I was really even old enough to understand that God had promised and then given me to him for a purpose. Somehow he had come to the conclusion that what was happening on that mountaintop was part of that purpose, and I would try to find that same trust and faith within myself as well.
"It wasn't easy. Even though events were moving quickly, my mind was racing even faster. I now knew what was about to happen, and I wanted the absolute faith and trust in God that my father had. The instants hung like hours. 'How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart...?' I was coming to accept this as my fate, but I still did not understand it. 'Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death.'
"As my father raised the knife over me, suddenly a voice from God's messenger rang out screaming, 'Abraham, Abraham! Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him.' Then my father saw a ram trapped in a thicket, and he knew that there was the sacrifice that God had provided instead of me. We stood there together, watching the sacrifice burn, and each worshiping God in our silence. 'I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because God has dealt bountifully with me.' God had provided, and my life would be forever changed."
The question that arises from this approach to the text is whether there are parts of ourselves, our self-identity, that we haven't yet presented to God as a "living sacrifice." Maybe what we really need to sacrifice is the very idea that we have a fixed, self-identity. Maybe being a "living sacrifice" is always being open to the possibility that God will continue to resurrect us to new lives and new forms of service for others in God's name. Reach beyond things, or people or relationships - are there parts of our very selves that need to be turned over to God even at the risk of their death? It is scary, the thought that God might change our very sense of ourselves and our identity. But as Isaac learned, as Jesus learned, when we give our lives completely and unreservedly to God, "the Lord will provide" resurrection to new life.
An Alternate Application
On this Sunday before the Fourth of July, one way to approach the text from Romans would be to develop the theme of "freedom." Paul insists there is no such thing as absolute freedom; we are either slaves to sin or slaves in service to God. Perhaps a more contemporary way of expressing this idea is in terms of "rights" (freedom) and "responsibilities" (service and duty). One could relate the ideas of the political philosophy of "communitarianism" (found in the works of such writers as Amitai Etzioni2), which seeks to balance the rights of the individual with the need to serve and protect the rights of the community. True individual freedom only exists within a community of shared responsibility to protect, among other things, the rights of individuals. It is by seeking to serve in God's community that we find the freedom from sin that enables us to be the human persons God has created us to be.
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1. Although not as common in the modern period, this approach to the story was widely explored by ancient commentators, both Jewish and Christian. See the discussion in James L. Kugel, The Bible as It Was (Belknap Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1997) 173-178.
2. See for example, Amitai Etzioni, The Spirit of Community: The Reinvention of American Society (New York: Touchstone Books, 1994).
First Lesson Focus
Genesis 22:1-14
This passage in Genesis 22 - the so-called "binding of Isaac" - has disturbed Christians and Jews alike for centuries, because of the demand made by God in the story. The famous Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard even made up a series of six vignettes that altered the story to say that Abraham was out of his mind, or Abraham killed himself instead of his son, and so forth. Once the wife of Martin Luther exclaimed, "I don't believe God would ask anyone to kill his only son," to which Luther replied, "But, Katie, God did." The story is laden with a mysterious divine will beyond our comprehension, and certainly from a human point of view, it gathers up the suffering of a Jewish people, called to suffer for the sake of their election by God. Consequently, artists in almost every generation have sought to portray some portion of the story in painting or sculpture or drawing. Indeed, it has even been used as a symbol of the Holocaust during the Nazi era.
The emotional weight of the story can only be glimpsed by reading the passage aloud and by emphasizing its repetitions of love. "Your son, your only son Isaac," "his son," "his son," "my son," "my son," "his son," "your only son," "his son," - the words run like a sob through the narrative, and the impact of that unnecessary repetition is heightened by "his father," and "my father," and the repeated phrase, "So they went both of them together." The narrator does not need to tell us further of the love between father and son and of what the sacrifice is going to cost Abraham. Nor does he need to point out the silence of Sarah, who in the preceding chapter has known laughter at the birth of Isaac (Genesis 21:6). God promised the aged Abraham and Sarah a son to begin to fulfill his promise to Abraham of many descendants. And God kept his word in the spring of the year. But now God commands, sacrifice Isaac in the land of Moriah.
The emotional impact and theological shock of this story should warn the interpreter against any attempt to soften the command of God. Abraham, coming from a pagan Mesopotamian background, does not just imagine that God gives him this order. No. The story states exactly what is at stake. "God tested Abraham" (v. 1). Abraham is to be the progenitor of a multitude of descendants, through whom the Lord will bring his blessing on all the families of the earth. The test is whether or not Abraham can fill that God-given role.
So early on the morrow, Abraham sets out for the mountain of sacrifice, taking with him two servants and his only son Isaac, whom he loves. After a three-day journey, the fearful destination is reached, and Abraham and his son Isaac, whom he loves, climb the hill together. Isaac carries the wood for the burnt offering, but Abraham carries the fire and the knife, so his son will not injure himself with them. The lad wonders where they will secure an animal for an offering, but Abraham, in the assurance of steadfast faith, replies that God will himself provide the lamb. And they go both of them together.
At the summit, Abraham builds an altar, and lays on it the wood. And then he must bind his only son Isaac, whom he loves, and lay him on the wood. As Abraham raises his hand to slay his son with the knife, however, God does indeed provide through the voice of his messenger angel. "Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." A ram, caught in a thicket, is provided instead, and to this day, that site in the land of Moriah is called, "On the mount of the Lord it will be provided." In the paragraph following our text, the promise is therefore renewed to Abraham. Having proved his obedience to the Lord, Abraham and his descendants will be used by the Lord to bring his blessing on all the families of the earth.
Second Chronicles 3:1 tells us that the mountain in the land of Moriah was none other than one of the hills on which the holy city of Jerusalem was built. And there too the Lord God provided a sacrifice, did he not? There too a Son carried the wood for the sacrifice. There too Father and Son went both of them together. And there too God used one of the descendants of Abraham to keep his promise and through him to bring blessing on all the families of the earth. God has indeed provided, has he not? He has provided the Lamb that was slain, the sacrifice for all of our wrongs and weaknesses, the redemption price to release us from our bondage to our sin, death, and the devil. God gave his only begotten Son, whom he loves, to save you and me and his world, because you see, he loves us too. "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my love, my all."
Lutheran Option - Jeremiah 28:5-9
We read of a contest between two prophets in our text for the morning. The time is several years after 597 B.C. The setting is the city of Jerusalem. The two prophets are a man named Hananiah and the prophet Jeremiah, who by this time is about 57 years old. Jeremiah has been speaking the word of the Lord and suffering for it ever since he was about 18 years of age, because his fellow Israelites do not like his messages about God's judgment on them for their sins.
Like it or not, however, that judgment has begun to fall on Judah and Jerusalem. In 597 B.C., King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia captured Jerusalem and exiled its rulers, including its Davidic king Jehoiachin, and its most prominent citizens to Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar's troops emptied the Temple of its sacred vessels and treasures and largely impoverished the remaining population. Jeremiah was convinced that Babylonia was an instrument of God, that the exile would last for many years, and that the only hope for the survival of Judah was continuing submission to the Babylonian overlords. As a symbol of that submission, Jeremiah was therefore commanded by God to wear a wooden yoke.
There was, however, in Jerusalem an opposition party, and apparently Hananiah is its spokesman. He and his followers believed that with the help of Egypt, they would throw off the yoke of Babylonia within two years time and that the Judean king Jehoiachin and all of the exiles would return to the land of Palestine. As a symbol of that release, Hananiah, in the paragraph following our text, breaks the wooden yoke that Jeremiah has been wearing.
It is noteworthy that Jeremiah does not reply in anger when Hananiah contradicts his message. Instead, "Amen!" he says. "May it be so!" Jeremiah wants as much as Hananiah for his compatriots to be released from their bondage to Babylonia. Throughout his life, Jeremiah never relishes his role as a proclaimer of judgment against his countrymen and women. Indeed, sometimes Jeremiah has even tried to escape that role and to hold the words of judgment within himself (Jeremiah 20:9).
But Jeremiah is also a realist and a servant of his God. He knows that there are many false prophets proclaiming "peace, peace," when there is no peace. He knows that Judah and Jerusalem richly deserve God's judgment for their faithlessness. And above all else, he knows that God always keeps his word. Jeremiah therefore tells Hananiah that if Hananiah's words come to pass, then Hananiah will have spoken a true Word of the Lord.
In other words, good Christians, God fulfills his Word. The Lord is faithful to what he has said, whether that speaking has been through the mouth of a prophet, or from an apostle, or supremely, through his Son Jesus Christ. God has spoken many words to us, hasn't he? And we have those words preserved for us in the scriptures, where they are illumined for us by the work of the Holy Spirit. So what words do you want to choose? "Lo, I am with you always to the end of the age"? "Whoever believes in me shall never die"? "If any persons would be my disciples, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me"? "I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, you may be also"? "I will not leave you desolate"? Whatever the words of our Lord that you choose, believe me, you can count on them.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 13
This psalm is an individual lament with which almost every Christian can identify, for almost all of us have time when God seems far, perhaps even with his face "hidden" from us (v. 1). How many of us have begged God for a reply and heard none? Psalm 13 provides a text for talking about the silences of God.
Do you remember the day back in 1999 when the beepers went silent? When a communications satellite died, the signals for about 90 percent of the United States' pagers suddenly went nowhere. Some of us feel like that sometimes when we pray. As one unnamed writer put it, "Even after Christ's coming, God has painfully kept his distance that we are like spouses married to one who is frequently away on business." And W. H. Auden said, "Our dominant experience of today is of God's absence, of his distance."
We don't know why God sometimes keeps silent when we most desire to hear from him. Maybe his refusal to give us all the answers we want is an indication that God wants to relate to us not as a giver of answers but as a giver of strength. Perhaps God is silent to force us to learn hard lessons of life. We simply don't know.
But we do know that God is not always silent, and that when he does speak to us - and most of us can recall at least one time when we were conscious of guidance or a calling outside of ourselves - it is an experience that is life-changing and unforgettable.
