Sermon
St. Paul’s Episcopal
Church
June 29, 2014
Genesis 22:14; Matthew
10:4-42
The Genesis reading this
morning is far too compelling to ignore. Indeed the story of the testing of
Abraham is one of the most significant chapters in the bible.
The story of Abraham is the
story of promise, faith, testing, and providing.
The Promise was, of course, God’s
promise to make of Abraham a great nation, and to bless Abraham and make his
name great so that he would be a blessing to all peoples on earth.
God commanded Abraham to uproot
his entire family – his tribe – and lead through an unknown and desolate
wilderness filled with hardship to a land that God had designated as Israel.
There Abraham and his wife Sarah, who was elderly and barren, would have a son and
would call him Isaac, and “Isaac God promised “will give rise to all nations from
whom kings of people shall come.” (Gen
17:15-19)
Preposterous as God’s promise
may have seemed, Abraham responded with complete faith. Abraham and Sarah and
their entire family left their homeland. And, in disbelief and against all
odds, they had a child and named him Isaac.
Things were going according to
God’s promise. It seemed as though the promise had been fulfilled.
But then came the test!
God said to Abraham, “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…”
Wow – That’s a test of faith.
Kill your own son? And, if Isaac is dead, how can the promise be fulfilled? There will be no heir to give rise to all
nations.
But, once again Abraham
responded with complete faith. He took Isaac up the mountain and began to
prepare the fire upon which his son would be sacrificed.
Isaac, not so trusting said, “Father.
The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for burnt offering?”
Abraham replied, “God himself
will provide the lamb for the burnt offering my son.”
And indeed, God provided.
The angel of the Lord called to
Abraham from heaven. The angel said, “Abraham, Abraham!”
Abraham said, “Here I am.”
The angel said, “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 from me.” And Abraham looked up and saw a
ram, caught in a thicket by its horns…So Abraham called that place “The Lord
will provide”; and it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall
be provided.”
Abraham had passed the test!
Isaac was saved. God had provided!!
Wow! What a nail biter!! What an
astoundingly graphic reminder that faith is not faith without being
tested. What an excellent illustration
of how holding onto faith, no matter what the test, allows God to provide in
ways that cannot be foreseen or understood.
Abraham responds to a call from
God that demands the discipline of absolute faith. Absolute faith that inspires and forms the
basis for the theology of King David, Jesus of Nazareth, St. Paul and our own
Christian faith.
“By
faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to
receive as an inheritance.” (Heb
11:8)
“By
faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age,
since she considered him faithful who had promised. (Heb 11:11)
“By
faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received
the promises was ready to offer up his only son…He considered that God was able
to raise men even from the dead. (Heb
11:17, 19)
In his book on Genesis, Walter Brueggemann
says, “This text provides a singular statement on the meaning of faith. The
governing promise concerns the land. The promise of a land is made to a
landless people.
The second promise is the
promise of an heir (Isaac) made to a barren hopeless couple. The first promise
of the land depends on the fulfillment of the second, on the reality of a
second generation. The question of this promise is the question of all faithful
people: ‘Is anything too hard for the Lord?’
And then, Abraham is tested by
the command to offer Isaac. It is this command that places everything in
jeopardy. The faithfulness of God is called into question. The responding
faithfulness of Abraham is deeply tested.
The three issues together, (1)
believing a land will be given; (2) believing an heir will be born; (3)
believing that God can provide beyond testing all direct us to the issue of
faith.” (Brueggemann,
Walter, Interpretation: Genesis)
The faith to which Abraham is
called means the acknowledgement of a particular God who can violate religious
conventions, shatter normal definitions of reality, and bring about newness.
Isaac - long
anticipated, finally given, then demanded back, and at the end saved by God’s
graciousness - Isaac, is the embodiment of the newness God
can bring about in our world of perpetual barrenness.
This ancient but seminal story
of the testing of Abraham gives hope to the possibility that through faith in
the promise of God we may be delivered from the barren world of oppression,
injustice, and hopelessness.
This is the newness, the
salvation that Jesus referred to when he proclaimed in the Gospel of Mark, “The
time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in
the good news.” (Mark
1:14-15)
This ancient narrative of
Abraham and Sarah defines in unambiguous terms a predicament that has been
central to our world from time immemorial. The predicament of choosing to live
either for God’s promise, and in so doing meet the test by disengaging from the
present barren way of things, or to live against the promise, grimly holding
onto the comfort and status quo of the present.
This ancient scenario of
Abraham and Isaac and the challenges that their faith encountered in the face
of testing fast forwards throughout Biblical history and brings us directly to
our gospel reading for today. Today’s message from Jesus comes at the end of a
long discourse that he delivers to the 12 disciples whom he chooses to send out
from Galilee. Their task was to “gather the lost sheep of Israel” and “proclaim
the good news.”
Jesus does not mince words as
he outlines the difficulties and dangers that the disciples will encounter as
they “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons.”
The disciples will not be paid
for their work, they will not be allowed to take even a change of clothing, and
they can expect to be rejected - cast out by many households that they enter in
their journey throughout Galilee. Jesus does not mince words about the hardship
that these 12 will face when he says to them, “See I am sending you out like
sheep in to the midst of wolves…”
Jesus warns the 12, “Do not think
that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace,
but a sword…” (Matthew
10:34)
In that same passage Jesus is clear that God’s love is indeed tough love,
“…whoever does not take up the cross is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:38)
Jesus has promised the Kingdom
of God, but God’s Kingdom – the promise
- does not come without a test: The test of being a disciple of Jesus…the test
of being a sheep among wolves…the test of taking up a sword and following the
cross.
The Kingdom promise has been
made, the test of spreading the Word presented – will the disciples have the
faith to echo in their hearts and minds those words spoken by Abraham so long
ago, “God himself will provide...”
Today’s gospel reading puts a sharp
focus on the grim challenge that the promise of the Kingdom puts before us.
Those who accept the Kingdom
promise with faith and welcome Jesus’ disciples by engaging in the challenge of
restoring the Kingdom of God – it is those who will be welcomed in God’s
eternal Kingdom.
Those who shy away from a
commitment to the Kingdom, preferring instead the comfort of the status quo
will not fare well in the eyes of God.
This, of course, is our Kingdom
challenge as well. As Christ’s disciples in this world our mission is to
restore all people to unity with God and with each other in Christ.
How do we achieve this mission?
We achieve this mission through prayer and worship and by proclaiming the
Gospel and promoting justice, peace, and love.
This mission – our Church’s mission
- is carried out through the ministry of all its members – through all of us
sitting right here in this Church as participants in the larger community of
God’s people who worship with us throughout the world.
We are all ministers of the
Church – all Disciples of Christ. Our task is not to retreat from the world but
to act within it – to meet the test - with faith that in times of testing God
will provide.
In the Cost of Discipleship,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The path of
discipleship is narrow, and it is easy to miss one’s way and stray from the
path, even after years of discipleship…The way is unutterably hard and at every
moment we are in danger of straying from it…When we know that, we are able to
proceed along the narrow way through the straight gate of the cross…the
narrowness of the road will increase our certainty…that the way which we must
tread as citizens of two worlds, on the razor edge between this world and the
kingdom of heaven, could hardly be a broad way. The narrow way is bound to be
right.”
Let us remember the Kingdom promise
as our way narrows; as the test of discipleship looms before us. Let us
remember that we pray each day. “Your Kingdom come; Your Will be done on earth
as it is in heaven.” Let us be faithful instruments of God as we carry out our
mission today and every day – right here; right now.
