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June 29, 2008 sermon

Wait For It...
(Genesis 22:1-14)

Reverend Minister Sally Harris

This week as I was preparing the bulletin with Linda, our secretary, I said, “The title for the reflection is “Wait for it”. Linda replied, “O.K.” An hour or so later after finishing a draft bulletin she said all I need is the title for your reflection. I am waiting for it.” I laughed and said that is it. She looked confused and I said, “That is the title – wait for it.” We both had a good laugh! Wait for it… this phrase that has been around for many years, in movies, TV shows, and even in comedian's stand up acts. So I got curious about where it came from. Some think it originated in the British Army. When private soldiers were about to jump the gun by anticipating the next command the Sergeant Major held then back with 'wait for it'. Wait for the word of command. It was first published in 1936 as script notes for an interaction between two people – George and Lily.

GEORGE: I saw a very strange thing the other day.
LILY: What was it?
GEORGE: Twelve men standing under one umbrella and they didn't get wet.
LILY: How's that?
GEORGE: It wasn't raining. (Wait for it -- wait for it.)

That is, wait for the laughter to end before you resume the dialogue. It seems that Abraham and Sarah have been waiting for a long time for God to provide. “God will provide” was my other sermon title option. It would even make a great bumper sticker. Many such slogans are displayed not only on cars, but barns, billboard signs, and landscapes. “Jesus Saves” becomes drive-by theology. There are countless sound-bite theologies cluttering the cultural landscape. I suspect that most of us occasionally find ourselves mouthing easy bits and pieces of abstractions from the Bible without even thinking about it. In the heat of an emergency, our minds cling to the simplest and most familiar forms of religion.

But the story of the God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac puts the terror back into the reassuring and comfortable idea that “God will provide.” It’s a sound theology, yet it is arrived at through the Valley of the Shadow of Death; it comes at the end of long nights of the soul; the dust of death still clings to that statement, a theology that is hard won. Just ask Abraham and Sarah. They must have had enough of their God, by now.

First God said: “Break with your past!” and they left all they knew for an unknown country. Then God promised that their descendants would become a great nation and a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. But they were barren! Just when it appeared that all hope was lost; they were given a son in their old age. Finally, it looked as though God's promise was possible. Perhaps their descendants would become a blessing to all of the people of the earth. Here, in Isaac, was their future! And then comes this strange, powerful, unprecedented story of Genesis 22. It is certainly one of the most poignant and moving stories in the Bible, and all the more so because of its restraint. Emotions are not described or analyzed, but we can sense the fear and grief. Abraham was to take Isaac and sacrifice him. God was actually asking Abraham to break one of the ten commandments: to kill the child of promise. God now says: “Break with your future.” It doesn't make sense. Abraham and Sarah are supposed to go home with their miracle child and, hand-in-hand, walk into the sun going down over the Sinai, to live happily ever after. They might not live to see grandchildren, but at least their future is secured, to the seventh generation, amen. “Thanks so much, God, and we will see you later. We will call if we run into any trouble.”

Wait for it… maybe this story isn’t about God at all. Perhaps it is about the disconnect that often happens between the gift and the gift giver. The gift easily becomes our possession, our right, ours to manage and protect; even define. The fulfilled promise then is at risk of becoming the new idolatry. Our sense of the future then contracts, it narrows, onto this child, this hope, this idea, our abilities, our plans…What a thin reed, though, to bear the full weight of our expectations of a secure future.

But surely Sally, if God has fulfilled the promise, it is guaranteed to persist, even though it persists on our terms. “Thanks, God, we’ll take it from here. We don’t need you any more. We have everything we need right here in our arms, in our plans, in our minds, in our competency.”

And so Abraham and Sarah settled into their secure future, the tough work is done – sacrifices have been made, the t’s are crossed, the i’s are dotted. But wait for it… the command comes: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go and offer him as a burnt offering upon a mountain of which I shall tell you.” What about the promise? What about the future? With surgical precision, the story puts the blade to the very heart of our humanity. With the economy of a nightmare, the scene jumps out of the dark: “Father! Here is the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” And then come those searing words: “God will provide.”

But maybe this story isn’t about God after all. May be it is about the risk we take in hope for the future. In this story, that hope came in the form of a child. The story is asking, what would happen if our most cherished hope for the future was put at risk? What would we do? Would we react out of fear and desperately try to control the outcome on our own terms?

Maybe this story is not about God, but about life and death, the joy of hope and the risk of loss and how we live in such chaos of competing, contradictory realities. Knowing the risks, how are we even able to move into the future without getting stuck in the goo of fear? Maybe the story is about the nature and quality of the trust that is required to step into an unknown future. The story is about Abraham and Sarah, but who isn’t tempted to saddle their hope to anything other than to the mystery we name God. Is “We will take it from here” the opposite of “God will provide”?

Certainly the leading theme of this story, as recognized through centuries of interpretation, is faith. What is faith? The biblical tradition answers not with a theological statement or a set of propositions, rather it tells a story. It is the story of Abraham and Sarah, who trusted in God even when God appeared to be acting against God's promise. Faith is like that. Faith is the realization of God’s goodness that we can draw on even when faced with the greatest inconsistence, the greatest despair, the most baffling mystery. Faith is not a possession to have but a way of being in the world that lives out the realization that God provides. This does not imply apathy or resignation or even immobility. It is not about some great Santa Claus who will be responsible for providing all our wants. Abraham journeyed through the dark night; he saddled a donkey, split wood and climbed a mountain prepared to sacrifice all because in his faith journey he knew deeply of the presence. Abraham waited for it… waited for that presence to be made known to him has it had been made known in so many other ways. No doubt it was a painful waiting as well as a discerning of a future in the making.

Wait for it… Abraham waited even as he watched, listened, and trusted in this darkest night of his soul. There he is, knife directed toward the only hope of survival… and then in the thicket, in his peripheral vision, on the margin there was a ram. Abraham waited for it.

If I had been Abraham I would have been tempted to name the place: “This is where I almost sacrificed Isaac.” But no, Abraham named the place: “God will provide.” What an amazing statement of faith.

What if we experienced Trinity as the place where God will provide? How would that shape the direction, the ministry of this congregation? What would we give up? What would we embrace? What difference would it make - in our lives as individuals and as a community? It is a time when: affairs are soul size. The enterprise IS exploration into this presence we name God. It is a time of exploring, of discerning the movements of this God – a God who provides the way, the means, for Trinity to be a blessing to all. May it be so!
[resource: a reflection by Rev. Rick Marshall]

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