SCRIPTURE: Genesis 22:1-14
TEXT: 14b“The Lord will provide”; THEME: God’s embrace in relationship with each other. INTRODUCTION One of the theories, of how the Bible was written, is that portions of it was written about 700 BC, while the nation of Israel was being held in exile, in Babylon. Babylon was the super power of the day, with technological advancements, a written language, astronomical predicted solar eclipse and relocated captive leaders acculturated into Babylonian life. As their captivity lagged on, their children learned Babylonian folklore instead of their oral history. So, the Israelites decided to use this time of captivity, to write down their oral history. They took Babylonian stories and attached Hebrew messages to them. Such as the creation story of Babylon with the message of God creating and resting on the 7th day for relationship building and worship. The Flood story with the message of deliverance and the promise of not destroying the world again. And today’s story about child sacrifice with the message, “Don’t do it.” SCRIPTURE Genesis Chapter 22 begins with; “after all these things”; which means; after Abraham and Sarah have been called by God to leave Haran for a land God would show them. After the promise of having descendants more than the stars in the sky. After twice passing Sarah off as his sister to protect himself in a foreign land. After worrying about producing an heir leads Abraham to sleep with Hagar. After both of them laughed at the prospect of being senior citizen parents. Now God is going to test Abraham to see if he will do what God says? Ridiculous! Abraham and Sarah should have been given credit for all of those pop quizzes they had along the way. God knows about Abraham’s faith, trust and obedience in difficult circumstances. This is my hint that this is not an actual account. Abraham does not need to be tested and we don’t have a God who tests us for the sake of testing. God already knows the content of our hearts. This is actually a borrowed Babylonian story, retold with Hebrew characters, and to be a vehicle for a Hebrew message. The message at the end is not to sacrifice our children to God (or any gods) as a way to win favor, or to ensure goodness for us. God loves already provides for us, so don’t sacrifice your children like other people do. Live bounded to God, as God is bounded to you. APPLICATION Besides, Abraham has already sacrificed his oldest son, Ismael, by sending him and his mother Hagar, out of the household. If God does not desire child sacrifice, why would God sacrifice Jesus for us? If we believe in Original Blessing, over Original Sin, then the Good that God has created in Creation and God’s love for us, being made in the image of God, does not require any kind of sacrifice to pay God, to start loving us again. What God provides, is forgiveness of our sins. God makes the rules, God is not accountable to some cosmic balance of the universe that our sin bends out of whack. God is the universe. Our sin does not require a sacrificial payment, God’s love forgives our sin. Knowing that we are forgiven, for all our wrong doings, by love, how is our approach to God and others shaped? We are not seen as a sinful problem that needs to be fixed, but we are seen as good and dearly loved. This story is also known as the Akendah, which means binding. It is about the binding of Isaac on the altar. But this is also about the binding of God to Abraham, of Abraham to God and the binding of God to Isaac. Another relational way of thinking about being bound together is embraced. I found the lyrics from George and Ira Gershwin’s song, “Embraceable You”. Imagine God, singing this to us: “Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you Embrace me, you irreplaceable you Just one look at you My heart grew tipsy in me You and you alone Bring out the Gypsy in me I love all the many charms about you Above all, I want these arms about you Don't be a naughty baby Come to papa, come to papa do My sweet embraceable you” Binding. Bonded to God. Embraced by God. Loved by God - sacrifice needed. CONCLUSION Original Good, The Visit, God Heard and God Embracing are last four sermons based on stories of how we are interrelated through God’s DNA at creation. About how our staying connected encourages and surprises us. About how God hears all with promise greater than the covenant with Abraham and Sarah. And today’s story of not sacrificing our kids as a way to force God to love us, because God embraces us already, with forgiveness and provides for us, because God has never stopped loving us.
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