Sacrifice and Transformation

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

St. Alban’s, Simsbury

Proper 8, June 28, 2020

The last time I preached on this text from Genesis, I was wearing Halsted. Yes, I do mean wearing. He was three months old and it was my first Sunday back in the pulpit after maternity leave. It sure made me grapple with this  text in new ways. 

I have always found this to be a challenging text, but to read it, study it while holding our infant son was a whole new level. How could God possibly ask Abraham to sacrifice his son? That does not sound like the God I know and love. The God who desires our faithfulness. Who desires for us to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly. 

Then I remember that this text was written at a time when human sacrifice was a common practice. It was written to show a different way. It was written to stop that practice. It was written to show the world a different way forward. To say that Abraham and his descendants understood the sanctity of life, that it is indeed precious.

The text was designed to convict people of a new way of being. It told a shocking story that was meant to change behavior. It did. The Israelites did not practice human sacrifice. 

Well, my friends, it would seem that we need to be convicted again by this text in our own day. Here's the thing. This text can terrify me as the mother of a son. It can strike the fear in my heart that all parents know, the fear that an accident or an illness would mean that I outlive Katherine or Halsted. But that can be a distant fear for me. The statistics say that it is overwhelmingly likely Katherine and Halsted will live to be a hundred. Because we are white. 

The conversations I need to have with my children as they grow up, as they are more and more out in the world on their own are about how to be aware of their own privilege. They are about helping them notice injustice to speak up about it and to use the privilege they were born into to transform unjust systems. I do not have to have a conversation with Halsted about how to behave when he meets a police officer. I do not have to worry that Katherine might not be safe answering her door or going to ask for help after a car accident. I do not have to fear what might happen to them if they went jogging around our neighborhood. The list of conversations I do not need to have goes on and on for them and for me. 

But the parents of Freddie Gray or Breonna Taylor or Ahmed Arbery or Eric Garner or Michael Brown or Trayvon Martin or any other people of color who have been victims of violence never had such a list. This story, our story, today’s story of the near sacrifice of Isaac would likely affect them in an entirely different way. I imagine they would feel anger and indignation. If this story is meant to stop us from allowing innocent people to be unjustly harmed or killed why aren’t we Christians living according to its teachings? Can’t we see the ways our structures of white supremacy and white privilege have required a terrible and unjust sacrifice of black and brown bodies? 

The Genesis story of Isaac has a happy ending because there was an intervention. An intervention was made to change the ending.  My friends, we have the power to change the ending of the story we are currently living. We are the people with the power, the resources, and the privilege to be a part of changing the system, changing the story. We can do it through our own education and learning - the change starts with the transformation of our own hearts and minds - by engaging with friends and colleagues who can hold a mirror up and help us see all the ways we have been taught and caught racist ideas (often without our even realizing it). We can learn more about the history of the organizations of which we are a member. We can do it by asking who is not at the table and how we can ensure that the meeting tables we sit at - the places where decisions are made for our local communities or for a global organization - are more fully representative of the world in which we live. We can be a part of the change with the voices we choose to amplify on social media. We can be a part of the change with how we spend our money and how we vote in local and national elections. 

Every parent deserves to have the reasonable expectation that their children will outlive them. Together we have a role in making this happen, in making God’s dream for our world into a reality. We have an opportunity to be a part of transforming our world. May today be the day in which we commit even more fully to doing this work, remembering that this work is a marathon, not a sprint. It is work we will need to do for the rest of our lives. And it is good and holy work that will transform us too. Amen.