The Rev. Catherine A. Caimano
Proper 8A – Genesis (22:1-14); Romans (6:12-23); Matthew (10:40-42)
June 29, 2008
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Wichita, KS
"He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the
wood."
In today's reading from Genesis, one of the most profound and
troubling stories in all of the Bible, Abraham and Isaac are both in
a bind.
Abraham is bound by his faith, bound by a promise that God made to
him and then fulfilled, bound by the voice of God that is real to
him, so real that he feels compelled to obey, even at such a
horrific cost. And it doesn't say so in our text, but we can so
easily imagine that Abraham is also bound by his fear, the
constriction of his heart, his own terror, his own grief in advance
of what he feels bound to do.
And Isaac is bound, literally, by the rope that prepares him for
death.
Scholars differ on the age of Isaac in this story, some see him as a
young child, some see him as old enough to consent to what is
happening, but either way he is also bound by the trust he has in
his father; in the poignant way he asks, 'where is the lamb for the
burnt offering?' he is bound by his ignorance, he is bound by the
very things that make him so precious that he is in this terrible
situation to begin with: how much his parents love him, how much he
is wanted, how many hopes and dreams are bound up in his existence.
And this whole story binds both these men to the life of Israel that
follows after the events of this day – the growth, as promised, of
Abraham's family from a single son to a whole nation, a nation that
often finds itself in its own binds – from slavery to wilderness to
warfare to destruction – but bound by blood, bound by history, bound
by faith they work to persevere.
And in all of this they are bound by God.
They are bound by the covenant God made with us at the time of the
first humans,
and has renewed in countless ways since then – that this is good,
this creation; that WE are good, and that God is so good that God
has given us life and has promised to never let us go. We are
bound up in God from the day we take our first breath, in the
stories we are told, in the lessons we learn, in every attempt we
ever make to love and be loved.
We are bound by the gifts that we don't usually think about – by the
air and the water and creatures that we cannot exist without, and
the strength and intelligence and gifts that we use every day.
And we are bound in our actions of praise and thanksgiving – in
births and deaths and sudden, surprising events that cause us to
notice how close we actually are to God.
And in God, we are bound to one another – by blood and friendship
and work and love and proximity; we are bound by thousands of meals
and millions of tears, by laughter and conversation and silence.
But in this, too, we are bound by our pain. We are bound by
disappointment and anger, by greed and manipulation. We are bound by
what we have done and what we have failed to do, by ancient wounds
and family secrets. We are bound by our work and our
expectations, our bills and our debts, by our violence and our
hunger, by our acceptance of easy answers and our failure to
confront wrongs.
The whole world is bound by pollution and warfare, poverty, illness
and incessant consumerism. We are bound by the decisions made
by kings centuries ago, and actions taken by strangers today.
We are bound by wind and rain and snow and the violent movements of
the earth, and by whatever calamity they leave behind. We are bound
by our powerlessness to end the magnitude of suffering around us,
and by our compassion and empathy for those who endure that
suffering.
And in ALL of this we are bound by God.
We are bound by our questioning and our doubting and our hoping that
God is working everything out. We are bound by our fear that
God might be punishing us, and our greater fear that God might not
be paying attention at all.
Certainly this morning we are bound to consider that God may try and
test us, may try and ask of us more than is fair, more than a loving
and generous God would ask. We are bound by our desire for a
God we could understand, a God that we might point to and say, 'our
God erased poverty this morning,' 'our God no longer allows children
to suffer,' our God would never ask a man to sacrifice his son.
We are bound together in a longing for ANSWERS, a need for the whys
and wherefores of God to add up to something that we can get
comfortable with.
But instead we get Jesus, who says, 'I will be bound, too.'
I will be bound by anger and fear and greed and vengeance, I will be
bound by your blood, and your grief and your tears. I will be
bound by all the suffering, every death, each and every moment of
doubt there has ever been. Don't try to stop me, Jesus says,
don't try to talk me out of this binding and don't wish it were any
other way. And don't, whatever you do, try to figure it out.
Instead, feel your own bonds, feel the grip of what binds you to
sin, what binds you to death. Feel the sacrifice that we make
each time we threaten the bonds of love, the bonds of forgiveness,
the bonds of peace, all our abandonments of the bonds of humanity.
Allow yourself to be wrapped up in all of this, and offer it all to
me. It's the only way, says Jesus, as scary as it may seem,
contrary to everything that feels comfortable and good.
The more we try and free ourselves, the more entangled in
frustration we become.
Instead, tighten the cords that keep us from breathing true life,
wrap up your pain and your lostness and your mistakes, offer it up,
put it on me, says Jesus. All of us together, our sin and our
death, everything that separates us from the bonds of brotherhood,
the bonds of love, let it go, let it bind me to darkness, let it
bind me beyond what suffering humanity has ever known.
And I will break those bonds, and THIS will set you free.