I’m so appreciative of the quiet time Lisa gave us during prayer this morning. This weekend we had our Session Retreat, and talked, read, worshipped, planned…even played some very competitive backyard bocci ball! One other thing we did Saturday was have a two hour quiet time. Devotional, beach walk, journal time for two hours. Though we did lots of other things, that might have been the most powerful.

Since 1927, Time Magazine, has picked a Person of the Year who "for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year." It’s not a scientific selection, but it is one way of having a finger on the pulse of our culture. In December of 2006, TIME did something unprecedented. It named the Person of the Year: You.

Y-O-U. All TIME was really doing was acknowledging that with the explosion of things like blogging, Utubing, MySpacing ,self-publishing books…it really is all about me. Brian Williams, anchor & managing editor of NBC Nightly News, wrote a painful editorial about it:

“Americans have decided the most important person in their lives is…them, and our culture is now built upon that idea…The larger dynamic at work is the celebration of self.” It’s all about YOU.

It’s true of our culture, and it’s true of our faith as well, isn’t it? We’re in it for…well, for what it gets me. What it does for me. And if God happens to act (or not act) in a way we didn’t anticipate, control or enjoy…well doggone it, we’ll just quit believing. That’ll serve Him right. It is all about me.

Until. Until you come to a story like this morning’s: Gen 22:1-14.

This is a terrible story. It’s even more terrible if you have lost a child, as some of you have. This is a terrible story. Let’s be clear about that. And if you ever hear anyone preach on it who finishes with a nice, neat, positive moralistic lesson, I suggest you run away as fast as you can.

This is a terrible, mysterious, powerful story. It puts to shame the shallow conception of faith that many of us are very comfortable with, faith in a God whom we control.

Note: In each part of the story, a piece of firewood is placed on a cart at the front of the church to form an "altar."

#1: Abraham…was the one who had left his home, his security, his past …because God said to Go.

#2: Abraham and Sarah were to have a child. Everything hinged on it. That wasn’t Abraham’s idea, it was God’s idea. It was God who promised to these senior citizens the three-fold blessing: Land. A huge Family. And the idea that they would Bless all the people’s of the earth. It was as though God said “even though it is physically impossible at your age, and Sarah’s age…you and she WILL have a child…and you will receive all these things.”

#3: And sure enough, despite the downright impossibility and the laughable humor of even thinking about it, Sarah became pregnant. They had a son, Isaac. And Abraham loved Isaac. Let us be clear about that. If Abraham didn’t love Isaac, there isn’t nearly as much of a story here, or at least it wouldn’t grab your heart and yank it.

#4: God tested Abraham.It’s one of the first words here, and it’s one we don’t really like, isn’t it? God tested Abraham. What is God doing testing someone? God is just supposed to be doing things for us, like saving us, rescuing us, getting us things we need, right? What’s this “testing” idea? God’s not supposed to test us. R-e-a-l-l-y…who says?

#5: Isaac was most likely a teenager by this time. Abraham had loved him for – what? 12-13-14 years? Had watched him grow up from a little infant who played on his father’s chest. Had given him piggy back rides in front of the evening fire, had watched his beloved Sarah feed the child. Abraham had seen Isaac grow up before his eyes, learning how to talk, hearing him say for he first time, “Father!” Daddy.

Abraham could now see the young manhood growing in Isaac, when he looked at him he could actually imagine that God was going to do all he had promised: land, family, blessing. Walt Wangerin, a fine story teller, writes it like this:

“…there were days when Abraham would take Isaac with him to a high promontory and show him not only the tents, the servants, the flocks and herds of his household, but also the land as far as the lad could see, north and south, east and west.

“I, when I die,” Abraham would say, “will give you the tents, my son. But God will give you the land.” The old man loved his son so deeply that he was like life inside his bones.”

#6: God knew Abraham loved Isaac. “Take your son…your only son Isaac…whom you love”…and offer him up. There’s no mistake here, no misunderstanding. God knows exactly what He is asking Abraham for.

#7: They journey to Mount Moriah. It’s a three day journey from Abraham’s home to the rock where God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son.

#8: We often use the phrase, “walk of faith.” Here is a picture, not an explanation, but a picture. They walk. After three days, Abraham lays the wood for the offering on his son’s back and sets out for the mountain. He himself takes the fire and the knife…the two things, ironically, that a boy might hurt himself with. “So the two of them walked together.”

Somewhere along the way the boy asks a question as to the sacrifice, to which Isaac mutters, “God will provide.” Then it says it again. “So the two of them walked on together.”

A father whose heart must surely be torn in half. A man whose confusion must be great. On the one hand he is believing God’s promises, all of which come to fruition in this boy, Isaac. On the other hand he hears God say to sacrifice Isaac.

The Promise of God and God’s command are in contradiction. There is no way out. No way to have both. God is testing Abraham’s faith, it’s not fair, any human would crack under such strain. It’s the only time in scripture God specifically tests an individual. Walking by faith here…doesn’t seem easy at all, does it? (#9)

Now the story, which has moved slowly and without many words, imitating Abraham’s reluctant footsteps towards the mountain, speeds into high gear. They reach the place, Abraham builds the altar, binds Isaac to it (the Jewish people call this story the “Akedah,” or “the binding”), takes the knife, he is going to sacrifice Isaac, the blood pounds in his ears, the internal noise is deafening, the thought is unspeakable, it is a terrible story, he raises his hand up in the air, the knife is silhouetted against the sky and – “Abraham! Abraham!”- the voice from heaven. “Do not lay your hand on the boy…now I know that you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

God provides a ram caught in a thicket, and that is offered in place of Isaac. And Abraham called the place “the Lord provides.” Just as Abraham said he would, by the way.

This is a terrible story. There’s no easy way out of it. Abraham was tested, terribly tested, by God. Abraham was going to kill his son, his only son whom he loved.

We’re not told what happened with Sarah, but there is one ancient Jewish story that says when Abraham and Isaac returned home and told the story of what happened…that Sarah uttered six cries, and fell over dead!

What do we do with this story? We don’t solve it. There is a picture of faith here, not an explanation but a picture. Here are three words for us to think about.

First, faith is cumulative. We do not read this story in isolation. It’s not the only thing we know about Abraham. Abraham is on a journey with God, a demanding God who asks for undivided loyalty. This journey has already had a lot of eventful living. Abraham has failed as often as he has succeeded. But somehow, all of it meshes together as he learns about God, about trusting God, about faith in God. Imperceptible growth when you read the whole story. It’s cumulative.

After my sabbatical two years ago, I told you about visiting with Dr. Dale Bruner, who is working on a commentary on the Gospel of John down in Pasadena, and how every single day Dale gets up and walks to the Fuller Seminary library, and reads and researches and takes notes, and has lunch, and works some more. And goes home. And gets up the next day and does it again. And again. The progress of any one day is negligible. But it accumulates. Day after day, week after week, year after year. And eventually the church will receive this wonderful gift of this commentary.

Faith is like that, I think. It’s not so much about the huge “aha” moments, but about the accumulation over time. And it’s why we don’t read this powerful story just by itself.

This test, no matter how it makes you feel, is one part of a process. It is a part of the whole journey that Abraham is on.

Second…what was God asking of Abraham? Sacrifice. Faith in the God of the Bible involves sacrifice. Costly, costly, costly sacrifice. His son, his only son, that he loved.

Frankly, I don’t think we can really comprehend this. Nor is it consistent with God’s character to ask for the taking of a life. What is consistent with God’s character is the idea of sacrifice.

Sacrifice is the way God tests Abraham. Eugene Peterson says that testing is a vital part of our relationship with God, that we need “repeated testing so that we can discern whether we are dealing with the living God or some fantasy or illusion we have cooked up…”

Living out a faith that is sacrificial means:

• continually testing, asking “Is this what God wants, or something convenient I have made up?”
• understanding that God wants nothing to stand between us and Him. Nothing.
• letting go of me, my, our things and control, and open-handedly accepting what God wants
• letting God use us instead of vice versa

Sacrifice is not a word that most of us use…or like. We have a hard time believing God would ask anything hard, whether time, possessions, careers, dreams.

Third, Faith can be absurd. Abraham, as you know, is held up to us as the father of faith. The book of Galatians, the book of James, the “hall of fame” in Hebrews that Lisa read part of, all hold Abraham up as the father of faith.

What is this faith that Abraham had? In this story, it is far more profound than believing a set of propositions. It is trusting. But it is deeper than that.

It is trusting in what cannot be seen, or controlled.

It is trusting in something entirely out of Abraham’s hands.

It is trusting that somehow, someway God will hold true to both promise and command. That somehow, God will bring life even out of death.

Last week I read a little book of Soren Kierkegaard’s, the Danish philosopher, called “Fear and Trembling.” Kierkegaard uses this story, of Abraham and Isaac, as the guiding outline for the book. And he repeatedly uses a word that describes a knowing, a trusting beyond understanding, beyond logic or rationality. Kierkegaard calls it “the absurd.”

Abraham is asked to trust in the absurd. To trust that God will provide. That God will somehow bring life out of death, whether from staying the hand that holds the knife, or from resurrection. Absurd.

This is where the story slips far below the surface of American cultural religion that is more about me than about God. If we dwell at that level, we stop reading this story, chalk it up to extremist religion that God would surely never desire, and go back to our testing of God (not vice versa), our negotiating, our believing so long as things go our way.

But if we would dare to walk where Abraham walked, we will tread on a path that leads us past a man named Job who after he had lost everything—herds, houses, sons, daughters, says: “God gives and takes away. blessed be the name of the Lord.”

We walk past a man named Paul, who says “Whatever I thought I had gained in the world…is a total loss compared to knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

We walk the path into the Garden of Gethsemane, and hear someone praying, “Father, not my will but yours be done.”

We remember another time, another story, when Someone carried the very wood of his own sacrifice.

And another journey…that took three days time.

And another story…of God providing in a way that seemed totally shocking and absurd, bringing life out of death. The Jesus way.

This is a terrible, wonderful story. It leaves us with hard questions:

• Am I on a road of maturity in my faith, growing bit by bit, through success and failure?
• Is “sacrifice” a part of my vocabulary…let alone my faith?
• What am I holding back from God?

There’s a lot for us in the story…but it’s really not about us. Not even about Abraham, or Sarah or Isaac. It’s about God, the God who won’t be controlled, who asks us to trust Him beyond all reasonable limits, the God Who Provides.

This morning, in the Lord’s Supper, we’re brought again, face to face, with the God who went to absurd lengths…to draw us in.

As you come this morning, you’ll walk by this stack of wood. I wonder what it will make you think of? Perhaps merely “Gee, there’s a stack of wood!" Or maybe it will remind you of the ways you have been provided for. Or maybe it will call to mind again the God who held absolutely nothing back from us in Jesus Christ, and brings us from death to life.