Gn 22:1-14

29 June 2008

“The Silence, the Terrible Silence”

            Today’s Old Testament reading includes some pretty gruesome stuff, so let me begin on a less-gruesome note.  This one goes into the “please forgive me if you’ve heard this one” department.[1]

“And it came to pass after these things that God did test Abraham.  And he said to him ‘Abraham!’  And Abraham replied, ‘Here I am.’  And he said, ‘Take your computer, your old computer, and install upon it an operating system, a new operating system, Windows Vista, which I will show to you.’

“And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his donkey.  He loaded his computer, his old computer, on the donkey.  And he took two of his young men with him—and Isaac his son.  And he rose up and went to the place where God had told him, there to find Windows Vista.

“Then, on the third day, Abraham lifted his eyes and saw Windows Vista from afar.  And Abraham said to his young men, ‘stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go yonder and load Windows Vista and come again to you.’

“And Abraham took his computer, his old computer, and laid it on Isaac his son.  And they went, both of them together.  And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said, ‘My father.’  And he replied, ‘Here I am my son.’

“And Isaac said, ‘Windows Vista requires far more memory than your old computer has.  How will it possibly run on your machine?’

“And Abraham looked at his son, his only son, whom he loved; and he shook his head slowly, and in perfect faith and with unswerving trust and belief in the Almighty, he said, ‘Fear not, Isaac, my son…God will provide the RAM.’”

This chapter tells the story of surely one of the most bizarre events in the Bible.  We have a man who is apparently ordered by God to kill his son, and just as he’s about to obey this dreadful request, he’s ordered not to go through with it.  There are many questions raised in this chapter, but few answers are given.

Probably no question is bigger than the one inspired by the first two verses:  why?  Why does God tell Abraham to do something that is clearly so wrong?  Why does God act like one of the pagan deities, whose worshippers bring human sacrifices, even sacrificing their own children?

Many writers, Christian and Jewish alike, have focused on that very thing:  God doesn’t want human sacrifice.  It’s important to remember that this was a common practice, one that seemed to prove the utmost devotion to the god being worshipped.

Walther Eichrodt, a Christian Old Testament scholar, says the point of this chapter is that while “God is entitled to the most drastic sacrifices on the part of his worshippers, it yet teaches that the divine will is kindly and life-giving,” and also that animal, instead of human, sacrifice is a rule that shouldn’t be broken.[2]

That seems to make sense.  No human sacrifice.  All right; got it.  But another idea is often mentioned.  It says that Abraham is actually hearing his own voice and mistaking it for God’s!  A Presbyterian minister named Francisco García-Treto says, “When we get to the point where we feel that God is calling us to give somebody else’s life up, we’re in bad trouble…This is at the root of the worst things that religions have done.”[3]

So is Abraham a religious fanatic?  Throughout human history, a lot of blood has been shed—and is still being shed—in the name of God.  Actually, it would make things easier if Abraham is simply delusional.  If this idea of sacrificing his son is all in his head, we can avoid the disturbing question:  does God really tell him to do it?  Does God really entice him to kill his son?

Verse 1 says that it’s a test, but it’s certainly a drastic one.  It’s noteworthy that after this incident on the mountain, scripture doesn’t record any more meetings between Abraham and Isaac.  Jewish tradition claims that Sarah's death, in the very next chapter, is caused by the shock of hearing this ghastly story.[4]  And most notably, we never again hear of God speaking to Abraham.

Abraham is pushed to the absolute limit.  He’s already been called to break with his past by leaving his homeland and people.  Now he must break with his future by sacrificing Isaac, the one who’s been designated his promised heir.[5]  Absolutely nothing can stand between him and his God.  Absolutely nothing—think about that.

As a result, he’s forced to take this awful test, a test that he passes.  Abraham avoids the most tempting of idolatries, the idolatry of the promise of God.  (Or is that possible?  Is it possible for even God’s promise to become an idol?)

As the scripture tells us in verse 12, after heeding the angel’s cry to stay his hand, he receives this word from God: “now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”  That can be a hard thing to hear:  if what’s most precious to you—if what you love most of all—isn’t God, then it’s an idol.

As I’ve already suggested, there are plenty of blanks in this story which are left unfilled.  It’s really just the outline of a story.  How much does Abraham tell Sarah?  What’s going on in Abraham’s head as he makes preparations?  Does Isaac suspect anything?  If so, when?

In her book, When God is Silent, Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor thinks about these things.  Understanding how important Isaac is to him, she says that’s why “it was such a shock for Abraham to hear God’s familiar voice telling him to set Isaac on fire.”[6]  A shock indeed!  And as far as we can tell, there was no explanation at the time.

She continues, “There was no word from the Lord as Abraham rose the next morning to chop firewood in the dark, burying his ax in the grain again and again.  God was silent as Abraham saddled his donkey and went to wake his servants and his child.  God was silent as the small party set out, and silent for the three days it took them to find the place.”[7]

Our friend Barbara acknowledges that Genesis is short on details.  “Never in the history of the world, I think, had there been such a silence.  No one said a word.  Not Abraham.  Not Isaac.  Not God.  It was the knife’s turn to speak, until an angel cleared its throat:  ‘Abraham,’ it said, ‘Abraham!’

“And Abraham said, ‘Here I am.’  It was the word he had been waiting for.  His son was spared.  He had passed the test, but Abraham never talked to God again.”[8]  And admittedly, that bit about Abraham never again speaking with God is an argument from silence; it’s filling in the blanks.  The fact that we don’t hear of something happening doesn’t prove that it couldn’t have happened.

Last week, while speaking about Abraham’s intercession on behalf of Sodom, I said, “God is portrayed as needing to physically journey into town and check things out for himself.”  I said this is a case of anthropomorphism—giving human qualities to something.  (Which also includes the use of the pronoun “he.”)

            There’s something like that going on in today’s story.  We’re told in verse 1 that “God tested Abraham.”  Apparently, God needs to find out something about Abraham.  God has been in a covenant relationship with this man for years, but just as with human relationships, there are things about the other that we just don’t know.

            Some would argue that God knows everything, so this test is purely for Abraham’s benefit.  He must be tried, so that he can learn how much he trusts God.  But remember how verse 12 reads.  It seems to say otherwise.  This is God speaking:  “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.”

            We can try to explain this away.  We can say that this is an example of a more primitive understanding of God.  We can go with what I said earlier—that Abraham really doesn’t hear from God.  We can try to domesticate the story in any number of ways.  We can try to water it down.  But if we do—if we too easily fill in the blanks—then we don’t let the text speak for itself.  We don’t hear the voice of the story.  It’s the voice that speaks from the silence, the terrible silence.

            How can we expect to so easily understand God’s relationship with Abraham, and vice versa?  How can we expect to so easily understand God’s relationship with us, and vice versa?  How can we expect to so easily understand God’s relationship with others, and vice versa?  What makes us think we should be able to?  Where’s the mystery in that?  Where’s the fun?  We must be careful not to so easily insert ourselves between God’s silence and the one for whom the silence is intended.

            “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.  So Abraham called that place ‘The Lord will provide’; as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided’” (vv. 13-14).

            For millennia, Abraham has been seen as a model of faith.  Whatever our own view of the test, he went through with it.

And somehow, God will provide the ram.  And we will call our place of meeting, “The Lord will provide.”

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