The Ultimate Sacrifice

June 28, 2020 Genesis 22:1-14 The Ultimate Sacrifice 4th Sunday After Pentecost/Proper 8 Year A Children’s Sermon Good morning, boys and girls. I’m pleased to see each of you wearing your ribbons this morning. Let’s go over them together. The green ribbon reminds us of life and growth, doesn’t it? And the purple one? That’s correct, that Jesus is the King of kings! Very good. Notice that I’m wearing my green and purple ribbons this morning, too! Well, this morning’s color certainly fits the Christmas season, doesn’t it? What color is it? That’s right, it’s Red. Red is probably the best known color of the Christmas season. Can you name me some things that are red that we often associate with Christmas? Santa Claus. Yes that’s a good answer. Santa’s suit is bright red, isn’t it. Rudolf’s nose? That’s another good answer. Many of the Christmas presents under the Christmas tree are red, too, aren’t they? Red ribbons and bows, red wrapping paper, candy canes ... those are all good answers. Well, this morning I want to tell you about a few more items that make red such an excellent color for Christmas. Here are your red ribbons and one for me, too. Let’s ask the women of the senior choir to help you again as I talk about red as a color of Christmas. Red is the color of blood, of sacrifice. If you would cut your finger, even just a little bit, what would come out of the cut? That’s right, blood. And what color is blood? Yes, it’s red ... bright red. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of God’s Son, Jesus. And Jesus came to this earth to live, and to die. Jesus died on the Cross to save us from our sins. He sacrificed himself, gave his blood, that we might belong to God forever. So with red, we remember to celebrate Christmas, and what it means for God to love us enough that he would sacrifice, give up his own Son. So red is a good color of Christmas. It means a lot more than just Santa Claus, presents, and candy canes, though, doesn’t it? It reminds us that Jesus died on the Cross to save us all! Prelude Opening Prayer Invocation: O God of Christ, in Jesus you came into the midst of the Galileans as one of them. You lived among them as a neighbor. You spoke to them as a friend. You welcomed them as members of your family. And you treated them as brothers and sisters. Come now into our midst, dear God, as you entered into Galilee, and give us the grace to welcome you as neighbor, friend, and Father. Stewardship Moment Our Theme for this week is sacrifice The ram in the bush Nurturing God, who welcomes all who sincerely believe in your sustaining grace, we are grateful that you compassionately offer your children an eternal home. We recognize that this offering is only one way that you call us to practice Christian discipleship. So, combine these financial resources with our talents, prayers, and presence so that we may significantly influence the lives of others who seek your love. Amen. Scripture Binding of Isaac 22 After these events, God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” Abraham answered, “I’m here.” 2 God said, “Take your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him up as an entirely burned offering there on one of the mountains that I will show you.” 3 Abraham got up early in the morning, harnessed his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, together with his son Isaac. He split the wood for the entirely burned offering, set out, and went to the place God had described to him. 4 On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place at a distance. 5 Abraham said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will walk up there, worship, and then come back to you.” 6 Abraham took the wood for the entirely burned offering and laid it on his son Isaac. He took the fire and the knife in his hand, and the two of them walked on together. 7 Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father?” Abraham said, “I’m here, my son.” Isaac said, “Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the entirely burned offering?” 8 Abraham said, “The lamb for the entirely burned offering? God will see to it,[a] my son.” The two of them walked on together. 9 They arrived at the place God had described to him. Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He tied up his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. 10 Then Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice. 11 But the LORD’s messenger called out to Abraham from heaven, “Abraham? Abraham?” Abraham said, “I’m here.” 12 The messenger said, “Don’t stretch out your hand against the young man, and don’t do anything to him. I now know that you revere God and didn’t hold back your son, your only son, from me.” 13 Abraham looked up and saw a single ram[b] caught by its horns in the dense underbrush. Abraham went over, took the ram, and offered it as an entirely burned offering instead of his son. 14 Abraham named that place “the LORD sees.”[c] That is the reason people today say, “On this mountain the LORD is seen.”[d] 15 The LORD’s messenger called out to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, “I give my word as the LORD that because you did this and didn’t hold back your son, your only son, 17 I will bless you richly and I will give you countless descendants, as many as the stars in the sky and as the grains of sand on the seashore. They will conquer their enemies’ cities. 18 All the nations of the earth will be blessed because of your descendants, because you obeyed me.” 19 After Abraham returned to the young men, they got up and went to Beer-sheba where Abraham lived. Sermon Genesis means beginning. The book of Genesis is the story of how our faith began. The book of Genesis is the story of how our faith began in the context of a family. As that family grew, our faith grew. The book of Genesis is a story book. Many of us are familiar with those stories, we have learned about them as very small children – the story of Adam and Eve, the story of Noah and the rainbow, the story of Joseph and his technicolor robe. No one can tell a story better than a Hebrew father passing his faith on to his children. I try to use a lot of stories in my sermon, but the Genesis stories speak for themselves. Often the lessons that we should learn are within the story. No explanation is even necessary, as we listen to the story, we think of ourselves, we think of our own family – and we suddenly understand. Many of these stories, which are thousands of years old are outdated, but today in our situations we can still get the message. Our story for today – is a familiar story. But it is also a dangerous story – I have been instructed to send the kids out of the room when the talking about this story. Yet this is still a story that we all know – the story of Abraham taking his son Isaac up to Mount Moriah in order to be sacrificed. But once he is willing to sacrifice even his only son – he does not have to because a ram appears in a bush and that is the sacrifice. Times have changed, because I heard this story as a child. And I was not traumatized at the events. We have always been told that the lesson behind the story is God wanted to test Abraham’s faith. Would he really give up his most prized possession if God asked. When God saw that Abraham would indeed do whatever God said, God said that was okay. Somebody said that people are a lot like tea bags, you never know their real strength until you put them in hot water. On Mt. Moriah Abraham passed the test. Perfect score. But, you know something else? God passed the test, too. Abraham obeyed, but God provided and by faith you and I can discover the nature of the God whose hand has provided all that we need. The Lord will provide. Thanks be to God. When we are given a gift, is our relationship with the gift or the giver. Are we thankful as long as we have full use of the gift. This may be a simple child’s story – but the lessons that we teach are much deeper if we look behind the story. Who is speaking, why are they saying that they say, what is the history behind what they are saying, what does this story teach us about who God is, and how God works in or lives. We all have had moments in our lives when we have been tested by life, we have had to make a difficult decision. We had to do something that we do not want to do. And yet we had to decide to do what was right and not what was easy. Abraham was from Canaan, where it was customary that in times of deep stress on your life, we sacrificed your kids in order to appease the Gods. Isaac was Abraham and Sarah’s miracle baby. The child that he thought he would never have. But now it was time to sacrifice him to the Gods. That is what God would want. He was the first in his family to actually talk with God. He would hear God Speaking. And the God of creation actually wanted to have a relationship with him. God was telling abraham that faith was more than just a bunch of rules to follow just because we have always done it that way. It was a willingness to walk with God and to listen to what God is telling us about a situation. God Still Thinks about You Helmut Thielicke says that during World War II, his students often wrote from the battlefield saying, "I am so exhausted from marching, my stomach is so empty, I am so plagued with lice and scratching, I am so tormented by the biting cold of Russia and so dead tired, that I am totally occupied, without the least bit of inner space for any speculative thinking." Sometimes they would write that they were too weak to leaf through the Bible and were even lazy about the Lord's Prayer. Dr. Thielicke would reply, "Be thankful that the Gospel is more than a philosophy. If it were only a philosophy, you would just have it as long as you could keep it in mind and it could afford you intellectual comfort. But even when you can no longer think about God, he still thinks about you." Herchel H. Sheets, When Jesus Exaggerated, CSS Publishing Company In our journey with God, not only does God test us, but God also challenges our definition of sacrifice. Is God telling us to give up our prized possessions or is God telling us to learn to appreciate what we have and to realize that God has already made the sacrifice. For us. There was a young man who went off to college. He was living the life in college, going to parties every night, meeting his friends. He never went to class, he did not have to – he could just pay for the answers on his test. Things were moving along until his senior year. His father got sick, and not only could he not pay the tuition, the son had to come home from school and take care of his parents and their household. As he took over, and started to pay the bills – he saw how much his parents has sacrificed in order for him to go to school. When we saw the sacrifice for himself, he realized how much his parents loved him. Not only was he inspired to take care of himself, but he also was willing to love and support others. This realization of his parent’s sacrifice gave his life a sense of purpose. When abraham started to listen to God and to walk with God, he too got a sense of purpose. He did not have to kill his son in order to make God happy. When he saw that clearly, he also saw that God would provide if he did the right thing. He looked up and saw a ram – and realized that when God calls us to do something, God always provides. God makes the sacrifice, so that we can clearly see our purpose I life, more importantly, our purpose in faith. As we go through this story – we all follow the journey of father and son up the mountain. But there are no words exchanged. We are never told what is going through abraham’s mind as he travels to kill his most prized possession. We are never told what Isaac is thinking as he follows his father until Isaac asks one question, where is the sacrifice? How are we going to worship God if we don’t have a sacrifice. It never occurred to him that he was the sacrifice. We Replace the Lamb In that marvelous vision known as the "Peaceable Kingdom" (which we find in Isaiah 65), there is the image of the wolf and the lamb feeding together. Well, let me tell you a story about that. Back in the days of pre-perestroika Russia ... when hers was a name that made all of us tremble: the Russians brought an exhibit to the World's Fair that was entitled "World Peace." In it was a large cage. And in the cage were a little lamb and a Russian wolf ... feeding peaceably together. As an exhibit, it was most impressive. And as the fair unfolded, it was spectacularly attended. One day, however, somebody asked the curator the obvious question: "How in the world do you do it?" To which he replied: "Oh, it's really very simple. We replace the lamb every morning." William A Ritter, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com He was the sacrifice. Just as Isaac was the sacrifice for Abraham. We all know that Jesus was the sacrifice for God. God gave his only begotten son so that we would have life. This story of Abraham and Isaac is a precursor to the resurrection story. God wanted Abraham to know that being faithful and having a relationship with God does not have to hurt. It does not have to be painful. And more importantly God would never ask us to hurt others to appease God. Sacrifice is not about hurting the one’s that we love, it is about giving from the heart. The Hebrew bible says God does not want sacrifice, he wants a clean and contrite heart. Jesus goes even further than that, and says that we should love the lord with our minds, hearts and souls and that we should love our neighbors just the same. As I said, there is very little dialogue in this story, there is just that one conversation with his son. But abraham hears his named called 3 times. First God calls him, then his son calls him and finally an angel calls him. And each time abraham hears his name he says the same thing – hear I am. God calls him to take this journey in the first place, his son asks about the sacrifice, and the angels calls him to say before doing something stupid, look around and examine the situation. The lesson for us? When God calls us – we should obey. When a person calls us we should answer, and when we pray and we hear from an angel – we should be ready to receive God’s grace in our lives. There are lessons for us to learn in this story – whether we are abraham or Isaac. Those lessons – in our daily walk we will be tested and have to make tough decisions, when God gives us a gift we can be grateful, God has made the ultimate sacrifice for us to have a full life, giving our lives to God does not have to hurt. And finally, listen to how God speaks to us through our children and others. There you have it, an outdated story told centuries ago still have a valuable lesson for us today. God is still with us. I want to end my sermon with the words of another pastor, Lori Wagner – she eloquently tells us how God speaks to us today. Today, in the midst of the worst pandemic the world has seen since 1918, we see signs everywhere of those with sacrificial hearts. Whether they are aware or not, these are people “after God’s own heart,” who are willing to put their lives on the line in order to save others. But these are not only people in healthcare, but people who pray for others sacrificing their time and energy, people who give of their limited resources to help others eat, people who risk their reputations to stand up for others who have been persecuted, people who challenge their own assumptions in order to follow God’s heart into a dangerous and unpredictable world. This week, I challenge you to learn from the story of Abraham and Isaac –to listen for God’s voice, to rise to the challenge of God’s call, whatever that may be in your life, to learn God’s heart, to emulate that heart yourself as you immerse yourself in the lives of others. Only when we take on the heart of God, the sacrificial heart of Jesus, and ask ourselves what that means for our own lives, can we truly walk the road of discipleship year after year. May God bless you in your travels. May you stay safe, even as you venture forth a disciple after God’s own heart. Let us pray…… Pastoral Prayer Remind us of the love of Jesus Christ with which you claimed us as your own and we claimed you as our own. Rekindle in us the oneness we experienced when we accepted your invitation to join you in covenant. And let us go forth, renewed and empowered, to enlarge the circle of your covenant people. Make us quick to greet hesitation with generosity, suspicion with acceptance, anger with gentleness, and defensiveness with friendliness. When people ask us who we are, let us reveal whose we are. The world in which we live suffers for want of many things. But the one thing it needs above all others is the love with which you have loved us and for which you call us to become channels. Give us, O God, the will and the wisdom to heed this summons. Reflection Announcements We are invited to come together as a church family next week Benediction O God, in Jesus Christ you taught us that, if we are intent on saving ourselves, we cannot save others. Crucify us unto self that we might glorify you and _____________________________________