told by (Genesis 15:5) despite what seems so very untrustworthy

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1 When the Bible Gets Ugly Genesis 22:1-14; Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 10:40-42 July 2, 2017 Mary Taylor Memorial United Methodist Church, Milford, Connecticut The Rev. Dr. Brian R. Bodt, Pastor I can hear her words as clearly as if she spoke them yesterday. My maternal grandmother, Rovilla Mae Frye Atkinson, lived Victorian manners in a 20 th century world. As a child of the Church, she was a church organist and music teacher nearly all of her adult life and the wife and mother of Methodist preachers. I remember her as refined, dignified and especially at Christmas generous. From time-to-time she would babysit her youngest daughter s four grandsons, of which I was one. When the testosterone-fueled combat of those four boys reached her breaking point, she would mildly exclaim, Now children, don t be ugly. My grandmother s mild admonition came to mind as I read this story from Genesis. Today the Bible gets ugly as it describes Abraham being tested by God with a demand to sacrifice his son. What do we do with this nearly unspeakable story? What do we do When the Bible Gets Ugly? The temptation is to discard or avoid what God might say to us because of the medium of the message. Marshall McLuhan famously said, The medium is the message. If that is always true then I want no part of this message, for the medium is abhorrent to all that is civilized in us. Our modern minds know the story reflects a primitive understanding of God, when animal and human sacrifice was thought to appease an angry God. The story s understanding of God certainly stands in contrast with the prophets and Jesus, who called forth faith through loving attitudes and actions of justice. We wonder, too, about the ancient authors who wrote this story. It is written in third person, about Abraham and

2 God and not told by Abraham about his relationship with God. We know the cultural context of the story was a context in which child sacrifice was not only practiced but accepted. So what were these ancient authors trying to tell us about God; us; and the relationship between God and us? So join me in entering this story by suspending for a moment the very ugly means of God s call to Abraham human sacrifice to consider the call itself. God s call is a call to sacrifice the very sign of promise. Those here last week recall the passages from Genesis 18 and 21: after 25 years, God fulfilled the promise of an heir by giving a child to Abraham and Sarah, who were respectively 100 and 90 years old. The child s name, Isaac, means laughter, recalling that both Abraham and Sarah laughed at this miraculous reversal of human reproductive biology. Having given up hope, their laughter moves from scorn to joy as they realize that Isaac is the first of many descendants who, God promised, would be more numerous than the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:5). Isaac is the beginning of the fulfillment of that promise. But now God s command runs absolutely counter to that promise: sacrifice your only son. God challenges Abraham to trust despite what seems so very untrustworthy. God asks too much, we protest. What kind of God is this? What is the point? The common answer is that God wants to see if Abraham is worthy of the promise. After all, the passage begins God tested Abraham. Despite our sophistication we sometimes know that fear and anger at life s circumstances elicits from us a primitive understanding of God. I spoke with someone last week who, facing a health crisis, said I feel like I m being punished. Yet if an all-knowing God already knows if we will measure up, why the heart-wrenching drama? Some conclude

3 that God conjures up all kinds of persecutions in order to see what we can handle, giving and taking based on our responses. I don t believe that for a minute. Do not misunderstand me. There is give and take in life and I believe God is concerned with our responses. The author of this past Wednesday s daily Upper Room Discipline devotional quoted Rich Melheim who says that, at the end of each day, we should be able to name a high and a low and we should pray about both. It reminds me of the Biblical character Job who declared, The Lord giveth; the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord. We could easily spend our whole lives asking why God told Abraham to sacrifice his son; or why any of the bad things that happen do, in fact, happen. Some people do this and spend their lives alienated from God. The truth is we do not always know. God has purposes we cannot understand. But God also has purposes we do understand. Again and again the scriptures testify to a good God; who creates order out of chaos; who makes a way when we cannot see a way; who makes a people out of no people; who reveals in Jesus Christ and his love a love that holds steady to the end, even to death on a cross. And God declares that that end was not the end, but the beginning of new life. The point of Abraham s story, and the story of faith, is not that God shields us from death, or even from the death of those people and things we hold dear, but that in spite of death s reality, God provides. Twenty years ago my best friend s son died at the age of 12 from metastatic bone cancer. David and I were best friends in high school; and I married them, along with his wife Kelly s priest. Their son Ben was vibrant, inquisitive and loved the farming life to which Dave and Kelly and their daughter Megan have given their lives. At the time I asked them how they managed to survive this devastating loss.

4 They thought for a moment and then said, Well, you know we almost bought a farm in Pennsylvania. We never could have made it through this crisis if we were so far from friends and family. They went on to speak of the friends who organized more than 100 people who came and worked on the farm, in the great barn-raising tradition, during Ben s illness. They spoke of the people who they have never met who prayed for them, wrote to them, sent gifts for Ben and for his sometimes-forgotten older sister Megan. They said they would never wish for this, would never wish it on their worst enemy; yet they learned important things of life: love, laughter, caring. Theirs is the faith that has looked the Great Enemy in the eye and, in another quote from Job declared I Know that My Redeemer Lives. Dave and Kelly moved from the uncertainty of questions they could not answer to the urgency of answers they could not escape. (repeat) What of us? There are purposes of God we understand all too clearly. We understand God calls us to give of ourselves to a sacrificial ministry. Do we do it? Is there someone here today, for example, who might be able to respond to our need, a week from today, for adult leaders for the week of UMARMY in Wethersfield, CT? If so, speak to me or Stacy Meszaros. We understand God calls us to radical hospitality, as we showed so well ten days ago to the Charles Wesley Singers. God grant that we would welcome our Community Supper guests with that same welcome rather than calling them as some have done those people. We understand God calls us to sacrificial service as shown this week to one of our families managing a medical emergency and the stress that has placed on their young children. God grant that we not judge their situation but respond to it, knowing that but for the grace of God, there go any of us. These are the urgent answers we cannot escape.

5 People occasionally ask me why I have given my life to the Church instead of some other calling. This is why: there are urgent answers we cannot escape. The biggest one is this: we are not alone. Abraham knew it even in his darkest hour. We do not face trials alone unless we shut God and others out. Most of you know there is a bell on the northeast corner of our church sanctuary but newer folks may not know why. The bell was at the former Myrtle Beach Community Church, a Methodist mission church in that section of Milford, It merged with Mary Taylor Memorial in 1969 when that Myrtle Beach Church was razed by urban renewal. The bell, after traveling about for many years, was returned to us nearly three years ago, refurbished and installed as an vital part of our heritage. We occasionally hear the bell rung by passers-by: sometimes mischievous young people but usually folks curious to see if it works. I rarely get to see who is doing the ringing. This past Thursday, I did. I was just leaving the sanctuary when I heard the familiar clang and walked out to see two young girls and their young adult caregiver. The young woman caring for the children seem startled and embarrassed, but when I assured her all was well she said, Yes, these girls love to ring your bell every time we come this way. I took a moment to give her a brief history of the bell and invite her to church. She said, Well, I go to a church in New Haven but I know some people who go here and I hear good and wonderful things about your church and how it cares for people. My friends, the Holy Spirit is alive in this place and among this people. Let us ever be attuned to this Spirit of God in our midst. May we ever trust the God who, even in the ugliest of circumstances, is ever with us. May we feel the assurance of praying and being prayed for. And when life, and the Bible, get ugly, may we leave the uncertainty of questions we cannot answer for the urgency of answers we cannot escape. Amen.