March 19 – Sacrifice

When we think of the story of Abraham taking his son, Isaac, up the mountain for a sacrifice to God, we are not sure what it was really for.

The idea of sacrifice is a troublesome one. Sacrifice always means suffering, and to what end? Is there a reason for it?

Because we believe in a God that is good and loving and generous. A God who can make a feast for 5000 out of five small loaves and two fishes. A God who sets people free and keeps a whole nation well fed in the barren desert. For 40 years. A God who makes something out of nothing.

So we kind of thought there is no longer any need for sacrifice.

Back in the day of Abraham, though, sacrifice was the thing. Normally, Abraham would have taken a lamb from his flock to be sacrificed on the altar, but on this particular day he heard God make a different request.

A sacrifice, my friend Julia once told me, is giving up something good for something better. Of course, there are times we trade in something good for something better and it’s not at all a sacrifice. It’s just trading up. It’s just good fortune. It’s a sacrifice when you really don’t want to give up the good thing you have. Because maybe you haven’t yet seen any evidence of the “something better.” It’s only a promise.

A sacrifice is tightening your budget so you can experience the freedom and joy of giving a tithe to God.

It’s forgoing lunches with friends and parties on weekends so you can raise a child.

It’s giving up alcohol so you can have clarity of mind and fullness of life.

It’s working at a drudge job to pay off debt so you can go to law school.

It’s letting your child go, in the course of time, so he can find his own way in the world.

And so much more.

When God called Abraham to take his son up the mountain with some wood and a knife, it was for something that I have a lot of trouble seeing as a valid sacrifice.

The people of Israel were quite aware that there were other peoples around them who practiced human sacrifice, to appease their many capricious gods. This must have made the Israelites a little uneasy. Maybe they pondered deep within a question that was too frightening to give voice: “Would Yahweh, our God, ever ask us to make such a sacrifice? Would the God of Israel ever ask us to sacrifice our beloved children?” And the answer was, “No.”

In the story, God takes Abraham and Isaac right up to the very edge, then says no. There will be no human sacrifice today. Or ever.

I am very uncomfortable with this story – essentially for the psychic damage it does to both Abraham and Isaac. Yet I assume that, for the storytellers of Genesis, the message of “No Human Sacrifice” was the greater good they were striving for here. You might say that the well-being of Abraham and Isaac were sacrificed for the sake of the whole people of Israel, the assurance given that day, that their God was not like those other cruel and crazy gods.

In reality, questions about sacrifice remain very unsettled. We would prefer if, somehow, everything could just work out well for everyone, no harm done. No sacrifice required. But that’s not the world we live in.

We live in this world where good and evil co-exist. And sometimes we experience pain for the sake of something good. We remind one another that, while God did not promise to take away all our hardship and suffering, God did promise to be with us through it all, no matter how hard. God understands suffering for the sake of something good.

When my father-in-law had terminal cancer, he was admitted to a hospice center that was on the top floor of a Catholic convent. The day he moved in, I walked with my young son through the first floor on our way to the elevator; we passed by a large colorful crucifix hanging on the wall. My son, who was not used to crucifixes, flinched when he saw this – a Jesus in pain, blood pouring from his hands and feet. He said, “I don’t know if that was necessary.”

I told this story to my friend Jane later. She smiled and said, “Unfortunately, it was.”

Photo:  Mo-Ranch Cross - a reproduction of the iron crosses on the Presbyterian Camp's gates.