June 29, 2008
Rev. Rick Haverly
First of all, I have to begin today with a little disclaimer. This is a very disturbing text and one to be treated carefully. This is not a text that you can apply literally to your life. If you hear voices telling you, you should kill your children for God, you need to tell your pastors right away and we will get you the help you need. This is not faithful behavior. DCF should intervene and you should be in psychiatric care.
There may have been a historical use for this story in that it may have been exemplary for God’s people to show why they did not need to practice child sacrifice to be faithful to God and that the burnt offerings of animal sacrifice were sufficient. There is no real evidence that child sacrifice ever was practiced but if it was it’s a message whose time is long past.
But I believe this story does have a powerful and still contemporary message for us today. In order to understand that message we need to understand exactly what Isaac was and that means remembering Abraham’s story.
Abraham called by God in
Abraham had travelled with his cousin
Abraham doubts the promise in Genesis 15 because he has no heirs and believes a servant will inherit all he has along with the promise of God. But God reaffir
Abraham and Sarah decide that Sarah is infertile so they decide to take matters into their own hands and Sarah offers her servant, Hagar to be mother to Abraham’s children and she gives birth to Ishmael. Abraham was 86 when Ishmael was born. Abraham receives the covenant of circumcision of circumcision in
Finally Isaac is born when Abraham is 100 years old. And it looks like it is all finally taking place just as God had promised.
Which brings us to the sacrifice.
When Abraham is asked to sacrifice Isaac he is not just sacrificing a child. He is offering the very promise which God had given him and had sustained him through his life. By now he must be at least 112 if Isaac is big enough to carry the wood for the sacrifice. But he is asked to demonstrate that his obedience to God is more important that the reward that God has promised him. It is to be a demonstration that his obedience comes from his relationship and trust of God and is not done just out of self interest to attain the prize.
And here is the message for us. Are we faithful people because we believe in the ways and the values of God or are we faithful people because we believe we will be rewarded for being faithful?
There is a charge that is leveled at the church today and it’s particularly directed to churches that have contemporary worship along with mega-churches that offer Starbucks stations and food courts. Are people just there for what they are receiving? It’s all about being a consumer church. Our congregation can also fall prey to this charge and not just the contemporary service. Because we have choices of worship we are all making consumer decisions to come to the service that best fulfills our needs. People who come at 8 may like the early hour, the shorter service or the smaller intimate communion setting. Those who attend at
The corrective to this charge is this story and the message it brings. Are we willing to offer and sacrifice to God those things we thought God would give us?
We come to the altar that is always before us. But we don’t have children sacrificed here. We don’t even have the animals sacrificed as they would have done in Jesus’ time. That was what was going on when Jesus Through out the money-changers. They were purchasing sacrificial animals, so we would have smelled the blood running down the altar and the flesh being consumed in the fire offering the animal to God.
But on our altar this morning we might offer those things we often consider the rewards or promises of our faith. What would those be? We often think we will have a successful marriage or a happy family if we are faithful. But if we offer those back to God what does it look like? Then my marriage with my spouse is not about what I get out of it. Instead I look at it as my responsibility to be a sign of God’s love, care and fidelity to my wife. It is about how our marriage encourages each of us to be the best disciples of Jesus that we can be. As we offer our children to God it is no longer about what pride I get out of my children or having someone to take care of us in our old age. We have to ask how we raise our children to be faithful children of God. My friend from seminary, Arthur, was talking about how he was feeling he was being asked to sacrifice his daughter this week. She is graduating from college and is considering joining the Peace Corps. He is worried about her safety going into areas they might send her. He jokingly said, “I thought I taught her to be more selfish than that!” Offering our children to God is allowing them to serve God in ways that may challenge our expectations.
Perhaps we place our wallet on this altar to be sacrificed. You may not hear it here but there are churches that proclaim and even an underlying expectation of our own that if we are faithful, God will see to it that we will have enough money and enough as we define it. But if we offer it back to God we are asking the question, “How can we use this money to faithfully serve God?” Sure part of that is providing for our family but we are challenged to be generous for others in need so that we may serve God’s intentions.
Or we offer our job to God. Moving beyond the expectation that we should be successful in our occupation because of our faith, we offer instead to be as faithful to God as possible in our job. How can we be honest in our business dealings? How can we be sensitive to the needs of the people we work with or the people we meet in the course of the day? In this way our job is not our reward but a vehicle for serving God.
We may even sacrifice our church on this altar. It transforms our experience of church from a demand that we are getting something out of it to a desire that it strengthen and shape us to best serve Christ as disciples
Now you might object that this kind of obedience and sacrifice that God demands is unrealistic. But there are other areas of our life where we experience this as well. I had lunch this week with Sergeant Matt Currao. A young man who grew up here, many of you know him. He has just reenlisted in the Marines but this time will be serving as a drill Sergeant. It is his job to instill that kind of obedience and discipline in his new recruits. They can’t have soldiers getting to their assignments and complaining that the enemy is shooting at them and they don’t feel it is in their best interests to engage them. They can’t be asking what’s in it for them before they act and serve. So Sergeant Currao will be training them to act in obedience instead of looking for their own reward.
So as people of God we hope for the rewards of our faith that we will have happy marriages and families, money to provide for us and fulfilling careers. But we move beyond selfishness when we offer them back to God on this altar.
And that shouldn’t seem so strange to us because on this altar we normally see the elements of a meal. The are the sacrificial Communion Elements that are offered here as a body and blood to remind us of the Sacrifice of Christ.
He offered his life to God.
We follow a leader who didn’t demand long life or health. He didn’t ask for success in removing the occupying Roman forces. Instead he said what was most important that his life be a sign of faithfulness and obedience to God. And it is that task that we are called to as his disciples when we are reminded to take up our cross and follow him.
In closing I am going to read John Wesley’s covenant prayer. Listen to it the first time. Then if you think you can agree to it, I invite you to pray it with me the second time.
John Wesley’s Covenant Prayer:
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.