Abraham’s Knife

Here is a sermon on Genesis 22:1-14 I preached today.

I 

Every culture and people throughout history has had certain stories that serve as a foundation for building community. Indeed, part of what it means to be human is to have communal memory. It means reckoning with where we have come from and, on that basis, with where we are going. These stories can range from simple to complex, absurd to believable, public to private. It just depends on what sort of community a group is trying to build. For example, in college, I was in a men’s chorus, called the Men’s Glee Club. Wheaton College didn’t have a Greek system, so the Men’s Glee Club was the closest thing on campus to a fraternity. Now on the scale of absurd to believable, the kind of stories a bunch of college guys tell each other to form a community usually end up on the absurd side. We had stories about the first Glee Club member, a mythological ‘old man’—that’s what we call men who were in the club for at least a year—who did all sorts of absurdities that were supposedly the precedents for all the absurdities we currently did as the Club. It was in telling those stories to ourselves that we were the kind of community we were—a rather odd one.

Every community does this. Countries do it. We recite and have our children learn the mighty deeds of our founding fathers to remind our selves of the kind of country we intend to be. Sport teams do it. They hang the jerseys of their best players in their arenas and stadiums to recall the glory days. Marriages do it. “Sweetie, remember when…” And, of course, the church does it. “On the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord took bread…and said…do this in remembrance of me.” How we remember the past determines what we think about the future and so the kind of community we are in the present.

II 

The church, which is what we are gathered as right now, exists as one community with Israel, that is, with those who in one way or another worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and who seek to obey this God’s Torah, his Law. This is why our Bible contains the Old Testament. In the early days of the church, there were some Christians who wanted to drop the Old Testament. They claimed that Christianity was such a different religion than Judaism that we ought not share Scriptures with it. The Old Testament, they said, is old and barbaric. Its God is blood thirsty and vindictive. Its laws are oppressive and irrelevant. Jesus, on the other hand, frees us from all that. With him we can leave behind primitive religion and move out into the open country of love and freedom. There are some today who—wrongly—still feel this way.

But the wisdom of the church prevailed over such a flawed proposal. No, said the church. Our Lord Jesus saves us precisely because he is Israel’s Messiah, because he is Israel’s God come among us as an Israelite. Through Jesus, we don’t escape Israel and her God; rather, we are guests in the house of Israel. The promises of salvation were given to Israel; we Gentiles can hear and believe them only if we are let in on Israel’s blessings. Therefore we need their Scriptures if our faith in Jesus is to be faith in the actual Jesus, the one who is an Israelite. The New Testament is incomplete without the Old Testament, and so is our faith. Think about it like this: If the New Testament were a car, it would be rear-wheel drive. It is powered from behind. The New Testament receives its momentum from and tells the central episode in the story of Israel’s encounter with her God.

All of this is crucial to keep in mind as we hear our passage this morning. The story of Abraham and Isaac was a community-defining story for Israel, and so it must be for us. When Israel wanted to remind itself of the kind of community it was to be, it often turned—and still does today—to Abraham and his life with God. And so when we want to remind ourselves of the kind of community we are to be, we also must look to Abraham. When we look at Abraham, we get a glimpse of what happens when Israel’s God encounters human beings. We come to see what is required of us, where we have been, and where we are going. And the New Testament is in full agreement with our looking back to Abraham. It regards him as the man of faith—the one who models for us what life with our peculiar God looks like. So we turn to this story to receive our identity as the people of God. 

III

Twenty-two chapters into the Bible and already the whole thing is on the verge of collapse. Genesis 1, God creates the heavens and the earth. Genesis 3, Adam and Eve disobey God and he sends them out of the garden. Genesis 6, Adam and Eve’s descendents fill the earth with violence. Because of this, God sends a flood to wipe out all life except Noah, his family, and all the animals on the ark. Genesis 10, Noah’s descendents repopulate the earth. Genesis 11, God grants people various languages and sends them all over the earth. Now the stage is set. Genesis 12, enter Abraham. The first 11 chapters of Genesis are really preparing for this. Once we start with Abraham and his descendents, things start to pick up and get really interesting, we enter the Bible’s main plotline. In chapter 12, God makes a promise to Abraham that is the great theme of the entire Bible: “I will make of you a great nation…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” God’s great purpose for the world is that he would have a people for himself through whom all other peoples would be blessed. Abraham is the chosen father of this people. But here’s the rub. In order to be the father of a nation, you have to have…children.  

Fast-forward to Genesis 17. Abraham is 100, his wife Sarah is 99, and they still don’t have any children. At this point, they’re thinking, “Maybe this promise thing is a big hoax. God has lied to us.” But God comes back with another promise: in one year, you will have a son. Abraham and Sarah respond like any of us would; they laugh. Yeah right, God, good one, ha ha. But then we get to Genesis 21 and, miracle of miracles, Sarah in her dotage conceives and has a son. God was right, the promise stands. Here for the first time in Scripture, Israel’s God reveals what is perhaps his defining characteristic: he is the God who makes extravagant promises, and then keeps them. He is the God who sustains his people against all odds; the God who makes possible a future in the face of insurmountable obstacles. In this case, a child is born to an unlikely mother. Here we may note the rear-wheel drive connection between the Old and New Testaments. At the very beginning of the New Testament, Israel’s extravagant-promise-making-God shows up and again chooses an unlikely Mother to fulfill his promise. 

IV 

And now, finally, we come to our text, Genesis 22, the first words of which are, “After these things.” After God made himself known as the against-all-odds-extravagant-promise-keeper, this happens. After Abraham and Sarah had come to trust God because he fulfilled his promise by giving them a son, Abraham encounters a seemingly different God. 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 on one of the mountains. The God who had fulfilled his promise with Isaac, now demands that Abraham kill Isaac, and do so as an offering to God! This is a horrifying story, no doubt, but let’s be clear on what the horror is. Its not so much that Isaac is Abraham’s son, although that’s part of it. It’s that Isaac is the vehicle of God’s promise. This is why I said twenty-two chapters into the Bible and the whole thing is on the verge of collapse. From Abraham’s perspective, the whole of God’s promise is disappearing from his life. God’s plan for the entire world is collapsing in on itself. God is asking Abraham to give up God’s gift of promise.

So why did Abraham obey? Why not be done with such an unpredictable, fickle deity? The story never tells us. It is hauntingly evasive on this point. Maybe Abraham thought God wasn’t serious about it. But that won’t do. The story tells us in excruciating detail, Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. We are led to imagine Abraham swinging his arm down toward Isaac. Maybe Abraham thought God would raise Isaac from the dead. This is how the New Testament sees the matter. But again, the text is silent. The point it wants to make is that God tested Abraham and found Abraham faithful. The faith Abraham exhibits is the kind of faith required to be in relationship with Israel’s God. And what kind of faith is that? Unquestioning obedience, even on the road out into Godforsakenness. Trust that God will provide even as the promised means of provision are being taken away. And God did provide. He stopped Abraham and gave him a lamb to sacrifice instead. The promise stood. But this isn’t exactly a ‘happy-ending’ is it? Abraham is forever changed. The God he worships will indeed provide, but the provision may come in strange and contrary ways, and it can only be received on the road of difficult and costly obedience. 

I said that this was one of those stories that gave identity to Israel as a community. If one knows the history of Israel, from the Bible all the way through the 20^th century, it is not hard to see why. The life Israel has lived with her God has indeed been strange and contrary. Israel has been held in derision by the nations the majority of her life. Her biblical life was one of repeated exile and disestablishment. Her post-biblical life has been one of scorn and mockery, and in the 20^th century sheer terror. And yet Israel has exemplified remarkable faith through it all, believing that her life, however difficult, is one she lives with God. And indeed God has provided. Israel remains to this day, as a witness to the world of what it means to have faith in the true God.  

V 

There are two more things I want to consider for us this morning. How does this passage bear on our lives hear and now?  And how does this text serve as a foundation for our identity as followers of Jesus Christ?

Abraham certainly did not expect to be told to take his son Isaac and kill him. If we abstract from the story a bit, we arrive at an obvious but important truth about life: it comes at us unexpected. This church has recently been hit with a series of devastating illnesses. Who expects such things? We plan for our futures, have it all worked out in our heads, and then one doctor’s visit changes everything. Suddenly God has us dealing with something we didn’t expect. And we face the same choice that Abraham did. We can take it in obedience and trust or we can opt out of a life with God.

But we don’t face our choices exactly as Abraham did. For we face life’s ambiguities with Israel’s Messiah, Jesus. Abraham had to face the possibility that God was forsaking his promise. No more do we have to question God’s promise, now that Jesus has come. History is now the place for the Gospel to unfold. You see, the final child of the promise has been born. The most unlikely Mother, a virgin, has given birth. God’s faithful servant has arrived. And God has raised him from the dead, which means that his love and promised future is inexhaustible and indestructible. Everything we now face in life we do so in the freedom of the Gospel. God has made good on his promises by raising Jesus from the dead. The future God promises us is certain. Believe the good news. 

But—and here I will end—the Gospel does not mean that we have God pinned down in a way that Abraham didn’t. It doesn’t mean that our lives with God are any less dangerous or unpredictable. Another way to describe what Abraham experienced is to say that he was confronted with the hiddenness of God. God was with Abraham every step of the way, but he was with him under the guise of forsaking his promise. Likewise, God is with us in Jesus Christ, but just so, he is in some sense even more deeply hidden. For who can grasp a God who presents himself to us as a crucified, bloody man on a cross? Who can believe in a Messiah who died a shameful death? Yes, this man is risen, but this didn’t undo the crucifixion. The one who lives is the one who was crucified, the one who walked the road out into real Godforsakenness and plumbed its depths. Life with this God is indeed a mystery. Amen.  

Jesus Will Kill You. And You Will Live.

Here is a sermon I preached on Matthew 10:16-39 last Sunday. Thanks to David Congdon for the thoughts about American security and the FDR quote.

I

If you read the June newsletter sent out a couple weeks ago, specifically the little bio section I put in there, you would have learned that I am the middle of five children. I have an older brother and sister and a younger brother and sister. People often ask me if I suffer from ‘middle child syndrome,’ and to be honest, I’m never quite sure what they are talking about. If there is such a thing, I don’t think I caught it. I love my family dearly, and I love my place in my family. The philosopher Ayn Rand said the highest human pleasure is that of admiration. If she’s right—and I’m inclined to think she is—then having older siblings is just about the best way to be human. And having younger siblings has taught me so much about life. I know the dignity of being admired, the pain of watching innocence slip away, and the joy of watching them pursue their own goals. I could go on and on about my family. I haven’t even mentioned my mom and dad, or my lovely wife. In short, my family is home. They are where I find sure footing.

Last time I preached I said that Jesus offends us. Well, he does it again this morning. And this time it hits home, literally. There are many striking things about our gospel passage this morning, and we’ll get to them, but one immediately jumps out at us. Jesus says to us,

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law and one’s enemies will be members of one’s own household.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

For those of us who are Americans, particularly those of us raised as Christians in America, this passage is utterly dumfounding. In America, “family values” are often at the heart of what many people think Christianity is about. Just two days ago, I participated in a survey sent out by the psychology department of my alma mater, Wheaton College. They wanted to survey recent graduates about how they are doing in their family lives, friendships, and spiritual lives. One of the questions that appeared in many different forms was the following: Agree or Disagree: My religious convictions are important to me primarily because they provide me with morals.

“Of course!” Many will say. “What else would religion be for?” And morals become important for people usually when they start a family—rightly so. Notice the language we use. We “settle down” to have a family. We stop the shenanigans of youth and “get serious.”  So in this country, most churches market themselves to families. It is families who are looking for order, structure and stability. The church is their supplier. Accordingly, when the family unit begins to break down—which is happening in this country—the church begins to break down—which is also happening in this country. No demand, no need for a supplier. Simple economics.    

Yet Jesus tells us that he came in order to break up the family unit.

For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law and one’s enemies will be members of one’s own household.

Not quite what one would except from the family-friendly Jesus we are comfortable with. Jesus, apparently, is not “safe and fun for the whole family” as all the Christian radio stations put it.

II

Here in Matthew, Jesus is giving his disciples instructions as he sends them out to proclaim and enact the Kingdom. Remember what the Kingdom is. It is the long awaited hope of Israel that God would intervene in history and set up earth as a place where God’s law, his Torah, is followed everywhere by everyone—a place where Israel’s God is worshipped and where such worshippers love each other as family.

The gospel of Matthew (and all the other gospels) were written to tell the story of how Jesus showed up in Israel and said, “Now! Now is the time for the Kingdom. God’s future is closing in on us, you had better get ready.” Perhaps the most astonishing thing about the gospels is that Jesus announces the Kingdom and then proceeds to act as if people’s response to him is their response to God and his Kingdom. For example, Matthew records Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus teaches his followers how to obey the law Kingdom-style. Matthew deliberately makes Jesus look like Moses—on top of a mountain, bringing teaching, giving blessings and curses. But unlike Moses, Jesus does not first receive his teaching from God. He just brings it on his own authority, as if Kingdom-style living were his own invention. Matthew’s terse conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount is incredibly suggestive. He writes, And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. We are left asking, “Who is this man?” Surprises like this happen all over the gospels. Indeed, the gospels are one big surprise. Jesus announces the Kingdom, and by the end of the story it turns out that he is the Kingdom.     

Our passage this morning has Jesus sending us out to proclaim and enact the Kingdom. And make no mistake, church, you are the ones sent. My job as the preacher is not primarily to explain this difficult text or offer some bland spiritual principle from it, but to echo in front of you Jesus’ urgent words: “Now! Now is the time for the Kingdom. Go tell others! And get ready for people to hate you.”

Jesus says, Get ready, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves…and you will be hated by all because of my name. The Kingdom of God is an affront to this world. And the Kingdom’s messengers will be hated by the world. Just as Jesus was mocked and laughed at and accused of working for the Devil and crucified by expedient political leaders, so will such things happen to those who follow him. The Kingdom of God does not soothe; it disrupts. It does not assure; it poses questions. And the Kingdom’s messengers will disrupt and ask questions. And they will be hated for it. 

So Jesus instructs his disciples, assuming that their lives as Kingdom proclaimers will be dangerous. Let’s be clear, though. Their lives won’t be dangerous because disciples are called to be stupid or naïve. Flippant attitudes like, “Mission work in foreign countries doesn’t require deep cultural knowledge and respect. We just need Jesus,” have no place in the Christian faith. A while back there was a big hubbub about some South Korean missionaries taken captive in Afghanistan. During the time, many reacted either with disdain for the Afghanis or pride at the bravery of the missionaries. But in retrospect certain facts came to light that illustrated that the missionaries made some poor decisions, for example hiring a member of the Taliban to drive them around in an inconspicuous bus. Disciples aren’t to look for danger through their ignorance. Jesus tells us, Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Christians are to engage the world with wisdom, wit, and intelligence. Our lives will be dangerous simply because the world is a dangerous place and disciples belong in the world, making known the Kingdom. 

Jesus’ main instruction to us as Kingdom missionaries is not to fear. We are not to fear the dangerous world we are called into. We are to fear God alone. God’s Kingdom—already real in Jesus, and coming upon us quickly—is the ultimate truth of all reality, not the kingdoms of this earth that totter and all pass away. God alone has the power to judge and condemn. The most we can do is kill each other. This is an awful lot, but it does not measure up to what God can do to us. God alone determines our destiny.

In our current situation, these words of Jesus need to be heard again and again, and the church should be speaking them. In America these days, we do indeed fear, but not God. As a country, we are inflicted with widespread paranoia. The most prominent American idol is not some TV star, it is not Materialism or Militarism (although we do worship these gods). The idol we worship most fervently these days is the false god named Security. We are a nation bound by fear itself, what FDR in his first inaugural address called “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.” And so we fall at the feet of Security. The airport is our sanctuary, the metal detector our ritual, and plastic bags full of liquids our thank offerings. The President is our pastor, congress our session, and the Middle East our mission field. But our god Security is never satisfied, is he? He cannot offer final salvation like Jesus, just endless defense against the unknown.

And then there is Jesus with his Word to us. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy body and soul in hell…Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword…Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. In our world of violence and insecurity Jesus does not offer security. He does not offer a way to cope. He does not offer “family values” to stabilize us. He offers death and resurrection. The simple fact is that following Jesus will kill you—not make you safe. The Christian faith is not an escape from this world. What it offers is not life after death but rather a way to die that leads to resurrection. Disciples are called to face death head on, not run from it. For many Christians throughout the centuries, and still today, this meant literal death at the hands of aggressors. For us, it may come to that, and we should be ready. But it also means that we should seek out the places in this world where death holds its grip, and wrestle people out of its grip. We are supposed to be at hospitals, gravesides, prisons, rehabilitation units, undereducated neighborhoods, and thousands of other deadly places, public and private, offering the hope of resurrection to those burdened with death. Disciples of Jesus are drawn to death, because they know that’s where resurrection is promised. When they lose their lives for the sake of Jesus, they find them. Jesus will kill you. And you will live. Lose your life for Jesus’ sake, and you will find it. Listen to the apostle Paul on this matter:

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 

III 

Back to family. All of this rhetoric probably sounds overdrawn and a bit drastic. It probably doesn’t resonate with how we experience the world and our place in it as Christians—though maybe it does for some of you. For most of us, reality is a bit more hum drum. We don’t think in terms of life and death when we walk out of the door each morning. The regularities of family life give shape and rhythm to most of our lives. Our most pressing concerns are stable families, a secure career, a diversified portfolio, decent children, and a few satisfying hobbies. “Family values” really are important to us. I’m not here to rail against these things. They are blessings from God, and as I said, Christians are not called to be naïve or stupid. We ought to run well-ordered homes. It is good for me to cherish my family and rely on them for strength and support.

But let’s not miss the force of this text this morning. Jesus speaks with stark words, and we can’t get around the fact that his gospel is a disruptive call. It has the power to break apart a family when family is a hindrance to radical discipleship. It can and does bust apart our hum drum lives and call us to take risks. We should follow Jesus not primarily because he offers us morals but because he faced death head on and came out alive on the other side. 

Most of us will not face literal death for our decision to follow Jesus. But we might, and we should be prepared for it. All of us will die, and, at the very least, we need to be trained how to face our deaths like Jesus did, as an act of obedience. Most of us, rather, face a barrage of daily decisions, each of which is an opportunity to follow Jesus or construct our own lives. And following Jesus in the barrage of daily decisions will feel like death. But it is the only way to life. Amen. 

Woot, as the kids are saying these days

Yippee! We here in Klineland are mighty happy about Barack. Much of our Texas-based friend-dom will not be. But we will not let you put a damper on our day. There is much to celebrate.

Among the things to celebrate (and we hope you can join us):

- Peter was recently chosen to receive the something-something-someone-or-other (my words, not his) prize in systematic theology. The award is occasionally presented to a “middler” (a Princeton-crafted word to denote a student in their middle year of M.Div. studies) who demonstrates excellence and great potential in the field of systematic theology. (Tell us something we don’t know, Princeton.) In any case, we are very grateful for the award and for the prize money that accompanied it. Peter is going to invest in a bike.

- I am going back to Europe!!! Back-story: I applied to a program here at PTS to study the Taize community next spring in a class taught by our Director of Music, Martin Tel. During the May-term, the class will travel to Taize in France and then to Switzerland for an “immersion-learning” experience. A panel of faculty members from the practical theology department selected 6 students from the pool of applicants. Somehow, I got picked! And, here’s an incredible tidbit: it’s all for the low, low price of $250. It costs more than that for us to return to Texas. I’m beside myself.

- We recently returned from two exciting adventures. The first was a quick trip down to Cape May, New Jersey. We stayed at the historic Congress Hall, and enjoyed walking on the beach, walking through the town, and eating lots of good food. And we enjoyed being married. In the words of one of my heroes, the illustrious Martha Stewart (whom I am watching right now– a special on Latin cooking!), that is certainly a Good Thing. The second adventure was down to Charlotte, North Carolina for Peter’s cousin Amy’s wedding (my cousin-in-law??). The wedding was one of the most extravagant I’ve ever attended, and it was a blast. I even got hit on by a drunk 40-something wedding attender! Viva Carolina!

- My dad came for a quick visit, and the highlight of our time together was a trip out to New Egypt, New Jersey, where we watched midget racing. And, I saw two cars flip over–one went over the fence and snapped a cable and one did cartwheels down the track. My dad made the astute observation that Peter and I were certainly the only two Princeton seminarians present at the races. And, most assuredly, Peter was the only person ever to sit in the grandstands and work on a sermon to be delivered the following morning.

- We are coming to Houston soon and very soon for the wedding of the beautiful and hilarious Elizabeth Kline to the joyous and baronial Ryan Baker (“go big or go home!”). We’ll be there from June 11-18. Who wants to party?

- A picture, just because…

Who says secrets don’t make friends?