The Sacrifice of Isaac
A Sermon preached at St. Margaret’s Anglican church, Winnipeg, 2 July, 2023
~ on the Fith Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 13, Year “A”)
(the Rev’d Canon) Tony Harwood-Jones
I was looking through my notes, to see if I have ever preached on this Sunday before, and I have, several times, but I have mostly ducked the first of the three prescribed readings: the story of the almost-sacrifice of Isaac. 1 So, I said — to the Lord, and to myself — “Okay, so this is when I’m going to do it!” That story... well, I have sympathy with Larry Reynolds, who was reading it, today, and actually choked up as he got to the crisis part, because it also chokes me up!
How can anybody, ever, get the idea that they should kill their own child, in some form of ritual, some form of religious activity!?? How could this be!?? I’m a parent; I’m a grandparent; I’m a great-grandparent... and I wouldn’t want any of the people descended from me ever to be hurt — ever!
So... what is this story? It’s a Bible story: it’s important for us to think about, and reflect upon! What have we got to learn from it!??
Well... I’m trying to understand the person who is described as Abraham... and I’ll just give a little parenthesis here: scholars argue as to the historicity of the stories of Abraham; it’s so long ago (3,000 years ago, or more), and yet Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all say that Abraham is “...the father of us all.” What we do say is that we’ve emerged from a tradition which asserts that obedient ancestors — obedient to God — became God’s community, the “chosen people.” And, that is what the Bible tells us.
And there’s also another little thing — especially because there are people here whose lives have not been deeply immersed in Anglicanism: When I was ordained (some 57 years ago, good gracious!), I had to promise, I had to affirm, that I believe that “all things necessary for salvation” are contained in the Scriptures. That’s quite different from saying that we believe that every word of Scripture is exactly and historically true! But, it does assert that all I need to know about my faith and my life, is in the Bible. Some of the things in the Bible are legends, some of them are folk-tales, some of them are poems, some of them are attempts at history after a thousand years of oral transmission. Okay! I can accept that. But what found its way into the Scriptures is important for me to know.
I have often viewed the story of Abraham attempting to sacrifice his son as a sign or indicator of what I call “the evolution of the knowledge of God.” Abraham started off believing that God wanted human sacrifice; and then he had the sense that God didn’t want it. Still (so he assumed) God continued to want the sacrifice of animals, so God provided a ram, and Abraham killed that, and offered it on that altar. His knowledge of God was... evolving.
You see how I have combined two Christian traditions — the liberal, and the conservative — here.
Well, all of that may be so, but what have we to learn from this?
St. Paul taught us — and it was read out in church about three weeks ago, and again the next week — that Abraham is a model for us — a model for our lives. And, what did he “model”? His faith.
In the Bible, there are actually three kinds of definition of the word, “faith:” one is “trust in God, and acceptance of God’s leadership and direction;” the second is “a deeply prayerful mindset that can cause miracles” (Jesus said to some followers, “You couldn’t cast that demon out, because you haven’t got enough faith”); and the third definition is: “belief in a doctrine or dogma” (“faith” that will cause you to be “saved”). The first of these definitions is the one that Abraham models: trust in God — trying to follow God’s direction; trying to follow God’s guidance.
Now, all of us know that God does not use megaphones and public address systems to say, “HEY, YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO THIS...!” Rather, God’s guidance comes as the “still small voice” of our conscience: “I think I really ought to go and say ‘I’m sorry!’” — or, “I have a strong feeling that I ought to do something about the homeless!”
In that day, three thousand and more years ago, human sacrifice was socially acceptable. It has fascinated me to read that, in Carthage, and in a number of other places in the ancient Middle East, and the Near East, there are gravesites with thousands upon thousands of burned children’s bones, along with the burned bones of goats and calves.
Scholars argue a bit about this one or that one, but there is no doubt that many of these are gravesites for the remains of sacrificed people. Even the Bible tells us that, in many ways, it was socially acceptable to sacrifice your kids!
Some of you will know the story that’s in the book of Judges, Chapter 11, about Jephthah’s daughter. That’s another biblical narrative that gives me the willies! Jephthah was a military commander, and he led the people of Israel in a huge battle, and his army won. But, he had promised God, saying, “The first person to come out of the gates of my city, in joy, celebrating the fact that we won, will be sacrificed to You, O God!”
Oh, really?
And then, the first person out of the city gates was his own daughter — his only child. And he says to her, “O daughter, I’m so sorry that you came out first, because I made a promise to God... and I’m going to have to sacrifice you!”
And, what does his daughter do in response? Does she scream? Does she run away? Does she scratch his eyeballs out?
No! She says, “Dad, may I have a couple of months to grieve about the fact that I won’t grow up, and have babies and a normal life?”
Jephthah said, “Okay, two months.”
Heck, she could have gone to Timbuktu in those two months! But she hung around with her girlfriends, and after two months, she went back!!!
“Okay, Dad... I’m ready.”
Jephthah’s knife made an end of her, and her body was no doubt burned on an altar of some kind.
She had accepted that being sacrificed is not only possible, but a normal and acceptable thing in her day and age.
And, when you think about the Abraham story itself, Isaac was not a toddler. He was big enough to have all the firewood put on him, to carry. Was he ten years old? Eleven? Twelve? An adolescent?
Sometimes, when I was an adolescent, I wanted to punch my Dad’s eyes out! It’s pretty normal for young teenagers to rebel against their parents.
So, when Abraham and Isaac get to the place of sacrifice, and there is no animal for them to offer up, Abraham ties up his son, who now knows what’s going to happen.... Why didn’t Isaac kick, scream, punch, struggle, fight, and yell!?? There are artistic paintings of this moment, which have him just lying there.
Now, I’ve mentioned, a little bit earlier, the “still small voice of conscience.” While the Bible sometimes tells us that God “appeared” to Abraham — for example, in a midnight occasion when God appeared in the shape of a torch in the air... for the most part Abraham, known ever since as a person who consistently “obeyed” God, did not do so in response to direct visions of God, but by following the prompting of an inner voice. “Abraham: I want you to move to Canaan!” “Oh,” replies Abraham, “Okay. Let’s see if I can do that!” And he does it.
So, we have this inner voice, that takes clues from around us. For example, in last week’s sermon, here in St. Margaret’s, we heard that the eye sees what the brain wants us to see. So, perhaps Abraham had seen some child sacrifices, and found himself wondering, “Is the Lord calling me to sacrifice my child?” “O God, are You asking me to do that...!? I think so...! “Okay, Isaac, we’ve got to go to the mountain to do a sacrifice! ”
Then, on the mountain, when he’s got the knife in the air... the still small voice says, “Nooooo! God does not want you to do this!! There’s a ram over there, stuck in the thicket. Get it and sacrifice it!”
And so, Abraham did.
You may notice something here: Abraham realized that God didn’t want the human sacrifice of his son, but he believed that God wanted an animal to get killed and burned up.
Well, the entire Old Testament says that animals are to be killed, and offered to God! In the Torah it says that the sacrifice of animals is to be done on the altar of God’s temple, regularly, all the time! It’s the law of God!
Which brings me to the central part of this sermon:
Sacrifice is extremely strong in the scriptures — even in the New Testament. However, well before the time of Christ, there were some psalmists and prophets that did question the killing of animals and people for spiritual purposes.
The writer of Psalm 40 and wrote, in verses 7 to 9: “In sacrifice and offering you take no pleasure...Burnt-offering and sin-offering you have not required... it is written concerning me, ‘I love to do your will, O my God’” (the emphasis, here, is mine). Clearly, this author thought that God does not desire or require ritual sacrifice.
Psalm 51, in verses 16 and 17, says: “you [God] have no delight in sacrifice” and, The sacrifice acceptable to God is a “broken and contrite heart.”
And, the most famous pre-Christian critique of ritual sacrifice is found in the book of the prophet, Micah: “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil?”
I’ll stop the reading here, to comment that in this passage — written around seven hundred years before the time of Christ: the world that Micah knew had constant sacrificing — animal sacrifice, certainly, and human sacrifice as well. Sacrifice was normal! But, still Micah asks, “With what shall I come before the Lord?” And, after dismissing the idea of “burnt offerings,” “calves a year old,” “thousands of rams,” and “ten thousand rivers of oil,” he goes on to say: “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
So, even there, so many years before the time of Christ, Micah pondered the possibility that he was supposed to sacrifice his firstborn!
Instead he writes one of the most powerful lines of the Old Testament: “[God] has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Revolutionary stuff, which still applies today! The thing that God requires is to do justice and to love kindness...!
What I’m getting at, here, is that the important part of the idea of sacrifice is this: the things that were killed and offered were not useless and stupid things; they were highly valued! If not your beloved child, it would be your very best, most expensive and productive cow, or bull, or ram or sheep. You give your good stuff to God!
At the heart of Sacrifice, from the time of Abraham to today, is: giving to God what you yourself like, what you yourself want, what you yourself hope for!
Jesus is seen by Christians as the completion, and the end, of the practice of offering up living beings to God. In a few minutes, the Prayer of Consecration of this evening’s Eucharist, will have the words, “Heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy, didst give thine only son...” (can you hear an echo of the story of Abraham and Isaac?) “... give thine only Son, Jesus Christ, to take our nature upon him, and to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption; who made there, by his one oblation of himself, once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.” Jesus, in other words, made the perfect sacrifice — none of ours can equal it! It was the best one!
I’m now wading into an area which, today, is very socially unacceptable.
Consider this: Jesus linked his own death to our calling, to our vocation! He said, “Do you want to be my disciple? Then take up your cross...!” Now, we all know what a cross was used for! Are we to do that?? Give up our lives!?
Here’s another one that Jesus said, “Do you want to be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven? Your job is to be the least — the smallest.... Do you think that the most important person should be served? ” (And, by the way, both the Old Testament and the New Testament accept slavery — so keep that in mind...) “Think you should be served? No! The ‘greatest’ in Heaven has to serve....”
Sacrifice is about the “un-selfing” of the individual follower of God. I must not put my self first! I must love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and I must love my neighbour as my self!
Now, this is why I said that I am wading into a tricky area: what do we hear in our society today? “MY RIGHTS!”
Christianity is not about “my rights.” It’s about my obligation to serve you! And, it doesn’t mean that you have the “right” to such service! Another Bible line says: “All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.” Nobody deserves absolute love, and yet we are commanded to love each other. Nobody deserves it! We have to un-self ourselves — to give up — to give to God and to neighbour, all the stuff that we value. We have to avoid saying, “my rights, my taxes, my body...!” No, my taxes are for you! My body is to be used in serving you!
It's not about me.
So... Abraham had it right, in the sense that God wants his best!
I believe that God had a hand in the preparation of this sermon, because I didn’t have anything to do with choosing the hymns that we are singing in this service! But think of this: “Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee!” “Take my moments and my days; take my hands and my feet; take my lips....”
That’s the Christian message: I am to be offered ... in service to my Lord and my neighbour.
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