March 12, 2006 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Genesis 22:1-18 + Romans 8:31-34 + Mark 9:2-10
Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jeremiah stand before us in Lent’s first four weeks,
because it’s all about covenant. Last week the first covenant was our source of reflection; a covenant made without conditions with all of creation, a covenant of promise that sustains our hope for creation restored. And now it is Abraham.
This time there are conditions to the covenant.
The story of a father willing to kill his son in a sacrifice and the thought of a God who would as such a thing is so shocking and troublesome that we risk missing the point. It is not about a father nearly killing his son. It is not about a cruel trick from God. It is about obedience in the richest sense of the word.
The point is that Abraham has been thinking that his future lies in Isaac. The culture of the time prizes the first-born above all else. Abraham’s very identity is there in Isaac, and that is what he is really being asked to sacrifice: his plans for the future, his way of doing things, his expectations about how things are supposed to be. What God is really asking is, “Will you do it my way?” “Will you be obedient, to what I say even when you don’t understand, or it seems as unthinkable as killing your own first son?”
The same request is made in the Gospel: “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.” The voice does not say: “Hear” him, it says: “Listen”. It is an active response that is expected. It is not just a matter of hearing him the way he just “heard” the gospel. It is a matter of doing what he does and doing what he says, “obedience.”
In our power centered world, we do not always get the point about obedience. We confuse obedience with submission, and they are not the same thing, especially when it comes to virtue. “Obedience” for a disciple of the Lord, is a desire and willingness to look for the will of God in decisions, to listen for the voice of God in what is asked of us. Young people here, when you are obedient to your parents, you are practicing being obedient to God. When you do what your parents or your teachers ask, you getting ready for the day when you can begin to discover what God is asking of you with your life. When Saint Paul suggests that spouses should be obedient to each other, it is the same thing; an effort to see the goodness of God, the will of God, and the presence of God in the other.
Obedience is the condition for the covenant with Abraham. It was the bond between the Father and the Son, and so it shall be with us as well. A willingness to set aside one’s own way, a readiness to abandon one’s own expectations of how things ought to be or how we want them to be, and trust that the Lord will provide all that is necessary is the way into Covenant with God. Seeking what God asks, listening for God’s will in the scriptures, In the teaching of the church,
and in the depths of one’s own conscience is the beginning of Obedience.
“Will you do it My way?” God still asks. Will you make peace by forgiveness rather than violence? Will you live by dying to yourself? Will you give away what you have to discover what I can give you? Will you choose trust over certainty? Will you believe what you cannot see or cannot prove? Will you trust I know what is best for you?
Consider again, what Abraham did. He did not understand at first, but he was obedient, and after that came his understanding. The disciples did not understand what was going on up on the mountain. Yet, once they began to listen, once they entered into the life of Jesus, the understanding came, and they moved into final and lasting covenant For a people of covenant there is no other way.