WILD FAITH Vs PROPER PRUDENCE the Sacrifice of Isaac in Gen 22

WILD FAITH vs PROPER PRUDENCE The Sacrifice of Isaac in Gen 22

What has faith to do with reason? We keep running into biblical characters who do very imprudent things and draw the accolades of our narrator, and even of God.

o Noah walked to the lumber yard to get boat parts when the sky was clear with no rain in the forecast – all because of a voice he thought he heard in his head. o Abram quit his job in Haran and he and Sarai moved, without knowing exactly what they were putting next on the family C.V. The voice assured them that things would work out. o This doesn’t even touch stories that lie ahead in the Bible, about fishermen, for example, who leave their steady job on the Sea of Galilee to follow an upstart itinerant teacher.

In each of these scenes, prudence would have dictated otherwise. Noah would have looked stupid and lost credibility; Abram and Sarai risked financial collapse and even death in a strange land; and the fisherman had no idea where their next meals would come from. Would you have built the boat, moved across the world, or left your nets because of an unfamiliar voice? And there are more: Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego stand up when everyone else bows down to worship their ruler, despite the threat of fiery death; Daniel prays when praying is illegal and stares down lions for it; prophets tell hard truths that risk their life and limbs; and a pregnant teenage girl says yes to an angel with an outlandish story of virgin birth.

On the other hand, there’s Solomon, whose “a stitch in time saves nine” kind of wisdom puts his picture in the dictionary under prudence. The wisdom tradition gives us people whose common- sense etiquette and rules of conduct guide a good and noble life. The sage tells us, “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.” (Proverbs 27:2 - ESV) That’s good advice. And “A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret.” (Proverbs 11:13 – NIV) Makes sense. These are excellent rules to live by, and in some cases they are difficult to do; but they are hardly risky and it doesn’t take a rush of spiritual adrenaline to carry them off. The prudent path is, in the words of our brother of blessed memory, Eugene Peterson, “a long obedience in the same direction.”

The PRUDENCE – PASSION continuum offers a grid for tracking the movements of the faithful in the Bible. Where would you put yourself on it? And what does that have to do with how good a person or Christian you are?

THESAURUS.COM certainly has an opinion on this. I defy you to find a word in their list of

Genesis Session 4 1 ©Allen Hilton antonyms for prudence that has even a vaguely positive connotation.

Antonyms for prudence Look at this list of words and ask yourself whether you would like anyone, ever to describe you that way. “I love carelessness Jenna. She’s careless, ignorant, and indiscrete…” or “Bob’s ignorance such a good guy! He’s so stupid and negligent. And no one indiscretion squanders like Bob squanders.” It’s hard to find an opposite stupidity that has even a slightly positive connotation. thoughtlessness disregard And yet, the Bible has space for a positive opposite. When I inattention look for a proper word to describe the good opposite that neglect biblical people embody, I come up empty. I’ve landed on the negligence word passion, because it captures this biblical wildness of spending characters who override reason in the name of faith. The squandering question is whether passion can go too far. Can fanaticism imprudence turn faithfulness into a damaging, unhealthy thing?

We run headlong into this question in Genesis 22, where God commands Abraham to kill his son.

Can Obedience Go Too Far?!

This tension between prudence and passion comes to an early biblical climax in one of the most difficult passages in all of scripture. In Genesis 22, God commands Abraham to sacrifice the son he has waited years and years to welcome into the world – the child God himself promised. Here’s how the excruciating drama goes:

After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “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 that I shall show you.”

It’s one of the most challenging passages in the Bible. It’s going to take our A game to enter the mind of the Spirit. So, with all humility and some of hope of divine wisdom, let’s read!

Surely Abraham should refuse. He has heard (and obeyed) the voice of God before, and God has been faithful thus far, but surely this is a bridge to far. Abraham should chalk this up to static on the divine hotline and take Isaac out for a breakfast falafel instead.

But, of course, he does not.

Genesis Session 4 2 ©Allen Hilton 3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him.

In language parallel to Abraham’s response to God’s call in Genesis 12.4 (“So Abraham went…”), Isaac’s daddy loads him on a donkey and heads for the altar.

It reads like a bad movie, in which one of the characters has been bewitched or programmed to destroy and continues on that course relentlessly. But imagine the thoughts of Abraham on the three-day journey. I picture long silences, much pondering, the occasional pause and look back toward home. But whatever his inner state, Abraham moves on.

4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. 5 Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” 6 Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. 7 Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.

God commands, Abraham packs supplies and goes, Isaac asks, Abraham persists and a sacrifice scene is set.

As you and I read this nightmare in slow motion, we may be tempted to rush into the scene and “rescue” – not only Isaac (from death at the hand of his own father), but also Abraham (from such a mortal stain), and even God (from the blight this command seems to put on the divine character). We search desperately for clues that what we’re reading has a code to it. We see that

o Abraham assures curious Isaac, who’s baffled that Dad hasn’t brought along a lamb, “God will provide…”, and we hope that he hopes so. o Then Abraham informs his young men “we will worship, and then we will come back to you”, (22.5) and we clutch to the hope that Abraham knew how this would end from the beginning;

But suddenly, against our hopes, Abraham raises his hand, and there’s a knife in it.

When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son.

Genesis Session 4 3 ©Allen Hilton The God who made humans in the divine image (Gen 1), who molded Adam out of a lump of clay (Gen 2), who called Abram and Sarai away from their homeland and family (Gen 12) in order to bless all the nations of the world – that creating and blessing God here commands one of his favorites to kill his son. The demand seems outlandish and obscene. As one prominent contemporary atheist has put it,

A modern moralist cannot help but wonder how a child could ever recover from such a psychological trauma. By the standards of modern morality, this disgraceful story is an example simultaneously of child abuse, bullying in two asymmetrical power relationships, and the first recorded use of the Nuremberg defence: 'I was only obeying orders.' Yet the legend is one of the great foundational myths of all three monotheistic religions.” (Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion)

When you first heard the story – maybe as you have heard it now – you may have felt Dawkins’ recoil along with him and asked, “How could the good God make this demand?! And why would the Bible even tell this story?!” We come away thinking that either the Bible or Abraham got something wrong here.

Why?!

Let’s ask our question directly: Why would God demand this? And why would Abraham obey? And, for that matter, why would the Bible tell the story at all? In Richard Dawkins’ words, why has this story become “one of the great foundational myths of all the monotheistic religions?”

Extreme Trust

Teambuilding gurus often use gadgets to help increase the bond between employees of a firm, members of a small group, or other collections of people who want to join forces well. One of these gadgets is the trust fall. It’s a simple exercise, and many of you have participated in it. Once two people are paired, the first turns her/his back and stands stiff and straight. The other positions her-/himself behind in a way that makes it possible to catch the partner. When the “catcher” says the word, the “faller” leans back, staying rigidly straight, and falls toward the ground. When the partner completes the catch, trust has been built in one direction. Then the two switch roles and do it again. The danger is a crash to the ground. The gain is the beginning of a trusting relationship.

We might see Genesis 22 as an exponentially riskier trust fall. To understand Abraham’s risk in all its complexity, we have to remind ourselves what Abraham has risked already in his walk with God by this time – especially what Isaac means to that faith. Remember that in Genesis 12 God called Abram and Sarai to begin his new redemption plan. If they would simply move house and locate in another place, God would bless them, multiply their number, make their name great, and bless all nations through them. This couple decides to leave everything on the word of this God. Then come the questions and doubts. Sarah (new name) is getting older and they’ve not

Genesis Session 4 4 ©Allen Hilton yet had a child. Abraham twice calls God on the carpet for this delay, and each time God assures Abraham that the child of the promise will come – that the whole future of family and blessing and mission that rests on the birth of this child will indeed come about.

Isaac, the child upon which this whole promise rides, is born in Genesis 21.

The LORD dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as he had promised. 2 Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. 3 Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. 4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 Now Sarah said, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” 7 And she said, “Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” (Genesis 21.1-7)

One chapter later, God says, “Sacrifice your son.” Abraham’s decision to obey God is no case of parental neglect or dispensable children. His whole future goes through this son. We don’t have to picture anachronistic warmth and cuddling here; but Isaac literally means the world to his father.

The other important element of the story is God’s stake in Isaac. After the flood, God reset humanity with the hope that their prior failings would be remedied. But they weren’t. By the time of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, God has had enough of humanity again. But this time, instead of another reset, God decides to bless them all…starting with a family. If Abraham and Sarah have a lot at stake, God does, too. God’s whole plan rests on the growth of this clan into a robust and multitudinous family.

What is at stake for God is partnership. Can he trust Abraham (and the rest of his generations) to trust him? It is within that concern that God gives Abraham this wretched but effective test: do you trust me enough to know that I hold the future, even if you sacrifice the child of the promise?

Ultimately, of course, God does “catch” Abraham.

But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” 13 And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place “The LORD will provide”;[b] as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORDit shall be provided.”[c]

Genesis Session 4 5 ©Allen Hilton From then on, Abraham began calling that place and his God “Jehovah Jira” – The God Who Provides.

Have you ever done a trust fall exercise? How did it work in your relationship to your “catcher”? Have you ever had to trust God extremely? What was the situation?

What would make you trust God more? And how might that increase work its way into the way you live?

Beyond the “Ethical”

Soren Kierkegaard lived in an age of Christian prudence. As he read the Bible, he was troubled by the people in his native Copenhagen, who were automatically members of Denmark’s state church (The Evangelical Lutheran Church), In the age of Christendom, they thought that they were Christians just because of where they lived. So through his work, Kierkegaard raised the difficult question, “How does one become a (real) Christian in Christendom (when everyone is sort of Christian)?” Danish Christians were very prudent (Kierkegaard calls it “ethical), but very careful and quite lukewarm. In that milieu, he introduced his famous concept of the “Leap of Faith”. In his view, faith is not careful and it is not merely rule-following. It leaps beyond reason into the unknown – and ultimately a higher level of connectedness with God.

It’s no surprise, then, that Abraham fascinated Kierkegaard, and particularly the Abraham of Genesis 22. In fact, he wrote a book called Fear and Trembling to explore the passage. In that book, he actually retells the sacrifice of Isaac four times, each time from a different perspective.

o #1: Abraham obeys God and takes Isaac to the altar; but he presents the sacrifice as his

Genesis Session 4 6 ©Allen Hilton own idea (he lies) and doesn’t tell Isaac that God told him to do it, because he doesn’t want Isaac to lose faith in God. o #2: Abraham decides to kill a ram instead of Isaac, which leaves Isaac fine; but it shakes his own faith that God would even consider such a command. o #3: Abraham decides not to kill Isaac and then asks God to forgive him for misunderstanding God’s voice and having the idea of killing his son in the first place. o #4: Abraham does not ultimately kill Isaac, but Isaac’s faith is permanently damaged by God’s command.

In the book, Kierkegaard wrestles with these four stories on his way to distinguishing the “ethical” Christian (law-abiding, prudent) and the “religious” one (obedient beyond law and prudence). He argues that killing Isaac is ethically wrong, but religiously right. By his willingness to obey the command, Abraham demonstrates his trust that God ultimately would not ultimately do something wrong.

Later in European history, when a churchman called Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a man of conscience and faith, faced with the atrocities of Nazi Germany. He felt helpless to change things, in the face of such absolute power, and yet he imagined that God would want to change things – to stop the madness and destruction of the Third Reich. In a moment of what he called “tragic moral choice,” Bonhoeffer decided to participate in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He knew that God’s command (law) said, “Thou shalt not murder,” but he couldn’t imagine that God would ultimately wish the evil that he saw around him. Bonhoeffer’s decision is a sort of cousin to Kierkegaard’s reading of Abraham. He temporarily suspends something that he knows to be ethical in the name of a higher-level good on God’s earth.

What do you think of Bonhoeffer’s decision to kill Hitler?

What do you think of Kierkegaard’s rationale for wildly faithful acts?

Have you ever run into a conundrum where you knew the ethical thing to do but sensed that God’s road went another direction?

How does Genesis 22 speak (or not speak) to situations like that in your life?

The Times for Wild Faith

What do we learn from Abraham and Sarah? Possibly, that prudence alone only gets us so far. Rules and ethics can be excellent guides, but left to themselves they don’t connect us to God or God’s future for us. It’s fine to learn from wise Solomon that we ought not boast and that gossip can hurt a community. (These are the two Proverbs we quoted at the outset.) But the Abraham of Genesis 12—22 steps beyond that conventional way of living and into a rare air of connected, vital faith, where his whole life rests on the God who calls him.

There’s a bit of Solomon and a bit of Abraham in all of us. Do you know which one of these two ancient worthies is stronger in you? Are you more of a Prudence person or are you a wild-at- heart faith leaper? Maybe the best next step for us is to make sure Solomon and Abraham both live robustly in us, and then ask ourselves how we might know when each should appear.

Looking Ahead

Jacob and Esau are next. If you have time to prepare, begin reading your way from Genesis 23 to 36. These chapters chronicle the brief coverage of Isaac as an adult, but then quickly move on to Isaac’s sons and the drama that plays out in their sibling rivalry. How will God keep the promise going through a scoundrel like Jacob? That’s where we’re headed, so come on along.