Sunday, June 29, 2014

The Test

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.