Sermon – June 29, 2014 Third Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 7 Preacher: The Rev. Sara Gavit Scripture: Genesis 22:1-14, Psalm 13, Romans 6:12-23 Gospel: Matthew 10:40-42 If you were here last Sunday, you may remember that I said yet another challenging Bible story was coming our way today. The Gospel message is pretty easy to understand. It’s about hospitality and welcoming everyone. But the Abraham and Isaac story…that’s a tough one! The “Binding of Isaac”, [as the story is called in Jewish tradition], is a major story in both Jewish and Christian traditions. It is also part of Islamic tradition. This sacred story is puzzling and off-putting and compelling, all at the same time! There’s something about this story that is intriguing as well as challenging. And as I said last Sunday, as Christians we are called to engage with the Bible and through prayer and conversation with one another and through intellect and imagination, we are called to dig deeper, to explore what this all means – what this all means for us, in our lives, in our communities. I, personally, have wrestled with this Bible passage for a long time. That verse following God’s demand that Abraham sacrifice Isaac is especially jarring – God tells Abraham what to do and Abraham doesn’t argue, doesn’t try to bargain with God – he just get up the next morning and packs for the trip, gets Isaac and goes. Different things may stand out for you. This is one thing that really grabs my attention! God tells Abraham to do this unimaginable thing -- And Abraham immediately does it, without question, without hesitation. And of course, it all works out in the end, but we don’t know that at Verse 3! As I have been thinking about this over the past couple weeks, it occurs to me that, like Abraham, we are all called by God to do hard things, to make tough decisions, over the course of our lives. We don’t know how it will all come together -- what the ultimate outcome will be. We just know that something bigger than ourselves in calling us to do that unimaginable task or make that decision that will change everything. This summer marks the 50th anniversary of “Freedom Summer”. In 1964, as the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. was gathering momentum, a group of college students from all over the country, African-American and white— volunteered to go to Mississippi for the summer and help with voter registration. I watched documentary about their experience on PBS last week. One of the women interviewed for the film, told of how her family was strongly against her going into the Deep South. (She attended college in Boston.) They thought she had lost her mind. She is black and her family knew all too well the dangers she faced. They were so worried, so upset, that as she packed the car to leave for the training, her grandmother threatened her with an ultimatum: if she got in the car and left, she might as well not come back home because she wasn’t welcome. She got in the car and drove to Ohio for the training. This woman talked about how she and the other volunteers felt “compelled” -- how they felt called to help people they didn’t know, how they felt called to do whatever they could do to change that horrible social system. And they came to understand very quickly, the risks involved. They were threatened and harassed, and three men were killed. They lived in constant fear, like the people they were there to help. And yet they stayed. And all the people interviewed talk about how they were profoundly changed. At the time, they didn’t know how the future would unfold. They didn’t know if what they were doing would make a difference. They just knew they had to do it -- they were called to do it. When I reflect on Abraham’s immediate response to God’s command, and my own life and your life experiences (so many of you within this faith community have faced situations where you too have been asked to do hard things and make tough decisions, that at the time, didn’t make sense), I see it differently than before. It didn’t seem like the “rational” thing to do, yet we were prodded and nudged toward something that was true and right. But Abraham learned over the course of his long life, that whatever God asked of him, whatever God commanded him to do, whatever God promised him it would all work out. And we all know from experience, that it does work out, yet never like we imagine! It’s often not easy. There are big risks. There are times when we want to quit and turn back. And yet God continues to call us into that new awareness, that new path, that new way of moving through the world. My prayer for all of us is that we are given strength for the journey, that we are nourished by the spiritual food blessed at this table, blessed as we gather together as a community. Amen. Maybe you relate strongly with one of the characters. God’s harsh demand of Abraham or Abraham’s steadfast obedience. Or maybe Sarah’s inaction. Where is Sarah while all this is happening? God tests Abraham. Abraham obeys God’s demand. And Isaac is caught in the middle of this drama.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Jul 2014 00:25:08 +0000
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