There is an old joke about the city of Verona, which being walled, and having a growing population began to suffer from serious overcrowding. The Bishop decided something had to be done, and he called in the Chief Rabbi.
"Verona is so overcrowded," the Bishop said, "that the Jews are going to have to leave." "Leave?” the Chief Rabbi said, “We've lived here for generations! Shouldn't we at least talk about it?" The Bishop replied, "You and I could have a debate, but it affects everyone." The Rabbi proposed, "We could hold the talk in the amphitheater. There is room for everyone there." The Bishop replied, "Yes, but not everyone could hear us there. To be fair, it would have to be a silent debate."
They agreed and everyone was there that day to watch the debate. The Bishop began by raising his hand up to the sky. The Rabbi brought down his hand and pointed it to his left palm. The Bishop held up three fingers. The Rabbi held up one finger. The Bishop reached under his chair, pulled out a wafer and ate it, and a cup of wine and drank it. The Rabbi pulled out from under his chair an apple, and he ate it. At that point, the Bishop jumped up and shouted, "You're right! You're right! The Jews can stay."
The excited crowd that gathered around the Bishop was a bit perplexed. "We followed the debate very closely," one person said, "but what exactly was said?"
"Ah, the man was brilliant," said the Bishop. "I said, 'The Lord of all commands that the Jews leave Verona today." He replied, "But the Lord is here in Verona with the Jews, too. And I said, "There are three aspects of the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and they guide us on this matter." And he said, "But there is but one Almighty God, the King of the Universe." I responded with the wafer and wine: "Jesus died for our sins so that we who accept Him can be saved." But he returned, "We are all the children of Adam and Eve." And he is right. We are in this together.
Meanwhile, another crowd gathered around the Rabbi, saying, "Rabbi, what happened?" And the Rabbi said, "I have no idea. The Bishop said, "The Jews of Verona have to leave this day." I said, "Were staying right here." He said, "We'll give you three days to pack." I said, "We'll take a week." Then he ate his lunch, and I ate mine.
Trying to make sense of the story of Abraham nearly sacrificing his son Isaac is a bit like watching the discussion between the Bishop and the Rabbi. There are so many ways to interpret what happened. Its shocking imagery could be interpreted as a polemic against child sacrifice, which was commonplace in the ancient religious world. Isaac was not sacrificed the story tells us, because God changed his mind, substituting a ram for Isaac. There are several stories in scripture about God having a change of heart or being talked out of something. Even God occasionally reconsiders. But of course it isn’t God who changes his mind, but people who realize that what they believed was wrong. Was Abraham actually the revolutionary who saw through the error of a religious practice and became the first to oppose it?
Some point out that this is not the kind of story with the message that says, “Go thou, and do likewise. It is more a story about the way life is and how we sacrifice our children today, for what we believe to be a greater good. And if so, God is still offering us an alternative, as he did Abraham.
God didn’t know what Abraham would choose, and God needs to know. Will we refuse to sacrifice our children in a war that is not undertaken to protect our families or bring justice, but is rather a thinly veiled attempt at empire building. We now know that the invasion of Iraq was planned before 9/11, which was just a convenient excuse. That ancient story, called Aqedah, in Hebrew, meaning binding, is painfully contemporary.
Wilfred Owen, a soldier who fought and died in World War 1, paraphrased this story during the war in his poem, titled The Parable of the Old Man and the Young:
So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one. 1
Soren Kierkegaard in the book, Fear and Trembling, sees the merciless and inscrutable demand that Abraham kill his son as evidence of a blind and compliant faith. He writes, “By faith Abraham went from the land of his fathers and became a sojourner in the land of promise. He left one thing behind, took one thing with him: he left his earthly security behind and took faith with him—otherwise he would have thought this demand of God unreasonable.” Therein lies the tension, knowing where to draw the line between common sense and faith. Done rightly, we end up building the kingdom of God, where all life is blessed. Done wrongly, it is self righteous, violent and appalling.
Eli Wiesel said that the Holocaust brought with it a huge crisis of faith for Jews. How could God allow this sacrifice? Where was God in the midst of the ovens of Auschwitz? What can we expect of God when others seem to or try to sacrifice us? How do we respond to God when God seems to go along with the sacrifice? The story of Abraham seems to be about the ultimate test of faith; or is it? Could it be a poignant way of asking us whether our faith is in God or in what we intend to get from God.
Jesus, by contrast, asked little, but did much. Rather than sacrificing another’s life, he gave his own. All Jesus says is that anyone who welcomes you, a disciple, welcomes me and who welcomes me, welcomes God. It isn’t in what you have, but in what you do. If you give so much as a cup of cold water, you will not lose your reward. Jesus suggests that all God seems to require, is hospitality. Ironically church people are often notorious for lack of hospitality, because they become very possessive of their church.
A man once told his priest that he thought the church was cold and unfriendly. So the priest, in the next service, told the people that starting next week they would take a moment to greet the person behind them. When there was a break, a man turned and reached out his hand to a woman behind him. She was shocked. She told him that sort of thing didn't begin till next week. What you do is who you are.
A soldier coming home from Vietnam called his parents from San Francisco to tell them he was coming home, but that he had a favor to ask. “I have a friend I'd like to bring home." "Sure," they replied, "we'd love to meet him." "There's something you should know, 'he was hurt bad in the war. He stepped on a mine and lost an arm and a leg. He has nowhere else to go, and I want him to come live with us." "I'm sorry, son. Maybe we can help him find somewhere to live." "No,” he said, “I want him to live with us." "Son," said the father, "you don't know what you're asking. Someone with a handicap would be a terrible burden. We have our own lives, and we can't let something like this interfere with our lives. Come home and forget about this guy. He'll find a way to live on his own." The son hung up the phone. A few days later, they received another call. The police told them that their son died after falling from a building. It seemed to be a suicide. When the parents flew out to identify the body of their son, they were shocked to discover that their son had only one arm and one leg. 2
The apostle Paul tells us that holiness must be the master of your life. Whose slave are you? What do you feel obligated to do? That is what God needs to know. Oh, its not so God can judge you. You live, not under the law, but under grace. The gift of God is eternal life, quality life, good life, joy filled life, purposeful life, and merciful life in Jesus Christ our Lord. God wants us to live it.
One who did so was Rabbi Moses Leib who was a very tolerant man. As a judge he would look for any possible excuse to be lenient. There had been so many complaints about one man that everyone was demanding that he be dismissed, except one man who appeared in his defense. The rabbi listened, his brow knitted, to the testimony of all the witnesses. Then he announced his decision: “I absolve this man of all blame and rule that he retain his post.”
In the subsequent clamor, a man cried, “Rabbi! How can you take the word of one single man against the testimony of so many!”
The rabbi replied, “When God commanded Abraham to bring his only son Isaac as a sacrifice upon His altar, didn’t Abraham listen then to a mere angel who stayed his hand? Yet God found this just, although it opposed His will. And God’s reason for this is plain. To do a person harm requires a decision from high authority -- to save one from harm, only a word from the most insignificant source.” 3
1. Wilfred Owen, The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen
2. (From somewhere on the WWW that I cannot find, but it is an older story.) revup (As written, it appears unlikely that this is a true story, but it does make a point. Roger Davis).
3. Nathan Ausubel, A Treasury of Jewish Folklore