The Binding of Isaac

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
June 29, 2014

The Binding of Isaac

Our Jewish brothers and sisters refer to the horrifying story we heard from Genesis this morning as "the binding of Isaac."  That title is more accurate than  "the Sacrifice of Isaac," since Isaac was bound and he was not sacrificed.  So, I decided to google "the Binding of Isaac" to see if I could find some good Jewish commentaries on this very troubling story.

What I found when I searched for "the Binding of Isaac," was two full pages of web sites about a video game by that name.  Apparently the horror of this story, in which God tells a father to sacrifice his son, has excited the imagination of the video game industry and "the Binding of Isaac" is a best seller, released in 2011.  However in the video game, God speaks to Isaac's mother, and Isaac flees to the family basement where he encounters a multitude of monsters.  Only after I waded through the two pages of websites about the video game did I find anything edifying about the actual story in Genesis.

The story of the binding of Isaac is one of the most terrifying and offensive stories in Scripture.  What are we to make of a story in which God seems to desire the sacrifice of a child?  Just last week, Abraham's first born son, Ishmael, was banished to the wilderness with his mother, Hagar.  Abraham has just lost one son, and now God tells him to sacrifice Isaac, the child given to Abraham and Sarah in their old age.  Abraham does not even question the request.  No wonder the video game creators had a field day with this story.

             Frankly, God's request does not make any sense.   If Abraham and Sarah are  to be the ancestors of many nations as God promised, with descendants that number the stars in the heavens, Isaac's future marriage and children are required.  How will this promise be fulfilled if Isaac is sacrificed?  Somehow, I don't think Sarah is up for having another child at her advanced age of well over 100.  And, where is Sarah in this narrative anyway, the woman who carried Isaac in her womb and gave birth to him?  Does she not have any say in this matter?

I have no answers to these questions.  But since the lectionary insists that we deal with this story, perhaps we should ask how this story can possibly be understood so that it might be relevant to our lives as people of God?

Again, I turned to our Jewish brothers and sisters for help.  When I finally found some real commentary on the story, I learned that in the Jewish faith, the story of the binding of Isaac is read or chanted on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.  In this story, there are two main characters, other than God: Abraham and Isaac.  Abraham is the model of faithful obedience, and on Rosh Hashana, which begins a season of repentance, the focus is on how to live more faithfully.  Abraham is not a man of blind obedience, however.  Abraham trusts God and obeys because he has a long and deep relationship with God that gives him no reason to do otherwise, and every reason to trust.  When Abram was a mere 75 years old, God called Abram to leave the country of his father and go to a land that God would show him.  Abram trusts God and leaves for an unknown land, and that works out pretty well, despite a few set-backs.  When Abraham is 99 years old, when Abraham and Sarah are childless and obviously way too old to bear children, God promises Abraham descendants that will number the stars in the sky.  As unlikely as that seems, Sarah does give birth to Isaac, at the tender age of 100.  Abraham's trust in God has been amply tested thus far in the story, and God has consistently been worthy of Abraham's trust.

 Abraham's long relationship with God has also given Abraham evidence that God knows what God is doing.  When Isaac says to his father "The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" Abraham replies "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering."  God has given Isaac to Abraham and Sarah in fulfillment of a promise that Abraham trusts God will keep.  Abraham's trust in God is confirmed when, ultimately, the sacrifice of Isaac is not required.  God's trust in Abraham is confirmed by Abraham's obedience.

So that's Abraham's story.  But what about Isaac?  On the one hand, Isaac may be a child in this story, since the story follows closely after we are told that Isaac was weaned at the age of three.  But on the other hand, the next significant thing to happen following the binding of Isaac is the death of Sarah at age 127.  Since she was 100 when Isaac was born, Isaac would be almost 27 years old in our story this morning, and most commentaries find this to be the more plausible option.  Either way, though, Isaac is bound without protest and put on the altar for sacrifice.  He must be terrified.  At this point, Isaac is utterly dependent on God's intervention to release him from bondage because Abraham has the knife raised. And God is faithful and delivers Isaac from that bondage by preventing Abraham from making the sacrifice.  On Rosh Hashana, our Jewish brothers and sisters ask the question  "By what are we bound?" What has us bound in such a way that we are prevented from living faithfully and being the people God calls us to be?  Pride?  Greed?  Fear? Addiction?  Unhealthy relationships? Can we trust God's intervention to release us or does our bondage give us the illusion of security? On the Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, the faithful hear the call to examine their lives for what binds them and separates them from God.  As Christians, we hear the apostle Paul say this very thing in the letter to the Romans this morning "When you were slaves to sin (bound to sin0, you were free in regard to righteousness.....But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved (bound) to God, you are made holy."  To what are we bound that keeps us from living fully as the people God calls us to be?

Sometimes life is horrifying.  Sometimes life is merely challenging. Sometimes those challenges are of our own making. Other times they are not. But when we are willing to shield our eyes and listen closely to the story of the binding of Isaac, we hear a story about faithfulness, not blind obedience, rooted in a deep relationship with God, and God's power to release us from bondage and set us free to live as the people God created us to be. The "Binding of Isaac" is no less horrifying, but perhaps the good news in this story is that we can trust God to act in the hardest stories of our lives.  

Amen.


 

"Go Big or Go Home"

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
June 22, 2014

Go Big or Go Home

Three weeks ago, on Procter Camp Sunday at the 10 o'clock service, Camp Director Rob Konkol asked Caldwell, my son, to talk about the way that Procter  has impacted his life now that he is grown, has a job, and lives on his own in upstate New York.  Between being a camper and a counselor, Caldwell spent parts of 13 summers at Procter Camp, the last three as a counselor.  After a comment about his body wash that proved that a son never loses his capacity to embarrass his mother, Caldwell talked about three different things he had learned through his years at Procter.  The first is "Early is on time and on time is late."  That one is fairly self-explanatory and should have come as no great surprise to Caldwell having grown up in my house.  The second is "No egos."  There is no place for egos in gospel work. Like Michael Dohn said last week, the glory all belongs to God, whether we're working at camp, in Springfield, or as medical missionaries in the Dominican Republic.  The last thing Caldwell talked about is the most striking: "Go big or go home."  Think big, push harder, accept challenges, take risks, and do not be afraid.

I did not realize what a profoundly theological statement "Go big or go home" is until I started working with this morning's scripture readings.  The story of the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael is part of the larger story of God's promise to Abraham that Abraham and Sarah will have descendants that number the stars in the sky and be the ancestor of a great nation.  That is going big. When Abraham and Sarah were getting along in years, and still had no heir, God repeats the promise.  God is going really big even if Abraham and Sarah are growing a bit skeptical.  So Sarah takes matters into her own hands and tells Abraham to have a baby with the slave, Hagar.  Yes, that was Sarah's idea.  But then Sarah does conceive a child, Isaac, and the story picks up this morning as Isaac is weaned and Sarah becomes jealous of the relationship Isaac and Ishmael have, Hagar's role in this family drama, and Abraham's affections.  So Abraham, against his will, banishes Hagar and Ishmael, his first born son, to the wilderness with only some bread and water to sustain them pretty much forever.  As distressing as the situation is, and as annoyed as we might be with Sarah for her selfishness, the reality is that God's promise to Abraham can be fulfilled without Hagar and Ishmael.  So the promise itself is not in danger.  But God goes big.  God sees the opportunity in the situation, and tells Hagar not to be afraid.  God will use this opportunity to make a great nation of Ishmael as well.  God took an unfortunate turn of events, saw the opportunity, went big, and Ishmael would become the father of Islam.  Go big or go home.

Likewise in the gospel reading, being a disciple of Jesus is not turning out the way most disciples probably thought it would when they decided to follow Jesus.  The disciples probably thought they were signing on to a life of teaching and healing, exorcizing a demon or two, maybe turning some fish and bread into food for the masses.  Sure, they might not have a place to stay, or people might not appreciate their words or their work, but those are minor inconveniences when compared to the joy of following Jesus.  What the early disciples got instead was slander, persecution, the division of families, and, in some cases death.  In the face of what must have seemed like insurmountable odds, Jesus essentially says "Do not be afraid.  Go big or go home.  Being my disciple demands your all."  Following Jesus means living outside the comfort zone, daring to do and be more than the disciples thought possible, taking risks for the gospel that look foolish to others, and doing so without fear.  Go big or go home.

I believe that God measures our faithfulness, not by our success, but by whether we were able to swallow our fears, trust in God's presence, seize opportunities, and Go Big.  At Christ Church, as I look back at the ministries that have worked, they have been big.  In fact, years ago, I saw in our service bulletin a request for 10 dozen cookies back when one of our parishioners, Noel Tracy, was involved in the Kairos prison ministry.  I assumed that was a typo and we needed 100 dozen, because that is what Noel usually needed for a Kairos weekend.  However, I also knew that we would never come up with 10 dozen cookies because we would all think someone else would bake them.  We are not lazy; we are just all busy.  But we would easily come up with 100 dozen because then we all know we all have to bake cookies to reach that goal.  But we have also taken on projects like Reading Camp, which I was told no one church could do alone.  We have hosted the Dayton Gay Men's Chorus, a bold move.  We set a goal to provide a $25 Christmas gift card for each of the 86 residents at the Shawnee Apartments.   We bake 75 dozen or so cookies to take into the community on Christmas in July and we provide enough socks and underwear for the children at 6 elementary schools.  We serve hundreds of families through our Food Pantry.  We host the entire neighborhood for the Neighborhood Fair.  When we put aside our fears, seize and opportunity, and go big, we generally succeed.  And we are energized.  When we go small, when we need a mere 10 dozen cookies or one meal or a few volunteers, typically we struggle because we think someone else will make it happen.

As we look to the future, to new initiatives and ministries, and grow into the church God is calling us to be, God calls us to go beyond the obvious, take risks, seize opportunities, and not be afraid.  There is a catch to "Go big or go home" for us, however.  Unlike Abraham and Sarah who have set out to find the land God has promised them, or Hagar and Ishmael who are banished to the wilderness, or Jesus' disciples who have no place to lay their heads, we are home.  We are blessed with a place where we belong.  Going home is not an option.  We live here. Our only faithful option, and the option God expects of us, is to "Go big."
Amen.

Pentecost

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
June 8, 2014

Pentecost 2014

While I was on sabbatical this past spring, I attended a conference in Cincinnati on new ways of being church.  One feature of that conference was an event called "Beer and Hymns" which I am sure is way more fun that most people think Christians have together.  Another feature of the conference was music by "The Theodicy Jazz Collective." The word theodicy refers to the question of why a good God permits evil.  This group of performers believes that music has the power to be an instrument of peace and justice in the world, and they use their music to that end.

As part of the conference, the ensemble talked about improvisational jazz and how they believe their work together demonstrates the way evil and injustice can be fought.  First, in order to improvise, the instrumentalists have to  understand the tradition they are improvising upon.  They have to have deep roots in both their knowledge of music generally and their understanding of jazz specifically.  Only then can they improvise with integrity.  Secondly, they have to trust each other.  They have to trust that the other members of the ensemble have rehearsed and are prepared.  They have to trust that their various gifts, when combined and used together, will produce something harmonious.  When they trust each other and the gifts they have been given, they can try bold new music.  Thirdly, they all know that when one person decides to try something new, the job of everyone else is to support that person and make sure that no one is ever left standing alone with no support.  If that new thing wasn't such a good idea, they talk about that later, but in the moment of performance, they are all in the show together and they work together to create the best possible music.  The Theodicy Jazz Collective works to make a gospel difference in the world not only with the music they play, but by the very way they make their music.

On this Pentecost Sunday, we watch the Holy Spirit descend on the disciples and give them the gift of languages.  This gift was not for the disciples own personal benefit, but so that they could proclaim the gospel for all the world to hear and understand.  The disciples are gathered together in Jerusalem for the Jewish feast of Pentecost, which is the Jewish festival that celebrates the giving of the Torah, the Law, to Moses on Mt. Sinai.  The disciples are together in one place, engaged in their tradition, where the Spirit descends on them collectively. They were not scattered all over Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit arrived. Peter did not receive the gift of flames while at the market, while James received that gift at a first century equivalent of a child's soccer game, and John while out fishing.  They disciples were together and through this collective gift of the Spirit, everyone was able to hear the Good News spoken in a language they understood.  From the rest of the book of Acts, we know that the Spirit then pushed the disciples, and later Paul, out into most of the known world.

Today we also hear Paul's own reflection on the gifts of the Spirit as the apostle reminds us of the variety of gifts given to individuals by the one Spirit, all  to be used for the common good.  No one gift alone is adequate for the body to function.  Paul reminds us that we are all part of the one body, not just individuals who are complete unto ourselves.  Indeed, Paul tells us that each person's gifts are incomplete without the gifts of the rest of the body.  All of the gifts and all the of individuals who bear those gifts are necessary for the Body of Chris to function..

This parish, Christ Church, is blessed with an abundance of gifts.  I wrote in my newsletter article about how easily I can take those gifts for granted.  Collectively, we have the gifts of teaching, administration, music, wisdom, cooking, compassion, hospitality, creativity, financial management, the list goes on and on and on.  I do not doubt for one moment that we have, at Christ Church, the gifts to overcome any obstacles we might face.  Our challenge is always how we use those gifts together to build up the Body of Christ for the common good.  Are we grounded in our tradition-in our faith-so that we can use our gifts well to improvise and move in new directions to practice our deeply rooted faith in new ways?  Do we trust each other-trust that each person is prepared, practiced, and ready-and trust the Spirit who gave us those gifts?  Can we live together in such a way that everyone is supported in the use of his or her gifts and no one is left standing alone to try something new?

In a moment, we will renew the promises we made at our baptism.  We will affirm the foundation of our faith in the three questions that lead us into the words of the Apostles' Creed.  Then we will affirm the way we will live in response to our faith.  We will promise to continue in the breaking of bread and in the prayers, to resist evil and whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.  We will promise to seek and serve Christ in all people, to respect the dignity of every human being, and to proclaim the gospel with word and action.  We make those promises as individuals, but we are called to live out those promises collectively as we come together to use the many gifts we have been given to worship, to proclaim the gospel, and to seek and serve Christ in all people.

The Theodicy Jazz Collective works to make a gospel difference in the world not only with the music they make, but by the very way they go about making that music.  Likewise, when we take the abundance of gifts the Spirit has given us, work out of the depth of our tradition to discern how we are called to use those gifts in this day and time, trust each other and the Spirit who gave us those gifts, and work together so that no one is ever afraid of being left standing on their own, both our  bold, creative ministries and the way we go about those ministries make a gospel difference in the world.
  Amen.

6 Easter A

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
May 25, 2014

6 Easter A

My husband's Aunt Joy will be 98 years old at the end of this week.  Even though Don and I have been married for over 30 years, I had not met Aunt Joy until about 3 years ago when two of her six children brought her to Springfield for a mini family reunion.  Aunt Joy was a mere 95 years old at the time, fiercely independent, utterly delightful, and deeply inquisitive about her faith.  At the time, she lived in a retirement community where her main complaint was not the food, which was certainly worthy of complaint, or the care, which was actually quite good.  Her main complaint was that no one would talk with her about dying, or death, or what life beyond the grave would be like.  Aunt Joy was appalled at the lack of curiosity among her peers on this topic.  I imagine she has always been a pragmatic and realistic person, wanting to plan for the future, and she is pretty clear about what the future holds.  What she could not understand was why no one else was equally curious.   Aunt Joy and I struck up a friendship that weekend and have corresponded off and on over the last few years, and I got to visit her when I went to Richmond in February.

Several weeks ago, Aunt Joy was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.  To make a long story short, she had emergency surgery and is now having to relearn how to make her arms and hands work, and how to stand again.  We talk on the phone a little more often these days, and when we talked last week, she told me with a real sense of accomplishment that she had been able to stand several times that day.  She marveled at the ability of the physical therapist to hoist her out of the chair, and told me that she had to hang on to the therapist for dear life.  But she had stood up, even if briefly, and she felt like a new person.

Her problem, she told me, is that she is having trouble hanging on to Jesus.   In fact, she says, she is having trouble finding Jesus at all, much less hanging on to him.  We talked about this and then we wondered together about whether Jesus might be present in the physical therapist she had held on to so tightly so she could stand up.  Or perhaps Jesus was present in her children, at least one of whom is with her around the clock.  Or perhaps Jesus is present in the oncologist that Aunt Joy adores and is probably younger than some of Aunt Joy's grandchildren.  We said good-bye that night without any clear resolution to her concern about being able to hang on to Jesus, but her deeply inquisitive mind had engaged the question on a new level.

This morning, we hear Paul speak to the Athenians in front of the Areopagus.  Paul recognizes that the Athenians are very religious and he points to the altar to the unknown god as proof of their quest to know the divine.  For all the gods the Greeks had, and there were many, the Athenians admitted that there might be yet another one that they did not know about.  Paul seizes the opportunity to tell them about the God they do not know: the God who made the world and everything in it, who made all the nations of the earth that they might search for God and find God.  And then Paul adds "though indeed God is not far from each one of us."  The god the Athenians do not know is working in their very midst, they just do not recognize the Divine.  For, as Paul reminds them, "In God, we live and move and have our being."

Paul is telling the Athenians that the God they search for, the one they admit they do not know, is in their very midst.  In the gospel reading, we hear Jesus preparing the disciples for the time, quickly coming, when he will no longer be with them.  So that the disciples will not be alone, Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, to be with them forever.  Jesus tells the disciples that the Spirit will abide with them and be in them.  This promise to the disciples is fulfilled on Easter night, when, in John's gospel, Jesus appears to the disciples, breathes on them, and says "Receive the Holy Spirit."

When life is difficult, we can think that God is very distant, as the Athenians do, or have trouble hanging on to Jesus, like Aunt Joy, or feel like we have been left as orphans, as Jesus' disciples were feeling.  We can feel that God is somewhere else and that we need to hunt for God in order to experience God's presence in our lives.  But both Jesus and Paul tell us that when we start by thinking that God is some where else and that we must expend great sums of energy trying to find God, we are starting in the wrong place.  Both Paul and Jesus tell us that the God in whom we live and move and have our being is right here with us.  Our task is not to find where God is hiding but to recognize where God is already present.  Jesus' promise to us is that we will never be abandoned.  Jesus calls us to hold onto that promise and look for the ways God is already at work in our lives.  Then, like Paul, we can help others see where the God who seems unknown is actually present and working in their lives.

Amen.