The Old Testament Lesson today, which I didn’t preach on, brings back wonderful images for me. It was the story of Abraham, told by God, as a “test”, to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Abraham in obedience goes as far as even lighting the fire to sacrifice his son as a burnt offering to The Lord, when at the last minute an angel intervenes, and provides a ram for the sacrificial offering instead. Abraham had passed the “test”!
It has been my privilege to be in The Gambia on three occasions when the Muslim Feast of Tobaski has taken place. (Little Eid). This feast celebrates Abraham’s faith and obedience, based on today’s story. After the Imam has said public prayers and killed his own ram, the people go home and slay their own animals, sharing the meat with the poor who have no animals to slay! It’s like Christmas, and probably the only day of the year when every Gambian will eat meat! Everyone is dressed in new clothes, and the joy and happiness is indeed very much akin to our Christmas!
There is a parallel! At Christmas, we celebrate the fact that Mary’s “yes” to God resulted in the Christ being born. In the Muslim world, it’s Abraham’s “yes”, with all its consequences that’s celebrated. Christian and Muslim preachers will agree that it was a test of Abraham’s faith, and a test of his commitment. How far was he prepared to go? How much was he prepared to give?
That was touched on again in today’s Gospel when Jesus challenged the level of hospitality and kindness we were prepared to offer for the sake of the Kingdom!
But, back to Abraham! I’ve heard it said, often, that testing of faith and testing of commitment are the same thing in this story, and maybe they are, but I would say that in our common life, they don’t necessarily go together!
I have listened to people who talk about their faith being “tested”. This is usually in the context of something awful happening to them or their loved ones, and is articulated in words which go something like, “God really tested my faith.” Wee Jimmy has cancer, and “God tested my faith”! Ouch! What sort of God would do such a thing?
However, bad things, dreadful things happen, and often our faith is tested, but God doesn’t visit evil upon us to test our faith in Him/Her! A loved one dying in a cancer ward can be a severe test of our faith, but God didn’t send the cancer!
However, I do believe that God tests our commitment on a regular basis. Many times every day in fact! We have an Incarnational faith, and Jesus is to be seen in every single person we meet. It’s easy to talk about the down-and-outs drinking super lager down by the quay, or the kids addicted to heroin in our communities. “There”, the preacher tells us, “we find Jesus, crucified still, crying out for resurrection”. And the preacher is right!
However we meet Jesus in every person we encounter in our daily lives. How we react to that person or with that person is crucial because we are interacting with Jesus himself! Even in family and friends, we encounter Jesus as part of their humanity. If we “fall out” with someone, we fall out with Jesus himself, and that is why we need to be reconciled to each other. Why are we nasty about others, often, when within that person we should be recognising Our Lord Himself?
So, God is forever testing our commitment. Our commitment to the Gospel, our commitment to living it, and our commitment to responding to Him properly in the faces of everyone we meet and inter-react with.
And that’s the sermon that was never preached! It may just end up being the pastoral letter in next month’s magazine instead!
0 Responses to “Abraham and the Test!”
Leave a Reply