After a story of promise, the Abraham story moves in much more melodramatic direction. Family intrigue turns into exile, with the threat of death, for Hagar and Ishmael. Now Abraham is being asked the impossible, to give up his surviving son, the one long promised. He is told that the promise would die at his own hand.

In its way this is a story of multiple testings. Is Abraham almost daring God to go through with the test? Would God allow him to sacrifice his future, the child of the promise? Notice that Abraham’s answer to his son’s questions are almost a taunt: God will provide. How is God testing Abraham? I wonder if this is more than a test of loyalty. After all, Abraham will bargain with God over the lives of the strangers of Sodom. He was troubled, but he did not bargain for Hagar and Ishmael. Is the binding of Isaac a teaching of compassion for them as he contemplates the sacrifice of his son? What did this incident do to Isaac? Later, he would refer to God as the Fear. Is it any wonder? Maybe he sailed through life as nothing could scare him after that incident.

Maybe Abraham’s prayers were all pleading for a change, as he journeyed into the heart of darkness. Maybe they included prayers of lament. After all the years of waiting, the promise was fulfilled, but for how long. How long would God hold the promise away and then snatch it back? How long would he be able to hold his son? Lament is a proper response when we think that God is asking too much of us. We are free to speak to god openly, in praise or lament, in adoration or in desperate pleading.

Christians believe that God directed sacrifice for his son, his only son. It is entirely possible that it was near the sight of the binding of Isaac. God would fully enter into the pain of Abraham and past it as Jesus went to the cross. No last minute substitute would be in the offing. Apparently only a representative of the divine and the human would suffice. How can we doubt our significance when we recall that Jesus Christ offered himself up for all of us?

We rightly recoil from this story, but we manage to sacrifice our children to the dogs of war. To a lesser degree we sacrifice out children to gang violence. So far this year, guns have killed almost 3 dozen children this year. We think we are so far advanced from this primitive story. Yet, this weekend, the smoke will rise from a million barbeques. The smoke from fireworks for 1776 will light the sky and ascend to the heavens. We make lesser sacrifices. Sometimes, we offer our children to our own dreams, such as stage parents and those parents determined that their child will become a professional athlete. We could imagine Abraham and Isaac as part of the self. Sometimes we impose a dream on our children, even if they don’t have the interest or inclination toward that dream. Maybe we too willingly sacrifice parts of ourselves. As we mature, we are too quick to sacrifice the child within, the Isaac-laughter within. Maybe we sacrifice dreams to quickly to the gods of realism and making a living. To fit in maybe we sacrifice too much of our own vision of ourselves. We sacrifice alternative futures for the one we select or refuse to change. We bind ourselves to ways of behaving that inhibit us over time. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, so we are freed from the compulsion to sacrifice others on altars of our own making. We are freed to live life unbound by the burden of expectations of others.

First, please consider this as a comic tale, perhaps. Some rabbis look at Isaac’s name, laughter, and see him as that stock character, the schlemiel. All sorts of bad things happen to a schlemiel, but they end up having the last laugh. For instance, some rabbis said that Abraham had to send a trusted servant for a wife because one look at Isaac would ensure that no wife would be found. Instead of being generous with water, Rebecca is foolish in offering to get water for so many camels; she’d be exhausted. When he is off meditating in the field, off by himself, it could be that he is going to the bathroom. When Rebecca slides of the camel quickly, it could be that she falls off. Laban’s later greed with Jacob is given a clear start in the negotiation for the bride price. Rebecca may be related to a word to fetter, an interesting choice for Isaac who is bound by his father in ch. 22.

On the other hand, this story has so many good moments, we can well on them.

1. The trust placed in the servant is remarkable.

2. The prayer of the servant is bold and looking for clarity

3. The servant has to figure out how to proceed with a perfectly answered prayer

4. The bridal negotiations can easily be linked to the negotiations over family styles we all go through

5. For me the poignant moment comes at the end, when they are married, but they go into his mother’s tent, and he finds comfort.

6. Do you think we are fated to be with our besheret, our true love?

Perhaps it would be a good idea to give some background on the patriarchal dates. Most range in the Bronze age from 2,000 to 1,500 BCE or so. Some see these as containing some oral history, and some don’t. Some sites don’t seem to be occupied in early periods, and Beersheba doesn’t seem ot exist until 1200. Some think it is an elaboration of a story of nomadic people longing for a stable home. Abraham sites are linked to areas of later Israelite strength. Abraham’s relatives share name with northwest Mesopotamia. Nuzi laws, tigirs Valley do show some linkages with patriarchal traditions, but people often gerate similar customs.

1. The issue of calling is here. Why Abram? Why not someone else?

2. Abram means high father. Maybe it’s a name of another God? It’s ironic at least point,as he and Sarai are childless.. I gather Sarai is similar in meaning to Sarah, a female leader.

3. Blessing and greatness concern the call. We move from the primeval viewpoint of Genesis to a focus on one man and a family.

4. That great name is a gift, the opposite of the attempt to seize greatness in the Babel story.

5. Curses in the primeval account are now turned to blessing through Abram

6. We forget often that Abram is completing the work of his father, Terah. (the current occupant of the White House may have thought that he was completing his father’s work in Iraq.)

7. He ends up at a cultic place. Moreh has a sense of teaching, directing

8. Abram builds an altar there, so right away we have religious conflict

9. Abram moves in stages toward the south Sometimes God’s call works out in stages, not all at once.

10. Placing dates on this is hazardous.

Noah and Second Creation Gen. 6-9

Noah’s story is a second creation story. God was fed up with the flaws in the good creation, especially corruption and violence. Violence contradicts the order and harmony of creation. Corruption is a more difficult term. For me, it is something that rots away from the inside out. In Bible study on Thursday, it was noted that a corrupted purpose turns everything upside down, like flipping over a toy box. . More to the point God’s heart is broken to see what happened to the great vision of creation. It seems like an act of terrible violence, but it is more a return to primeval chaos, a disorder world to fit its disordered condition. God will start again, but this start is at the cost of terrible destruction, of wiping away almost all God had done. .

God doesn’t start from a fresh slate. God grew attached to living creatures. To lose the created earth would be an incalculable loss. So, God goes through great pains to save them from utter destruction. This will be the first of many small groups standing for the whole of the people, the first remnant group. An entire ecology exists on the ark, only 8 people and animals, with enough to eat. Male and female makes sure that the seed for new life lives on the ark. It’s even made in the style of what they knew of a world of sky, earth, and the underworld. It’s the creation shrunk down to a box of wood, a future for the world in a boat beset by the storming chaos before creation itself. Notice that it is not only clean but unclean animals, not only useful livestock but the wild animals, of no clear use to us. Again, we are not the center of the natural world in this second creation. God withdraws the protection of the dome of sky and the floodwater rush in. Noah made it, and he is assigned the same task as Adam, to tend the earth, but now it’s a box he made. So, it’s more than a cute zoo. God seals the ark before the flood, a tender gesture similar to God sealing over the side of Adam when Eve was brought forth, so that human life could continue. This time, it would continue with Noah and his family.

Moses was saved in a basket of reeds on the waters of the Nile, but the word is ark. That time, the hope for an enslaved people would ride on one baby, and the kindness of the enemy. In the movie Prince of Egypt, they do a nice job of following the frail little craft down the dangerous river, until it settles near the daughter of the king. that Moses, in time, will go through his own sea of troubles, yet he will part the red Sea and then see it flood the oncoming army of Egypt. God continues to take enormous chances with us, to underscore how much God values our freedom, how much honor our role in creation to tend and keep the good earth.

We do well to think of the church as an ark, floating in a sea of troubles. Kingston is designed to look like the inside of a hold of a ship. Sometimes, it feels as if we are adrift, with no rudder on the ship. God continues to be a God of salvation. God keeps us afloat, although now the ark numbers in the billions. God cannot bear the thought of us being lost to the violence and corruption of this world, so the church keeps us afloat until our recreation in heaven. In the baptismal liturgy, the little bit of water we use contains mention of the flood of Noah. The baptismal flood becomes a sign of salvation. In our baptism we are made right with God, just like Noah. We walk the same road as Christ. God remembered Noah. God remembers us. God continues to hold back the chaos that threatens the order of creation. I hope we can live out Noah’s name and rest in God’s providence.

1. Please note that this is more of a cosmic catastrophe, of a crack in the dome that kept the waters from the earth. This is not a cute children’s story alone.

2. Violence is at the heart of God’s response with corruption ( Is.24:20) Cration itself is corrupt (6:12)Water cleanses corruption.

3. Many see signs of 2 distinct stories being conflated here see notes in NISB at 17, for instance.

4. Pay some attention to the word, ark, box, tebah. It is Moses’s basket, as well. A different word for ark then takes over in the bible.

5. Fretheim, God in Creation, sees God as grieiving more than angry,79. That is in the section immediately preceding where the lectionary starts. Still, you are the boss of the readings and can edit as you see fit.

6. Brown, in Ethos of the cosmos,p.55 notes the 3 stories of the ark is a world in miniature of earth, sky firmament amidst the swirling waters

7. This is a return to chaos before Gen. 1. This is a new start. Two by two allowed for the sustaining of life.

8. Again, the earth will be repopulated. The threat of emptiness again dispelled.

9. The flood is in the baptism liturgy. What do you make of that?

10. Noah means rest’ shem=name’Ham=hot,warm;Japheth=expansion

Sermon Mt. 6:25-34

The Hoosier work ethic is a powerful force. When a problem arises, Hoosiers figure that we can work harder to get through it. Hoosiers hearing Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount would not have an easy time of it. It does not see work as a panacea for all problems. Now I don’t think Jesus is saying that we should expect things to be handed to us. It does say that anxiety is not helpful for many situations. It even impedes our work. We get into a pattern of thinking that worry=concern=caring=love. Anxiety appears when we sense a lack of control, a sense of threat, little support, and a fear of being deprived of something, of losing something we value.

Lately, much work focuses on the congregation as a system of interlocking people that acts as a unit, not just a collection of individuals. Sometimes, the systems work smoothly and in a healthy way. At other times, they can be dysfunctional. One of the culprits is how we handle anxiety. Anxiety can take over our day. Anxiety is contagious. When anxiety builds, it looks to be heard. Then it tends to build in order that the concerns are taken seriously. It can become a formidable weapon or threat. We won’t do something, as it would upset someone. Anxiety appears as looking for a scapegoat, or becoming fault-finding as a focus for energy.

How can we try to dampen the voltage, to remain calm and try to help bring calmness to situation? A light touch helps a bit. I don’t mean making fun of the person or the situation. It is a sense that this too may pass, a perspective that knows that this storm will be weathered. When we are trying to defuse anxiety, it rarely helps to tell people to calm down. It does help to tell yourself to calm down. Imagine yourself as an anchor for a ship in harbor. If we seek to understand points of view, instead of trying to change them right away, that sometimes calms the person and the view of the situation.

Sometimes we get so accustomed to worrying that we worry and have to find something to get worried about. David Burns suggests a simple procedure for dealing with anxiety. Make three columns on a sheet of paper. Write your thoughts and feelings of anxiety. Notice where they could be distorted. Then write a rational response to the distorted thought. For instance, if you find yourself thinking that things always go wrong, cite instances where they don’t.

Let me suggest a similar approach to prayer. Often our prayers in anxiety pray for the situation to end or the anxiety to be lifted. Those are fine. Here’s another way. Take a passage of Scripture such as the one from Isaiah we just read. Imagine that as you pray God is as caring about you as a mother with a nursing child. Another way is to seek a change in perspective in prayer. In its way, our Isaiah passage does that. God does nto grow anxious but does respond to the feeling but puts it into a new frame for understanding. Thank God for the gifts you receive that you did not work for. Use prayer as a tool to follow the Burns method. If you feel God has forgotten you, go through examples where that is not the case. Imagine yourself in the stormy boat with Jesus. Then as you anxiously try to rouse Jesus, with the waves crashing in, hear Jesus say “peace be still.” Live in that quiet for a while. As Jesus said, tomorrow has troubles enough of its own. “Be still and know that I am God.” A sense of prayerful calmness can be a great help to fight our anxieties in anxious times.