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June 29, 2014
Genesis
22:1-14
1After these things
God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2God
said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of
Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I
shall show you.” 3So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his
donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the
wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance
that God had shown him. 4On the third day Abraham looked up and saw
the place far away. 5Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here
with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we
will come back to you.” 6Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering
and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So
the two of them walked on together. 7Isaac said to his father
Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the
wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8Abraham
said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the
two of them walked on together.
9When they came to the place that God had shown him,
Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son
Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10Then Abraham
reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. 11But the
angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And
he said, “Here I am.” 12He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or
do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not
withheld your son, your only son, from me.” 13And Abraham looked up
and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram
and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14So
Abraham called that place “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day,
“On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.”
Sermon: “Unbound”
My name means “laughter”,
you know. Isaac. It’s an onomatopoeia like sizzle or cuckoo,
meaning it sounds like the noise it makes.
I suppose when an angel of God told my ninety-year-old mother Sarah she
was going to have a baby, she responded with “isaac isaac isaac” in laughter.
But the laughter (that’s
me) nearly died one day. That day is
forever burned into my memory. It
started out like any other day: my dad Abraham said we were going on a little
hiking trip for the weekend, up to Moriah.
He saddled the donkey, brought supplies and a couple of his best young
workers. I didn’t really think he’d
brought enough food for me for the way home again, but didn’t say anything
because my ol’ Dad seemed a little on edge.
He continued to seem on
edge to me. Sure, I was six, but I could
still tell. I kept meeting his eye to catch
him giving me a strange sort of look, and he kept looking angrily up at heaven
with no explanation. And there was the
wandering – we wandered and wandered until finally, on the third day, he
stopped. He told the workers to stay
with the donkey, and took my hand.
“Let’s go.” he said.
I’m not sure why I felt
afraid, but I did. He was my dad, I
trusted him completely, but I was still unsettled for some reason. But I came with him. I saw the oil and the wood to make a
sacrifice to God. Even at 6, I
understood the way this ritual worked.
“W…where’s the lamb, Dad?” I asked with worried eyes as big as dinner
plates.
His eyes teared up for a
minute. I’d never seen my Dad cry. Now I was really scared. “God will provide,” he choked out.
When he told me to lie down
on the altar, I knew what was happening.
I don’t know if I was too stunned to cry out or so shocked by the
situation that I said nothing, but I obeyed.
Shaking like a leaf, I laid down.
He bound me, tying up my hands and feet, and though tears now poured
down my cheeks, I didn’t say a word.
Just as what I feared would
happen was about to happen, there was a voice.
It didn’t even startle me. I
barely noticed it. I was beyond noticing
anything at this point. “Abraham!” It
roared. “Do not harm your son! I know you fear God because you haven’t even
withheld your son.”
My dad fell down to the
ground with relief. And then he rose,
his face broken with grief. He untied
me, with each motion weeping, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,
Isaac,” over and over again. I was
unbound, free. My life was saved.
And my heart was
broken.
At first, though, I used
this experience to my advantage. When my
dad would ask me to clean my room, I’d just say one word, “Sacrifice!” and he
would clean it for me. That was one
powerful guilt trip. I got all my
favorite toys that way, never had to clean my room and my dad was always going
out of his way to show me love.
But as I became a teenager
the wounds of that fateful day began to fester.
I became withdrawn, irrationally angry at the littlest things, and I
never looked my dad in the eye.
That day took its toll on
him, too. He never laughed anymore. His faith in God was steadfast as ever, but it
took on an almost maniacal, obsessive edge.
He seemed to think that if he took one misstep, God would sacrifice him like
he almost sacrificed me. Or perhaps he
wanted to prove his fear of God so God would never ask of him again what was
asked that horrible day.
It’s been many, many years
since that day. I said goodbye to my
dear, kind mother Sarah, and welcomed my wife Rebekah. I had children, Esau and Jacob, who in their
own way tricked me the way my father once had done.
But in the end, that angry
fire of my teenage youth has burned down.
It is still there, a smoldering, glowing ember of regret and sadness,
but now it looks much more like pity than rage.
You see, I now feel sorry for my dad.
I mean, what sort of God
would ask a father to kill his laughter, his long-awaited son? I don’t want to believe in a God like
that. And so I don’t.
This isn’t to say I don’t
believe in God. I do. I taught my children the stories of Yahweh
and through them and their children, and their children’s children, you’ve
heard of these stories, too.
Did God order my dad to
kill me that day in Moriah, or was my dad just really sick? Oh, I’ve spent my entire life asking that
question. And the answer is always the
same: I don’t know.
What I do know is this: my
dad regretted listening to that command, and acting on it. He regretted not showing his fear of God in
some other way that wouldn’t have made me forever fearful of him. And, you know what, while I realize this
probably isn’t perhaps “theologically sound”, I get the feeling God regretted
that day, too.
Because this same God later
learned what it was like to lose a son.
This God watched as people bound him to a cross, and this God didn’t
provide a lamb that time. This God’s
laughter died, too. But, not for
long. Three days of death and sorrow,
and then an eternity of life and laughter.
Three days bound in a tomb, and then a resurrection that would unbind
all of creation for all time.
Maybe it takes the fear to
find the laughter. Maybe it takes being
bound to appreciate freedom.
Honestly, just as my anger
at my dad turned to pity, I feel sorry that our God had to endure such horrific
violence.
And I don’t know why that
happened any more than I know why my dad nearly killed me doing what he thought
was God’s will.
But this I do know: love is
stronger than death. Our scriptures say
that, too. We human beings are a
terrible mess of beauty and violence, pain and laughter. That is life.
But somehow, in ways we will never be able to understand, even if we
were meant to, that love of God endures the very worst harm we can do to each
other, and even the worst harm it can seem like God brings us.
Perhaps the point, if there
even is a point to this rambling story of mine, is not in the binding, but the unbinding. Being bound in fear and the threat of death
was part of my story, yes. But it wasn’t
the end. In the end, I was unbound –
freed – so that I could try to give my children the kind of blessed life I
missed out on.
I do not pretend to
understand fully the way our wild God works in this world, even now, after all
these years. But this I do know: God
wants us all to be unbound in the end.
So, let go. Be freed. Live this very precious life with as little
regret and anger as you can muster. And,
oh yes, laugh. As often as you possibly
can, laugh. Amen.