Staying with the Donkey

 

Staying with the Donkey

 

Genesis 22:1-14

The testing of Abraham 

 

22:1 After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."

 

22:2 He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you."

 

22:3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him.

 

22:4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away.

 

22:5 Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you."

 

22:6 Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. And the two of them walked on together.

 

22:7 Isaac said to his father Abraham, "Father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." He said, "The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"

 

22:8 Abraham said, "God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." And the two of them walked on together.

 

22:9 When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

 

22:10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son.

 

22:11 But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."

 

22:12 He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me."

 

22:13 And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

 

22:14 So Abraham called that place "The LORD will provide," as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided."

 

This week’s lectionary passages are full of possibility. This text from Genesis is the famous one where Abraham takes his “only” son, Isaac, to the mountains to “obey” God and sacrifice him to God. One can only imagine what might have been going through Abraham’s head. There was, of course, a tremendous backstory. Abraham and Sarah believed God’s promise that they would be the progenitors of a great nation dedicated to Yahweh—Israel. But they were advancing in age, and nothing was happening with the human “baby factory” within their bodies. Sarah gets the idea to have the old boy sleep with her young handmaiden, Hagar, and then they could claim the resulting child as their own. Thus, Ishmael was brought into the world. This story is a kind of parable, explaining how two “competing” factions for human and divine acceptance, and power, of course. The Arab and Jewish realms are thus charted in biblical history. Of course, God does eventually deliver on God’s promise to give two very old people a child of their own—Isaac. Perhaps the quirky history of Israel, including blessings, pograms, a rich heritage, blended with a latter penchant for military dominance, is due to the aged engrams of Isaac’s aged parentage, and whatever biological and psychological factors they introduced? But that is not what this sermon is about.

 

As usual, in my retirement, without a specific congregation to focus on, different kinds of things have been catching my attention when I peruse the New Common Lectionary of weekly readings from the Bible. I should not be surprised that texts from the Hebrew Bible have been more interesting to me than those of the New Testament, which became such fodder for church ecclesiology and doctrine! The Hebrew Bible is much more about the “wrestling match” between us humans and the Divine, and its history, stories, prophecy, and wisdom touch more profoundly on the machinations of the human condition, the mind, and the ethereal “soul.” The tension of the Abraham/Isaac/God “sacrificial” triangle is one such story, provoking the reader to deal with her/his own “feelings” of what it might have been like to choose between child and obedience to the Divine. Preachers down through the centuries have surely soothed their congregations with some historical or psychological rationalization over God’s telling Abraham to sacrifice his only “official” son, while turning his back on the tainted “son of manipulation,” Ishmael. All this aside, what caught my attention in this passage is found in verse 5: "Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship…”

 

The “young men” who accompanied Abraham and Isaac on this journey were told to “stay here with the donkey…” They were to be left out of history (or kept from being witnesses to a murder?) in order to babysit a jackass. (I could say something political about this scenario, but will refrain. Be glad.) From this moment on, church history is filled with people obediently “babysitting jackasses.” Let’s view that as a metaphor for the important, but largely thankless jobs that kept religious history moving forward. Just imagine how many minor, MINOR prophets there were in Hebrew history who also spoke God’s “word” to single tribes, or possibly even smaller audiences, whose subsequent obedience led to a victory, be in moral, or in the field of battle. Who were they? I have always found it fascinating that Paul, in his long greetings or closing “gratitudes,” gave us the names of many such “donkey watchers” in Christian history. For every John Calvin or John Wesley, there were countless “Alices,” “Sallys,” “Roberts,” and “Bens” who carried out the work in the trenches. When the proverbial “gates of hell” fail to prevail over the church, thus thrusting it into its next challenge, you can believe there was a cast of “donkey watchers” out there who “won the battle” over the devil. In Charles W. Ferguson’s volume, Organizing to Beat the Devil, he details the multi-level, organizing steps taken by John Wesley and the early “Methodists” to advance the cause of the Gospel—“beat the devil” at his own game, so to speak. Methodism has thrived—when it has—because of the “donkey watchers,” whose names may only be known on a task list or a Charge Conference report. Without them, though, the devil would have won “bigly,” by now.

 

In previous sermons, I have cited people like Clint, Julie, Jim, Rick, Ed, Peggy, Bonnie, John, Faith, Mary, Michael, or so many others whom YOU have never heard of, but will forever be on their pastor’s “hall of fame” list. They were not only the “donkey watchers,” but the ones who fed the beasts, groomed them, picked up after them, and let others know when they needed a break from their labors. While we pastors may be best compared to those “minor, MINOR prophets” who spoke God’s “word” to smaller, sometimes disinterested audiences, these lay folk had just as strong a call to “watch the donkeys” and take care of the stuff that nurtured the church, its mission, and its people. Donkey watchers hardly aim for recognition or glory; in fact, the most effective of them like to remain as anonymous as possible. Note: these are NOT the people who keep making excuses that they “aren’t gifted” or “can’t do anything”; I’ll just call them the “just haven’t yet yielded to God’s call” crowd. No, “donkey watchers” are in the game, enthusiastically, and while they may shun the proverbial “limelight,” they WILL and DO step up, when the work calls for it. One of the most gratifying surprises we pastors have had is when one of the “donkey watchers” is asked to say a few words of recruitment or invitation from the pulpit, and do so eloquently and quite effectively, and without needing an egg timer to limit their verbiage. If the church has its “meat and potatoes,” these people fill the bill.

 

I’ve most likely preached 25 sermons in my career on the Abraham-sacrificing-Isaac story, and I still don’t get it, honestly. Oh SURE it’s a simple metaphor for a horrible act God actually went through with in Jesus, but something doesn’t feel right about that comparison? Then there’s the “God already knew God would “provide the lamb in the thicket,” and was just testing Abraham, motif. Again, this seems like a copout to me, too. So, where did I wind up on this seminal story from the Hebrew Bible? How about this: Abraham was caught between his love for God and his FEAR of God. A loving God would never ask a man to sacrifice his beloved son, but a powerful God might “have a reason” to do so, and not obeying could have escalating ramifications for the people Abraham represented. How often have YOU been caught between fear and love? Don’t tell me you don’t understand, for if you never have, you haven’t engaged in any serious relationships, either with human beings or deity. Like so many jarring stories from the Old Testament, it matters not whether this event actually happened, for the predicament it puts the reader in the middle of has nothing to do with the historicity of it. The Jonah story doesn’t need a scientific “explanation” as to whether a man could survive a three-day ride in a fish gullet to make its point, and neither does it matter one iota whether Job was a real person, and HIS predicament an historically accurate event to give us one of the most powerful lessons of the whole Bible. The “donkey watchers” of the church know this; you won’t find them arguing a Bible passage over the question “Is it a true story?” The truth is in the telling, even as the “truth” of their Christian commitment is in the serving. 

 

Two interesting things have happened to me, since I retired from full-time service in the preaching pulpit: I find myself more mystified by the Old Testament and its wealth of “good material” to study and explore; and I ruminate almost daily about some of the people in the six churches I served who gave of themselves quite unselfishly for the welfare of the church, and in service to the Gospel of Jesus Christ—you know, the “donkey watchers.” In the latter case, in carrying the “donkey watching” metaphor to its logical end, I also found myself wondering who the jackass stood for, and my conclusion was not at all flattering, I’ll tell you. If you are a pastor reading this, you know where I’m going with it.

 

I’ll leave you with this thought: the most valuable people in the history of Judeo-Christianity are ones you have never heard of. They are ones who labor behind the scenes. They are, however, persons who, when called upon to “step up” or to ascend the pulpit steps, have a deeply inspirational (effective?) story to tell. They may be “elevating” or “edifying” more than eloquent, and “available” more than “able,” regarding some tasks, but they WILL and DO show up. Time and time, again. And there is no “donkey” they won’t watch, allowing the bigger story to unfold. Thanks be to God for the ones who “stay with the donkey”! Amen.