God with Us (Ex 2:23-25; 3:1-15)

Scripture: The Knowledge of God

2:23 After a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery and cried out. Their cry for help rose up to God from their slavery. 24 God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.

I know my brother very well. I know his favorite flavor of ice cream (strawberry). I know his favorite getaway (the Black Mountains of North Carolina). I know his wintertime fantasy (getting snowed in a ski resort and having nothing to do but ski for days on end). I know some of his favorite childhood memories (getting ice cream from a little shack called the Nibble Nook in the Black Mountains of North Carolina). I know some of his greatest hopes and his deepest fears, his dreams and his nightmares.

I know my brother not by head but by heart. I know a lot of things by head—things that I read in books, things that I hear on the news, things that I learn in a classroom. Sometimes when people have an exhaustive head knowledge of a subject, we say that they have “mastered” it. We might say, “She has a masterful knowledge of American history.”

But heart knowledge is not about mastering. It is about relationship. I have not mastered by brother. I know him the way you know that someone needs a hug…or needs space. I know him in a way that makes it almost impossible to judge him because I know where things come from. Instead of judgment there is compassion. Instead of control there is care.

When scripture says, “God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them,” the Hebrew literally says, “And God knew [them]” (Ex 2:25). “Knew.” It’s a word in Hebrew (yada’) that suggests not intellect but intimacy. You may recall the common biblical idiom, “And he knew her,” indicating the consummation of a relationship, the intimate connection between two partners, two becoming one.

Popular portraits of God paint an omniscient deity, an all-powerful God. It is a fantasy of mastery and control, a God who oversees and directs everything. But the biblical portrait of God’s “knowledge” is very different. Here is a God who knows intimately not intellectually, whose knowledge is not mastery but relationship.

Scripture: Moses in the Wilderness

3:1 Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God.

Today’s story begins with a peaceful, pastoral scene. There against the wide backdrop of wilderness Moses moseys along, his eyes resting on the flock of sheep and goats around him.

If you knew Moses from his younger days, then this relaxed, easygoing shepherd might surprise you. A long time ago, Moses had a very different reputation. You might remember his darker past:

Having grown up as a Hebrew orphan in the Egyptian palace, Moses one day went out and saw the slavery of his people. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just some Egyptian masters bullying their Hebrew slaves. One Egyptian, however, went a bit too far. His bullying became beating. Moses was inflamed. His heart burned within him. He fixated on this one Egyptian man, and when the coast was clear, he killed him.

As it turned out, though, the coast had not been clear. The murder became well known, and Moses fled from Egypt to the land of Midian, where we find him today. By now, he has settled down. He has befriended a local shepherd, married this man’s daughter, and had a son. This is no longer the man who stood up to Egyptian brutality. This is a man who has cooled off, who has put down roots and is happy to live out his days in peace (cf. 2:11-22).

And so here he is, ambling alongside his flock in the wilderness, when suddenly something catches his eye.

Scripture: An Odd Repetition

2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. 3 Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burned up.”

“Moses and the Burning Bush”—it’s a beloved Sunday School story. I generally think of it in straightforward terms, as a scene of divine recruitment, when God the employer contracts Moses to a very special job, when God the commander hands Moses a mission impossible: bring my people out of Egypt. But as I read the story this week, what I discovered was not a distant, commanding God, a God sitting above the chessboard of our world, cool and calculating, masterfully making moves, transferring players from one square to another. What I discovered is the opposite. Not a God of intellect but a God of intimacy. Not a God above the chessboard, but a God on the chessboard. What I discovered is a God who is with us, even amid suffering.

4 When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

7 Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, (here’s that same word “know” again, indicating God is intimately familiar with Israel’s suffering) 8 and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

There’s an odd repetition in the story of the burning bush. First, God tells Moses that God has seen the Israelites’ misery and will come down to deliver them. At this point, Moses and we are both pretty happy. That’s the God we want.

Religion has long held fantasies of a God who is above all and all-powerful and who will fix everything in the blink of an eye. When God tells Moses, “I have come down to deliver [my people] from the Egyptians,” I imagine that Moses nods his head approvingly, thinking to himself, “Amen!”  That’s the God Moses wanted. That’s the God we all want. The God above who will come down in power and fix it all in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

But as Moses finds out, that’s not quite who God is. Cue the odd repetition…

9 The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. (I imagine Moses blinking here, thinking, “Yeah, you’ve already said that.” Then God continues.)  10 Now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” Woah, what now? God’s tune has changed. First, it was: I’ve seen their suffering, I’ve come down to deliver them (cf. 3:7-8). But this the second time around, it becomes: I’ve seen their suffering—“so come, I will send you” (cf. 3:9-10)! So which is it?  Is God coming down to deliver the Israelites from Egypt, or is Moses going to bring the Israelites out of Egypt? Let’s put a bookmark here, and we’ll return to it….

Scripture: God’s Name and the Promise of Presence

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” In other words…I think deliverance is really part of your job description, not mine.

12 He [God] said, “I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

But Moses hasn’t run out of excuses yet.

13 But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The Godof your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”

15 God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:

This is my name forever,

and this my title for all generations.

In the ancient world, the name of a god usually identified or described that god’s particular character. The name Zeus, for example, seems to originate from a word that meant “sky” or “bright,” thus describing Zeus as a sky god. A few weeks ago, we noted that the Babylonians had a goddess named Tiamat, a word that described the chaos of deep waters.

So what about the name that God reveals to Moses? To this day, its pronunciation is a mystery, as its original writing did not contain vowels. At one time, people thought its pronunciation was “Jehovah.” The present consensus is “Yahweh.” Whatever its exact pronunciation, its roots are clear. It comes from the Hebrew word “to be.” Thus God says, “I am who I am,” and “Say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me.”

The promise encased in God’s name is profound. Presence. God is. Which means at any moment, God is there. In joy, God is there. In suffering, God is there. As David sings in Psalm 139, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” (Ps 139:7). It is impossible, because God is always here, now, wherever “here and now” is. For many people, it seems sometimes that religion is about escaping the present world for another world, a different world; religion is the dream of a distant future. But what I hear in God’s name suggests otherwise. Religion is really just another way of talking about reality, about what is, because wherever we are, whatever we experience, God is there. And as God’s message to Moses makes clear, God’s presence is not a static, inert thing, but an inspiring, life-giving thing. God’s presence moves us to what is good.

A Tale of Two Fires

To me, God’s in-dwelling presence helps explain that curious repetition that we heard earlier. Which is it? Is God coming down to deliver the Israelites from Egypt, or is Moses going to bring the Israelites out of Egypt? In a word: Yes. Both.

God and Moses together. Not like a tag team: God pulling one punch, Moses pulling the next. But rather like a call and a response. To the outside observer, only Moses will be leading the Israelites. But he would not be leading them if he hadn’t become aware of God’s presence in that blazing fire.

Speaking of fire...I can’t help but wonder if this is not really a tale of two fires. Remember how long ago, Moses like God had seen the suffering of the Israelites? Remember how that had inflamed him? It had ignited such an anger that he killed a man. But the fire within his heart had long since cooled, as he settled down in Midian and married and had a son.

God’s heart, however, has not cooled. The God whom Moses encounters is a never-ending fire. It’s a fascinating comparison. God and Moses had seen the same thing. Both of them witnessed the suffering of the Israelites. But one ran away from the suffering and settled down, cooling off. The other stayed a blazing fire.

The key to this eternal divine combustion?  I think we heard it at the start of today’s passage: “God knew [them],” that is, the Israelites (Ex 2:25). Because, remember, this is not a cool, masterful knowledge. It’s not an intellectual knowledge, which stands at a distance. God’s knowledge is the knowledge of intimacy and relationship, a knowledge of care and compassion. God’s heart beats for the Israelites—as indeed God’s heart beats for all the families of the earth.

The Good News of God’s Presence

The good news of today’s scripture, as I hear it, is not that God fixes things instantaneously from on high, or that Jesus waves a wand and cures all our problems. Those are fantasies that have long tempted religion, fantasies that bear a curious resemblance to our own methods of throwing money or quick-fix programs at a problem. The good news is that rather than keeping a safe distance from our suffering, God is in the midst of it with us. The good news is that God knows us intimately and desires our wellbeing. If we want to find God, we don’t need to escape to another world or look longingly at a distant future. We need only look around us.

The great “I am” is here, with us. Not as a cure, but as a call. A call to be with others, as God is with us. A few weeks ago, we saw in the creation story how God called all the chaotic elements of the world into creative relationship, to be with one another in a vitally good way. Today we see Moses experience God as a call to be with his Hebrew people and to mediate God’s care for them. We might experience God as a call to be with a friend who grieves. To be with a marginalized person who cries out in pain. To be with an enemy whose resentments stoke our own. Not to fix or control or master the situation, not to cure the hurt or win the argument or achieve the best result, but simply to make clear the good news through our very presence that they are not alone. Rather they are deeply known and loved by a God who is with us and will never leave our side.

Prayer

Great “I Am,”
Whose spirit we cannot escape,
Deepen our awareness
Of your abiding presence with us
And your compassionate knowledge of us
…
And kindle within our hearts
The same spirit,
That we might welcome others
Into the joy of your presence
And the salvation of your knowledge.
In Christ, who is with us: Amen.

"By Wits or by Faith?" (Gen 27:1-4, 15-23; 28:10-17)

Scripture: Living by His Wits

27:1   When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, “My son”; and he answered, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death. 3 Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me. 4 Then prepare for me savory food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.”

Today’s scripture begins in the middle of the Jacob story. This particular scene is a classic in children’s Sunday School literature. Isaac is nearing the end of his life, and so it is time for him to pass on the family blessing to the firstborn son, Esau. You may recall that Jacob has already swindled Esau out of his birthright—that is, the special double inheritance that firstborn sons traditionally received in that part of the ancient world. Now the stage is being set for a second deception. Jacob has already grabbed the birthright inheritance. Now he’s about to grab the firstborn’s blessing.

15 Then Rebekah took the best garments of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob; 16 and she put the skins of the kids on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. 17 Then she handed the savory food, and the bread that she had prepared, to her son Jacob.

Jacob’s name literally means something like “heel-grabber.” You might remember that at his birth, he emerged second with his hands grasping after Esau’s heels. Perhaps this is just proof that heel-grabbing is in Jacob’s nature. Look at how he was born. He’s a go-getter, someone who was wrestling in the womb, someone who was fighting from day one.

But in this particular  scene we see that perhaps Jacob’s heel-grabbing isn’t just “nature,” it’s also “nurture.” In other words, here we see where Jacob may have learned some of his wits, some of his scheming—namely, his mother, Rebekah (who has preferred Jacob to Esau from day one). In fact, this particular deception seems to come primarily from Rebekah. She overhears Isaac talking to Esau; she prepares the food that Isaac has requested of Esau; she secures Esau’s best clothes for Jacob to wear; she even thinks to make Jacob feel hairier than he is, putting animal skins on his hands and neck to mimic the rough, hairy skin of his more rugged brother Esau.

18   So he [Jacob] went in to his father, and said, “My father”; and he said, “Here I am; who are you, my son?”  19 Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn.” Traditionally readers have remarked on how rich this scene is in dramatic irony. Again and again, we wince (or perhaps chuckle ruefully) as we see poor, hapless Isaac mistake Jacob for Esau. We can see what Isaac cannot. But as I read through the story this past week, another dimension of the story emerged. Not the outer layer of appearances, but the inner landscape of Jacob’s soul.

Jacob lives by his wits. His heel-grabbing, go-getting character means he is continually looking for ways to outwit and outmaneuver his opponent or victim, whoever that is. In this scene, we see Jacob repeatedly lie to his father—sometimes by what he says, sometimes by what he doesn’t say. And with each lie, Jacob gets closer to his goal. But that’s not all. With each lie, he also gets farther away from the truth, from reality. I imagine that with each lie, he is progressively numbing his conscience, dulling his soul. Already he has lied to his father once, declaring himself to be Esau. Let’s see how else he lies.

He continues: “I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, so that you may bless me.” (Another little lie. Jacob did none of the things that Isaac told Esau.) 20 But Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” He answered, “Because the LORD your God granted me success.” Here’s a third lie. Jacob takes God’s name in vain, attributing to God what is actually a corrupt, godless scheme.

21 Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.” 22 So Jacob went up to his father Isaac, who felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” 23 He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him.

By remaining silent, Jacob seals the deception. He says nothing to explain his voice nor to counter Isaac’s mistaken judgment of his artificially hairy hands.

As a result of all these lies, Jacob is successful. He gets what he wants. His father’s blessing.

Scripture: Jacob’s First Encounter with God

But that’s not all he gets. Our scripture selection today omits part of the story, but you’ll likely remember what happens next. Jacob gets a very angry brother. When Esau learns that Jacob has outwitted him again and stolen his blessing, he falls into a murderous rage, and Jacob must flee for his life.

It is a pattern we see across the first half of Jacob’s life. He successfully swindles others and gets what he wants, but he has no peace, no rest. He’s always on the run. First from his brother. Later from his father-in-law, Laban.

Which brings us to the conclusion of today’s scripture, where we find Jacob on the run in the wilderness.

28:10   Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. 11 He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place.

We are about to observe Jacob’s first encounter with God. Notice the setting. Jacob is lying down to sleep in the wilderness. Jacob, the heel-grabber, the go-getter, the outwitter, is about to do practically the one thing where he has no control over his surroundings.

Sleep is a very curious thing. We all do it. But to be more precise, we don’t do it. Sleep is not something that you do. Sleep is something that happens to you. You cannot control the moment that sleep happens.  It overtakes you when it will. Sleep reminds us that we are not in control. Even more troublesome for Jacob, sleep leaves him helpless, defenseless. What if his brother should show up and steal back all that he has stolen? Steal even his life?

And yet it is precisely in this most vulnerable, most un-Jacob-like moment, that Jacob encounters God for the first time…

12 And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And the LORD stood beside him and said, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; 14 and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.

I have to be honest, this promise of God seems crazy. Right now, the ancestral family can’t even bless itself without getting tangled up in a murderous knot. How will “all the families of the earth” be blessed by a family that can’t even bless itself?

For me, we can see the gospel most clearly in Genesis in the fact that the heroes—Abraham and Sarah, Rebekah and Jacob, and so on—are not heroic at all. They’re people just like you and me, with generally good intentions that often get hijacked by less-than-good impulses. Yet God abides with them and insists on blessing them with God’s presence and care. Even more, God insists that they will be his representatives of blessing unto all the world.

Centuries later, Paul will make the case that we too are children of Abraham. To live by faith in God through Christ is to join the same story. God insists on blessing us that all the families of the earth might know God’s blessing.

15 Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16 Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place—and I did not know it!” 17 And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

In Jacob’s exuberant response to his dream, we catch another glimpse of his controlling character. He thinks that God is in this place specifically, that he has stumbled on a secret portal to God’s presence—as though God’s presence could be contained in a place or secured through a secret passageway.

Many years later in his life, however, he will discover in another nocturnal encounter—a painfully hip-wrenching confrontation—that God cannot be tamed. God’s blessing is not won by the strong or the smart, but received by the broken and the needful.

A Tale of Two Blessings

And that, for me, is a major lesson learned in the story of Jacob.

Jacob’s life can be read as a tale of two blessings: the blessings of man and the blessings of God.

The first blessings that Jacob pursues are the blessings of man, which he wins by his superior wits. First, he swindles his brother Esau out of his birthright, which secures for Jacob a double portion of his father’s inheritance. Second, he tricks his father into giving him the blessing for the firstborn, a blessing that confirms his right to wealth and power. These blessings that Jacob wins by his wits are worldly blessings, material blessings. They are what most of our world today strives for. And it’s worth observing what success looks like for Jacob. Even as he secures these blessings, he is restless, always on the move, living in one lie or another. Is he actually happy, I wonder?

But as we see today in Jacob’s dream at Bethel, and as we see later in his wrestling with a mysterious divine figure at the ford of Jabbok, Jacob also receives a blessing from God. And this blessing he receives from God is astonishing in more ways than one. First, it is astonishing because of Jacob’s character. This is a man who has done everything not to deserve God’s favor, and yet God insists on blessing him. Second, it is astonishing in its contrast to worldly blessing. For each time Jacob receives God’s blessing, it is not by his wits but by his vulnerability. Each time the blessing comes at night. Once, when he is defenseless in the wilderness, at the moment of sleep when he must relinquish control and render himself vulnerable to the world. Another time, also in the wilderness, when his wits and his wrestling win him only a broken hip…and a new name. No longer shall he be called “Jacob,” “heel-grabber,” but rather Israel, “God-wrestler.” And what he has learned in wrestling God is that life is not about winning strength and power, but being broken and yet in that brokenness finding God. Indeed, if you trace the second half of Jacob’s life, you’ll notice that he is continually losing, continually encountering his own brokenness. As he will tell Pharaoh at the end of his life, “Few and hard have been the years of my life” (Gen 47:9). And yet Jacob’s story is preserved in the Bible because across the ups and downs of his life, he comes to rely less and less on himself and more and more upon the God who is faithful, a God whose love and forgiveness has the power to heal broken families and work good out of evil.

There is a remarkable preview of the gospel in Jacob’s life. Consider the people whom Jesus called blessed in his sermon on the mount:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth…” (Matt 5:1-12). And so on, as Jesus names, one after another, people who are broken and thus aware of their need for God and open to receive God’s blessing. Which is not a blessing of power and wealth, but a blessing of presence and relationship. What we have come to call in our faith tradition, “communion.”

In our part of the world today, I read and hear a lot of worrying things, many of which paint a struggle between two sides, a struggle that must be won. As I read Jacob’s story, however, I question whether anything is ever really “won.” As long as Jacob is winning, he’s also running and fighting. Is that the life God wants to give us? Is that how “all the families of the earth” will be blessed?

The many paradoxes of the gospel—die to live, lose to win, give to receive—suggest that the real struggle is not with people on the other side. It is with ourselves…and with God. It is acknowledging our brokenness and our need. And in this space, receiving the blessing that matters most, God’s blessing of communion with God and one another.

Prayer

God of strange blessing,
Whose gift cannot be won
But only received with open hands—
Deliver us from the struggle
To be right, to win, to control.
Grant us peace in our brokenness
And communion in our need.
May your love be our most cherished blessing.
In Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.

"The Lord Will Provide" (Gen 21:1-3; 22:1-14)

“What Would You Do for a Klondike Bar?”

Grown women clucking like chickens. An adult man at the park panting and barking like a dog. A suited businessman singing, “I’m a Little Teapot.”

These are just a few of the scenarios featured in the commercials that asked, “What would you do for a Klondike Bar?” In each case, the participants initially refuse the action out of embarrassment. But when presented with a Klondike bar, their tune quickly changes. Suddenly they become willing to sacrifice their dignity, to act in a silly manner in exchange for the reward of some chocolate-covered ice cream.

Apparently there was a reboot of the Klondike Bar challenge just a few years ago. The stakes were raised even higher. Couples who were expecting went so far as to sign over the naming rights of their child in exchange for a lifetime supply of Klondike bars.

Making Sacrifices

“What would you do…?” The question contains within it an assumption that is foundational to the story much of our world lives by. In order to get something, you have to give something up. Quid pro quo. Anything good comes at a cost. What makes the Klondike bar commercials funny is the lengths to which people are willing to go, the sacrifices they are willing to make, usually at the cost of their dignity.

Unfortunately, this same logic—in order to get something, you have to give something up—can quickly turn from humorous to heart-breaking. How many times have we read or heard about children being neglected—left in hot cars, left unattended at home, left waiting at a designated spot to which their parent does not return—because their parent is too busy getting drunk or high or chasing after some other obsession that eclipses all of life, including their own child? In scenarios of addiction, people commonly sacrifice what is nearest and dearest to them for their drug of choice. A workaholic stays at the office late, sacrificing his family. A gambling addict puts down money she does not possess, sacrificing her home and her future.

For some of us, the sacrifices may not be so obvious or extreme, but they’re there nonetheless. We sacrifice others in pursuit of our own happiness regularly, just in less conspicuous ways. Consider the couple at the restaurant who spend more time looking at their phones than at one another. Perhaps one is checking sports scores; the other is shopping. They’re not hardened drug addicts or swallowed in some other nefarious obsession. They have both simply concluded that their phone is more worthwhile than that untamable person sitting across the table. So they quietly sacrifice their partner, believing they will find what they need in that little rectangle in their hands.

A World of Bloodthirsty Gods

In ancient cultures, human sacrifice was not unheard of. In Carthage, archaeologists have found slabs of stone standing beside cremated remains, on which are written dedications from a child’s parents to the gods, often ending with the words that a god had “heard my voice and blessed me.”[1] As gruesome as it may sound, it is but an extreme case of the same logic according to which much of our world lives. In order to get something, you have to give something up. In that ancient culture, some people tried to buy the gods’ favor by giving the gods their most valuable possession.

Which brings us to our scripture today. Recall God’s words to Abraham, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love…” (Gen 22:2). God’s repeated qualifications—“your only son,” the one “whom you love”—emphasize how invaluable Isaac is to Abraham. (As you’ll maybe recall, God had earlier promised wrinkled, old Abraham a son by his equally wrinkled and apparently barren wife Sarah, and Isaac is that miracle child. He couldn’t be any more precious.)

Is God’s test a perverse precedent of the Klondike challenge? Is God asking Abraham, “What would you do for my blessing? Would you sacrifice even your miracle child, Isaac?” Is this ancient story just a part of its culture, in which the gods might demand child sacrifice in exchange for their favor? As a follower of Christ, I cannot overlook what seems to be a sadistic God demanding violence and instilling fear. If Christ is indeed God in the flesh, the fullest representation we have of God’s character (cf. Col 1:15-20), then I expect God to be at least as loving as Christ. And what’s happening here seems to bear little resemblance to that love.

An Ambiguous Test

But…before we jump to conclusions, let’s try to give God the benefit of the doubt here. We know that elsewhere in the Old Testament, God clearly opposes child sacrifice. Israel’s neighbors engage in it. Mesha, king of Moab, sacrifices his own son so that he might have victory in battle (2 Kgs 3:26-27). But God forbids Israel to follow in the way of its neighbors, saying, “You shall not give any of your offspring to sacrifice them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God” (Lev 18:21). Child sacrifice is a blemish on God’s name. It is a bad witness to God’s character. It does not reflect who God is. God even goes further to say that if anyone is aware of the practice going on and ignores it, then God will turn against that person, and they will be cut off from the rest of the people (Lev 18:24-25).

If God is so resolutely opposed to child sacrifice, then why does God demand it of Abraham? Intriguingly, Genesis indicates that God is testing Abraham but never tells us the purpose of the test. Readers have assumed it is a test of Abraham’s faithfulness. But God already knows what is in Abraham’s heart. Whenever God asks a question in the Bible, it’s not to learn new information, but rather to invite the characters to learn something about themselves, maybe even to take responsibility for themselves. Think about Adam and Eve, whom God asks, “Where are you?” and “What is this that you have done?” (Gen 3:9, 13).

It is possible, then, that God is testing Abraham to show him something about himself. God’s character is not in doubt. We know that God is resolutely opposed to child sacrifice. But what about Abraham?

Abraham’s Habit of Sacrificing

For readers who pay close attention, Abraham’s character is a dubious matter. Perhaps the most glaring mark against him is his repeated choice to sacrifice his own wife, Sarah, for his own well-being (Gen 12; 20). On two separate occasions, Abraham fears that Sarah’s beauty will lead to his death, that the ruler of the land will dispose of Abraham and take Sarah for himself. So, he formulates a plan. He tells Sarah to say that she is his sister rather than his wife. On both occasions, the plan works wonderfully—for Abraham. The king of the territory takes Sarah into his home and deals favorably with Abraham, giving him a whole lot more than a Klondike bar (cf. Gen 12:10-20; 20:1-18). But imagine how Sarah must feel. Her husband is sacrificing her for personal gain. He is pushing her into the clutches of what he fears in order to save his own skin.

Abraham does something similar with the family’s maidservant, Hagar. When Sarah becomes upset with Hagar—although Hagar has done nothing other than what has been demanded of her—Abraham disclaims any responsibility in the matter, saying, “Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please” (Gen 16:6). He passes Hagar off just as he did Sarah.

A Test of Selfishness?

Observing this pattern of sacrifice, we might begin to wonder, “What or whom will Abraham not sacrifice for his own security or gain?” In this context, God’s command begins to look less like a test of faithfulness and more like a test of selfishness. Maybe God is revealing the horrible lengths to which Abraham would go for his own equivalent of a Klondike bar. Abraham thinks sacrificing Isaac is necessary to secure God’s favor and to continue to receive blessing, so he is willing to make the sacrifice. Rather than limit our questions to God’s character for making such an outrageous command, we might also question Abraham’s character for not refusing, for not saying, “Wait a minute, God. What now?” A little earlier in Genesis, Abraham has no trouble bartering for the lives of the righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah. In that episode, he even seems to reprimand God, “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked! … Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Gen 18:25). It seems that a similar response is even more in order here: “Far be it from you to ask such a thing! Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?”

Amazing Grace

Today’s story ends in blessing. Generally, readers have interpreted this as a sign that Abraham has passed the test. But we can equally read the opposite, that he has failed. Listen to the angel’s words again: “Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me” (Gen 22:12). In other words: “Now  I know to what extent fear dominates your life; you sacrificed your wife, you sacrificed your servant, and here you went so far as sacrificing your own son to secure your own life.” Yet the angel proceeds to bless Abraham. Abraham fails the test. But God blesses Abraham.

Amazing grace, indeed. In this interpretation, we get an early glimpse of God’s surprising character, a God who overcomes evil with good (cf. Rom 12:21). We see a God unlike the gods of the ancient world, who operates not according to an economy of exchange, of quid pro quo, of “What would you do for my blessing?”—but rather who operates according to unconditional love. This is the merciful God of Jesus, who is “kind to the ungrateful and the wicked” (Luke 6:35). It is worth remembering that God’s first covenant with Abraham is not conditional, “If you do this, then I will do that.” It is unconditional, “I will bless you…so that you will be a blessing” (Gen 12:2; cf. Gen 15). God is welcoming Abraham into a different world than the world of sacrifices, the world of this-for-that. One way to read Genesis 22 is that it marks an evolution in Israel’s understanding of God. The moment in the story when the angel calls out and stops Abraham, represents a moment outside of the story in which it dawns on Israel that their God is not petty and selfish like the other gods, does not demand sacrifices in exchange for favor. It marks Israel’s realization that this God is different. This is a God of grace, whose blessing is not bought or achieved, but only received as a gift (and even when we’ve done everything not to deserve it).

God blesses Abraham’s family again and again, patiently enduring their wayward looks, their flaws, their shortcomings. God’s blessing works on them like water works on stone. The good news that we see in Genesis is not that God instantaneously confers strength and success upon the faithful, but that God patiently loves them even amid their faithlessness. God’s real blessing is not wealth and power but God’s steadfast presence, which never leaves them. They move about without a permanent home, they suffer the losses of this world, they endure the consequences of their own mishaps, but God is always there. Abraham gets a lot of things wrong in his story, but one thing he gets so right is his declaration at the end of today’s scripture. There at the place where God stops him from the worst sacrifice of all, perhaps snapping him out of his distorted thinking, out of his repeated attempts to secure his own life on his own terms—there at rock-bottom Abraham declares, “The Lord will provide” (Gen 22:14).

Prayer

Patient God,
Whose blessing defies logic,
We are indeed children of Father Abraham,
Imperfect, impatient, impulsive,
Yet also aware of your presence.
…
Where fear and insecurity
Has our grip on things tightened,
Ready to sacrifice priceless connection with others,
Loosen our grip
And deliver us into the freedom
Of trusting in your grace.
In Christ, your gift: Amen.

---

[1] “Ancient Carthaginians Really Did Sacrifice Their Children,”   https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-01-23-ancient-carthaginians-really-did-sacrifice-their-children, accessed September 8, 2025.

"The Word" (Gen 1:1-2:4a)

Creation from Chaos

1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void—in other words, the world was a mess, like a canvas with paint splashed indiscriminately, mixed together without rhyme or reason. And darkness covered the face of the deep—the “deep” is a Hebrew word (tehom) that refers to the chaos of the sea. In Babylonian mythology, the “deep” (Tiamat) is actually the goddess of chaos, personified by the sea. So, just imagine a dark, stormy night at sea, and you have a pretty good picture of the state of the world. It’s a soupy, chaotic mess.

In the midst of all of this…a wind from God—this could also be translated “breath” or “spirit” of God—swept over the face of the waters.

Since around the third century, Christian theologians have insisted that God created everything out of nothing (a concept called creatio ex nihilo). But in Genesis 1, this is plainly not so. The creation story does not begin with nothingness, with a blank canvas. It begins with chaos, with a messy canvas.

Most historians today believe that the creation story in Genesis 1 was written down in the time of the Babylonian exile. If you remember from our psalm from last week, the Babylonians lay siege to Jerusalem and brutally starved its inhabitants, before finally destroying the city and the temple and resettling the survivors in Babylon. It would undoubtedly have been a chaotic experience, losing home and homeland, losing family and friends, and then being forced to live in a foreign land where people spoke a strange tongue and looked upon you with suspicion and disdain.

The Hebrew scribes who sat down and gave written expression to the creation story in Genesis 1 were not simply reciting an ancient story. They were responding to the fear and despair of the present moment with a defiant, insistent hope that God was with them in the chaos. “The spirit of God,” the story says, “swept over the face of the chaotic waters” (cf. Gen 1:2).

3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

You probably know the story pretty well from here. Over the next five days, God creates sky and waters and land, stars and fish and birds and cattle, culminating in the creation of humanity.

Today, many readers are tempted to read the creation story as a scientific explanation about the origin of things. But that is not how the original writers intended it to be read. They told these stories not to explain the mechanics of things as much as the meaning of things.

And the meaning, very plainly put, is that God can create goodness out of chaos. (Which would have meant an awful lot to people whose world had fallen into chaos.) Remember those words that the earth was “a formless void? That means without shape (formless) and without content (void), just a soupy mess lacking structure and any discernible substance. So, what does God do? On the first three days, God begins separating one thing from another, light from dark, waters above (the sky) from waters below, land from sea. Things are given shape, structure, boundaries, distinction. Then on the next three days, God begins filling these secure but empty spaces with things: first stars and moon and sun in the heavens, then fish in the sea and birds in the sky, and finally land animals on the land and humans. In six days, we’ve gone from “a formless void” to a well-ordered abundance of life. Written between the lines is the affirmation that God can do the same thing in the life of the Judeans living in exile. What feels like a chaotic mess may yet be ordered into goodness and abundant life. God did it in the beginning, and God can do it today.

Every Human Noble / Imago Dei

27 [Then] God created humankind in his image,

    in the image of God he created them;

    male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” … 

In the ancient world, kings were believed to rule the world in God’s place. They were divine stand-ins, surrogates, bearers of the image of God.

For the exiles in Babylon, who had been firmly “put in their place,” so to speak, who had been forced to live on the bottom rung of society’s ladder, these verses defiantly insisted that they (and everyone) were just as noble as the Babylonian king. Genesis 1 declares that all humanity, not just royalty, bear the image of God. Every human is equally of divine stock. Every human bears God’s image in the world and is entrusted with caring for creation. For the disgraced Judeans living under the heel of the Babylonian empire, the creation story invests them with their inherent dignity and worth.

“Very Good”

31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

This verse crowns God’s achievement. We started, remember, with a soupy, stormy mess—with chaos. But at the end of each day of creation, as God calls the elements out of their chaos and into the goodness of relationship, God looks out and sees that creation is good. It becomes something like a drumbeat in the creation story: “And God saw that it was good.” “And God saw that it was good.” Now, six days later, God looks out upon a world that is well ordered and abundant with life, and God sees that it is all—not just good—but “very good.”

A Different Creation Story

Modern readers sometimes get hung up on whether Genesis 1 gives a scientific account of creation. My hunch is that this is missing the point. The point, as I mentioned earlier, is not the mechanics of creation, but the meaning of creation. At the bottom of things, this world is good, very good. But that’s not the only meaning of the story. Genesis 1 vehemently disagrees with a bedrock belief that held sway over the ancient world as much as it does over our world today.

In the ancient world, there were many creation stories. And nearly all of them have one thing in common. They begin with violence. Chaos is transformed into order by force. In Babylon, the creation story begins with an upstart god, Marduk, killing the goddess of chaos, Tiamat (who happens to be his grandmother). Then he creates the earth with parts of her body. Greek mythology likewise begins with bloody domestic conflict among the gods. There is actually an enduring logic to these violent creation stories, if you stop to think about it. Many things in our world do begin with violence. Nations are often born from bloody conflict. Borders are drawn and maintained through violent force.  One of the fundamental stories that our world continues to believe in is what we might call “the myth of redemptive violence.” It is the belief that violence has a redemptive quality, namely that it transforms chaos into order. If the world is indeed good, it is only because some strong men have fought for goodness and vanquished evil.

Amid all these violent creation stories, the exiles in Judea dared to believe a very different kind of story. They dared to trust in a very different kind of God.

Notice how God responds to chaos in Genesis 1. God does not attack it as something bad. God does not wrestle it into submission. Rather, God tames the chaos. God woos it. With words. With invitation. “Let there be…” “Let there be…” God invites the elements of creation out of their chaos and into the goodness of relationship with God and with one another.

What’s more, he entrusts the elements of creation with responsibility, with power. Readers have often noted that God confers upon humanity dominion over the fish and birds and living creatures, but less often have they noted that God makes sun and moon to “rule” over day and night (1:16, 18). And when God invites the earth to grow plants—“Let the earth put forth vegetation”—the earth responds of its own accord: “The earth brought forth vegetation…” (1:11-12). And whereas God originally fills the empty space of waters and sky, sea and dry land, God later entrusts creatures with the responsibility of multiplying and filling the earth. According to Genesis 1, creation is the result of not conflict but collaboration.

Is it a coincidence, I wonder, that in the gospel of John creation begins with “the Word”? The gospel of John clearly insists on the same truth of Genesis 1. The world did not originate from war but from a Word. And that Word, according to John, is Christ. The call and response from which creation emerges—when God calls, “Let there be…,” and the elements of creation willingly respond—is nothing less than the call of Christ. What we hear in the creation story is what we hear from Christ: God’s declaration of love followed by the invitation of love.

“God So Loved the World…”

I don’t have many houseplants, because my cats get pretty curious. They have already had one unfortunate allergic reaction. But recently, I brought home from the grocery story one of those potted basil plants, as I’d learned that most cats don’t have allergies to them. It’s been sitting on my windowsill the past few weeks. And I’ve noticed something—something I’d learned long ago, probably in elementary school, but due to lack of attention and experience had forgotten. I’ve noticed that the whole plant is now leaning toward window, toward the light. As though beckoned. As though responding to a call.

“In [Christ] was life, and the life was the light” of all creation (cf. John 1:4).

There on my windowsill sits a small, nearly invisible reminder that creation is not some inert object fashioned from blunt force but is rather tenderly called into life through loving relationship. Creation is chaos turning toward the light.

What we see in the creation story is no different from what we see in Christ. “God so loved the world that he gave…” (John 3:16). God does not battle the chaos. He breathes on it, bestows his love upon it, calling it into relationship, revealing its goodness, giving it freedom and purpose: sun and moon to rule night and day, plants to be fruitful, animals to fill the earth, humans to bear God’s image and to show the same love and care for all things.

The creation story we believe will make all the difference for how we live. If we believe creation is God’s conquest over chaos, then we will trust in conquest; we will trust in violent force. But if we believe creation is the result of God’s gift of love, which draws life from chaos, then we will trust in love.

“God so loved the world that he gave…” And he gives, and he gives, and he gives.

Prayer

Creator God,
Beloved who calls us to life—
In our world, we are inundated
With the myth of redemptive violence,
With the idea that might makes right…
Inspire us to see deeper than shallow victories
And fragile cease-fires;
To see that abundant life and fruitfulness
Result only from loving relationship.
Encourage us to turn toward the light of your love
And reflect our hope to the world.
In Christ, your Word, your invitation: Amen.

Help (Ps 14 Haiku)

"all alike perverse,"

we are searching for the Way  --

some calling for help.