What Kind of a God Would Ask That? with Pastor Ryan Braley

Good morning everyone.

How are we doing Good?

One person's doing good, excellent, Great Well, you and me, brother.

Hey, we are in the middle of our how Did we Get here?

Series, and I love it, because Genesis, this wonderfully ancient book that we're reading, I believe, speaks to all kinds of questions that we have here today, and, I would argue, not necessarily scientific or historical questions those are kind of not what the aim of the book of Genesis is Rather, these existential questions like what are we doing here?

How did we get here, why do we exist, what's our story, and how do these stories impact how we see God?

The author of Genesis and the compiler of Genesis to me is clearly trying to paint a picture of what God is like and how God interacts with people in the creation, and what does it mean for us today, and so it's important to ask ourselves these kinds of questions we approach this text.

That being said, I hate this story of Abraham and Isaac.

I hate it.

I didn't care about it a whole lot before, but then, when I had a son, my firstborn son, I'm like this story's horrible.

Maybe it's just me, but before I had a kid I was like, oh, whatever, never even dawned on me how bizarre and weird this story is.

Once I had a kid.

I'm like I don't like this story at all.

I mean, here's how the story you just heard it read God seems to command Abraham, or Abram was what he was once called.

You might know him and we'll back up in a minute but he asks him to sacrifice his own son on an altar to God.

And, by the way, this is not just any son, this is the promised son.

God had said I'm going to give you these, all this.

He made all his promises to Abram, and then they were going to come true through this son, isaac.

And then God asks him to sacrifice the son.

It's crazy to me, but maybe it's just me.

But my question is what kind of a God would ask a man to sacrifice his own son?

That's the question that Genesis 22 seems to pose, and this is the title of the sermon.

What kind of a God would ask that?

Well, I think behind that question is also this question how did we get here, where God seems to be asking Abraham to sacrifice his own son?

So how did we get here?

It fits here as well.

How did we get here?

One quick thing before we jump into the story, though, is here's how we should not read the book of Genesis.

I want to give you a quick lesson on how to not read Genesis, because many of us fall in this modern trap of reading Genesis in a certain way, and it's not entirely appropriate.

So here's what you have to remember when you're reading Genesis.

This is a thousands of years old, thousands of years old document.

It's really an old document.

It's thousands of years old, and you have to understand.

How would ancient people have understood or read this document?

It wasn't a document back then, but how would they read it even if they were alive today?

These are stories that were addressing a specific culture and audience.

It's very different than our modern culture here in 2024, in the Western world, and many times we want to read these stories and boil them down to a three-point sermon.

Don't do that.

That's not how these books were ever meant to be read.

This modern three-point sermon idea is very, very modern.

It's not at all how these stories have ever been read or understood.

As an ancient you know, ancient person, we tend to read these stories.

We sort of pluck them out one at a a time, which is kind of what we're doing here, but just for the sake of time, we pluck them out.

We try to find the moral of the story, as though we were reading Aesop's fables or like the tortoise and the hare.

So the moral of the story of the flood story is don't sin or God will drown you right.

See how weird that is.

That's not how they're to be read, and this story often is read as like a more.

The moral would be um, god might just ask you to sacrifice that which is most valuable in your life, so be ready to sacrifice that like.

That's not how these stories were to be read.

In fact, they were read.

They're rather better read as a whole, and so if you have time this weekend, which maybe you do, read the whole book of genesis in one sitting.

I had to do this for seminary and it was mind-blowing for how I understood the whole book, because that's how these were all to be understood.

That's like one long flowing narrative.

So we would do better to not ask.

Don't ask what's the moral of the story, as though at the very end, we'll have this moral and we'll all be.

You know, rather, what's happening in this story.

What do you notice happening in this story.

What do you notice?

What's God doing?

Are there any twists or turns?

How would the ancient mind have read it and understood it?

Is there anything different?

And see, god is addressing a primitive culture and he's trying to engage with them and build relationship with them.

So, when you read these stories, let that frame how you understand it.

And what do you notice?

What do you see?

Fair enough, okay, thank you, greta.

So here's Abram comes onto the scene.

Because how did we get here?

How did we get to God asking a man to sacrifice his own son?

Well, genesis 1 through 11 really is like a lead-up or a preamble, or like an introduction to Abram or Abraham.

He is the pinnacle character of the book of Genesis.

So, everything up from Genesis 1 all the way through to 11, which is where he sort of shows up, we read Genesis 22, but he shows up in chapter 11.

Everything Adam and Eve, the garden, cain and Abel.

You know Seth, who comes after.

It's the third son of Adam and Eve, seth, and you have, you know the Tower of Babel, noah, the Tower of Babel All of this is like a preamble to Abram, who shows up finally in chapter 11.

And Abraham is like the central figure.

In fact, he's one of the three prominent figures in all of the Old Testament.

You have Abraham, you have David and you have Moses.

These three guys are the prominent characters in the whole Hebrew Bible.

And he shows up and he sort of fades from the center stage in chapter 25.

And from that moment on, his sons take over.

So Abraham, isaac and Jacob and the entire rest of Genesis is about the sons of Abraham and the daughters as well.

But Abraham shows up in chapter 11.

He's like the guy and this whole book hinges on Abraham.

So this is the morning.

The whole thing has been pointing up to this and everything after will come because of Abraham.

So Abraham, who was this guy?

Well, he was from a place called Ur of the Chaldeans it's sort of modern day Baghdad area and he lived around 2100 to 1500, somewhere in there.

We don't really know.

Bc is, you know, super old and a long time ago.

And he settles in an outpost in modern-day Turkey and, get this, he's 75 years old when God comes to him and speaks to him and gives him this promise 75 years old, he's an old dude at this point of his life.

Now Abram sort of ends up again in modern-day Turkey, but he becomes the father of the three prominent monotheistic religions of the world.

Of course, jews trace their lineage back to Abraham.

Father Abraham, he's the pinnacle figure in the Hebrew Bible.

Christians are the same Christians as after Jesus.

Paul, for example, opens the doors and says that, hey, now all of us are sons and daughters of Abraham, not by sort of ethnicity so many of you in this room are not ethnically Jewish but you can trace your lineage, at least theologically, back to Abraham, because we're the sons and daughters of Abraham.

Read the book of Romans, for example.

And so our lineage as Gentiles sort of goes back to Abraham as well.

And the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world trace their lineage back to Abraham through his other son, ishmael, and so they trace their lineage back to him.

He's their sort of paternal figure, ishmael, where ours is Isaac.

So the three major religions in the world, at least monotheistic religions, trace their lineage back to Abraham.

He's a big deal, in other words, right.

So you should know who Abraham is, why we call him Father Abraham.

So here's why he comes onto the scene.

He comes on in chapter 11, and because up until this point in chapter 11, the world is a mess.

We've already told you Genesis 1, 2, and 3, adam and Eve.

Things are going out of control.

They eat of the fruit.

Things begin to spiral out of control.

Cain and Abel are born, the two boys, and then Cain kills Abel.

And then you have, following that, you have the Noah story, which, just prior to the Noah story, lamech.

You know, if Cain has killed one person, lamech seems to have killed a lot more.

He killed a man just for hurting him.

So things are like circling the drain, right.

Then Noah hang on for me, sorry, not just yet one second Noah shows up and like everything's like, everybody's heart is wicked, it's just a horrible place.

And so God sort of wipes the thing clean, he baptizes the whole world, you will starts over.

And then, in genesis 11, abraham shows up and the world's a mess, like the world is on fire.

And what's god gonna do?

Well, god is gonna try to find this remnant of people.

Now I'm ready for you, sarah.

So there's this line of people, from adam to seth, who's remember the third son, adam and eve beget um, uh, cain and abel, and then their third son, adam and Eve beget Cain and Abel, and then their third son, seth.

He's like this remnant, he's a faithful one, he replaces Abel and then Noah comes he's faithful as well.

Then Shem.

So if you read Genesis 11, it picks up Shem, then begets all these people and then, after you know, like several lines down is Abraham.

So it's like this line of people, this ancestry of people throughout the whole story, who are faithful.

They call them the remnant, like amongst all the chaos.

These ones, these people, are like our faithful people, and so God hopes to restore the order that was in Genesis 1.

Amidst all the chaos, he wants to restore order and recreate the garden, if you will, and he uses this line of people.

So Adam and Seth, and Noah and Shem, and then on down through Abram.

And so God comes to Abram to restore order, to fix the world.

And here's the question Will it work?

Will it work?

And also the question is like, if you read it, it looks like he shows up out of nowhere.

You're like who's this Abraham guy?

Read chapter 11 and 12.

You're like he just shows up.

Who is this guy from this place called Mesopotamia in the Middle East or the Near East?

Who is he?

We don't know anything about him.

It's like we're jumping into the mid-story of Abraham and his life and his wife, sarai, sarai, sarai they changed their names.

It's like who is he?

We don't even know if this guy knows who Yahweh is.

He's like just some random dude who shows up.

We're jumping in mid-story and he's not a hero.

He seems so ordinary.

You know, in the ancient world they had these heroic myths, like Homer and these myths, but Abram's not that way.

He's not some superhero, he's an ordinary guy.

It almost looks like God just sort of chooses him at random.

Like what is the deal?

Same with Moses, by the way Just these random dudes.

It's almost like God wants people to know that God does the work, not your superhuman strength.

Like God's like hey, I'll handle the heavy lifting and just choose this random people.

And these people are on the outside.

Many times they're like visibly fallible, or like they're like the B team, they're like limited people.

And God's like yeah, I'm going to take you, I'm going to use you just to show the world my strength, and so I'll just choose some random, ordinary dude.

I mean, duh, how do you think I got up here?

God just chooses, which is, by the way, for us randos, it's actually good news that God chooses them and just picks them and he does the work behind them.

I love it, it's awesome, it's awesome.

And then God comes to Abram, this random guy from Ur, and says hey, I want to bless you and I want you to leave this land that you've known for your entire life.

Leave it and go somewhere brand new.

Now we think, oh yeah, of course that's great, you know, but you guys, in the ancient world, nobody did this.

In the ancient world, everybody lived in the same area that they grew up in, that their parents grew up, in, that their parents grew up in.

Change was like.

Nobody changed anything.

Nobody went anywhere.

Jet travel, of course, was not invented yet, and no one went on these journeys.

You didn't do that.

You lived more or less in a cycle of doing the same thing every day, day after day, year after year, generation after generation.

You were born in the tent back there, your parents were born back there, your grandparents were born back there.

You're going to go die in that tent over there because your parents died in that tent and their parents died.

It was the same thing over and over and over again In the history of the world.

Nobody ever thought of life as a journey.

It was just a circle Just go.

And so God comes to Abram.

He's like hey, dude, we're gonna do something new, we're gonna get out of this hamster wheel and we're gonna go somewhere.

Which is madness to think about, because everything he knew was right there His family, his village, his economics, his sustenance, his you know, all that he had was right there.

To leave that would be tantamount to suicide, really, like what do you mean?

Go somewhere else?

Where am I going to go?

Everybody I know is right here and God's like I know let's go anyway.

It's crazy.

And, by the way, if you and I are sons and daughters of Abraham, which Paul writes in the book of Romans, then this is also our story.

Our lives, go ahead, pull it back up, sarah.

Our lives should look something like this Get off the wheel, do something, go on a journey somewhere.

I don't mean like necessarily physically, although maybe I came to Minnesota from Colorado and here I am.

Our lives should always be God calling us out of the comfortable into the uncomfortable, out of what we know, and the same old, same old into something brand new.

And it should scare you just a little bit, it should.

That's our heritage, it's our lineage.

This is the call of Abraham and Sarah.

And guess what?

He goes?

He does it.

It's this radical new idea.

Abraham, we're told in Hebrews and other places, has faith.

Faith looks like movement.

It isn't just a cognitive assertion.

Like faith's, like no.

I believe this.

I think it's maybe true.

I'm going to go and he goes.

It's a radically new idea.

And God tells him I'm going to bless you, abraham, if you go.

So he's going out on a limb here, but God's like I'll bless you.

And when you go, when I bless you, your job now is to bless the whole world.

It was never just so Abraham could get a bunch of camels and goats and wives or whatever and like go and live high off the hog in a castle somewhere.

His job is to always be a conduit of blessing for the whole world.

By the way, this is why, when you leave here, those little signs, these prophetic signs that are inspirational, I hope, tell you go and bless the world.

That's your job.

That are inspirational, I hope, tell you go and bless the world.

That's your job.

You're a son, a daughter of Abraham, according to Paul.

You've got some work to do, so your job is not to just collect a bunch of stuff and get a fat castle and live high off the hog either.

Your job is to be a blessing to all whom you encounter, to reveal to the world what God is like, the abundance and goodness and grace of God.

When you walk around, people should sort of get a sense of what God is kind of like when they're in your presence.

This is what the call of Abraham was.

But there's one big problem that God wants to bless Abraham and Sarai through a child.

They're both super old and you thought learning how to use an iPhone at your age was hard.

Try having a kid right.

They're like really old, and God wants to give them a child and they're like this is madness, we're too old for kids, we can't have children.

But he tells them they will and then after this it takes years and nothing happens and they wait and nothing and they wait and nothing.

From Genesis 12 all the way through to Genesis 18, several decades pass and, by the way, they are getting older.

Like you thought it was hard back then.

Now we're even older, we're in work shape.

Thought it was hard back then.

Now we're even older, we're in work shape now than we were back then, and they're waiting and it's taking forever.

I mean you thought waiting in line during COVID at Chipotle for your burrito took forever, but you got your food.

I mean some people will still be waiting for a Minnesota Vikings Super Bowl, but the older you get, like maybe it just won't happen, I don't know.

Like maybe it will, don't worry, we'll be fine.

But like Abram and Sarah, like maybe it won't happen, we're getting too old, like, and by the minute we're getting older and decades go by, like where are you?

God, you promised me this one thing.

Why won't you deliver?

It's almost like god is like, hey, I'll take care of it in my timing, it's my doing, it's my creation.

You can try to white knuckle it.

It doesn't always, always work.

You can take matters into your own hands and, yes, I do want collaboration.

If you know how kids work, it does take collaboration.

But it's my timing, it's my creation, not yours.

You're not doing this, I'll do it.

So it's a God moment.

And finally, after a couple of decades, their son is born and, by the way, read the whole story.

They try to take matters into their own hands a few different ways and it doesn't work.

But they have a kid finally.

And they name him, appropriately enough, isaac, isaac.

In the Hebrew, isaac or Isaac means laughter, because how else do you explain God giving them a child at this old, old, old age, except to just laugh about it, oh my gosh.

And they name him Isaac.

I love it.

They finally get one, and this is the child that God promises them, that they waited for decades for.

And then God says go and sacrifice this child on an altar.

The technical term there is dang.

Are you kidding, like?

Are you kidding?

This is the chosen one, the promised one, and yet Abraham barely blinks an eye, doesn't even bat an eye, doesn't say anything.

Yeah, let's go Now.

I told you I have two sons and when, when I had my son, it changed how I saw the story.

Like this story before, oh, it's a good sacrifice.

You know, when I had my son, I'm like no way.

And I said I told my wife, if god came to me and asked me to sacrifice my son logan, I'd tell him nope, I would.

And probably even now I would still say no way, sorry, I'm not doing that To sacrifice my own son like this, this barbaric, primitive, antiquated.

What are we doing here?

There's no way and, by the way, there are many prominent atheists, they're called the neo-atheists.

They have a problem with this story for obvious reasons, right, and also it's because they're reading with a modern lens and glasses on.

This is an ancient, it reads like an ancient story, but I have a deep and serious problem with this story.

No, thanks God, but here's what you have to know.

Here's the backdrop.

Remember?

Abraham worshiped other gods.

What was it like?

Think about the ancient world.

So here's a quick history of religion for you.

Probably.

People in the ancient world were dependent on food and water for survival, much like we are today.

We can resonate with that.

They needed it for their own sustenance.

To live, they had to have food and water.

Now here's the deal To get food and water in the ancient world, you had to grow it or kill it.

And for your food and water to be around, you needed rain and sunshine, and in proper proportion.

I think I have a picture of that, sarah.

Here's your rain and your sunshine.

If you had enough rain, it would grow your plants.

You could eat your fruit and vegetables or the plants.

Too much rain, though, it would wash your plants.

You could eat your fruit and vegetables or the plants.

Too much rain, though, it would wash your plants away.

Sun was the same way.

Proper sunlight would give you your plants sustenance, and it helped them grow, but too much sunlight, it would wilt the plants, dry them up, and so you had to have this proper proportion.

And they knew these things came from the sky.

So these people, these primitive ancient people, were dependent on these unseen forces.

They were at the whim of these things in the sky.

They often called these gods and worshipped them, by the way.

So these things, these unseen forces, were either on your side or they weren't on your side.

So you wanted them on your side.

Order to do that, you would give them gifts or give them offerings, and you would want them to kind of, you want to woo them over to your side, and so you'd build a structure that would like kind of stack up to get to the heavens, where the gods dwelt.

You would build this thing I have a picture of one.

Yeah, they call these altars, perhaps you've heard of them and they would pour out their offerings on these structures.

They would do offerings and sacrifices and whatever.

And here was the deal.

If the rains came right, great.

If they didn't come, though, let's say, you poured all your offerings onto this altar and the rains didn't come.

Like well, what was your solution?

Like well, maybe we didn't give enough, so give some more.

And so you'd give more, and then give more and more and more.

And so, for example, you take your crops, maybe like your uh, where is it?

Oh, here it.

You take your crops, maybe like your where is it?

Oh, here it is.

You take your crops that you grew and you would bring them to the altar I brought my wheat this morning and you would pour out your offerings to the gods in order to woo them over to your side.

But if the gods didn't give you what you needed, you'd have to just give them more.

Give them more.

What if it wasn't enough?

Well, give them more.

And the question behind the question was like how much is enough?

Is this enough, or do we need to give them more?

And you never knew.

Imagine the level of anxiety you would experience at the mercy and the whim of the gods who provided your food and your water, your sustenance, and you never knew if they were, if it was enough, if they were pleased with you or not.

You never knew where you stood.

Just give them more, give them more, give them more.

By the way, many of us still approach God this way.

What does God want from me?

I don't know.

Give him more.

Make sure he's happy, appease the God, give him more, give him more.

He wants more.

These gods in the ancient world were capricious.

They were random.

They had high demands on people.

These are the gods that Abraham worshipped, and, by the way, maybe the rains would come.

Oh, thank the gods.

Well, what do you do in response to keep them on your side?

Give them more and even more and more.

And you never knew how much.

You can imagine the level of anxiety Either way, the anxiety.

This is why the book of Leviticus.

If you've ever read Leviticus I know it's a weird book and you might have hit that Levitical wall.

When you're trying to read through the whole Bible, you're like, oh, leviticus.

But Leviticus is a detailed, explicit description of what God wants from us, of Israelites.

Hey, do this and then do that, and then give me this much grain and that much of an animal and give me this much blood, and that it's weird, I know, but it is a detailed description of what God wanted from the children of Israel.

For them like oh, we finally know what he wants.

We know how to live in communion with this God.

We finally know what he wants.

We know how to live in communion with this God.

We get it.

It would have been the ease of the anxiety and the stress.

You would have been immensely grateful for Leviticus oh, every year we'll bring a goat and we'll okay, and God can heal us.

It would have been incredibly relieving for this.

But before Yahweh, before Leviticus, you had no idea.

Well, more, more, more.

Maybe this God wants more than just crops.

What's more valuable than crops?

Livestock, a chicken maybe, for example, give him a chicken, golden plump, free range.

What if that's not good enough?

What's bigger, more valuable than a chicken?

We got a cow out back.

Get a cow, price cut.

Cub foods.

By the way, you should have seen the lady this morning at Cub when I was buying these items Wheaties, chicken and a steak.

She was like breakfast.

I said of champions, yes, more, more.

And if you never knew the anxieties building, you would see how this would easily lead to what's the most valuable thing you have?

Give him your son, sacrifice your child to the gods.

They demand it.

We need to appease the gods.

Give them our most valuable asset, and this is the gods that Abram worshiped.

So when God asks Abram, child sacrifice was ubiquitous in the ancient world.

There's plenty of archaeological evidence that suggests in Mesopotamia, in Palestine, in Greece, in Mesoamerica, across the globe, people were sacrificing their children.

It was very, very common, very normal, globally.

People did this all the time.

And so when God comes to Abram, this guy who had worshiped other gods, abraham doesn't blink, he doesn't argue, he doesn't ask for instructions.

He already knows what he's supposed to do.

This is the world he grew up in.

It's this primitive, ancient culture, and he gets right down to it.

Abraham thinks this is how the world works and this is who God is, a God who demands your most valuable thing, give it to me.

A God who demands to be appeased.

It's very common.

You see how destructive it is when we read this as a moral story.

By the way, there's a story I heard about a pastor who took his son, young son, up on a mountain when he was young, read him this story and told his son I will always love God.

Please tell me that troubles you, that story.

It's not how the story should be read.

This is the gods that Abraham worshiped.

But then Abraham, after three days of traveling, tells the servants stay here, I'm going to take the young lad, we're going to go and worship God and we're going to come back.

What do you mean?

You're going to come back?

You were already told that you're going to sacrifice your son.

What do you mean you're going to come back?

We will come back.

Well, maybe Abram is getting a clearer and clearer picture of what this God Yahweh is like and what this God Yahweh does or does not demand of him.

Maybe he's already waking up to like this idea of who God really in fact.

This God is the God of all the gods.

And then, as they're going, isaac, like a young lad, does ask hey, dad, where's the sacrifice?

And Abraham goes hey, ask your mother, just kidding.

He says God will provide, god will provide.

And then, in the middle of the moment, when he's supposed to sacrifice his son, god comes to him and here's the ending.

And he says stop.

And here's the ending.

And it says stop, don't do it.

Remember the question?

The question is what kind of God would ask this man to sacrifice his own son?

And the answer, as one commentator puts, it is not this one, not this God.

See, ancient people would have read this story like, oh yeah, this is totally normal.

Yeah, yeah, god asks a man to sacrifice.

Yep, totally normal.

They would have recognized every part of this story, like, oh yeah, this is totally normal.

Yeah, yeah, god asks a man to sacrifice.

Yep, it's totally normal.

They would have recognized every part of this story.

Oh yeah, I know this story for sure.

I know this is great, yeah.

But they wouldn't have recognized the ending.

The ending is wildly different.

This god doesn't ask for him to sacrifice his son.

You're like, why all the drama?

As part of the point, in the ancient world, they would act these things out.

Everything was dramatic.

There's blood and goats and things and they're throwing stuff.

This is how it worked in the ancient world.

This is part of what Abraham's learning about God.

But this is not a God who asks for the sacrifice.

He stops the sacrifice, not this way, abraham, we're going to do things differently now that I'm in charge.

We're going to go a new way, a different way, and God provides.

You see, worship and sacrifice of the gods in the ancient world was about giving to the gods.

What can I bring to the gods to make them pleased with me.

What can I do to help them?

You know, to earn their favor, and many of us still do this.

How often should I read my Bible?

How many Bible verses should I memorize?

Am I good enough for the gods?

Am I pleasing enough to God?

But this story is about a God who's like no, no, I don't need you to give, I don't need you to do anything, I'll give, I'll provide.

This is a God who wants to bless the world, not sacrifice children.

By the way, child sacrifice becomes an abomination in the story.

In the nation of Israel it's disallowed.

From that moment on, a couple kings do it and it's anathema by the way they do it in a place.

There's two kings that do child sacrifice.

They sort of get co-opted by the pagan gods and they, they burn children in a place called Gehenna, which is the Hebrew word for hell.

Yeah, that's what?

Yeah, child sacrifice is a hellish type thing.

But this God provides, blesses, gives, restores, creates more goodness and love and beauty out of the chaos.

And what does this God require?

Not more of this.

This God says hey, just hey, trust me, have faith.

Would you please stand up If you're willing To me.

Faith looks like this Open your hands.

And this is it God says.

I just require just trust me, have faith and let's go.

So, central Lutheran Church, as we respond, we're going to give, we're going to sing a song and we're going to pray.

May you know that Yahweh is not like the other gods in life that will eat your lunch and destroy your life.

This God wants to bless you, but I don't mean like just a brand new Porsche 911 Twin Turbo.

I don't mean a new job those are fine but it's to give you blessings so you can share them and to share them.

You have to have open hands like this.

Things so you can share them and to share them.

You have to have open hands like this.

This is not the god who offers or asks for sacrifices of our children or most about.

No, this goes to give you stuff, and I I don't mean material wealth maybe it's that but I just I'm like he wants to bless you and and give you relationship with the divine, without anxiety and stress.

If you were, what do I have to give?

No, just show up Open-handed with faith.

So, central Lutheran Church this morning.

May you have faith, amen.