A Sermon preached by the Rev’d Dr Daniel Dries Pentecost 4 Christ Church St Laurence – 2 July 2017 May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight: O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen. From the 22nd Chapter of the Book ‘Genesis’: God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And Abraham said, ‘Here I am.’ “God tested Abraham” is surely one of the great understatements of Holy Scripture. The fact is that God had already tested Abraham. Announcing to aged parents that they would suddenly have their first child was in itself a test of faith. Sarah laughed when she and her 99-year old husband were given this unexpected news, while most people in a similar situation would probably cry. Sarah laughed on account of the absurdity of this earlier test of faith. There is nothing absurd, much less humorous, in God’s call for Abraham to sacrifice his long-awaited and only son. We are not told whether Sarah had any knowledge about Abraham’s plans for that day. However, we can be quite certain that Sarah would not have laughed on this occasion. The sacrificial offering of Isaac was not absurd. In Abraham’s world, it was certainly not unimaginable. Similar barbaric acts were practiced in the hope of placating or satisfying angry and violent gods. The fact that child sacrifice was still practiced at the time of Abraham, at least in the pagan world, is reflected in its strict prohibition in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And Abraham said, ‘Here I am.’ The story of the near-sacrifice of Isaac is, on many levels, deeply disturbing and horrific. Of course, the reader is not meant to focus on, much-less celebrate, the unsavoury aspects of this dramatic narrative. Surely, we are meant to focus on the fact that God has led Abraham through years of uncertainty; and yet Abraham has remained faithful. God kept Abraham waiting for farfetched promises to be fulfilled, but Abraham remained faithful. Although it may be unpalatable, Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son, powerfully affirms that this man would have remained faithful to God not matter what. As 21st Century people, we do not live with a concept of a cruel, sadistic and vengeful God. Science and knowledge have taken away a great deal of the fear and mystery of our universe. Most of us don’t believe that cyclones and earthquakes are the work of God deliberately inflicting suffering on creation, although there are still Christians in our world who seem to delight in preaching that message. The account of Abraham’s journey to the mountain top does not suggest that he was terrified of God, but simply that Abraham would do anything that God asked of him; even to commit a gruesome act that would hurt no one as much as himself.
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