Living Midrash

June 29, 2014
Genesis 22:1-4 

(This morning during sermon time, there was a lot of open space for discussion over this very hard reading.)

There is no one who thinks this reading is easy.  Jewish and Christian commentators alike agree on that.  Not to mention, I’m betting, all of us gathered here today.  This is a ridiculously hard reading to hear.  For so many reasons, most of which have to do with how poorly this story fits my conception and experience of God.

            For one thing, I have a problem with God testing Abraham to begin with.  Life is hard enough.  Our faith, our love, our perseverance are tested plenty.  The last thing we need is God piling on. 

            And what a test!  To ask Abraham to sacrifice his son.  What kind of a God would ask such a thing?

            And how could Abraham, who just a few chapters ago fought God tooth and nail to save the people in Sodom and Gomorrah , how could he not speak up in outrage when God suggests this?

And where is Sarah?  Does she know what Abraham is up to?

            I wonder what strikes you as particularly hard about this story?

         (Discussion)

            Unsurprisingly, scholars have tied themselves in to knots trying to get around this reading in a multitude of creative ways. 

Like arguing that Isaac was a willing participant in the sacrifice, so at least this wasn’t just blatant child abuse. 

            Or that Abraham knew all along that God was going to intervene and never intended to kill his son.

            Or pointing out that historically at the time this story was written 3000 years ago, the sacrifice of animals and even humans to appease God was common.  So this story could actually be read as a statement against child sacrifice since God stayed Abraham’s hand at the end.

            But I don’t think there’s an easy out from this story.  I think maybe the only thing we can do is to keep confronting this story, over and over again, to see what it is saying to us.

            In the Jewish tradition, this is called midrash.

Midrash is a way of storytelling that explores the details of the biblical texts  in order to creatively answer questions and explain details.  Midrash is a way of delving into difficult questions with a God who welcomes those questions as part of a relationship with humankind.  Underlying midrash is the assumption that the Hebrew scriptures are a reflection of God and infinite in meaning.  So every encounter with the ancient stories is a chance to understand God and God’s relationship with humanity. 

            There is a lot of midrash dealing with our story for this morning, called in the Hebrew tradition “The binding of Isaac”.

            One tradition is that Isaac actually was killed on the mountain that day but then was resurrected. 

            Another is that God’s “test” of Abraham was punishment for Abraham’s earlier mistreatment of Ishmael.

            Another midrash concludes that Abraham failed the test by agreeing to sacrifice his son.  This moment was the end of his relationship with God; Abraham never hears God’s voice again.

            Another suggests that Abraham was only appearing to comply with God’s request to test God to see if God would act in a moral way.  So it is God who passes the test.

            Another creates a pre-story in which Ishmael was taunting Isaac after his circumcision and so Isaac volunteered to be sacrificed to prove himself more worthy of God’s promise than Ishmael.  After the episode on the mountain, Isaac heads off in a separate direction from his father to find and be reconciled to Ishmael.

The point of midrash is that these sacred stories aren’t over; they are alive and continuing and big enough to hold all the possibilities of God.  Big enough for us to enter in and find meaning. 

            So with that in mind, I wonder what meaning we can make out of this story?  How does this story fit with how you perceive/experience God?  Where might this story be alive and calling out to you?

        (Discussion)