Bound

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

July 2, 2017

8 Proper A

          Last summer, I was looking for an audiobook to listen to in my car on a long drive.  One of the audiobooks available for download from the Hudson library was “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” the first of the seven books in the Harry Potter series.  I read the first Harry Potter book with our son when the book came out in 1997, and read through the series as each new book was released, finishing the last book in 2007.  So, almost a decade later, I was ready to engage the story again.

          After having read the entire series once, I know how the story ends.  Despite that knowledge, I find myself just as caught up in the drama of the story as the first time I read the books.  I am just as tense at the tense parts, concerned about the characters, surprised by the twists and turns of the plot as I was the first time.  How could I possibly lose sleep over the fate of a fictional character in a story I have already read?  Part of the power of a great story is the ability of that story to be experienced as new after being told time and time again. 

          The story of Abraham and Isaac is just such a story.  No matter how many times I hear the story, and no matter how well I know the ending, I am always gripped with both horror and suspense as I hear God tell Abraham to take his son, his only son, who he loves, and offer him as a burnt offering.  What kind of God would even ask that?  And what about Ishmael, Abraham’s son by Hagar?  Isn’t he also Abraham’s beloved son? And why on earth would Abraham comply with God’s request?  Where is Sarah, Isaac’s mother?  Does she not have a say in this matter? There is no evidence that Abraham and Sarah ever speak again after this episode, and Sarah dies shortly thereafter.  And what about God’s promise that God will make a great nation of Abraham?  How is that going to happen if Abraham sacrifices Isaac?  What about Abraham’s relationship with his son, his only son, who he loves?  Abraham, we are told a few verses after our reading concludes, comes down from the mountain alone and I can only imagine the lasting damage that has been done to this father-son relationship.  And how can this story possibly be relevant in our own faith lives?

          While I don’t have the answer to any of these questions, perhaps setting the story in the context of the larger story of Abraham will be helpful.  Sometimes looking at what we do know is helpful in figuring out what we do not know.

          What we know that Abraham has a long and deep relationship with God by the time we get to our story this morning.  When Abram was a mere 75 years old, God called Abram to leave the country of his father and go to a land that God would show him.  Abram trusts God and leaves for an unknown land, and that works out pretty well, despite a few set-backs.  When Abraham is 99 years old, and Abraham and Sarah are childless and obviously way too old to bear children, God promises Abraham descendants that will number the stars in the sky.  As unlikely as that seems, Sarah does give birth to Isaac, at the tender age of 100.  Abraham's trust in God has been amply tested thus far in the story, and God has consistently been worthy of Abraham's trust.

Abraham's long relationship with God has also given Abraham evidence that God knows what God is doing.  When Isaac says to his father "The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" Abraham replies "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering."  God has given Isaac to Abraham and Sarah in fulfillment of a promise that Abraham trusts God will keep, some way, some how.  Abraham's trust in God is confirmed when, ultimately, the sacrifice of Isaac is not required.  Abraham is not a person of blind obedience, but a person with a long and deep relationship with God that has taught Abraham that God can be trusted. 

          So that's Abraham's story.  But what do we know about Isaac?  On the one hand, Isaac may be a child in this story, since the story follows closely after we are told that Isaac was weaned at the age of three.  But on the other hand, the next significant thing to happen following the binding of Isaac is the death of Sarah at age 127.  Since she was 100 when Isaac was born, Isaac could be almost 27 years old in our story this morning, and many commentaries find this to be the more plausible option.  Either way, though, Isaac is bound without protest and put on the altar for sacrifice.  He must be terrified.  At this point, Isaac is utterly dependent on God's intervention to release him from bondage because Abraham has the knife raised. And God is faithful and delivers Isaac from that bondage by preventing Abraham from making a human sacrifice. 

Our Jewish brothers and sisters call this story “The Binding of Isaac”  rather than “The Sacrifice of Isaac” since Isaac was bound but he was not sacrificed.  On Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, our Jewish brothers and sisters read this story and ask the question “By what are we bound?" What has us bound in such a way that we are prevented from living faithfully and being the people God calls us to be?  Pride?  Greed?  Fear? Addiction?  Unhealthy relationships? Can we trust God's intervention to release us or does our bondage give us the illusion of security? On the Rosh Hashana, the faithful are called to examine their lives for what binds them and separates them from God.  As Christians, we hear the apostle Paul say this very thing in the letter to the Romans this morning "When you were slaves to sin (bound to sin), you were free in regard to righteousness.....But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved (bound) to God, you are made holy."  To what are we bound that keeps us from living fully as the people God calls us to be?

          Sometimes life is horrifying.  Sometimes life is merely challenging. Sometimes those challenges are of our own making. Other times they are not. But when we are willing to listen closely to the terrifying story of the binding of Isaac, we hear a story about faithfulness, not blind obedience, rooted in a deep relationship with God, and God's power to release us from bondage and set us free to live as the people God created us to be. The "Binding of Isaac" is no less horrifying, and raises no fewer questions, but perhaps the good news in this story is that we can trust God to act, some way, some how, in the hardest stories of our lives.  

                                                                                                 Amen.