It is a story that has horrified good people down the ages. The rabbis twisted it every which way, trying to wring some sense from it: maybe Abraham misunderstood God. Maybe it was all a dream. Maybe it was only an act. Maybe anything but this horror story about God.
The Christian Fathers saw the bridge to our own faith. But they left the terrors of the story alone. They said after all Abraham didn’t have to go through with it. True after all, but before that the story is dreadful –- literally, full of dread.
Kierkegaard, the Danish thinker who like a modern Jacob wrestled with his Christianity, said the story appalled him. That word is exact.
It is best, I think, to leave the dreadfulness in this story. The fear of the Lord is a mighty and good thing, and part of what it means is that God will do things we cannot explain, things that are hard. I don’t want to do what Peter does in the Gospel today. I don’t want to do what the heretics do -– which contrary to popular impression is to water down the faith, and make it less daring, less startling: it’s the heresies that are stodgy, not the tradition.
But there is one very important point I want to make very clear.
The Lord knew by now that Abraham was faithful. The question was, did Abraham have faith?
What’s the difference –- between faith and faithfulness? Between being faithful and having faith? They are not the same thing at all.
Faithful means being willing to submit totally to God’s will. Today it would indeed mean being willing to offer up Isaac.
But the Lord already knew that Abraham was faithful. That he would uproot himself and his tribe and move from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan -– that was the first encounter between Abraham and God, and Abraham passed that text. He did not even demur like the prophets and say I am unclean or unworthy or, like Moses, I am halting of speech. He offered no excuses, he asked no questions and he allowed himself no delay. The Lord said Go, go where you’ve never been, go where I tell you. And Abraham went. And this was horrible to a man of Abraham’s world: as horrible as the later command. Exile was misery, worse than death, and that’s exactly what the Lord had already at the very beginning, chapter one, of their story together asked Abraham..
So the Lord knew Abraham was faithful and we know it too. St. Paul lifted him up as an example, and when he did it was this he mentions: “Abraham obeyed the call to leave his home for a land which he was to receive as his possession, he went away without knowing where he was to go; by faith he settled as an alien in the land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob.”
But he took this promise with him: if you do as I say, I shall bless your name and make your clan a name to bless by.
Faith -– that means trusting in the promise. Did Abraham have faith? That had not been determined yet. His faithfulness had been tested. Not his faith.
Does Abraham trust that Promise? Does Abraham believe that God’s design will be fulfilled, no matter how things appear?
God knew Abraham would offer Isaac.
The question was about Abraham’s faith. And Abraham passed the test not when he made his way to Mt. Moriah, for three days, not when he built the altar and placed Isaac upon it, not when he raised his hand, but when he answered Isaac’s question:
“Where is the lamb?”
For what does Abraham answer? “God himself will provide the lamb.”
There is the turning point. A turning point in the history of the spirit, because it changed the meaning of sacrifice forever. It’s simple: a sacrifice was something you did to appease God and you provided the victim or something else valuable. If you didn’t, it meant nothing. It was the whole point of it: being willing to offer what is dear to you for God.
Abraham’s faith was in a God who provided the victim. Nobody had even thought of that before. What it means in effect is, God, not you, makes the sacrifice.
And of course Abraham’s words were no lie, no deception, and no mistake. The Lord did provide the lamb.
Of course, we, the people of the new covenant, understand that Abraham was saying even more than he knew. That he was predicting not only Isaac’s salvation but that of the whole human genus. For we believe that God has provided the lamb that takes away the sins of the world.
That is our faith: the Lord has provided the lamb.
But it raises this question: If that’s our faith, where does our faithfulness lie? God asks the same question of us: Are you faithful, and do you have faith?
Years ago I had a friend who’s a priest. In fact, he was the Rector of one of the great Manhattan parishes -— not this one, as will be obvious from what I say next.
He was in many ways a champion of the tradition. He used to bring more liturgical fullness to parishes that did not have much. But, here’s the odd thing:
My friend thought Lent was nonsense. He did weddings during Lent. A Bishop once told him not to over the telephone and he hung up on that Bishop. He thought confession was stupid. Oh, he did have the Altar Guild change the colors, and he did have some kind of Ash Wednesday service. But that’s about it.
Above all he thought acts of self-denial during Lent were some kind of superstition, or affectation, or illness.
Like too many priests of his generation, he was fond of slogans, and one he had one for Lent: “If something is wrong during Lent, it’s always wrong and you should never do it.”
And that was supposed to be that.
Well, he was correct on one point. If something’s wrong during Lent, it always is. You aren’t supposed to give up larceny for Lent. Or brutality. Or smoking, if you’ve decided that’s wrong. But he was wrong in thinking that our tradition ever said anything like give up bad things for lent. Outsiders are always criticizing and complaining about Christian tradition for things it does not teach. They criticize us for silly notions about heaven (which they’ve seen in cartoons, not in Church) or crazy notions about Jesus (which they’ve seen on television, they haven’t heard them from our pulpit) or scapegoat ideas about the Devil (which they may find in pop fiction, but they certainly won’t find in our Creed -- just check and see what the Ecumenical Creed says about him!). And the real tradition of course has never said give up some sin for Lent. You give up bad things forever, any time. During Lent you give up neutral things, and only temporarily.
But that’s’s what my colleague could never understand. His concluding challenge was always this:
“Since Jesus died for our sins, what’s the point of all this other practice?”
The answer to that vexing question is the difference between faith and faithfulness. You see, my friend believed God had provided the Lamb. But he was unwilling to make the trek from Ur to Canaan.
Believing that God loves us and gave his Son for us and that alone is Christianity is having precisely half the covenant. Look at the Baptismal vows: exactly half are what we believe about God. That Jesus died for our sins. Actually I like the way Paul puts it in today’s lesson from Romans much better:
“Nothing can come between us and the love of God. That is, neither life nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nothing already in existence and nothing yet to come, nor any power, nor the heights nor the depths, nor any created thing whatever, will be able to come between us and the love of God.”
That’s our faith in God’s design. We stake ourselves on that promise just as Abraham did on the promise that his name would be a blessing.
But just as Abraham could be faithful without having faith, so we can have faith without being faithful.
“All that matters is Jesus dying for your sins. All those Lenten rules about self-denial are not part of the Gospel.”
Oh really? What about today’s?
Today’s reading from Genesis is about the most severe test of Abraham. Today’s lesson from the Gospel is Christ’s most serious challenge to us would-be disciples:
If any want to become my disciples, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
Did I hear that right? Anyone who wants to follow me -— says Jesus —- must take up his or her cross and follow him.
But Christ directs this word, this challenge, at would-be disciples.
I’m convinced that there are many Christians who are not called to discipleship. To them, to the many, Christ says the comforting words, “come unto me all ye that are weak and heavy laden and I shall give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” That’s what he says to the crowds that gather round him for whom he feels such great compassion. This is his word to the woman about to be stoned, to the man born blind, to the leper and the centurion and the taxgatherer. Come to me and I shall give you rest.
Today’s Gospel word is not aimed at these. Nor is it aimed at you and me when we are feeling lost, broken and afraid.
But it is aimed at us when we would be Christ’s disciple. This is about those called to discipleship. And Lent is training in discipleship -– preparation for it, just as Christ’s sojourn in the wilderness for forty days prepared him for his mission on this earth.
St. Athanasius explained it: in voluntary renunciation the pain is converted into power. And, said St Basil, Christ in the Desert first laid down that principle of voluntary renunciation.
I believe that absolutely. I believe Lent therefore is a season of power. Freedom. Refreshment. Cleansing.
During the most solemn festival of Judaism, the ram’s horn, the Shofar, is sounded, by law. And the rabbis explain it in this way: the ram’s horn is a reminder of Abraham and Isaac -– of the dreadful test, of the mighty faith, and of the fact that, however things may seem, God will provide the Lamb.
Now my priest friend didn’t care much for crosses, either. He used to make fun of the Bishop for wearing one. He said it was some kind of superstitious nonsense. And of course he just didn’t get it. The Cross is our more vivid, more complete version of the ram’s horn. It’s not there as a talisman. It’s there to remind us–when ever we notice it stamped onto our Books of Common Prayer, or trace it in the air or on our persons, or see it in the footprint of our church buildings, or hang it over our doorways or above our Altars -– it’s there to remind us of what Abraham said to Isaac:
“My son, the Lord himself will provide the lamb.”
