Sunday, June 28, 2020
Genesis 22:1-14
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost ("The Road Not Taken")
1.
The story says that God intends to test his beloved Abraham; he's been tested before, but apparently God needs one more big and awful and definitive test. And this definitive test involves Abraham's binding his son, Isaac, and making of Isaac a burnt offering: that is, slaughtering his son on Mount Moriah. This is the test for the believer. This is the test for the chosen one.
Now it is indeed a terrible story, a story of familial violence in the making, a story of human sacrifice and the reasoning fathers go through as they offer up their children to grim theological projects and violent programs of social order. I'm not sure we want to talk ourselves out of it, to rationalize or psychologize it, as if it's a metaphor for something normal, natural, usual. It's a terrible story: it's supposed to be a terrible story. This text reminds us--right here in the Bible, right here at the front end of the Bible--how close we are, all the time, to the idea, the myth, the practice of redemptive violence.
Let's be honest: it's a human temptation, a cultural temptation, a religious temptation we fall for over and over and over again. This idea that violence makes us safe, this idea that violence brings meaning and purpose to our communities, this myth that good violence, purposeful violence, sanctioned violence brings order to our cultures. Religious life is generous and expansive and healing on so many levels. But let's be honest and recognize that it tempts us--and it has tempted human communities throughout history--to believe that our God's blessing necessitates our violent protection of that blessing against all opponents. It's almost baked into the experience of religious life itself--at least, a good bit of it.
2.
So I want to suggest that the story of Abraham and Isaac--the possibility of Abraham's slaughter of his son--sits right here at the center of our tradition to remind us of this. To remind us of the grim, awful tempation. To remind us of the nearness of violence in our hearts and communities. To remind us of the ease with which we're convinced it's holy and sacred. And, yes, redemptive.
When we think about the evolution of Hebrew faith, across generations and centuries, this story begins to reflect an important truth, an essential development across time. This ancient people have come out of a era, a long era, in which violence (even child sacrifice) was central to patriarchal culture in the region. And they have struggled to rid themselves of this practice, of this theological reasoning, of this violence. Think about it. Through generations of worship and storytelling, through generations of exile and international exhange, through generations of profound moral struggle, the Hebrew people have rid themselves of child sacrifice, of spiritiually-sanctioned violence, and they have somehow healed themselves of this practice.
So this morning's story sits there--in Genesis, in our own lectionary too--as a grim reminder of where they've been and where they intend (by God's grace) never to go, ever again. Yes, says Phyllis Trible, it's a "text of terror." Tell the story to every generation; and be reminded of how tempting it is. To embrace violence as order. To welcome human sacrifice as divine protection. To give up our children to war.
3.
And let's be honest: this is not just a thing of the ancient past, a temptation for the peoples of antiquity. Abraham has sacrificed Isaac on the altar of social and economic order over and over again. He sacrificed Isaac in Vietnam, and he sacrificed Isaac in Iraq. And Isaac's come back wounded and demoralized from jungle wars all over the world. And we've rationalized military tanks in the streets of Ferguson and tear gas clouds in DC and Minneapolis and Atlanta; and we've done all these things because we've convinced ourselves that these are the acts, the patriarchal practices, that truly make us safe, that truly make us whole and strong and invulnerable and invincible. Redemptive violence.
And isn't this what we're seeing in the streets of so many cities this summer? Young people, old people, peoples of all colors and cultures, protesting against the practice, the legacy, the brutality of redemptive violence: the idea that weaponized violence, organized violence, militarized violence makes our cities safe, gives our young people hope, heals our country (somehow) of fear and weakness and prejudice? Isn't this what we're seeing? But it doesn't. We know it doesn't. We know that all of this weaponry, all of this fancy death-dealing gadgetry, all of the myths surrounding it: it doesn't make us safe, and it doesn't give us hope, and it doesn't heal us of the pain that we bear together. Life doesn't work that way. And justice doesn't come that way.
We need so desperately to see these myths, these stories, for what they are. We need to see George Floyd in the street, and Armaud Arbery running for his life; and we need to speak out loudly to say that violence begets violence, violence begets fear, and violence begets bigotry and vengeance. Instead, it's on us, now, and especially on peoples of faith: to reject redemptive violence as a path to peace, to reject organized, militarized violence as a path to order and opportunity. It's on us to choose paths and practices of nonviolence--with Isaiah and Micah, with Ruth and Naomi, with Mary and Jesus. It's on us to see that Abraham's children repudiate violence, repudiate child sacrifice, repudiate redemptive violence again and again and again.
4.
And let's be very clear this morning, very clear, that this is not a Hebrew Bible issue, it's not a Jewish issue. This is every bit as much a Christian issue and a New Testament issue. For generations, Christians have justified and accomodated massive amounts of violence--religious violence, cultural violence, state-sanctioned violence--in the name orthodox Christian theology. If God sacrificed "his" only Son--the reasoning goes--shouldn't we also allow for the redemptive role of occasional, righteous, heroic violence? Isn't it this very act that heals and restores order to the world?
Well, that's one road to take--as Robert Frost might have said.
But it's a devastating road for all those, across history, even now, who've paid with their lives for our theological cruelty. You see, our Jesus comes to reveal God-in-us. That's the beauty, the mystery, the urgency of incarnation. God is in Jesus. God is in the poor and the suffering. God is in you and me, in George Floyd's Minnesota family and in the forgotten of Palestine and Yemen and the Amazon too.
And there is no way, no way at all, in which the slaughter of God's beloved, the slaughter of God's children, the oppression of God's community is holy and good and required for the healing and justification of the rich and powerful! That's not the message of Moses and Miriam. That's not the message of Mohammed, Peace Be Upon Him. And that's not the gospel of Jesus and Mary.
What brings peace and liberation is justice and mercy. What brings hope is love and compassion. What brings light to the darkness is faith and praise. "What does the Lord require of us" asks Micah, "but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God?" So we denounce and confess our inclination to anything like redemptive violence. We fall to our knees to pray God's forgiveness for anything we've done to harm Isaac (or Ishmael, or Hagar, or Sarah). And we rise up again, to march to the streets, to link arms in movements for justice, liberation and freedom,
We take the road less traveled. And it makes all the difference!
Amen.
