St Andrew's Presbyterian Church
'The Kirk'
Established 1822
105 Coleraine Street, Pictou, Nova Scotia, Canada B0K 1H0
Church Office (902)485-5014
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St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Pictou, NS; June 26th 2005
Uncompromising Love
Genesis 22:1-14 Matthew 10:40-42
In this day and age, we put people in jail like Abraham who hear, contemplate or act on the belief that God has told them to kill their children. We call it “child abuse,” and it is illegal
The text says, “…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 wood for the burnt offering, and went out to the place in the distance that God had shown him.”
You know how the story goes… Abraham takes the wood, the fire, the knife and his son and gets ready to do the deed. His son Isaac is a little confused. “Father!” he said “The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
Abraham side steps the question, “’God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.’ So the two of them walked on together.”
But the text explicitly and graphically tells us that Abraham “bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out and took the knife to kill his son.”
The text has already established that Isaac knew exactly that there was going to be a sacrifice. Isaac knew what a sacrifice was because he had asked his father where the lamb was that was to be slaughtered.
What do you think that Isaac’s state of mind was, now that he was tied and bound on the wood, on the altar and with his father’s knife drawn ready to kill him?
Absolutely terrified!
“But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said ‘Abraham, Abraham!... 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.”
Abraham then sees a ram caught in a thicket, procures it, replaces his son with the ram, and the atoning sacrifice is made without harming his son.
To me this is a bad story because it is contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and Lord, and his message of God’s version of the “Good News” is contrary to Abraham’s view of obedience to God.
Be very clear about this: the God of Jesus Christ would not ask a parent to kill their child as a sacrifice to prove their love of God and to make God happy in heaven. While it clearly is the God of today’s Hebrew Scripture, this story is diametrically opposed to the kingdom of God espoused by Jesus Christ.
Huge numbers of people will disagree with my interpretation. There are all kinds of theologians and clergy who will talk about this text this morning and about the sacrifice of Jesus being the consequence or conclusion of Abraham’s offer to slay his own beloved son to prove his love for God. God then proved his love to us, by doing to his son Jesus, what Abraham almost did with his. There are thousands of people who will take this abuse story and try to sanitize it and make it fit, but it never will fit, because as thinking human beings, you are able to know what Isaac felt, bound on the altar, with his father, knife in hand, as the text says, ready to kill him!
How could we ever rationalize a loving God terrorizing a helpless child?
Abraham was a good man, but he was having an extrememely bad moment. Any good man or woman can have bad moments.
The resource I use for my messages was written by Herbert O’Driscoll who also wrestles with this incongruity. He says:
“I cannot find a link between the Gospel and the first reading, beyond the tenuous link made by a child being present in each one, if only for a passing mention in the Gospel. If you can see links, please drop me a line to share your insight.”
The focus of the short gospel reading today, all of it Jesus’ own words is all about: “how we welcome others.”
O’Driscoll says that he feels that it refers to “hospitality,” but I think it is about something much deeper. I think that Jesus’ words are about welcoming others with a radical love that is totally uncompromising and irrespective of the issues that might hinder how we love those we meet.
To prove my point the text has Jesus “flushing out” in four ways:
1 “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” Welcoming other people as if they were actually God goes far beyond any simple notion of hospitality. Jesus Christ is telling you that when you shake a person’s hand, you should actually treat them like they are God! 2 Receiving one as a prophet receives a prophet’s reward. We are rewarded in heaven in direct accordance to how we value other people. 3 A righteous person accepted by us is the same thing. We receive a righteous reward, i.e. according to the way the value the other’s giftedness. 4 But Jesus brings it all home by saying that “whoever gives even a cup of water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will loose their reward.”
Using today’s Gospel, what reward would Abraham have received if he had slaughtered his son on that altar?
According to Jesus’ words, if we are to treat others like they are God, and if our reward is determined by our actions, and even a glass of water for a little one would be rewarded, then we have to conclude that murder would be rewarded by death.
So the so called “link” between these the Hebrew text of Genesis and the Greek Gospel of Matthew is that the God as revealed by his Son Jesus Christ, is not the same as the God revealed in Genesis!
The God whom Jesus reveals is not a God who tests us.
The God whom Jesus reveals is a God who wants us to love each other as if we were each an example of God incarnate!
The God whom Jesus reveals in this text is one who values love, the gifts we find in each other, and the quenching of the thirst of those who are parched with what it is that we have to share with them that they desperately need.
The God whom Jesus reveals is a God who values love in action!
But what is love?
We hear people saying: -I love my car. -I love my job. -I love a single malt. -I love Pictou County. -I love the colour purple. -I love my husband or my wife, my children. -I love people. -I love God.
How is a child ever supposed to learn what love is with all of these conflicting and confusing images?
The media has been having quite a time titillating us with news about the impending release of Karla Homolka. She has learned to speak French and has decided she could integrate best in Montreal, although the people of NDG have made it clear that they don’t want her.
If Karla Homolka moved next door to you, would you -bring her over your favourite casserole? -invite her over for a family dinner? -invite her to church? -introduce her to your marriage minded son? -would you make “small talk” across the back yard fence?
When Jesus asks us to love our neighbour including our enemy, there is the assumption that our love would be received. When people reject us and what we have to offer, he says just to move on, but he doesn’t make any limitations whatsoever on whom we are to love. In fact he even said “Love your enemies.”
Love is a greatly misused, abused word, but if we love only the lovable, what feather is it in our cap?
If we only love the lovable then our love is compromised; our love is conditional. While we understand that we will love under certain conditions, Jesus… asks us to love the unlovable.
Jesus asks us to love without compromise; he wants an uncompromising love!
There is to be no compromise; we are simply to love.
The world, your family, our town, our country, yourself, none of these entities will ever improve if you and I only love… the lovable.
We cannot heal the world if we only love the lovable.
The world improves and God’s kingdom reigns and moves forward, when we are able to: -love the unlovable, -give to the undeserving, -listen to silent, -forgive the unforgivable, -share when it is uncomfortable, -to look when we want to look away, -to stay when we want to run for our lives, -and refuse to comprise in loving those who are in desperate need of our love.
AMEN Rev. Alan Stewart |
