Today’s Scripture Reading (July 13, 2018): Genesis 22
Sometimes we see
the world emotionally. Maybe that is why we find that poetry and music have the
intense ability to speak to us. They help us to encounter the world around us
with our emotions instead of our senses. And the reality is that emotional
truth is real truth for each one of us.
Maybe that explains
Donald Trump better than anything else that I can write. He encounters the
world emotionally. He speaks of the world in hyperbole, which is essentially
the tool of poetry and our emotions. And so everything is the best, or the
worst, which are the expressions of our emotions. I get frustrated when he
speaks of immigration and says that “The Democrats,” those lowly servants of
the evil empire, want to throw the doors open and welcome everyone into the
beckoning arms of the United States. My problem is that I have never heard
anyone say that there should be no limits to immigration, nor has any commander
in chief ever proposed that, but then again I am speaking logically and not
emotionally. Emotional language is never precise. It exaggerates freely in its
effort to get the message across.
Here the angel of
the Lord speaks emotionally. If I attempt to encounter this passage with logic
and rationality, then the truth is that the angel lied. Did you catch the lie
as you read the passage? I have to admit that I missed it until now. Here is
the lie; Isaac is not the only son of Abraham. Ishmael is also the son of
Abraham. Granted, Isaac is the son of promise and Isaac is the only son of
Abraham’s beloved wife Sarah, but he is not the only son of Abraham.
And there would be
other sons of other wives. But at this
moment, Abraham has two sons, and the
angel speaks emotionally about Isaac, calling him the only son. Isaac is the
son that Abraham cares the most about, he is the one who God had promised and the one who would carry the
promise of God forward. He was not the only son, but emotionally he may very
well have been. Neither Ishmael nor the future sons of Abraham would ever take
the place of Isaac, which meant that the
possible sacrifice of Isaac was the hardest one for Abraham to make.
Critics have often
asked how Abraham could even consider sacrificing his son. Traditionally,
Rabbi’s have responded that such was Abraham’s faith. He knew that in the end,
God would have another plan. By faith, he
knew that there would be another sacrifice, or that Isaac would be raised from the dead after the sacrifice.
After all, God had said that the promises made to Abraham would be continued through Isaac. If that was to
happen, Isaac had to live. Abraham had faith that somehow God would find a way.
He heard the emotional voice of God, not the rational one, and in faith
believed that God saw a path forward that Abraham could not see.
He is still a God
who continues to find a way – and one who is still willing to speak to us
emotionally.
Tomorrow’s Scripture
Reading: Genesis 23
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