I remember sitting in 101 Decker Hall, receiving my first blue book in which to write my answers to my first college test. Clammy hands, fist in my stomach, temples pounding. Ready, begin. Abraham faces a very difficult test. To offer Isaac, his son of promise, as a sacrifice. How could he do such an unethical, horrible thing? Difficult questions for Abraham. And difficult to acknowledge this memory shows how old I really am!
Now, if we take this story of Abraham and Isaac literally, we are faced with a very difficult question. Would God make an unethical demand to test us, too? If we answer “yes,” we must answer another difficult question. What guidelines will help us discern whether or not it is God’s voice we hear? We usually have the following guidelines available to us: Is it within the framework of the Ten Commandments, the wisdom of the prophets, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Golden Rule? Is it what Jesus would do? But if God made an unethical demand to test us, then all those guidelines disappear. How then would we know it is God’s voice we have heard?
A long time ago I took a hike on Mt. Tamalpais north of San Francisco to get ready for a hike down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. I wore my heavy backpack to help prepare me because we were spending a couple nights at the bottom before returning to the south rim. As I was hiking up a well-named trail, Steep Ravine, every so often I’d hear this double-click noise in the foliage beside me on the trail. It was a bird of some kind, making a muted chirp, perhaps a warning signal, or a mating call. I suddenly felt very close to nature, to God’s creation, and for the next ten minutes I hiked in reverie, for I kept hearing these birds in the trees and bushes to my right. Finally I stopped. I wanted to see this double-clicking winged creature. No sound. I turned to the right. There it was, but it was now behind me on the trail. I looked back down the trail, and again heard the bird, but it was on my right again. And then I heard more clearly. Every time I moved a certain way, a little rope dangling on my backpack would make a double-click sound. How are we to know that what we hear is God’s voice?
A couple of questions:
Would God make an unethical demand to test us? It’s a very difficult question. Suicide bombers in the Middle East believe the answer is yes. But not all who believe this way are Muslims. Not long ago a young American dad, a Christian, was arrested for refusing to give his child medical attention. “God was testing me,” he said. If he just believed, if he just surrendered to God’s will in utter obedience, if he just didn’t give in to what most of us would say were good ethical impulses to care for his child, then God would miraculously, in the final moment, like God did with Abraham, save his dying child.
Would God make an unethical demand to test us? This question is at the heart of every religion. It makes us take a hard look at what we believe God wants, and who we think God is. If we take this story of Abraham and Isaac literally, then we must consider that what God wants most is to be feared and obeyed, ultimately proved by our willingness to do what not only is unethical, but goes directly against God’s commandments!
But if the story is not literal but myth, a story with deeper spiritual truths, then we can consider that what God really wants is to be seen more clearly, heard more pointedly, known more deeply. This story is not about blind obedience. Even the Hebrew word for “obey”, means to listen deeply, not to just do what you first thought you heard. It is about seeing, hearing, following God more clearly.
This story gives us many clues that this is so. Abraham is told to go to the land of Moriah, which means the “land of seeing”. The original hearers would recognize this as an invitation to a spiritual lesson. It was a mythical story to be meditated upon as to its deeper truths. Several verses in this story speak of “seeing.”
Verse 4 Abraham “lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off,” verse 13 Abraham “lifted up his eyes, and looked,” and saw the ram caught in the thicket. In verses 8 and 14, the word translated “provide” can also be translated “to see.” Verse 8 reads, “God will provide,” but a Hebraic rendition would read: “God will be seen-for-himself.” Verse 14 reads, “So Abraham called the name of the place ‘The Lord will provide;’ as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.’” But it could also read: “Abraham called the name of the place ‘The Lord will see;’ as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord he will be seen.”
And finally, at the beginning of this story, the word for God is “Elohim,” an older term referring to a council of gods, or a pantheon of Canaanite gods, associated with – you guessed it – child-sacrifice. But at the end of the story, the word for God is Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews.
Abraham sees God anew. God is transfigured. What once was considered to be God’s will is no longer seen that way. God does not suspend the ethical to test us. Rather, God is embedded deeply in the ethical. Rather than sacrifice his son, Abraham learns to love his son more. The test Abraham faces is not so much, will he blindly obey, but will he understand and see God more clearly, to know that God has no interest in child-sacrifice.
We see this in the story of Jesus’ transfiguration. They see him in dazzling white, and fall to the ground out of fear. But Jesus invites them to go beyond a fear-based relationship with him. His life, his teachings, his death, his love, invite us to see God anew, and to see God in others. Jesus demonstrated that our relationship with God is prismed through the relationship we have with one another and with the world. Every parable, every act of compassion, every miracle was a test: Our relationship with God is played out in our compassionate relationship with others. And we see God telling the disciples to “listen to him,” to Jesus. Jesus transfigures God. “Get up, do not be afraid.”
It’s not just for seeing God more clearly. It’s for us to see one another, and ourselves more clearly.
I was 40, working as an Associate Pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church in San Carlos, and I found this great apartment in Oakland near Lake Merritt in a hip neighborhood. Mom and Dad came to visit, it was my birthday weekend. I preached that Sunday, got back to my apartment, and I cooked dinner. And as Mom and Dad crawled into my fold-out couch, my Dad firmly grabs my arm and says, “Tim…” It was a long pause, and just by the look in his eye, I could tell this was important. He was looking at me as if I was an unexpected, pleasant surprise.
“Tim…I am so proud of you. You serve a wonderful church, you preached a great sermon, you have a beautiful apartment, a brand new Jeep Wrangler, dinner was wonderful, and your art work astounds me. I am so proud of you. I am proud to be your father.” His eyes gave me the biggest hug. And in that moment, I realized that I had been transfigured in his mind and heart. And, to know how he really felt about me, transfigured me. I had never seen him be so unabashedly proud of me. His seeing me this way, helped me change the way I saw myself. I felt more truly at home in my own skin.
Fifteen years later, two years after my dad had died, I had a dream. An odd dream. Usually my dreams are full of action. This dream was of a simple image. An image of my dad when he was about 40. He was standing in the room I grew up in. No furniture. The room was all off-white, and the curtains matched perfectly. Dad stood like this, in his white athletic socks, white short-sleeve t-shirt, and his tighty-whitey underwear. A full head of black hair, slightly receding, and the look on his face was as if he was about to laugh or about to cry.
What was that all about??
I thought about it a lot, and I painted that image on a 4×5 foot canvas. And it dawned on me. Dad was asking me to see him as being as vulnerable and naked as he could be, and he was asking me to fully forgive him for the errors he’d made as my dad. I saw him more fully as a human, a man, a very human dad. The dream transfigured him. And I felt closer to him than I ever had before.
I think all of us are brought to these very different experiences of transfiguration. How we see God. How we see people of different races, cultures, orientations, religions, political views. Every time Jesus spoke to a woman, he was transfiguring her in front of the men, if they would only see her as Jesus saw her. The parable of the Good Samaritan asks the hearers to see the hated, despised Samaritan as the one who did the loving thing. I’m going out on a limb here. Perhaps our lives are one long series of experiences that help us see more clearly who God is, who our neighbor is, who we are. Life is a series of transfigurations.
Will we continue to journey to the land of Moriah, the land of “seeing”? Will we continue to seek to see God clearly; to see how God invites us to live and be during this season of transition and change? Will we honor, kindly hold, and eventually work through all the emotions that will arise? Will we continue to see and seek God in one another as we faithfully serve our community in love? Will we continue to embrace the gifts of all God’s people? Will we truly listen for who God calls us to be in this place at this time?
The story of Abraham starts out as a test. But in the end, the story is about a transfiguration. Isaac is not a child to be sacrificed; God does not want child sacrifice. Jesus is transfigured not that the disciples fear him, but that they should not be afraid. May we see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly day by day. Amen.
