July 14, 2013 DO YOU LOVE ME MORE THAN THESE?
Preface to the Word
In Genesis, the “book of beginnings,” the first book of the Holy Bible, we are dealing with very old stories… stories that grew from pre-historic roots. They were not written down into a book until King David’s time, and while it may look like one continuous narrative to the reader today, Genesis is a compilation of stories from different sources and traditions. For example, Genesis leads off with three different and distinct creation stories. This is one reason why it often appears as though the same event or pronouncement or conversation gets repeated two or three times. It should also be said that in finally sitting down to compile these old stories into one narrative, additional stories were added; stories composed by writers who were looking back in time from their perspective and interpreting the significance or meaning of ancient, formative events.
One of the central Genesis characters is Abraham. He was one of the three sons of a man named Terah. Terah’s semi-nomadic clan did not own their own pasturage, but rented it from the Mesopotamians by the regular payment of a certain number of their own animals. So Abraham and his family belonged to one of many clans that frequently moved with their flocks from place to place. Often, they would settle in the vicinity of an established city or town, dealing with the people of a settled, agrarian society. But eventually, Abraham and his tribe began to long for land of their own. They were weary of being tenants of the Amorites. It was then that the command of the Lord directed Abraham towards a land called Canaan. “Go from your country,” the Lord said, “to a land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation…”
In Genesis, we follow the journeys of Abraham and his family. The journey involved not only moving great distances and encountering new peoples and cultures, but also meeting and building a relationship with God – or should I say their family god, since in those times it was understood that there were many gods. You see, the nation of Israel was still far in the future and the stories of faith and righteousness we find in Abraham and his son Isaac and his son Jacob and his son Joseph reflect the relationship between a family or a tribe and their personal god, whose name would later be revealed as Yahweh. It is still very early in the story and these are also very early revelations of the God who would eventually become the God of Israel and indeed the world; revelations of what sort of God Yahweh is and how the faithful were to live in a covenantal relationship with this God.
We’re going to pick up the story of Abraham today in chapter 22. A lot has happened since we visited the text last week. Moving here and there…warring, and trading, and other encounters with cities, kings, heavenly messengers and gods. Abraham is reminded often of God’s promises of offspring and land and a special relationship with God, but Sarah his wife is barren, so he is given a slave girl to bear a child and heir. Ishmael is born, but it becomes clear that the promise of God is not to be fulfilled through him. Then Sarah learns she will bear a son, even though she is well beyond a child-bearing age. She laughs when she hears this, but sure enough she miraculously becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son. They name him Isaac, which means, “he laughs.”
So now, it looks as though the promises of God rest entirely on this little boy. Which is why this story we are about to hear is so shocking…
Scripture: Genesis 22:1–19
Mark 8:34-37
Sermon: I.
A. "Abraham," God 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." We shudder at the thought. In this ancient story we see little but crudeness and cruelty.
But let's look deeper…
B. Remember that Isaac was much more than Abraham's son. Isaac was Abraham's only hope of seeing God's purpose and promise fulfilled. Isaac was the one and only chance for Abraham to have descendants as countless as the stars in the sky, as numberless as the sand on the shore, the fulfillment of God's covenant. Abraham had everything riding on Isaac just as God had led him to.
And now the God who had started the whole thing makes this shocking demand; "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...." Whatever else we think of this story, we must know at least that this story leads us away from a cheap, shallow religion that often passes for faith in our society. It hurls us into the costly depths of faith, depths into which most of us are very hesitant to plunge.
C. Where you and I would hesitate and stall as long as we could, the story says that Abraham arose early in the morning, cut some wood for the sacrifice, loaded up his donkey, called two of his most trusted servants, gathered up his son Isaac, and started off for the land of Moriah. On the third day, he looked up and saw the place far away. He told his servants to stay with the donkey, explaining that he and Isaac were going to the mountain to worship, and, interestingly enough, declaring that they would both come back. He had Isaac carry the wood. He himself carried a knife and some live coals to start the fire. Every detail is included. Everything is in place to carry through with the plan.
D. As they walk together toward the mountain, Isaac says, "Father, the fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"
Can you imagine what was going on in Abraham's heart? The answer his gives to his son is either a bold faced lie or one of the most profound statements of faith recorded in the Bible. Abraham said to Isaac, "God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son."
Are you following the story? Are you hearing the message? By faith, Abraham is choosing to trust in the goodness of God, even when all the circumstances around him seem to contradict it. He will continue to believe that somehow God is going to provide the way for God's good purpose to be fulfilled, even when everything seems to be working against it.
The Lord will provide. (If you remember nothing else of today’s sermon, remember this affirmation of faith: “The Lord will provide!”)
E. The drama builds. With disbelief we watch Abraham arrange the wood on the altar he had built. We gasp as he suddenly turns to his son and ties the boy's hands and feet, and lifts his body onto the wood.
We want to turn our heads but we watch as the old man raises his knife and readies himself to plunge it down into his boy’s heart. His muscles tense, his eyes fill with tears.
As we listen to this ancient story in the book of beginnings, we find ourselves wondering "How far does this faith thing go?"
Is Abraham's profound trust in this God of his misplaced? Is it stronger than his future, his family, his aspirations, his happiness, his blessings? The moment has come, the moment when everything is put on the line for God…
…and it is in that moment an angelic voice speaks and it calls his name.
"Abraham, Abraham."
"Here I am," he replies.
"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."
The ram is provided, the son is “redeemed” and the covenant that began the whole drama is reaffirmed.
II.
A. There’s a huge distance between those times and ours, between that ancient culture and ours. This act at the center of the story seems barbaric. We may wonder what kind of God would even ask something like this of Abraham. Our stomachs turn at the thought of human sacrifice.
B. But we shouldn't let our modern sensibilities blur the vital point of this old, old story. You see, at the core of it there is a message for us to hear… even today. The message for us 21st century Christians whose journeys have brought us to this place, is that while the grace of the God we meet in Jesus Christ is absolutely unmerited and free, a mature faith has its cost. Although God's love offered in Christ is simple, living God's love is rarely easy. Although the journey of faith is filled with joyful surprise and blessing, it is also filled with sacrifice.
It's the nature of the walk.
C. Yes, there is glory – referring to the excellence and splendor God shines on God's people – but the glory builds on the bedrock of our deep trust in God and our faithfulness in action. Sooner or later, persons who choose to walk this road of faith will be led toward their own version of Moriah, to that place where we are called to offer to God the one and only thing we may be tempted to love more than we love God; the thing we find ourselves really worshiping other than God.
D. Abraham was called to offer his son, his miraculous son born to his barren wife, the son he treasured and put his hope in. He was asked to sacrifice young Isaac, who represented Abraham's future, the miraculous fulfillment of God's promise, the security of his old age.
E. The scripture says that God was testing Abraham, to see how far his faith would go by asking him to sacrifice to God the promise God had given him. Would his trust go this far? But on the other hand, it seems to me that in this story Abraham was also testing God, or at least his understanding of God’s promise. This relationship with God was growing. Abraham wasn’t sure how, exactly, this was going to work, but by stepping up to that altar with the knife raised over his son, Abraham was determined to know if God would fulfill the promise even when the only way to its fulfillment was about to be eliminated. Would God keep God’s word? Will God really provide?
F. The Rev. James Harnish tells this story in his book, Journeys With the People of Genesis:
"The phone was ringing as I unlocked the office door one Monday morning. I could hear the urgency in the woman's voice as she asked if she could stop in on her way to work. She said she had something she needed to do and wanted me to pray with her about it. In ten minutes she was in my office. In five minutes she poured out her story. She had fallen in love with a married man. They had kept in touch by mail after he moved to a distant city. A year ago she returned to the church, hoping to rebuild the moral integrity of her life. It worked. She said she began to feel a sense of 'rightness' in her life. Now the time had come for a painfully difficult act of faith.
"She had written a letter to her friend, telling him she had to break off the relationship. It did not feel good, but she knew it was good. She was ready to put the letter in the mail and wanted me to pray with her for the strength to do what she knew was right. With tears, we prayed together. There was no way to remove the pain, the tremendous emotional cost for her action, but the Lord provided the strength for her to do what she knew she needed to do."
G. She had been to her Moriah, to the place in her soul where she was called to surrender to God the thing that had the potential of derailing God's purpose for her life, the thing she loved more than God.
And there she discovered that the Lord provides. There she began to realize the meaning of Jesus' promise recorded in Mark 8: "Those who want to save their live will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it."
III.
A. So what is it for you and me? What’s the thing we are tempted to love more than we love God? What is it in our life to which the Spirit of God would point and say, "Take that thing you value so much, that thing you have placed all your hope in, the thing you treasure above all else and go to the mountain and offer it to me"?
[Give persons time to reflect in silent prayer]
B. I don’t know where it will happen or how the call will come. I only know that if you and I choose to journey the road of faith, sooner or later it will lead us to our own Moriah – the place where we will be asked to surrender to God the greatest love, the deepest dream, the strongest hope of our life… and the place where we discover it is precisely when God’s magnificent promise is met by our profound trust, that the Lord does indeed provide!