The Sacrifice of Isaac, a sketch by Rembrandt van Rign.
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What is most important to you?
What rises above everything else – truly, everything else – as the most important thing or task, practice or creative pursuit, person or being, in your life?
They say addiction is about putting a substance on top as the most important thing. The love of money, the love of novelty, the love of attention: Maybe you put a vice or a guilty pleasure on top as the most important thing. I know I have done that.
What is most important to you?
No one would blink an eye if you said, “My child,” or “My marriage,” or “My career.” Well, maybe putting your career first would raise an eyebrow or two. But you may understandably assume that the elevation of family above all other concerns is an unquestioned Christian value. After all, not only are there arch-conservative Christian organizations with names like “Focus on the Family,” even progressive, affirming Christian congregations like St. Paul’s place children and families at the center of parish life. “Family first,” you may say. And if you do, who would critique that?
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – that’s who.
Today we hear a deeply disturbing story from the Torah, one that sounds at best bizarre, at worst, pathological. In contemporary midrash about the story – midrash, a Hebrew word, meaning interpretations that add something to the story to deepen or even transform its meaning – in contemporary midrash, it’s been suggested that the voice of the Angel who calls to Abraham, staying his hand before he slaughters his son, is actually the voice of the boy’s mother, Sarah. Sarah is outraged that her husband would do such a dreadful thing, and as she rises up in power to stop him, her voice arcs into the heavens, crying out, “Do not lay your hand on the boy!” Perhaps this interpretation honors the idea that a mother would never dream of such an atrocity, even if a father might do so. But in my experience, the passion a parent feels for the life and health of their child transcends gender. Would my father slaughter me to demonstrate his faith in God? I doubt he would even imagine such a thing.
But the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob tests a father in just this way. God tests Abraham by demanding he take his son’s life, and though God intervenes at the last moment, Abraham passes the test. No one – nothing – is more important to Abraham than God.
A simple (and persuasive) interpretation of this story is that in recounting Abraham’s experience on Mount Moriah, the Torah condemns child sacrifice, a practice that existed in the era when this story was first told and recorded. Sure, that’s plausible, and it is reassuring whenever we see the ancient Hebrews rising above the domestic gods and less-than-inspiring spiritual practices of their Bronze-Age neighbors. Moreover, in our own age, we do not protect children from slaughter. This is a good – and tragically necessary – teaching for us.
And of course there is a Christian interpretation of the story: the ram that takes the sacrificial place of the boy foreshadows Jesus, the beloved Son of God, who is slaughtered yet raised up in resurrected life, saving humanity from Sin and Death. We proclaim this story every Easter at the Great Vigil, calling it a “story of salvation.” The story of the binding of Isaac, interpreted through this Christian lens, helps us grasp the troubling theology of the cross, the idea that Jesus gave away everything, even his life, that others might live; and that we in turn should do the same.
But as valuable and insightful as these interpretations are, this remains a dreadful story. It’s not just dreadful that a parent would come close to slaughtering his own child; it is dreadful to imagine that God would assume God’s own ultimate importance in human life so radically, so totally, that even the evolved and instinctive bond between parent and child pales by comparison. Even if this is just a test, and even if God knows that Abraham will prove himself worthy, it is a dreadful test. If God tells you to do something, you do it – that much seems logical and even sensible. But if God tells you to kill your miraculous only child, who blessed you with life and hope in your old age – this is all so terrible to imagine. Why would God do or say such things? And why would Abraham comply?
Why do we keep this story around?
But there’s really little point in wondering all this if we can’t understand why we would place God on top as our ultimate concern in the first place. If we understand why God matters most, or why it matters that God matters most, then perhaps we could begin to understand Abraham’s inhuman behavior. God matters most: What does that mean? What would the world be like if God matters most? What would our lives be like?
I offer two answers. If God matters most to us, then 1) our truest identity is caught up in God, not nation or personal identity or even family; and 2) we are saved by our ultimate trust in God.
First, identity: we share with one another an indelible identity in our covenant with the God of Israel, and — for us Christians — our identity as those who are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever. This identity is ultimate: that means it far transcends lesser identities like nationality, ethnicity, gender, political affiliation, and yes, even family. (There will never be a U.S. flag in this room, not even on the Fourth of July.) Our other identities teach us values and say something truthful about us, but our identity with God runs deeper. God makes us who we are, and teaches us God’s values.
Consider the value of unconditional love between parent and child. Abraham is Isaac’s parent, and what’s more, Isaac is a child of hope against hope: Isaac’s parents had long since given up their dream of children before God told them they would have Isaac. But their identity as God’s own, and as the forebears of God’s people, matters more. To parent a nation of God’s people, they need to place that commitment above being the parents of a human child.
For us, what might ultimate identity with God look like, and what values might it supplant? Well, we are “Christ’s own forever:” so we are bound to him even as he dies in self-giving love. Therefore, giving ourselves away in love is more important than anything or anyone else. We are not, first and foremost, U.S. Americans, or members of political parties, or even families! In our essence, we follow the Way of the Cross, even if it separates us from so much we hold dear.
And second, if God matters most to us, we practice ultimate trust in God, no matter what. Now, before you say you trust God, can you count all the things from which God doesn’t necessarily save us? My mother died too young of cancer; most of us have suffered trauma; and if war, injustice, and oppression are defeated at the cross, they nevertheless are taking their time going away. We can’t expect magical rescues or fixes. And yet we trust that “God will provide.” Provide: a flat English translation of the Hebrew ra’a, which means not only the provision of materials or benefits, but revelation: God does not provide things as much as reveal God’s own self to us, and we are called to trust that God will do this.
And so, in my reading of this disturbing story, Abraham saying “God will provide, God will reveal” is not a faith statement that God will spare his son. It is a faith statement that God will be there throughout: no matter how awful our experiences, God will reveal God’s own companionship; God will reveal a path to wisdom; and — through Christ — God will powerfully transform us from who we were into who we are. And so my mother’s death by cancer is not the last word for her or for those who love her; she found wisdom on that hard road, and died in God’s presence; and because we trust God more than even our bonds of kinship, all that is essential in my mother’s life and witness continues to be revealed in those who grieve her death.
And so perhaps we could do further midrash on this story, and imagine Abraham failing to hear the Angel’s — or Sarah’s — warnings. Before they could stop him, he tragically kills Isaac, plunging himself and his spouse into unimaginable despair. Well, even then, God would provide. God would reveal. God would raise up a nation from this couple, and form God’s people from these parents. Perhaps a daughter, or an adoption, or — hey, this is midrash, we can dream big — perhaps a resurrection.
Which brings us back to Jesus, the One whose sign is indelibly marked on the foreheads of the baptized, the One who seals us with ultimate identity and cultivates in us ultimate trust in God: Jesus is slaughtered, yet he is raised. God in Jesus is more important — and more powerful — than even death itself.
Dreadful? Oh, yes. God is not tame; the Way of the Cross is not easy; we suffer much as God’s people. But God will provide. God will reveal. Wisdom will find us. Life will triumph over death. And because we are bound to one another in Christ, we can trust fully that among the many things God provides, God gives us each other, forever.
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Preached on the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 8A), July 2, 2023, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington.
Genesis 22:1-14
Psalm 13
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42