Loading...I spent Thursday and Friday nights at our daughter, Erin’s house. While she worked on Friday, I spent the day hanging out with her two cats, Claudia and Myka.
In the early afternoon, Claudia decided she needed attention. And most of us know that animals often express their desire for attention by being a little naughty. She decided it was time to push some items onto the floor.
I had learned the night before that this was one of the ways she let Erin know that she wanted to chase the laser pointer light, so I indulged her for a few minutes before going back to writing my sermon.
When she started pushing items off the table, I had been pondering how the word “obedience” could be a part of this sermon. Claudia was certainly disobedient at that moment, and the irony was not missed.
Obedience seems to be the key word in today’s lessons, beginning with Genesis, and it is expressed through the telling of a very unsettling story. A story with an extreme example of obedience to God.
Now I am of the belief that many of the stories in the Bible are exaggerations designed to teach readers and hearers how to behave in kind, loving, and generous ways. Sometimes these exaggerations are horrific, as we heard in this story in Genesis where God tells Abraham to sacrifice—to kill—his son, the son that was promised by God to begin the lineage of Abraham.
Why would God go to this extreme to learn if Abraham was obedient to God? What had Abraham done to make God question his commitment, even when he had thrown Hagar and his first son, Ishmael, into the wilderness? What is the meaning of this test?
The emotional cruelty Abraham endured—first being told to banish his first-born son, and then to be told to take his beloved son to be a burnt offering to God—it’s mind-boggling to me. Imagine how he must have been feeling, what he was thinking about, as he walked to the mountain with Isaac and two servants.
Could he have been waiting for God to stop them anywhere along the way to say he had proven his obedience, his commitment, his faithfulness to God? How far would Abraham have to go to show God his desire to do God’s will? After all God had provided for he and Sarah, why would God tell him now to do this outrageous thing?
And I know God stops Abraham from killing Isaac…but wow. What a terrible test to prove his loyalty and obedience.
Now, consider what Jesus said in these last verses of instruction to the disciples before they depart into the community. They are to go out and teach Jewish people about Jesus. To heal the sick and care for the needy. And if they are welcomed, and the people they meet are open to hearing about Jesus, if they welcome the disciples, they will be rewarded. So, Jesus says to the disciples: tell the story! But take one more, small step. Teach these people how to do one more act of kindness: give a simple glass of water to someone who is thirsty. That is enough to prove your commitment, your obedience to God.
When Jesus teaches us to love one another because God loves us, and to love others the way Jesus loved, Jesus is showing us some of the simplest ways to show our commitment, our obedience to God. We do not need to go to the extreme of being willing to sacrifice our child. We only need to feed those who are hungry, give water to those who are thirsty, provide clothing to those who are cold or naked.
Obedience is about our hearts. That’s what Paul is teaching to the Romans in today’s second lesson. How we behave says a lot about where we place our obedience.
When we strive to behave in the ways Jesus showed us were most necessary to be in community with one another and with God, we are striving to follow the commandments laid out by Jesus. His two commandments are the overarching explanation of the ten God sent with Moses. When we love God and love our neighbors as God loves us, we don’t need to question whether we are following the ten commandments. Loving others kind of forces us to follow them because loving others makes it easy. Being obedient to God is all about love.
So what do we make of Abraham’s behavior and of God’s response? And how do we feel about this scene?
Abraham did what God told him to do. God’s requirement was to do what was expected—to take the boy, Isaac, on a journey, preparing Abraham’s heart, mind, and soul, to kill his beloved child. Isaac, who was likely a teenager, went with his father, not because it was demanded directly to him by God, but because he was invited by his father. It may have seemed to him an opportunity to learn, to be trained how to follow God’s protocols for sacrifices because Isaac was probably old enough to begin offering sacrifices to God.
When he realized there were no animals to be sacrificed, Isaac was likely perplexed, but could still trust his father, (couldn’t he?) to teach him how to be obedient to God, to follow the traditions of the faithful.
Imagine his horror when Abraham tied him up and placed him on the wood pile. Imagine the weeping from Abraham and the cries from Isaac, and the internal struggle and fear each one of them was going through.
Why would God let it go this far?
I wish I had a good answer. Because I just do not know how that kind of experience would give Isaac any reason to trust God. And yet, he did. We’ll learn more about that as the summer progresses.
We are sometimes given tests that we might feel come from God. Tests of our obedience, of our commitment, of our loyalty to our church, our faith community, our triune God. These tests might help us recognize the commitment God makes to us. They might do what Paul describes in his letter today. He was helping his Roman audience see the difference between being a slave to sin, which leads to death, and choosing to obey God, which leads to righteousness and to eternal life in Christ.
When we put our faith in God, when we choose to follow Jesus’ directive to love God and love neighbor, albeit clumsily at times, we are doing our best to live an obedient life. A life, as Paul writes, that will lead us to eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Claudia only needed a little laser time before she came up on the couch to snuggle in with Myka. Her disobedience, and my weakness in indulging her playtime, must have worn her out. A temporary moment to test her boundary, Claudia is a little like we humans.
Sometimes, we might be a little selfish, a little disobedient, a little willing to test the boundaries, before we realize that it is in living to serve God, to be obedient to God, loving God first, where we will ultimately find our reward. Our eternal life.
Abraham showed Isaac the depth of his obedience to God, by doing what God commanded of him. A horrible test of loyalty and faith, in my opinion, but a test that pushed him to prove that God had chosen the right man to fulfill his plan.
Jesus came to show us that God doesn’t test God’s people like that anymore. God only wants us to love others as proof of our love for God. When we welcome Jesus and the Way of Jesus as a way of life, it becomes easier to provide the cup of water, a simple sign that respects the dignity of another, a sign of love.
Let us pray.
Loving God, so many of the stories we read and hear from the Hebrew bible make you seem like a frightening tyrant who wants your people to go to drastic measures to prove their commitment, their obedience to you. Yet, you also sent your son, Jesus, into this world to teach us that obedience to you requires us to know you, to put you first in our lives, to be in relationship with you through prayer and worship.
Jesus came to teach us what love looks like, and that when we practice loving like him, recognizing and accepting the dignity and humanity of every human being, seeking mercy, standing up for equity and fairness, loving kindness, we are showing our obedience and our commitment to you.
Sometimes we meet people who are difficult to love, and yet, you expect us to love them anyway. When we remember that love is our way to your truth and your light, and we act in ways that shower others and ourselves with that love, we will know that we are obedient to you. We will know that our obedience will be rewarded, eventually, with perfect rest. For all this, we give you thanks. Amen.
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