I've kinda hated the story told in Genesis 22.
For starters, it's one of those dark stories of the Old Testament that has the power to scare people who don't know God away, it can easily be interpreted in very unhelpful ways, and it somehow got elevated to the top tier of flannel graphs in order to traumatize the kiddos, too. This isn't to say it doesn't have anything to teach us or that it isn't useful, but it does mean that this passage comes with a lot of baggage for me and a lot of other Christians. But before I delve into some thoughts on the scripture, I want to make a brief update on what's been going on in my life.
As I have mentioned before, I'm now employed at Connecting Caring Communities. In the six months I have spent at CCC, I have been blessed to visit many different churches from many different neighborhoods. I've experienced and joined in worship with sisters and brothers in Christ who have very different ways of approaching the throne of God than the ones to which I have become accustomed. Though a wonderful few months, this season of frequent visitation is drawing to a close, though I still plan to make monthly visits to congregations around Abilene.
Amanda and I need a church to call home. A place to be ministered to as well as a place to use our gifts for the sake of the world. After prayer and consideration, we ended up at Highland Church of Christ. (I know! Another Church of Christ!) The focus of the church on issues like eliminating homelessness in Abilene along with embracing women in leadership roles in worship were big factors in leading us to Highland, as was their partnering in two neighborhoods I deeply care about: Butternut/Chestnut, which is a neighborhood I'm focusing on through CCC, and College Heights, the neighborhood I felt called to move into in order to work for community development with the St. Ann Community.
Yesterday morning, Amanda and I attended Highland. While Amanda was at a grad school meeting that evening, I joined worship at Grace, the offshoot of Highland in my neighborhood. Jonathan Storment is the Preaching Minister at Highland, and delivers the same sermon at both services. I'm not typically the kind of person that relishes digesting the same lesson twice in a row, but I really like his content and style of presenting. Also, it's given me a chance to listen and think critically more than when I only hear a message once. And so, as I was listening to the sermon about Genesis 22 for the second time in about six hours, some interesting things seeped into my mind that I thought were worth considering.
Firstly, Jonathan said a lot of great things that I won't get into, because he said them really well and there isn't a lot of need to rehash it. If you're interested, check out his blog over at http://jonathanstorment.com/. I do want to pick out one of the points he made that stood out to me and expound on how it has played out in my own life.
Jonathan noted that asking Abraham to sacrifice his son was asking him to sacrifice the promise that God had made to him. Abe had been told by a messenger of God, "You and Sarah are going to have a son, and God will make the world a better place through him." That's a pretty dang sweet promise, especially when you were measured as a person based on your family back in the day. And so it happens, they have a son, and name him Isaac. But a few years later, God says to Abe, "Yeah, about that... Go kill Isaac on a mountain for me."
God promised Abraham something great. Something wonderful. Something life changing. And then God switched things up on Abraham, leaving old Abe a choice: do I cling to the promise that God made to me, or do I cling to the God who made the promise. Abraham chooses God over the promise, and is rewarded by God keeping the promise, too.
This makes me think of four years ago, when some college kids were gathered by God in a neighborhood. We didn't know what we were doing, we were just following where God was leading us. In some small ways and some huge ways, God showed us a glimpse of God's vision for the neighborhood. Somewhere in those crazy first few months, we could discern a promise from God, that we would be able to join in with what God was already doing in College Heights.
But the avalanche of activity slowed to a crawl after a while. Though there were certainly milestones along the way, perhaps most notably our group relocating into the neighborhood and setting down roots, I felt like we weren't fulfilling what we had been promised yet. It wasn't until yesterday that I realized that in some ways, I had replaced God with God's promise. It was a subtle shift, but those can be the most insidious. I had made an idol out of a promise.
I don't have a well-thought out plan for returning things to how they should be, but I think it starts by acknowledging that the promise isn't God. God is much bigger than the promise made to a few believers, no matter how good that promise is. With some positive progress on the dream in the last few months, I think it was crucial to be reminded to focus on God, not the promise.
Another thought brought on by listening to lots of Genesis 22 was that Sarah really got the raw end of the deal in the story-telling process. God chats it up with Abraham, let's him know about the whole "sacrifice your only son" thing, but it makes no mention of Isaac's mom. the entire section is called "Abraham Tested" or "Abraham and Isaac." Later in the New Testament it seems like every writer wants to get in on crediting Abraham as righteous because of this whole turn of events. My question is, what about Sarah?
I would like to think that Abraham would talk to Sarah about it before he left the next day, though he doesn't have the best track record of telling the whole truth. If he did tell her, I bet it was not a fun conversation. "Hey babe, what a day... Three sheep wandered into the canyon, that lion was prowling around again, and *begins trailing off* God told me to kill our son tomorrow... How was your day?"
(Discussing this with Amanda, she posited that Abraham probably didn't tell Sarah. That would make sense in a highly patriarchal society.)
If Abraham told his wife, she would also have to have incredible faith to allow her husband to take away her only son. In fact, I would argue it's even harder for someone in her position to have faith. If God tells me something directly, I'm doing it. But if God tells someone else to do something that will affect me, things get dicey. If God clearly tells me to move to the Antarctic, I'm heading there. I'm probably going to complain a heckuva lot, because I'm morally against weather below 60 degrees, but I'm going. If God tells Amanda that we're supposed to move to the Antarctic? I'm going to be much more diligent about looking for alternative interpretations of what she was told. (Maybe there's a neighborhood here in Abilene that is nicknamed "the Antarctic"?)
Here's what I'm driving at: there and tons of people who hear God calling them to a place, to a ministry, to wherever. Props to those who are called and answer, for sure, I believe God blesses that. But I think too often we forget the people who love the called who sacrifice along with them. It's one thing to trust God calling you somewhere. It's an entirely different thing have faith that God is calling someone else, and to follow them on that journey. Sarah could be a great example of that, if we knew her part of the story better. But she is by no means the only person caught up in such a story.
I've heard tons about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. lately, what with the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington. But I rarely, if ever, hear the story of his wife. Certainly, Dr. King sacrificed immensely to follow the dreams God put on his heart. But his wife walked with him through so much of it, and had to endure God knows what, up to and including Dr. King's assassination. And yet I don't know anything about her. I don't even know her name.
How many missionaries have heard the call to go overseas, and have brought their spouse along for the ride? Certainly, some of those couples both felt the call equally, but I'm sure there have been many couples in which one says, "God is calling me to mission," and the spouse says, "I'm called to be with you, wherever that might be."
I think about my own wife. I heard the call to ministry and community development, and I knew God wanted me in this neighborhood. Amanda didn't hear that, but had enough faith in God to go along with me. Things looked really bad for a while, especially when we were renting a house I was certain we were supposed to buy, but the buying process was falling apart while renting was eroding our finances. My certainty came easily, because I felt like God told me to do it. Amanda hadn't received any clear signs that everything would work out, but she had faith anyway anyway. In my mind, her faith without seeing was a much bigger deal than me trusting enough to do what I was told.
I'd caught a glimpse of what what coming, and I trusted that God could and would make it happen. Without seeing it, Amanda had faith that God would make good come out of the situation.
What I want to challenge us to do is to look for and listen to the kinds of faith stories that aren't as flashy. The stories that get lost in the shuffle. The stories of people who quietly live out their faith, especially when those stories don't have a remarkable moment of clarity of vision. It's easy to make the mistake of overvaluing certainty and undervaluing stepping out in faith without assurance. I think we will be blessed when we look for and listen to those stories of faith.
For starters, it's one of those dark stories of the Old Testament that has the power to scare people who don't know God away, it can easily be interpreted in very unhelpful ways, and it somehow got elevated to the top tier of flannel graphs in order to traumatize the kiddos, too. This isn't to say it doesn't have anything to teach us or that it isn't useful, but it does mean that this passage comes with a lot of baggage for me and a lot of other Christians. But before I delve into some thoughts on the scripture, I want to make a brief update on what's been going on in my life.
As I have mentioned before, I'm now employed at Connecting Caring Communities. In the six months I have spent at CCC, I have been blessed to visit many different churches from many different neighborhoods. I've experienced and joined in worship with sisters and brothers in Christ who have very different ways of approaching the throne of God than the ones to which I have become accustomed. Though a wonderful few months, this season of frequent visitation is drawing to a close, though I still plan to make monthly visits to congregations around Abilene.
Amanda and I need a church to call home. A place to be ministered to as well as a place to use our gifts for the sake of the world. After prayer and consideration, we ended up at Highland Church of Christ. (I know! Another Church of Christ!) The focus of the church on issues like eliminating homelessness in Abilene along with embracing women in leadership roles in worship were big factors in leading us to Highland, as was their partnering in two neighborhoods I deeply care about: Butternut/Chestnut, which is a neighborhood I'm focusing on through CCC, and College Heights, the neighborhood I felt called to move into in order to work for community development with the St. Ann Community.
Yesterday morning, Amanda and I attended Highland. While Amanda was at a grad school meeting that evening, I joined worship at Grace, the offshoot of Highland in my neighborhood. Jonathan Storment is the Preaching Minister at Highland, and delivers the same sermon at both services. I'm not typically the kind of person that relishes digesting the same lesson twice in a row, but I really like his content and style of presenting. Also, it's given me a chance to listen and think critically more than when I only hear a message once. And so, as I was listening to the sermon about Genesis 22 for the second time in about six hours, some interesting things seeped into my mind that I thought were worth considering.
Firstly, Jonathan said a lot of great things that I won't get into, because he said them really well and there isn't a lot of need to rehash it. If you're interested, check out his blog over at http://jonathanstorment.com/. I do want to pick out one of the points he made that stood out to me and expound on how it has played out in my own life.
Jonathan noted that asking Abraham to sacrifice his son was asking him to sacrifice the promise that God had made to him. Abe had been told by a messenger of God, "You and Sarah are going to have a son, and God will make the world a better place through him." That's a pretty dang sweet promise, especially when you were measured as a person based on your family back in the day. And so it happens, they have a son, and name him Isaac. But a few years later, God says to Abe, "Yeah, about that... Go kill Isaac on a mountain for me."
God promised Abraham something great. Something wonderful. Something life changing. And then God switched things up on Abraham, leaving old Abe a choice: do I cling to the promise that God made to me, or do I cling to the God who made the promise. Abraham chooses God over the promise, and is rewarded by God keeping the promise, too.
This makes me think of four years ago, when some college kids were gathered by God in a neighborhood. We didn't know what we were doing, we were just following where God was leading us. In some small ways and some huge ways, God showed us a glimpse of God's vision for the neighborhood. Somewhere in those crazy first few months, we could discern a promise from God, that we would be able to join in with what God was already doing in College Heights.
But the avalanche of activity slowed to a crawl after a while. Though there were certainly milestones along the way, perhaps most notably our group relocating into the neighborhood and setting down roots, I felt like we weren't fulfilling what we had been promised yet. It wasn't until yesterday that I realized that in some ways, I had replaced God with God's promise. It was a subtle shift, but those can be the most insidious. I had made an idol out of a promise.
I don't have a well-thought out plan for returning things to how they should be, but I think it starts by acknowledging that the promise isn't God. God is much bigger than the promise made to a few believers, no matter how good that promise is. With some positive progress on the dream in the last few months, I think it was crucial to be reminded to focus on God, not the promise.
Another thought brought on by listening to lots of Genesis 22 was that Sarah really got the raw end of the deal in the story-telling process. God chats it up with Abraham, let's him know about the whole "sacrifice your only son" thing, but it makes no mention of Isaac's mom. the entire section is called "Abraham Tested" or "Abraham and Isaac." Later in the New Testament it seems like every writer wants to get in on crediting Abraham as righteous because of this whole turn of events. My question is, what about Sarah?
I would like to think that Abraham would talk to Sarah about it before he left the next day, though he doesn't have the best track record of telling the whole truth. If he did tell her, I bet it was not a fun conversation. "Hey babe, what a day... Three sheep wandered into the canyon, that lion was prowling around again, and *begins trailing off* God told me to kill our son tomorrow... How was your day?"
(Discussing this with Amanda, she posited that Abraham probably didn't tell Sarah. That would make sense in a highly patriarchal society.)
If Abraham told his wife, she would also have to have incredible faith to allow her husband to take away her only son. In fact, I would argue it's even harder for someone in her position to have faith. If God tells me something directly, I'm doing it. But if God tells someone else to do something that will affect me, things get dicey. If God clearly tells me to move to the Antarctic, I'm heading there. I'm probably going to complain a heckuva lot, because I'm morally against weather below 60 degrees, but I'm going. If God tells Amanda that we're supposed to move to the Antarctic? I'm going to be much more diligent about looking for alternative interpretations of what she was told. (Maybe there's a neighborhood here in Abilene that is nicknamed "the Antarctic"?)
Here's what I'm driving at: there and tons of people who hear God calling them to a place, to a ministry, to wherever. Props to those who are called and answer, for sure, I believe God blesses that. But I think too often we forget the people who love the called who sacrifice along with them. It's one thing to trust God calling you somewhere. It's an entirely different thing have faith that God is calling someone else, and to follow them on that journey. Sarah could be a great example of that, if we knew her part of the story better. But she is by no means the only person caught up in such a story.
I've heard tons about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. lately, what with the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington. But I rarely, if ever, hear the story of his wife. Certainly, Dr. King sacrificed immensely to follow the dreams God put on his heart. But his wife walked with him through so much of it, and had to endure God knows what, up to and including Dr. King's assassination. And yet I don't know anything about her. I don't even know her name.
How many missionaries have heard the call to go overseas, and have brought their spouse along for the ride? Certainly, some of those couples both felt the call equally, but I'm sure there have been many couples in which one says, "God is calling me to mission," and the spouse says, "I'm called to be with you, wherever that might be."
I think about my own wife. I heard the call to ministry and community development, and I knew God wanted me in this neighborhood. Amanda didn't hear that, but had enough faith in God to go along with me. Things looked really bad for a while, especially when we were renting a house I was certain we were supposed to buy, but the buying process was falling apart while renting was eroding our finances. My certainty came easily, because I felt like God told me to do it. Amanda hadn't received any clear signs that everything would work out, but she had faith anyway anyway. In my mind, her faith without seeing was a much bigger deal than me trusting enough to do what I was told.
I'd caught a glimpse of what what coming, and I trusted that God could and would make it happen. Without seeing it, Amanda had faith that God would make good come out of the situation.
What I want to challenge us to do is to look for and listen to the kinds of faith stories that aren't as flashy. The stories that get lost in the shuffle. The stories of people who quietly live out their faith, especially when those stories don't have a remarkable moment of clarity of vision. It's easy to make the mistake of overvaluing certainty and undervaluing stepping out in faith without assurance. I think we will be blessed when we look for and listen to those stories of faith.
