Challenging assumptions in Lent

A sermon for the second Sunday of Lent, 2009.

Times have certainly changed from the days when this story of Abraham willingly taking a knife to his son’s throat could be held up as some sort of model of faith. There are a number of assumptions in this story that no longer fit with how we understand things. First is the acceptance of such an act as anything other than shocking. Blood sacrifice is abhorrent; it is repulsive to think that God would be pleased with such violence. Even the arguments that, well sacrifice was a common practice during the Biblical era still make me want to tear this story out of Genesis. If it was good enough for Thomas Jefferson to edit the Bible with scissors, then I should be able to also.
Second assumption – God is a being that speaks to us in such unambiguous terms. This is a very old, image of God and one that is less relevant all the time. However you imagine God, interpreting divine revelation is tricky business. Humility in declaring an understanding of God’s will is prudent. We are rightfully suspicious when someone puts forth a “God told me to do it” defense or “We have God on our side therefore what we do is right.” We address this often and clearly here at Faith, we are content to let God be a mystery and are reluctant to claim definitive knowledge of God’s will.
It is crucial that we understand when we are attributing cultural things to God’s will. The shocking reality of honor killings in the Muslim countries is a case in point. The culture will say, “the place of women is where men want them to be and it is God’s will; Allah be praised.” But Islamic scholars are clear that the Koran does not support such a statement or its extreme expression – it is historical, tribal and resistant to the countercultural freedoms granted to women in Islam’s founding. The idea that patriarchy is somehow God-given or God-approved is generally the position only of the men in a culture and supported by a vision of God as a guy.
Third assumption – Abraham is a good role model. I will grant him some fine moments but they must be seen along side the evidence of his cowardice, his opportunism, and his wretched parenting skills. As his story is written for us, he is incoherent and inconsistent in the application of his faith. In Genesis 18 Abraham argues with God over the fate of Sodom, a place that is a watchword for injustice and cruelty. He champions the few just people who might be living in Sodom and defends the innocent against the tyranny of God’s anger. But where is that outrage on behalf of his innocent son. In today’s reading God says “Take your beloved son and kill him because I ask you to.” Without so much as an “Excuse me, I don’t think I heard you right” Abraham methodically goes about preparing to kill his boy. Now I would think a whole lot more of Abraham if he had said “No God, I love you and if you need a death, I give you mine but this, I will not do.” This is a perfect example of the culture dictating an understanding of God. Abraham’s world was one of blood sacrifice and it was assumed that that was God’s will. The prophets tried to tell the people that it was not. Hosea said is most clearly, “I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Another assumption that floats beneath the surface of this story is how sin is understood. The whole premise of a culture of blood sacrifice is that the blood is supposed to make something better, it buys forgiveness. To the religious voices of Israel, sin was like a tear or a wound in the fabric of creation as God made it. It could only be mended by the application of the holiest substance – pure blood. It was on this premise that the Temple in Jerusalem operated, the culture of blood sacrifice was institutionalized, complete with its own economy.
It is through the lens of this culture that Jesus death was first interpreted. Paul drew on the language of his culture and could only see Jesus’ death as a sacrifice meant to mend the tear in the fabric of creation. The idea that killing a lamb or a bull or a pigeon could pay what was owed for your sin becomes “Jesus, the lamb of God, died for our sins.”
In this understanding of Jesus death, the sin that needs to be healed is as old as Adam. Adam ate the fruit offered to him by Eve, apparently without hesitation much like Abraham. The question that needs to be examined for the fingerprints of culture is, was Adam’s disobedience the mother of all sins to which we are inescapably bound and for which Jesus died as a sacrificial lamb? Or is there another way to consider the eviction from the Garden. One could just as easily understand Eden as a nursery in which all needs are met for the infantile humans. They could not survive outside of such a place until there were ready to think for themselves, ready to outgrow the limitations and restriction of the nursery. If the image of God breathed into the humans is to be fully realized they must leave the nursery and grow up. The depth of the gift is only discovered as the humans make their way in the world together. It’s hard for us when our children are no longer sweet, adoring, cuddly little ones but hormonally charged moody adults in waiting. I remember feeling something like anger at Brady and Melanie’s having dared to grow up on me. I don’t believe that the image of God in us is honored by a willingness to remain safely in the nursery, always receiving and never creating.
Now I realize that I am apparently advocating the overthrow of two thousand years of theology. I do have support in this, as old as Ireneaus, that 2nd Century Bishop from Lyon, France and voices along the way in Celtic theology and the great Christian mystics and here is the voice of a Unitarian educator Sophia Lyon Fahs, from her 1952 book, Today's Children and Yesterday's Heritage:

"It matters what we believe. Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged. Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies… Some beliefs are divisive, separating the saved from the unsaved, friends from enemies. Other beliefs are bonds in universal brotherhood, where sincere differences beautify the pattern. Some beliefs are like blinders, shutting off the power to choose one's own direction. Other beliefs are like gateways opening wide vistas for exploration. Some beliefs weaken a person's selfhood. They blight the growth of resourcefulness. Other beliefs nurture self-confidence and enrich the feeling of personal worth. Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death, impotent in a changing world. Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling, ever growing with the upward thrust of life."
In no way do I downplay the fact that we sin – that the world is bleeding from many wounds attests to the power of our refusal to live in steadfast love with one another. But I encourage you to consider how a starting place of Original Goodness might be more helpful to your journey than the weight of Original Sin. I look at our sweet children from the smallest to the tallest and they are to me, more evidence of original goodness than any of their misdeeds convince me that they are born into sin.
Lent is a good time to challenge assumptions. The time in the desert is well spent in such contemplation.