May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard.  Amen.
So, last week I talked about how the lectionary gives us great options for preaching – Years A, B, and C, but also Tracks 1 & 2, right?  And how the Hebrew scriptures has so many stories of really fascinating characters and plots – like the one from Genesis that I preached on about Abraham and Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael.  But, I have to say that some of those stories are deeply troubling, if not down right horrible.
I heard a preacher say once, when discussing the narrative we heard today from Genesis, that anyone contemplating preaching on that text might want to think again.  After all, there are three other texts that day to choose from – don’t be crazy – steer clear of this rabbit hole. He said that the one time he did preach on it, it was the worst sermon he ever delivered.  Now, I am hoping not to repeat his experience, but  am going to dive right into what is considered by most people – clergy or lay, Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, one of the most troubling texts in the scriptures.
This story is known as the Akedah – called “the binding of Isaac” by the Jews, and the “sacrifice of Isaac” by Christians.  And I am going to just say it… just going to put it out there right now – if this were a literal story of God, a true tale of a God who would be so insecure as to need to test Abraham, and worse by telling him to commit a brutal act of child sacrifice, and then a God who thinks it is all better because the horrific act was stopped – but demands blood of the ram anyway, well then it is a God I could not believe in, or worship, or serve.  Period.  There, I’ve said it.
The story begins where we left off last week, and if you weren’t here last week, let me refresh your memory….  and then this week begins with “After these things, God tested Abraham…”  I have to wonder about that – could it be that for all Abraham’s neglect of Hagar, his willingness to send them off into certain death in the wilderness (remember, it was after he did this that God told him it would be okay – that they would be taken care of), Abraham’s attempt with Sarah to control the blessing by pushing Hagar into this whole thing in the first place, could it be that God was rethinking this whole thing with Abraham – or that perhaps he needed a taste of his own medicine?  Maybe.  And that would be okay if the command had been to kill himself.  But, it wasn’t.  There are innocents brought into this odd relationship of Abraham and God.
If this is some sort of divine test, then they both – God and Abraham – failed miserably.
First, you have a God that apparently needs to find out something – sooooo, not so “all knowing” then are you God.   Then, Abraham blindly following orders – why on earth did he not say “Get behind me Satan!” when he thinks he hears God tell him to sacrifice Isaac.  And besides…we all know too well the history of people saying “I was only following orders.”    I mean, what happened to the Abraham who argued with God over the decision to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah?  Where was that Abraham?
And as far as tests go…this one was a doozy.  Okay, so God wants to test Abraham…but what about Sarah and Isaac?  Why should they be scarred for life?  I am betting Isaac wasn’t keen on participating in any Father and Son events at the local lodge after his dad went all Psycho on him.  And Sarah – after this nutter of a husband passes her off as his sister to protect his hide (allowing her to be offered up in a sacrifice of sorts to other men), she finally gets pregnant, and he tries to kill her own flesh and blood in some insane ritual.  I am guessing that this marks the very beginnings of clinical psychotherapy because I am sure Isaac needed years of sitting on a couch to recover from this one.   And, not for nuthin’ that ram certainly didn’t deserve his fate.  I mean, he was probably thinking when he moseyed up the mountain that he was safe from those humans down below, and could grab a nice bite to eat.  “Darn thicket…well, I’ll just get my leg out over here, move my horn a bit, and I’ll be free – hey wait, what?”
The truth is – taken literally – this is a very disturbing tale, and through the centuries, folks have reasoned that it is a measure of Abraham’s faithfulness.  I personally think it is a measure of his insanity.  Do we really want that type of blind mechanical obedience to voices from God to hurt others?  Isn’t that what we hear coming from those who do terrible things in the name of some God who supposedly told them to bomb the abortion clinic, or take a plane into the World Trade Center?  “God told me to do this?”  Do we believe in that God?  Do we believe them?  So why do we believe that God, who made us in God’s image, who loves us beyond measure, would ask such a thing?  Because it is in the bible?
I am reminded of the song from “Porgy & Bess,” that goes, “It ain’t necessarily so, the things that you’re libel to read in the bible, it ain’t necessarily so.”  Well, in this case, I sure hope so.  This is a terrible story of a God in whom I cannot place my trust…much less care that he trusted me.  That is…if I take the story literally.
But what if we were to look at this story differently – perhaps in the way that the Jewish people might have understood it at that time….
What if it is a metaphorical tale about the sufferings to come in our very human world, and what that can mean for a people in relationship with God?  Then I think it is a story with meaning, deep meaning for all of us.
Certainly the Jewish people throughout the ages can relate to a feeling that this covenant with God is one of constant sacrifice of themselves, and even of their children (one only needs to consider the history of their people – slaughtered in ancient and modern day holocausts – to understand the meaning of this story for them).
A commentator noted that, “The first century rabbis, with no connection to Christianity but with ample experience of Roman executions, said of this detail: “Isaac carries the wood for the sacrifice like one who carries his own cross.””1 Certainly Christians have looked at this story as a metaphor for the story of Christ, and the persecution of Christians under the Roman Empire.
But if we were to stop there, we might leave the metaphors distant in the past, or isolated to another group of people.  Powerful, but not directly personal.  After all…we aren’t the ones being sacrificed or sacrificing, right – we aren’t tested by God.  But, I think we can all think of times in our life when our faith has been tested by what life has thrown our way.  And there are many of us as well that at some point have been so very certain that our dreams, our goals, were one and the same for what God hopes for us.  And then we find that somehow, we have lost our way.
So, maybe we are tested… but, like those late nite infomercials, I’m going to say – “But wait!  There’s more!”
It is true that most of us can think about times in our life when we want to say, “Really God?  I know that they say you won’t give us more than we can handle, I just wish you didn’t have that kind of confidence in me, okay?”  And, by the way – I am going to say another thing from this pulpit that might sound a bit crazy, but I think that is a load of crap.  Seriously.  God doesn’t give us these things as some sort of divine pressure test.  Good grief.  Things happen to us in this world.  Plain and simple.   Sometimes wonderful things, sometimes awful things.  So if God doesn’t give us these things, how does God figure in?  Rejoicing and crying with us.  Strengthening us.  Guiding us.
But back to the ginsu knife moment…there is more to this story for us… because if we really think about it, we too have committed sacrifices of children on the altar – and sometimes we actually go through with it.
Wait…what? you all must be thinking…  I have wanted to bang my head against a wall sometimes when it comes to my kids, even yelled at them, but never have I bound them to twigs and taken a knife to them.  True. At least I hope so.
But remember, like the Jewish people to whom this narrative belongs (and thereby belongs to us as Jesus would have known this scripture and studied it in temple), we are looking at this metaphorically.  And still, what?  How possibly have any of us sacrificed children on an altar?
There are all kinds of altars in the world to which many of us worship – how many have we laid across, or laid others across, in our blind obedience to something we think we are supposed to follow?
How many of our sons and daughters have been sacrificed on the altar of political aggression, hatred, religious intolerance in war?
How many of our children are sacrificed on the altar of bigotry – often in the name of some God who says it is okay?
Lesbian and Gays and Transgender people beaten, oppressed, and killed by people holding signs saying “God hates Fags.”
Native Americans and African Americans slaughtered and treated as less than human because they were not white or Christian.
Undocumented people here in the US denied due process because they did not come into this country, a country of immigrants, in the way we believe they should.
Jews, Kurds, Falun Gong, Christians, Muslims – because their God didn’t fit another person’s understanding of God.
How many of our own children have been sacrificed on the altar of greed as we work long hours, but ignore our families, or grow our wealth, but ignore the poor.
How many of our children are sacrificed on the altar of convenience because it is too much trouble to get them out of bed for church, or because they really want to play soccer so why argue with them – but they grow up without the faith traditions and relationship with God that will feed them in the years when they leave home.
And…thinking of the ram here – how much of God’s creation have we sacrificed on the altar of ignorance and selfishness, to where our earth, the home created for us, and the innocent animals entrusted to our care, are suffering beyond measure.
There are so many altars in our world today,  and, there are so many things that happen in our lives that try our very souls – that truly test our endurance and our faith.  That is part of what it means to live in this very human world – we are tried and tested by life, not by God.  But we do not have to listen to those who would implore us to perform these sacrifices to these Gods of greed, selfishness, ignorance, and bigotry.  We can open our hearts, ears, eyes and souls to the God that walks beside us in our pain, and that calls us toward fullness of relationship with the Creator and all of creation.
We have a choice.  Abraham had a choice.
We can trust in God – that God would never ask such a thing as we hear today – see, even if taken literally – Abraham failed right from the start – he believed God would do that.  Still, God was moved by his crazy faith, and saved him from himself.  We can trust in a God that is with us in our very real – non-metaphorical tests – the tests that try us, the tests that are not fair, the tests that …well, are not tests at all, but just part of what it means to be human, and to live in a very imperfect world.
But more than that, we can also answer this same God, and trust that no altar built to worship God should ever be made of the stones of bigotry, hatred, ignorance or greed.  An altar to our God is built of one thing, and one thing only – unconditional and all inclusive love.  And nothing, other than bigotry, hatred, ignorance, or greed (or anything else that would call us away from God) should be sacrificed in the name of our God.
Our altar, the one on which we celebrate the sacrifice of Christ for us, is an altar of love, that unites us – one to another – in a bond that is forever unbroken in our baptism – and nothing, nothing can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ.
There are no tests to pass.
There are no people excluded.
There is only love – absolute, unconditional love – here, now, and always.
Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Note: The sermon as written may not be as delivered on any given Sunday.

The Rev. Diana Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
June 29, 2014
Pent 3, Proper 8 – Year A – Track 1
1st Reading – Genesis 22:1-14
Psalm 13
2nd Reading – Romans 6:12-23
Gospel – Matthew 10:40-42