Text - Genesis 22:1-14
Homily by the Rev. Dr. David Smith
Abraham's Test
The story of Abraham’s
willingness to sacrifice Isaac is frightening. I still remembering hearing it in Bible School one summer and
having a panic attack. The next time my father asked if I wanted to go fishing
with him I had second thoughts. “No, you go ahead, I think I’ll stick around
the house with Mom.”
Of course if someone were to do that
sort of thing today, child services and the police would have a field
day.
But it was a different time and a
different place. Child sacrifice was not unusual, particularly among the Canaanite tribes even
as late as 800 B.C. It was a sign of ultimate religious fervor and
loyalty to one’s god, and the fact that Abraham was willing to move in that
direction indicated to all his neighbors that he was as devoted to his god as
they were to theirs.
Fortunately, God stopped Abraham in
the nick of time and from then on, one of the story’s purposes was to serve as
a polemic against child sacrifice and an announcement that Hebrew people would
have nothing to do with it.
However, the story is there
nonetheless, and indeed God did instruct Abraham to kill his favored son, and
we still think it has a touch of lunacy and weirdness that God would suggest
such a thing.
But before we jump too quickly to condemn God’s purpose and intentions, the event needs some context – God’s request for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac does not happen in a vacuum.
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