Genesis 22: The Akedah

Here we go: the binding of Isaac, that wretched story where God asks a man to offer up his own child. I know more than one person who would happily rip this page of scripture out of our Bibles. This, this is the sort of story, some would say, that gives God a bad name. It’s that cranky, unpredictable, jealous, wholly unreasonable God of the Old Testament again. We really do want to share our faith you know, to learn the Bible and share it with others, but these stories from the Hebrew scriptures seem to be obstacles to that. They are so hard and they speak of scary, awful, deeply painful and challenging things that we don’t want to think of, let alone share with people we are trying to get to like God. So, this, this is the God who adores us? You can just hear the reactions: who would want to believe in a God who would ask such a thing? Abraham was either delusional or your God is cruel. You could use this sort of thing to justify all sorts of horrors. We know; we’ve seen the sort of things you people do in the name of religion.
So, here we are with our Bibles open to Genesis chapter 22. What are we supposed to do with this?
I’ve heard it argued that this story is actually in here as a sort of explanation as to why the Israelites as opposed to other peoples in the region did not sacrifice children to their God. Some read this as an analogy, a foreshadowing perhaps of God giving up God’s own son, God’s only son, Jesus, as a sacrifice. That explanation seems to make some people feel better. You can imagine how much ink has been spilled trying to digest this story, to make it palatable. But maybe we should forget the fancy theologizing and all the mechanizations and gyrations we might do to fit this story into however it is we understand God and how God works. Maybe we should just read the story.
Of course, what does that mean? What is it to read? Some of you may know that I have a draft of a dissertation hidden away somewhere. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure where it all is. I sometimes stumble across a chapter when I’m looking for something else. The work I did was about reading novels and how readers make meaning. I argue that reading is an intense, intimate, complex interaction between the words on the page, the experiences and the reality created by the consciousness behind those artful phrases, and the world of the reader, the collection of experiences and feelings and ideas held by the person reading. Reading a book then is entering into a living relationship, negotiating meaning by relating to what we encounter. Reading is relational. We relate to the story, take the stuff of our lives and let it engage with, talk to, struggle against, imbibe this other’s experience and way of telling it.
Reading scripture together, hearing the word of God proclaimed is even more relational and intricate and mysterious, for we believe that the Holy Spirit, even yet, even now, is at work in us, embodying language and doing God’s work within us. So, let us read and let us pray and let us hear the voice of the Lord.
“After these things. . . .” These three words should stop us in our tracks you know. It means, there is a context here; there are things that have happened before now that make “now” possible and meaningful and the rich reality that it is. This isn’t some stranger that woke up one day and claimed a voice in his head told him to do something crazy. We are about to read about a drama that takes place between two parties (yes definitely it involves others Isaac who certainly has an interest here and the vividly absent Sarah even), but the story here is what happens between Abraham and his God. Do you remember Abraham? Do you know his story? We’ve got the whole great 66 books of the Bible to tell us something of God, not to mention all the stuff of our lives with God, and we have the preceeding ten chapters that tell us a great deal about Abraham.
The story begins in chapter 12. Abram, son of Terah, had already followed his father away from Ur in Mesopotamia, that land between the rivers Tigris and Eurphrates. He and his wife, Sarai, were settled in Haran, and Yahweh says to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” What happens next is amazing. We read, “So Abram went, as the LORD had told him.” This is impressive stuff.

But not everything Abram does is impressive. Abram was way below the Sea of Galilee, past Bethel, past Jerusalem even, when a famine broke out in the land, so Abram went to Egypt. He was almost there when he leaned over and said to Sarai, “You know you are really beautiful, and I’m afraid these people will kill me and take you for a wife, so let’s tell everyone you are my sister and they’ll let me live.” But someone from Pharaoh’s household hears about how beautiful this woman is and Sarai is taken in as a concubine. Her “brother” Abram makes out well with this; he’s paid with sheep, oxen, slaves, donkeys, camels, but Yahweh is not pleased and the Pharaoh and his house suffer great plagues. Pharaoh has a fit, “Why did you not tell me she was your sister. Take her and get out of here.” Personally, this story has never won Abraham any points with me. Abram is not perfect. It’s clear here that God has God’s eye on Abram and Sarai, and Abram doesn’t seem to know that yet. He knows Yahweh told him to go and he went, but Abram hasn’t yet learned exactly who he’s dealing with in this LORD.

After Abram and his nephew Lot part company because the extended family has simply gotten too big, life is prosperous, but it isn’t peaceful for long. Another war has broken out and his nephew is taken captive. Abram leads his men into battle and rescues Lot. The King of Salem (or Jerusalem) Melchizedek brings out bread and wine, for he was priest of El, the God Most High, and he blessed Abram, in the name of the maker of heaven and earth.” Yahweh speaks again, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram laments, “I have no son.” And Yahweh reassures, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them. So shall your descendants be.”
“And Abram believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Centuries later Paul will write, “Abraham grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised to him as righteousness.” It’s not a creed, a set of theories, posing the right tenets that will save us. We don’t remember Abraham as a great theologian. We are saved in relationship with the Holy One, as we act in faith to be in right relationship with our God. This relationship is marked with a ritual and after sundown in the darkness, a smiling fire pot and a flaming torch pass between pieces of Abram’s offering, and Yahweh makes a covenant with Abram.
Time keeps passing, as is its wont, and still, no child, and Sarai is clearly well past child bearing years. The couple is in their 60s now. What could God be thinking? How will God possibly keep this promise? Maybe, maybe she thinks, we’re supposed to help. Maybe God means for us to take the initiative her. She gives Abram her slave-girl, her handmaiden, and tells her husband to conceive a child with this woman, for, legally, that child will belong to Sarai, as well as to Abram. Abram consents; Hagar conceives, and you’ve all watched enough television to know what happens next. Neither Sarai nor Hagar feel whole or safe or beloved or properly honored now. Sarai is mean, and Hagar runs. The angel of the LORD finds Hagar by a spring of water in the wilderness, and assures her that her son, Ishamel, will be the son of many. It is Hagar, a slave girl, one used to be cast aside that now speaks with the Holy One. She names the LORD who spoke to her, “You are El-roi.” She says, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?”




God calls us and offers us each to be an opportunity for God to bless the world. If we truly take seriously our roles as living temples of the Holy Spirit, of the living, healing, loving, forgiving and resurrecting God, the world will be blessed by God’s work through us. As people of faith we know that God may well tell us to go somewhere without telling us what will happen when we get there. We know we may not always be full of trust and our acts may sometimes belie our faith, but we also know that God will teach us and not give up on us. It is possible for us to grow in faith and in love and to love the Lord our God with our whole hearts.