I Draw the Line at Human Sacrifice

Genesis 21:1-3; 22:1-14

The Birth of Isaac - The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him.

The Command to Sacrifice Isaac - After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ 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.’ 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. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. 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.’ 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. 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?’ Abraham said, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt-offering, my son.’ So the two of them walked on together.

 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. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ 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.’ 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.’

A coloring page - Really???

Let me put my cards on the table - I've been preaching weekly for 8 years and I've never preached this text. Another card I've got is - I've been pastoring for 20 years and I have had dozens of conversations about this text with folks. This text is absurd at best; it's disturbing and unconscionable at worst. What kind of God tests someone by asking for a human father to sacrifice his only son? What kind of horrific father was Abraham anyway? And Isaac? What became of him after this psychologically damaging event in his life? And don't get me started about Sarah. Where was she?

We're still reading, interpreting and commenting on this text as if the literal story must teach us a moral lesson. We're still reading, interpreting and commenting on this text as if the presenting story teaches us something about God, about humans, about family values.

The only sermons I've ever heard about this text leave us with the obvious Christian theological lesson - Abraham sacrificing Isaac is a foretelling of God sacrificing Jesus. I can't preach it this way for two reasons. First, I typically honor the Hebrew scriptures by keeping them true to themselves without inserting the Christian scriptures and their meaning. Second, I have a problem with violent atonement. The idea that God would require a human sacrifice is - foul.

When Abraham had the thought that God wanted him to sacrifice his son, why didn't he recognize it as foul? And when Sarah heard about it, why didn't she tell someone that her husband had gone mad. And then why didn't she pack her and Isaac's bags and run away? When Isaac realized his dad was going to do him harm, why didn't he overpower his father and since he didn't, can we assume that he'd been abused by his father for so long that he had lost his voice?

If you're still reading - you may be quite irritated by my lack of respect to the patriarch. I'm asking these questions because I find them to be lacking in the discussion. Instead of shaking our head in disgust and picking at the text in the critical manner we usually do, we approach the text with our preconceived notions. We have already decided that God is good and it taints our ability to see this text for what it is. Abraham is our patriarch; he too must have been a faithful person (after all Hebrews 11 says so). As a result, we overlook reasonable perspectives of this hideous story. We have already accepted that women and children have no say and so we perpetuate the hidden, abused, ignored, discarded voices in the scriptures.

When you read this story, whose voice are you listening to?

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