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On the Mountain I Will Show You

June 29, 2008- Year A, Proper 29

Genesis 22:1-14

The Rev. Mark Byers

In this valley, we live at sea level or below. There are parts of this area where it is apparent that much of this land was once under water. As I drove from here to Colorado for my high school reunion, I passed through Arizona, then Utah, and then up into a valley west of my destination that rose in elevation until at last, I arrived in Carbondale, about 6,200 feet above sea level, with Mount Sopris, almost 13,000 feet high, at the head of that valley. If I were describing the trip, I would say that it was a gradual transition from low-lying desert to alpine forests and meadows. But it’s far more complex than that. The shifts in geography and ecology can be dramatic: flat desert, then green canyons with rivers running through them, then dramatic rock formations rising out of the desert, then scrub and pine changing within only a few minutes’ driving to grass and a variety of different trees. By the time I arrived in Carbondale, the world I was looking at looked completely different, even more so because I still held the memory of the Coachella Valley in my mind, and the recollection of my home, my family, and my church.

Memories sometimes ease these dramatic transitions, and we forget the forbidding crag of rock that appears from nowhere, without seeming purpose, violating the plains around it. We forget that over millions of years, water and wind wiped away the ground around it, and left it standing unattended. The rock remains as it was. It’s just that it’s alone now, rather than buried comfortably in the landscape.

This can happen, too, with scripture. We remember Creation and Eden, but the disobedience fades into the background: the Fall only a word. We see the flowers and hear the music of Easter morning, but forget the agony of the Crucifixion. We arrive in the land that was promised, or so we believe, but without any recollection of having been in the Wilderness. Our wilderness, after all, is not so bad. Here in our world, the heat is moderated by fans and air conditioning, and the dust of the road stays outside of our cars. Here in our world, the God who appears as fire, or who sends strange, unsettling messengers, is far removed from our day to day. God becomes only a concept, or the recipient of heartfelt, but one-sided prayers, more distant from us than an emailed customer service representative. In our world, sacrifices are normally measured in dollars. To be sure, to spend a dollar in one place, rather than another, may be sacrificial. It does cause us to feel regret or loss that money goes to one recipient rather than another.

Abraham lived somewhere around five thousand years ago, depending on who you ask. He was born “Abram,” not Abraham. Like Prince, or Madonna, or Elvis, his name got modified along the way. His reasons were a bit different than theirs, but he ended up being called by a new name. His wife started out being called Sarai, not Sarah, as she was ultimately named.

Some people don’t believe he really lived. I do, but you could make a reasonable argument either way. His family had settled in Ur of the Chaldeans, a city that had been around for centuries longer than our country even back in Abram’s day. Ur had more residents in 2000 BC, I read in one source, than La Quinta does today.

His father decided the family should move. Now, this meant something different than now. I’m told that experts believe that moving can be almost as disrupting to families as a death or divorce, that it’s right near the top in that category. For Abraham and his family, moving meant taking all that they possessed, and putting it on beasts of burden and their own backs, and carrying it with them to their new home. Every step of the journey required swinging a leg forward and putting a foot down, under the sun, rain, wind, with dust or mud or rock instead of pavement beneath them.

They moved to Haran. Originally, they were going to go to Canaan, but they settled in Haran for a time. It’s a long way from Ur to Haran to Canaan.

People then, as now, believed in a divine presence in the world. Then, as now, they would have described it differently in different parts of the world, even from household to household. Then, as now, religion was not simply a search for what is true about God, but a search for how best to make God, or “the gods,” like us, work for us, or be less angry with us. The problem is, if God actually begins talking with us, we have to take seriously God’s reality, rather than our preconceptions. God spoke to Abraham, and in speaking, complicated Abraham’s religious life. As long as God seems silent, like a stone idol, or a figure hanging on a cross, or even like an unopened bible, faith can be whatever we like. But then he messes things up by speaking.

“Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”

There were not yet Jews, or a people called “Israel,” when God spoke to Abram. We don’t know what went through Abram’s head when God spoke. There were no psychiatrists back then, so presumably the voice that compelled him to pack up his household and start walking couldn’t be chalked up to mental illness. He was not young, nor was his wife. They didn’t have children; Sarai was barren, infertile. But they still had people: family, servants or slaves. And livestock. And possessions.

They got to Canaan. God said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” And, because Abraham was grateful, he built an altar to worship God in that place. Abraham wouldn’t have thought necessarily that he was “founding a religion” through this action. He would have thought, pragmatically, that he was responding to the divine being who was actually alive and in his life. There’s not a lot of room for hemming and hawing when God actually speaks.

They had many adventures, Abram and Sarai. Famines and temporary moves. Confusing episodes with foreign kings and even wars. But they had no children. God had promised, and then promised again, that Abram would have children. Yet he and Sarai were not getting any younger, and still those children hadn’t come. Abram was all set to leave everything to a servant, but God said, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” Then he made Abram go outside. “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” (Remember, even in our beautiful desert, how the light masks the heavens, and how many stars Abram must have seen.) “So shall your descendants be.” And Abram believe the LORD; and because of this, God called him a righteous man.

As many people of faith do, Abram and Sarai had occasional lapses, when they thought that perhaps they could do for themselves what God had promised to do for them. We sometimes imagine that God’s promise to act for us is license for us to act on his behalf. Sarai suggested that since it was obvious that she couldn’t have children, Abram should conceive a child with Sarai’s servant girl, Hagar. This stirred things up in the household: Hagar started treating Sarai badly, Sarai punished her, and Hagar ran off. God came to Hagar and said that for her son, too, he had plans. But to Abram and Sarai, he said that this boy, who was called Ishmael, was not the son God had promised.

And God spoke yet again to Abraham, when he was 99 years old, we’re told: “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.”

Here it is:

-“You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations.”

-This covenant will be everlasting.
-This covenant includes the land where you are now an alien.
-The sign of this covenant is the circumcision of every male of your people at eight days of age.
-Sarai’s name will no longer be Sarah.
-I will give you a son by her, and she shall give rise to nations.

And Abraham, the righteous, obedient one, “fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’” Maybe, he suggested, it might make more sense to work with Ishmael.

But God said, “No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac.” Isaac, by the way, means, “he laughs.” 99 year old man; ninety year old woman; laughter and utter disbelief. God’s response to the laughter? Name the kid after it.

And Abraham obeyed God still. He circumcised every male of his household, including Ishmael, who was thirteen, and all the servants and slaves. Later, Sarah conceived and delivered a child, as God had promised. Abraham named him Isaac, and when he was eight days old, circumcised him according to the covenant. The child they had been promised, for whom they had waited a lifetime. The child of Abraham’s and Sarah’s hearts. Sarah said, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” They feasted. For all the wandering, and adventure, and danger, had come to this: God’s promise had come true with this baby. This living God, in the midst of a world full of idols, was transforming their lives, and even though they had been troubled, or even laughed in disbelief, they had remained true through it all. People say, in our day, that there is no longer “brand loyalty” in faith. We migrate from church to church, from disbelief to belief to disbelief, and back again, and back again. We profess faith, and behave unfaithfully. Yet Abraham and Sarah remained steadfast in knowing that this, truly, was God Almighty, true to his word, even if he seemed slow in delivering sometimes. “God has brought laughter for me.” Isaac. “He laughs.”

‘After these things, God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He 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." So 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. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then 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." ‘Abraham 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. Isaac 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?" Abraham said, "God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So the two of them walked on together.

When 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. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He 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." And 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. So 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."’

We don’t, now, sacrifice people to God. This story takes an alien, uncivilized turn, and all of a sudden, the gift that fulfils promises and offers hope for a brilliant future, is on the verge of being killed, and it all seems so arbitrary. We don’t sacrifice people to God. We give money. In other times, we gave crops. Even, in ancient times, animals. God can seem, at times, blood thirsty in the bible, frightening and unreadable. From laughter to a raised knife and a pile of firewood. Why, I’ve asked myself, would God ask for Isaac? Why would Abraham walk across the dust, through the scrub, and up the mountainside, and then raise his hand to take his on’s life? Why didn’t someone else say something? It’s natural enough for me to ask, right? I grew up in a culture that doesn’t practice human sacrifice. I’ve never wanted to believe that God could demand from me the gifts he’s given that bring me the most joy.

Here in our world, after all, the God who appears as fire, or who sends strange, unsettling messengers, is far removed from our day to day. In our world, sacrifices, at least to God, are normally measured in dollars. God doesn’t get our blood on altars anymore. He gets his own: the body and blood of Jesus Christ, broken and poured out for us, in the knowledge that the only sacrifice that has any meaning to God is God’s sacrifice of himself for us. Yet I wonder if we’ve given up on it.

One poet, a soldier in the trenches in World War I, wrote about the war like this:

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went, And took the fire with him, and a knife.

And as they sojourned both of them together,

Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,

Behold the preparations, fire and iron,

But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?

Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,

and builded parapets and trenches there,

And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.

When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,

Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,

Neither do anything to him, thy son.

Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,

A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

 

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,

And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

 

Now it seems strange to me to be troubled by Abraham and Isaac. Isaac, after all, lived. And I can still, even a little disturbed, believe in God, and stand before his altar, giving him nothing but what he himself gave me to offer, receiving from him all that he has promised for the sake of his Son. But I can never quite believe in the other altars that human beings have erected, for the sacrifices of other sons and daughters. Abraham’s story, and Sarah’s, and Isaacs, centers on obedience. And so do our stories. But what we obey, who we obey, and why, create the differences. Perhaps that’s why Abraham and Isaac haunt those who know their story. Perhaps that’s why this story rises up for me in the bible like a great mountain from the midst of the land around it.

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