Genesis 22:1-14 The testing of Abraham

For the most part, I am a liturgical preacher. It means I try to preach on the liturgy as provided by the Revised Common Lectionary. The Revised Common Lectionary is an ecumenical project, which means it includes Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and several others.  It resulted in a 3-year cycle of Scripture readings that attempts to harmonize Biblical readings. Using the Revised Common Lectionary serves multiple purposes; first and foremost, using the same scriptures as our base for forming a worship service across churches and denominations around the world ties us together as one universal church. One Word. One Body. One Lord of All.

Second, it encourages us to read the entire Bible, not just the passages we like, the passages we think we clearly understand, or the ones that spell out a message we think will be easy to digest. Like any relationship in life, to be fruitful, we must embrace that which we appreciate and that which we find uncomfortable. We must love even when that love is challenging. We must make hard decisions regarding that love even when we don’t want to. We have to have faith even when it’s hard.

Christianity sounds easy at first. Believe, and you shall be saved. But the truth is that nothing in this life is necessarily easy. Not because God doesn’t make it easy, mind you, but because we, human beings, make it hard. We overcomplicate things. We read too much into things. We try too hard to control things. We make too many assumptions about the outcome and don’t exhibit enough trust in the process. We falsely believe we are in control.

Throughout life, we are provided ample opportunities to live out our faith and trust in God. These opportunities to make moral decisions, ethical choices, are what help our faith to grow. Ethical choices are hard. They require both faith and instinct. Often, we are just bystanders making a choice between two decisions that may both appear right or both appear wrong. Making a decision over something we did not choose to be a part of.

In 1967, Philippa Foot wrote about the moral distinction between doing harm and allowing harm. She proposed what is now commonly referred to as the “trolley problem.” An innocent bystander, you, see a trolley (think San Francisco trolley car). The trolley is heading toward five people, barreling out of control. These people, for reasons unbeknownst to anyone, are oblivious and will not get out of the way; maybe they’re tourists and have just seen a black grey squirrel for the first time in their lives, who knows. You, the bystander, are conveniently standing next to a lever which will divert the runaway trolley onto a different track where it will kill one person instead of 5. What do you do?

There are a few options. But, no matter what happens, your knowledge of the existence of the problem, combined with the knowledge that you could intervene, precludes that the decision of the life or death of 5 or 1 is now your decision to make. A decision must me made. 5, 1 or ignore the problem entirely, which means you have chosen 5.

A mathematical or democratic model says to always sacrifice one to save 5. No contest. Of course, I will save 5 people at the expense of 1. But what if that one person is your own child? Now what’s your answer?

For Abraham, the choice was still the one wasn’t it? Sacrifice his own son for all of humanity. For God, the answer was one, sacrifice Their own son for all of humanity. But for you? Which is it?

Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his own son was a hard trust in the promise God had made to him that his offspring would one day be more numerous than grains of sand or the stars above. That he and his wife Sara would give birth to many nations.

Remember how many children Abraham and Sarah had together? Just one.

God’s promise through Abraham did not come to immediate fruition. Sarah didn’t even get pregnant immediately after God made that promise to Abraham. Ishmael was 14 years older than Isaac. It took 14 years after the initial promise for Sarah to become pregnant with what would be the only child she would bear and yet they were promised to give birth to an entire nation. Isaac would only have two children, twin sons named Esau and Jacob. It would be yet one more generation before the founders of the twelve tribes of Israel would begin.

Having faith when faced with ethical decisions is hard. Even harder when the outcome of your decision isn’t immediate. Who’s to say that one bystander isn’t the one who would develop the cure to cancer or bring about world peace if they were to survive? Who or what is that bystander of 1 that you’d sacrifice 5 over for? If you had known that, would you still have chosen the five?

Trusting that the Lord will provide is hard. When faced with the dilemma to give up the one thing that is the most important in the world to you; the one thing you would give up your very life for; would you do it? Would you have faith that it was worth it?

Following the commandments is not enough. In all 3 of the synoptic gospels, Matthew 19:16–22, Mark 10:17–22, and Luke 18:18–23, we hear the story of the rich man who diligently followed the commandments all his life but when it came down to it, he was not willing to give up that which he valued most in the world, his wealth. In Mark 12:41-44, we are told of a poor widow who has nothing yet gives her only two copper coins. Having faith when it’s hard, not when it’s easy, is what matters. Having faith is a willingness of the spirit. It is living love through action. Trusting in God when you don’t like the outcome you foresee and you haven’t the faintest clue what God’s outcome is going to be.

What is it in this life that you value the most? Family? Children? Friends? Money? Material things? There are a great many things in this world you might be willing to sacrifice yourself for. The harder question is, what is something in this world that you value so much you wouldn’t sacrifice it? Weird question, right? The answer is: control. Control is the one thing we value so much that we will not sacrifice ourselves for it.

Adam and Eve sacrificed their relationship with God for it. The ability to decide for themselves what was good and what was evil, that knowledge. Jacob sacrificed decades of living with his family for it. What could have been a wonderful relationship with his brother, time with his loved ones, he sacrificed to be the inheritor. I have seen countless addicts sacrifice rights to their children for this illusion of control. And, even more parents who have driven their children away from them because of their desire for control over them. Control may be the one thing more valuable to us than money or material things and the one thing… we never had in the first place, yet we somehow think we can lose it.

This passage from Genesis, this story of Abraham is not just about a willingness to give up all that one values here on earth, but it is also about a willingness to give up the desire for something that is not ours in exchange for that which is. Isaac never belonged to Abraham. Isaac belonged to God from the very beginning. Isaac’s life was never Abraham’s to control. We may never be able to possess control but we can possess trust; we can own our own faith. Isaac, who belonged fully to God didn’t hesitate to sacrifice himself. Abraham, however, diligently he obeyed, questioned the whole way if he was making the right decision.

It may seem like this sermon just took a sharp turn, but I assure you it has not. Let’s look at the trolley problem for a moment. The innocent bystander has been presented with knowledge and now they believe they have the ability to exert control over the situation. This formerly innocent bystander now believes they hold in their hands the power to determine who lives and who dies. No matter what choice this bystander makes, they will feel guilt for the rest of their lives, believing they are responsible for killing either one or five people.

Are they? Are they the ones hurtling a runaway trolley down the track? Did they set the trolley in motion? Did they put the people on the tracks? How much control do they really have in this whole situation?

How much control do they think they have?

The will of God, the one in control, is not an easy thing to understand. Sometimes, we’re faced with impossible questions that do not seem to have a correct solution and yet we still have to make a choice even though we don’t like any of the foreseeable outcomes. Hard faith is making a choice even though we don’t like any of the possible outcomes and trusting that God is going to somehow produce an outcome that we didn’t see. Hard faith is a willingness to trust in God no matter what, and see beyond how things affect just us.

Two of the hardest actions of faith are living with past decisions and understanding what is within our control and responsibility versus what is not. Faith is hard because we make it hard, not because of God. If we trust that all things belong to God and we let God carry the burden of responsibility and consequences for that which is not within our control, faith is a lot easier. We cannot control the actions of others. We are not responsible for their lives or decisions. They get to make their own choices just like we do.

We can help them discern God’s path. We can teach them what we know of right and wrong. But after that, the ethical decisions are up to them. A moral compass isn’t the same as a roadmap. It gives us a direction but doesn’t tell us how to traverse the terrain. How or where to forge rivers. Which mountains to climb and which to go around? Those choices are ours to make.

The burdens we choose to carry on this trip are also ours. We can carry shame, guilt, remorse, and resentment, or we can try to see what little was in our control in the first place and let God carry the rest. We can trust like Isaac, wholly and completely. We can trust like Abraham, doubting but doing it anyway. We can trust, like Sarah, laughing at the absurdity of what God can do.

Christianity isn’t about having all the answers. It isn’t about life being suddenly easy, never to be faced with moral dilemmas again.

It’s about being able to rest easier in the choices we do make.

Reconciling with the choices we have made that had no right answer.

The most important thing about faith is that we live it to make our lives a little less hard. We have faith when life is easy, and we have faith when life is hard. We believe with all our heart, body, mind, and soul that whatever decision we end up making, we can do so with confidence because God will walk through the consequences with us.