Gifts in hard reading

[video link] [Readings: Genesis 22:1-14; Psalm 13; Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 10:40-42]

I didn’t grow up going to Sunday School or to Vacation Bible School. But I know there’s a song that church kids often sing. There’s even a dance that goes with it. “Father Abraham had many sons. Many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them and so are you. So let’s just praise the Lord. Right arm, left arm…” And so on.

I like the idea that we’re all connected through Abraham’s ancestry. But I’m not sure I’d want to actually be his child.

Last week, we heard the story of Abraham’s first son, Ishmael, and his mother, Hagar. Abraham’s wife Sarah wanted Hagar and Ishmael gone. “So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away.” Mother and child wander in the wilderness. The bread and water don’t last long. Despairing, Hagar puts Ishmael under a bush and goes off a little way so she won’t have to watch her child die. But an angel of God calls to her, tells her where to find a well, and she gives her son water to drink. And Ishmael “lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow.”

Today, we hear the story of Abraham’s second son, Isaac, Sarah’s child, and Ishmael’s half brother. God says to Abraham, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love” and offer him “as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” And “so Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac.”

It seems to be a dangerous sign for a son of Abraham when their father rises early in the morning. First Ishmael. Now Isaac.

They arrive near the mountain, and Abraham tells the two servants to stay behind. Abraham tells Isaac to carry the wood for the sacrificial fire, and he carries the knife and an ember of fire himself. Isaac asks, “Father, where is the lamb?” Abraham replies, “God will provide.” And they walk on together.

When they reach their destination, Abraham builds an altar, lays wood in order, binds Isaac, and raises his knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord calls out, “Abraham, Abraham.” And he says, “Here I am.” “Do not lay your hand on the boy…for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

The boy lives. A ram takes his place. The story goes on. And children sing “Father Abraham had many sons” still today. Actually, Abraham had two sons. Ishmael and Isaac. One abandoned in the wilderness. One almost sacrificed on an altar.

These are hard stories. Some of the hardest in scripture. The story of the sacrifice of Isaac has its own name, the “Akedah” the “binding.” We try to make it easier. We say that Isaac wasn’t really a child, that he must have gone willingly to sacrifice. We say it was only a test, that God never meant to go through with it. Or that Abraham knew all along that God would stop him. Or that the story is really about Jesus, another only son given up by his Father to death — but also, of course, to resurrection.

Jewish tradition has lived with this scripture a lot longer than Christians have, and even the rabbis have tried at times to soften the story. There’s an old midrash, a commentary on scripture, that imagines an argument the text never gives us. “Take your son,” God says, and Abraham replies, “which son? I have two.” “Your only son.” “Each is the only son of his mother.” “The son you love.” “I love them both.” And only then, “Isaac.” The rabbis remember that Abraham argued with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah, and wonder why he didn’t argue to save his own children.

Genesis doesn’t exactly give us a happy ending, even if the ending isn’t as dark as it might have been. It tells us that Abraham comes down from the mountain alone. Isaac is alive, but no longer with his father. And scripture records no further meeting, no conversation, between Abraham and his children. But his two sons do come together in the end, to bury their father when he dies.

Can we just look away from this passage? Or claim one of the gentler readings of it for our own? Can we let Isaac be a grown man who knew what he was doing? Or call the whole incident a test that was never real?

I don’t think that’s the right answer. Scripture is hard in places. Isaac’s son Jacob famously wrestles with God, and is given a new name, Israel, the one who wrestles. And sometimes we have to wrestle too.

In Jewish tradition, the Akedah, the story of Isaac’s binding, is read on Rosh Hashanah, at the center of the Jewish year. And the shofar, the ram’s horn sounded on that morning, recalls the ram that was sacrificed in Isaac’s place. Jewish tradition doesn’t look away from this story, and we shouldn’t either.

There’s a gift in the hard reading, I think. It makes it impossible for us to turn the figures of the Bible into idols. Maybe Abraham isn’t a hero to imitate. Maybe he’s a man trying to be faithful, and getting it wrong at least as often as he gets it right.

There are gifts to be found when we wrestle with scripture, even when we wrestle with God. But we should also remember that a life of faith doesn’t always have to be a fight.

What Jesus says in today’s Gospel is just as true, and it’s a lot easier to live out day by day. Today’s Gospel is a message for the times when we don’t have the energy to wrestle with the hard things. The times when what we need is comfort. Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones will not lose their reward. A cup of cold water — the same gift Hagar gave her dying son in the wilderness. That’s enough.

I don’t doubt Abraham’s faith, but maybe we don’t need to prove our faith by destroying the things we love. Maybe, at least sometimes, maybe we can just give a thirsty person something to drink.

Father Abraham had many sons. Many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them, and so are you. So let’s just praise the Lord.

In whatever ways we can.

Cover image: Jesus welcomes the children, by JESUS MAFA. Downloaded from Art in the Christian Tradition https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48395 [retrieved July 1, 2026]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr