The Absurdity of Faith
Second Sunday in Lent - March 16, 2003
By Father James
Genesis 22:1-14
Romans 8:31-39
Psalm 16 or 16:5-11
Mark 8:31-38
By faith Abraham left his father’s house and journeyed into a new land because of a promise.
By faith Abraham claimed a land because of a promise.
But he was a little older and a little wiser when God appeared the third time and promised him a blessing, and he questioned God saying, “I have no son, no one in whom your promise can be fulfilled.” And God assured him that he would be given a son and Abraham believed God and the Scriptures say that because of his belief, God counted him as righteous.
It was this matter of believing which the Jews have always held to be Abraham’s greatness. In the face of the greatest odds, he believed. When Sarah was 75 and Abraham was 85, Sarah lost faith and talked him into having a child with her maid, but Abraham continued to believe God. This was beginning to be absurd.
Except for the fact that here it is, in today’s lesson, 15 years later when Sarah is 90 and Abraham is a centenarian, Isaac is born. Absurd? Yes, but Abraham and Sarah have their son. Can you imagine the joy, which shook this pair of weather-beaten, withered old nomads as they first held that red and squalling bundle of life? Can you imagine how their love grew with the child’s age? Cute this kid! Running in and out of the tents, sticking his nose into everything, underfoot and under mannered. Who was going to complain? Who would dare complain to a 100-plus year old doting father whose life-long hopes rested on this gamboling lad?
And he knew, did Abraham, that his belief in God, and the awe and wonder, which attended his faith, were vindicated. God meant what he said, he said what he meant and he carried out his promises even in the most absurd ways. Unreal? Maybe. How many nights did Abraham go to his couch with a full and thankful heart with words of praise for his God?
After these things, God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!”
And Abraham said, “Here am I.”
God said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
The questions raised here are enormous ones. Perhaps you have heard this story many times and said, “How Abraham must have loved God!” Yes, but does loving God justify one in the ritual murder of his son? Did you reflect so charitably when you heard about the ritual sacrifice at Jonesboro in Guyana a few years back? You may consider yourself a person of faith, but what would you do were God to require at your hand the life of your child? We shudder when we hear of one who takes the life of his family, because we know that he is either evil or unbalanced, or perhaps both.
But Abraham loves Isaac. In Isaac, all of his hopes and dreams and belief in God are pinned. Here is a righteous, loving and sane man. God tells him to sacrifice, to burn his son and he does it, that is, he fully intends to do it. But, you say, he didn’t really, and I reply, but he did really. Only the voice of the angel of God prevented him from spilling Isaac’s blood all over those stones and from lighting the wood under him. For three days he had carried the knife, the wood and the fire – he didn’t have matches you know. In his heart, the decision had been made. How can you understand this man Abraham? He fully intends to have his son’s life on that pile of stones, and all the while believing in the promise of God. Absurd!
We in the church talk incessantly about faith. “Believe God, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. You are justified by your faith. Faith, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Keep the faith, baby.” It is mostly talk, with little faith.
But Abraham was the father of faith. Does he have anything to teach us? In 130 years of living he learned the difficulty of faith, and the power of faith in his own life, for was ever a man tempted as Abraham was tempted? Don’t let me, don’t let any other person ever tell you that, “all you have to do is believe,” or “just have faith.” There is no more difficult course in life. If you truly believe God, you will live out your life with the keenest appreciation for the absurd. Not that you won’t have your good moments, but then there are moments and moments… You might find yourself on Mt. Moriah with knife, wood and fire – how absurd could one be?
What of Abraham?
We can understand the parent who must send a son off to war to defend his country, knowing full well that that son will likely never come home again. We can understand the tragic hero who must sacrifice his child for the sins of the people. There was Jeptha in the Old Testament and Agamemnon in Homer’s record of the Trojan wars. Jeptha sacrificed his only child, a daughter, as the tragic result of a vow to God and to the people.
Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the god Artemis and to give the Greeks success against the Trojans. These fathers bled inside, but their duty to the gods and to the people was greater than to themselves. But for Abraham there was no such heroic way. There was no way to explain his action. Who would have believed him? A private word from the Lord God? But Abraham, God promised you that your descendants would number as the sand of the sea. God has given you Isaac. Why would he take him away? What good would it do? Is he angry with you? No? He loves you? Such love! He is testing you? Such a test! How then is your great promise to be fulfilled? I know that he gave you Isaac in your old age, but will he give you Isaac from the grave? You believe at the same time you kill your son? Absurd! Criminal! What about your duty as father? I thought it was you who taught against human sacrifice? Sweet Jesus! No, Abraham could not talk of his deed. Who would understand, much less admire him?
Abraham believed that God would carry out his promise. Was his belief vindicated when the angel stayed his hand and provided a ram in Isaac’s place? Yes and no. Abraham’s faith was that God would provide him progeny of Isaac, sacrifice or no. Terrible. Absurd. But faith is always in the face of the absurd. If we have anything to learn from Abraham, it is this!
It is possible to make the movement of resignation before God. It is possible to recognize and to act on the insight that without God, life is wasted, to realize that God is above all, to realize that we are dependent upon him, that without him life has little or no meaning, that without him there is no hope. It is possible. It is very difficult when we are young and virile, it must be admitted. It is, however, easier as we grow older and wiser; or is it older and weaker, as we come closer to the irrevocability of death? Yes, I can, on my own, come to the realization that there is a God above all. But to make the next movement, to take the next step, that which Abraham made, the movement of faith, of belief in the promise of God without question, without tremor, without hesitation, without justifying it to someone, without explaining away the absurdity of it all, that is the most difficult step of all. That I cannot do on my own. That faith is not an intellectual exercise, that faith is not found in learned books or eloquent sermons. That faith is a passion, a willingness to invest all that one is and all that one can be in the face of the absurd. Sweet Jesus, indeed!
Could Abraham not have sacrificed Isaac? Not and be true to himself. And he knew at that hour what a terrifying and absurd act was required of him. This was his son, his beloved Isaac, the son of his old age, the son he had awaited for one hundred years! But doubt did not stay his preparations, hope did not slow his steps, fear did not cause his arm to tremble as he raised the knife over his tearful son. He believed God, heart and soul, son and promise.
And the angel called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.”
What can we say about this Abraham, this man, the father of faith? He knew the terror of this highest of all passions. He knew that God had no grandchildren. His faith was his own. It was no easier for Isaac and is no easier for you.
The rich young ruler learned that. Jesus knew that. The one could not embrace the absurd. The other died embracing it. If God did not spare Abraham, if God did not spare his Son, will God spare you and me?
And Jesus called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” Amen.