Messages, Meditations, and Musings on the Life of Faith by Rev. Dr. Scott E. Olson, Interim Pastor, Christ Lutheran Church, Preston, MN

Sunday, September 15, 2013

"Risky Business" - Sermon for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost

Risky Business
Pentecost 17 (Narrative Lectionary 4)
September 15, 2013
Genesis 21.1-3; 22.1-14; John 1.29

I wonder how Jay and Stephanie, who had Lincoln baptized a few minutes ago, think about this story. Would they be willing to offer him up to God? Today’s text from Genesis is one of the hardest in the Bible to understand. It’s right up there with the story of Job and Jesus’ crucifixion. There have been two questions that have run through my mind all week: “What kind of a God would ask a man to sacrifice his only, beloved son?” “What kind a person would follow such a God?” The fact that this story and the others mentioned “turn out all right in the end” lulls us into a false sense of security. One way to slow ourselves down so we can grapple with the story is an old one: to ask questions. In the ancient Jewish tradition, this is called midrash, which also refers to a body of commentary that not only poses questions of the text but proposes answers as well.

Before we do, it would be helpful to recap some of the story since last week’s creation narrative. Humans have indeed become fruitful and multiplied, but they have also tried to play God instead of play human. Adam and Eve have disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit. The first homicide, indeed fratricide, has occurred as Cain kills Abel. In fact, it became so bad that God does a reboot of the system with an earth-wide flood. Apparently this doesn’t work so well because soon after people tried to build a tower to heaven to live with God. As a result, God decides to form a special people through whom all families of the earth would be blessed. Curiously, he chooses, of all people, an elderly couple long past the child-bearing stage, Abraham and Sarah.

Sarah is 90 and Abraham 100 when Isaac is born, 10 long years after God’s initial call and promise to give them descendants. (Imagine, Jay and Stephanie, having a baby at that age.) Now, after seeing some concrete results of the promise, Abraham is told to sacrifice his son. What kind of God would ask such a thing, and what kind of person would follow that kind of God? There are many more questions. For example, why doesn’t Abraham stand up to God as he has before? Where is Sarah while all of this is going on and what would the story look like from her perspective? What about Isaac? Can you imagine the conversation when he and Abraham return from Mt. Moriah? How would Isaac tell the story?

I think the key to teasing out some meaning for us is to think of this story as a parable. That doesn’t mean to say that it isn’t true but to think of it as not a problem to be solved but as a story to open us up to God. It is helpful to remember that the Bible in general, and this story in particular, is all about relationships, and relationships as we know are risky business. These are flesh and blood people who are trying to be in a faithful relationship with God and each other, a relationship that deepens and broadens as time goes on, and one that is not always perfect. To have a relationship with someone, including God, is to risk ourselves, to open ourselves up. It is helpful to remember that we aren’t the only ones taking risks; God has taken risks, too. By making humankind in his image, to exercise freedom over our lives, God risks having us turn our backs on him and walking away.

Relationships develop over time and they don’t always go the way we want them to, but we trust anyways, don’t we? As I think about this, and what it might have been like from Isaac’s point of view, I remember when our daughter Angela was very young. She fell, hitting her head on a sharp corner of the coffee table and sliced her head open, just above her eyebrow. I took her the doctor, who told me to wrap her in a sheet and lay her on the examination table, so she couldn’t thrash around. Then he used what must have looked like a huge needle to anesthetize her wound and proceeded to sew up her head with an even larger needle. All the while I held her and told her she needed to trust the doctor. Why did she do it? She somehow knew that I had the ability to do something for her even though she had no idea what that something might be.

Perhaps Abraham knew that the same God who was able to bring life out of two lifeless bodies could bring life out of death, even though he had no idea he that could possibly happen. In Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, we experience if not the culmination of this promise then a huge step towards it: crucifixion becomes resurrection.

What kind of God would ask a person to do such a thing? The kind of God who is willing to go all in for the sake of a loving relationship with everyone, giving up his Son, his only Son, his beloved Son. What kind of people would take a risk and follow such a God? People such as you and me, who in the midst of our cancers and divorces and addictions and tragedies of our lives trust that it is this God, crucified and risen from the dead, who can and will provide for us, even when we don’t know how. Having a relationship is risky business, I know, but as Peter says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Amen.

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