Sermon 6/28/20: Pride and Joy (Pr. Craig Mueller)
June 28, 2020
Lectionary 13a
Genesis 22:1-14
Pr. Craig Mueller
Pride and Joy
Whoa! We’ve got a doosie story today in Genesis. Odd. Troubling. Fascinating. Maybe the most objectionable core passage in the Bible for some. It’s called the sacrifice of Isaac. Jews call it the binding of Isaac. Though I’ve never preached on it, we are working our way through the classic Genesis texts these weeks, so here we go.
A couple weeks ago we heard God’s promise to very, very old Abraham and Sarah that they would have a future, an heir–their descendants would be as numerous as the stars. They laughed it off, but miracle of miracles, Isaac is born, their pride and joy.
Last week, we heard of Abraham fathering another child, Ishmael, by Hagar, a slave woman. And Muslims claim to be descendants of Abraham through Ishmael, don’t forget!
God keeps promises. The future is open, right? Until today’s crisis for Abraham—a test. Does Abraham trust and obey God the Giver. Or does he only cherish and covet the gift—his son?
What God asks, what God demands, seems ludicrous to our ears. Take the gift, your favored son, the sign of your laughter, your hope for the future—your pride and joy—and surrender him. Shall we call DCFS? Actually, some Jewish rabbis fault Abraham for his lack of faith. He should have said no, refused right then and there!
And what of our future? The word “sacrifice” in a headline. After Asking Americans to Sacrifice in Shutdown, Leaders Failed to Control Virus. “We remember the southern politician in his 70s who said several months ago, that older folks could take care of themselves, “but don’t sacrifice the country.”
We are civilized. We don’t sacrifice children. Yet, the well-being of children is sacrificed today. Abuse and neglect. Separating immigrant children from parents.
An article for Pride month compared the current pandemic to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Fear, ignorance, hypocrisy. Leaders then and now confronting the health risks with ideology rather than science.
Hate leading to death. Scapegoating. How often Christians can be so consumed with seeing sin as impurity—interpreting Paul as in the Romans reading today, about exercising sin in our mortal bodies . . . . rather than holding up the gift, grace offered to all in Christ. The gospel, our very pride and joy, Lutherans would insist.
Another article was even more disturbing. We sacrifice the future of the planet by human arrogance, with no concern for generations—for children—who come after us. Thinking of the coronavirus originating in animals, and what we are doing to the planet’s biodiversity, one ecologist said, “everything we do to disrupt natural systems, to manipulate the environment around us, includes our own health.” The well-being of the earth is being sacrificed.
And the well-being of the human community is being sacrificed. By scapegoating others, often those most vulnerable as the pandemic reveals: persons of color, the elderly, transgendered people, refugees and immigrants.
Wait, you say! Abraham nearly sacrifices his pride and joy. We’re sacrificing people we consider expendable. The key moment in the story, remember, is when Abraham draws the knife. And an angel appears. Stop! God will provide the sacrifice. There is a ram in the bush. Despite our tendency to raise the knife—with words that kill, weapons that destroy, racism and homophobia that diminishes a person’s dignity, there is a ram in the bush, as some faithful people put it.
The ancient rabbis said it beautifully. God created the ram in the thicket at creation and left it there through all time, waiting for Abraham to see it in the periphery of his vision. The Lord will provide.
This powerful story is portrayed in art and poetry, it has been written about, argued about for generations. Martin Luther praised Abraham for his obedience, even for his blind faith by not questioning God. Philosopher Soren Kiekegaard was consumed with the story and in a famous book, Fear and Trembling, tried to imagine different scenarios. At one point he says that even if Abraham meant to sacrifice Isaac rather than murder him, “precisely in this contradiction is the anxiety that can make a person sleepless, and yet without this anxiety Abraham is not who he is.”
Muslims praise the faith of Abraham. Jews hold up the survival of the promise. Christians see a foreshadowing of the cross in which God gives his only son for all the world.
Remember: Isaac represents God’s promise of a future. If we get beyond the literal, and imagine God asking us to sacrifice whatever we thought our future may hold, we may hear the story anew. Whatever future we imagined, it no longer exists. All we are left with is hope. And the promise of God. I am with you always. You are my pride and joy.
And the cross? Consider Christ’s sacrifice not as an act to placate a horrific God, but a sign of God sharing all that it means to be human, especially our most godforsaken moments.
On this Pride Sunday, remember you are God’s pride and joy. You have a future! God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah is for you as well. For everyone born, a place at the table. Isaac and Ishmael. Muslim, Jew, Christian. All those longing for a cup of cold water, those praying for a new day, a better world, a more equitable society, a future bright with promise.
People of all colors, races, genders, sexualities, religions, spiritualities, ideologies. For everyone born, All God’s beloved children. God’s pride and joy.
