June 29, 2008

Delivered by Rev. Ellen Brantley

SERMON:       No Easy Answers

TEXT: Genesis 22:1-14

          There was a couple who attended my church in Iowa who didn’t like my sermons, and they told me so.  The reason they didn’t like them, they said, was because I didn’t solve their problems, I didn’t give them any answers.

          While they thought of this as a failure of mine, I don’t think of it that way.  In fact, I don’t think it’s my job to solve all our problems or to answer all our questions.  When you’re reading the Bible, and trying to figure out what it means, often you end up with more questions than answers.  And I don’t have all the answers.  I don’t think we’re supposed to understand everything we read in the Bible, or know everything about God. 

          But I agree that it’s frustrating.  Especially when we come upon stories like the one about the sacrifice of Isaac.  In this story, Abraham takes his young son Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him because God told him to.  Even though I know the story well and I know it has a happy ending, I sometimes cry when I read it.  I cry when I put myself in Abraham’s place.  I usually think of myself as someone who trusts God, but as I imagine having to give up my own child to prove my faith, I begin to feel overwhelmed with questions about why God would ask such a thing. 

          Why would God need to “test” Abraham in this way?  And after promising that Abraham would have a son, and after making Abraham wait for so many years for that promise to come true, why now would God want to go back on his promise and take the beloved son away?  What kind of a cruel joke is that?  I wonder if Abraham was thinking he would have been better off remaining childless.  Furthermore, why would God be so extraordinarily cruel as to make Abraham do the killing himself?

          All these questions, and the only answer I could come up with from this passage was that “God will provide.”  Remember that Abraham named that place “The Lord will provide.”  But even this answer causes me to shed a tear when I think of all the people for whom it seem that God does NOT provide a way out of a tragic situation.  I begin thinking of all the people who do sacrifice their children, all the people who don’t have happy endings to their stories.

          “God will provide” sounds like one of those insensitive things we say when we don’t know what else to say.  My Mom tells a story from before I was born about a time when my Dad was in the hospital and was not expected to live.  The priest came in to give him last rites, and the family was called home.  And when my Dad’s mother walked in the room she announced, “Well, it’s God’s will.”

          Perhaps she thought she was speaking the truth, perhaps she needed to find an easy answer for a difficult situation.  But my mother was furious, because in times like that there are NO EASY ANSWERS.  In times like that no one wants to hear platitudes like “God will provide,” or “It’s God’s will,” or “It’s better this way,” or “Time heals all wounds,” or “Everything will be alright.”  No matter how true any of these answers may be, in times like that it’s better just to be there to cry when they cry and to get angry when they get angry and to say “I don’t know,” when they ask, “Why?”

          Of course, in my Dad’s situation, God did provide.  It apparently was not God’s will that he die at that time, and I rejoice that my Dad lived for many years beyond that.  And I rejoice that God came through for Abraham and provided a ram so that Isaac would not have to be sacrificed.  And I rejoice for all others who have miracle stories about how God has provided for them.  And yet, I’m still aware that there are many faithful people who seem to be tested so much more than they are ever rewarded by God, who seem to make so many painful sacrifices and never get a last minute release.  And I still don’t know what to say to them.  What’s the hope for them?

          Remember that as Christians, we read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament.  If we do that, we’ll remember that God has provided for all of us in one complete and perfect way:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  Jesus Christ is the lamb which God provided and sacrificed so that we would not have to die for our sins.

          There’s an amazing song by Michael Card called God Will Provide a Lamb.  Listen to the words of the chorus:  “For God has provided a lamb.  He was offered up in your place.  What Abraham was asked to do, He’s done.  He’s offered His only son!”

          There’s our answer.  But believe me, this was no easy answer.  Think about it.  God did just what he had asked Abraham to do.  God took his Son, his only Son, his beloved Son, and let him die a horrible death.  And God did it to demonstrate his faithfulness to us.

          I guess we’ve heard it so often – that God gave his only Son – that we don’t think about it much anymore.  Somehow we’ve lost the impact of what a sacrifice that really was.  Was it any less hurtful to God than it would be to us, having to watch his own Son die?  If we really believe that God is a loving and compassionate God, then we must allow that God felt the same excruciating pain that we would feel if we were asked to sacrifice our own children.

          Years ago, in my home church, I saw a short film about a young man who worked the railroad lift bridge which was within walking distance of his home.  The man had a young son, maybe four or five years old, and a wife who was very pregnant.  One day the man went off to work as usual.  But later that day, his wife went into labor, so she sent the little boy to run and get his father.  Just as the father noticed his son running along the railroad tracks, a passenger train entered the bridge from the other direction.  The man tried to warn his son to turn around and get off the bridge, but the boy didn’t hear him.  The father at that point knew that he had to make a choice.  Would he lift the bridge and allow all the people on the train to go crashing into the river, or would he let the train go through, knowing that it would kill his son?  For several seconds we had to watch the man look from the train to his son, from his son to the train, agonizing over the decision that had to be made.  Finally, the man chose to sacrifice the life of his son in order to save all the people on the train.

          I’m sure you recognize the metaphor.  We are the people on the train; God is the father; and Jesus is the son who died to save us.  And the answer was not an easy one.

          But God did indeed provide for us by giving us another chance at life.  And God provided for us by showing us how valuable we really are.  And God provided for us by experiencing and understanding the tragedy and pain that sometimes comes with life.  And God provided for us by teaching us what true faith and trust is all about.

          If you think about it, maybe what Abraham did was not so out of the ordinary.  As much as he cherished the gift that God gave him, he trusted God more.  Just like every time we send our children to school, or to summer camp, or out into the world, or to war, we put their lives in God’s hands.  And every time they come home, God has provided.  And even when they don’t come home, we must remember that God does provide. 

For God gave Jesus, his only Son, so that we and our children could ultimately come home to heaven and to Him.  And that was NO EASY ANSWER.

          AMEN.