2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”
3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together. ~~Genesis 22: 3-8
Over the last couple of months I have had the opportunity to catch up on personal reading. Much of this revolves around my academic or practical work, but sometimes I also get to dust off spiritual texts as well. It has often been one of these volumes—Bonhoeffer, Merton, Weil, etc—that helps me to refocus on higher motivations and be spiritually rejuvenated. The most recent of these was Fear and Trembling, in which philosopher/theologian Soren Kierkegaard critically read the above story and examined the nature of faith and obedience with respect to Abraham. His examination of Abraham’s faith has weighed on my heart and, I think, is worth sharing as a reflection on Christian service/mission and the sacrifices that inevitably fall within that.
At the beginning of this story, God calls Abraham to sacrificially kill his son Isaac—the son who God gave him as a miracle and who God promised would make Abraham father of the nations. Kierkegaard opens by reminding his readers how seriously we should take the paradoxical nature of faith that God requires of us. In this act, God appeared to turn the tables on Abraham by asking him to kill his God-promised heir. To help us understand the depth of this command, Kierkegaard contrasts it with other ancient examples of sacrifice, highlighting how others were subject to universal rules whereas Abraham was subject to a particular relation to God. Take for example Agamemnon, who also famously sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, in order to appease Artemis (whom he had wronged) and safeguard his troops’ sea journey to attack Troy. Like with his other examples, Kierkegaard guides us through the logic of Agamemnon’s sacrifice: he is being punished by a god for a violation of her sovereignty and is pressured by the demands of life to kill his daughter for the good of his country.
Cause and effect; eye for an eye; breaking eggs for an omelet—all reasonable rules that bound Agamemnon’s decision and all too often motivate many of ours. However, Abraham was forced into a different type of relationship, reflecting a different God. The God of Abraham was not punishing Abraham, and Abraham’s sacrifice would not save/preserve/accomplish anything worldly (in fact, it would work against it). The paradoxical and particular nature of faith is redoubled: Abraham must kill his son, opposing any reasonable expectations or universal causal rules. Abraham was individually approached by God to apparently act in contrast to the universal laws of God (killing his son) and the common sense of worldly prosperity (killing his heir).
Abraham got up the next day—THE NEXT DAY—to fulfill God’s command, beginning with a three-day walk with his servants and son (who he’s going to kill when they get there). Had he waited, he may have fallen victim to Sarah’s doubts. He had once before, and he paid, like Agamemnon, for listening to those around him and doing the rational thing. But instead he left that morning and silently began the journey. His silence and his promptness testify to his faith and to his divine resignation to God’s command. For three days he had the opportunity to turn back, to be overcome by emotions or rationality, to be angry at God’s demand, or to try to explain himself to his three fellow travellers. But he could not, because no explanation was provided to him, and none would satisfy those who had not also heard the particular, paradoxical call to act in faith.
Right now, we are walking up the mountain. We have our own opportunities to turn back, or become overcome with emotion or rationality, or explain ourselves. In fact, we often get trapped by that demand for answers and, in turn, give reasons for our decisions that ultimately fall short or can be argued away. Before proceeding, despite the easy comparison, let me be exceedingly clear that Isaac does not represent Teresa in this parallel. Instead, Isaac, for all Christians, represents the variety of sacrifices we must be willing to hoist upon the altar. For all that we are walking towards, we know that we must also sacrifice much. We know very well that we are leaving family and friends, opportunities for great jobs and education, and the safety and security of a familiar life in a highly-organized society. We are being called to sacrifice many things even in this small act of moving away to a place where we can even learn how to begin to serve. And yet, we also know that none of this matters: first, because it will all fade into dust and, second, because we cannot keep questioning where or how we are called. We must do what we know to be right—what we in particular have been called to do—even if it defies logic or does not offer others a clear guidepost for their own journey of faith. Nevertheless, hearing the ways in which God has called others to large or small tasks has always helped me better hear my own.
We are all called into acts of faith that seem paradoxical or irrational. I do not know why Meg and I were called to this particular way, but after years of asking and making excuses and stalling, I am ready to climb the mountain. We have found our rational veneers for going, but they only make publicly acceptable what we believe is the more beautiful private motivation hiding beneath: that we have been called to act out the Gospel by serving others, advocating for the poor, and comforting those in need—for us: across the ocean in a small rural region of a medium-sized land-locked country that has been cast by the wayside of the global economy and is systemically abused by lack of access to healthcare and education. Who are we to ask others to go in our place? Who is God to call us to serve and then have to wait for us to find more acceptable explanations for following him? Who are those in need that we have a right to say to them “no, your problems are your own.”?
Closing this part of the story, Abraham reveals the root of his faithfulness (his righteousness) and his reason for climbing the mountain in the first place. His son, Isaac, did not know God’s intentions but he likely knew about the future he was promised and the hope that was wrapped up in his survival. In turn, his question was perfectly reasonable: where is the sacrifice? And Abraham responds that the Lord “will provide the lamb.” Kierkegaard makes much of this statement with beautiful complexity. Abraham cannot now say that Isaac is the sacrifice because it would reveal that Abraham was too afraid or dismissive to bring up the issue earlier. Moreover, Abraham cannot with certainty say that Isaac will be the sacrifice—he has not forgotten God’s promise, and he has no idea what awaits him. Nevertheless, he also cannot say that he will acquire an animal on the way because he knows well that he is supposed to sacrifice Isaac. He knows his duty, and yet he knows that it cannot be possible. And so he resigns himself that God will provide, and he faithfully acts out of that blessed resignation.
I feel like this is the appropriate time to cut ourselves to size. I am no Abraham. Neither is Meg. Neither, as he admits, was Kierkegaard. Abraham’s faithfulness is a mirror of God’s own, and it has hardly been mirrored again by anyone else on earth. In fact, I don’t even know if I would recognize God if he approached me and told me to do such a thing; I know even less about how I would respond. Meg and I feel that the small sacrifice we are making—our embrace of the paradox of faith—is often exaggerated by others.
Supporters sometimes raise our work to unfathomable levels, signing us up for sainthood before we leave. Those who are worried or skeptical about our methods act as though we are binding each other or Teresa to the sacrificial pyre out of some convoluted sense of obligation or white savior-ism. But both are wrong. Again, we are not Abraham. We do not get to hear God’s booming voice or even his deafening whisper. But we are also not doing anything that amazing or sacrificial or saintly or [insert laudatory adjective]. We are simply trying to live in the paradox of faith—a paradox that God has instituted, and one that Christ has both simplified and complicated through his teachings and divine example. Paradoxically reject wealth, reject power, reject influence, reject comfort, reject the world, and embrace those who still have even less while you hold on to the promises of the Gospel.
Meanwhile, we are not killing ourselves or our daughter. People do die where we are going. But everyone dies. And oh how filled with life are those who we are going to serve. We should not be undeservedly raised to sainthood; nor should we be preemptively called martyrs.
And so, reflecting on our own plans and on our example in Abraham, we must take seriously the demands that faith puts upon us. Allow me to close with a quote from the book:
“Then faith's paradox is this: that the single individual is higher than the universal, that the single individual determines his relation to the universal through his relation to God, not his relation to God through his relation through the universal... Unless this is how it is, faith has no place in existence; and faith is then a temptation.”
We have been provided with clear explanations of the universal—those commands that bind all Christians—in scripture and our own conscience: the Law, the commands of Christ, the recommendations of the apostles, etc. But these universals get us only so far, as they only define the scope of our practices and do not tell us, as individuals, what we must do. It is here that faith enters in to compel us directly into particular acts for the glory of God. Faith, and acting out of that faith as a particular individual, enriches our relationship to God because through it our relationship is no longer mediated merely through Law. It does not clearly fit within the standard ways in which we know we should relate to God. Further, others who witness that act of faith through the eyes of the universal may accuse that person of succumbing to some kind of misguided temptation, since their actions do not overtly fit the paradigm. For example, though no Christians would have no trouble with us tithing or volunteering at a soup kitchen or sponsoring orphans from our home here, some consider the risks of moving across the world unnecessarily reckless to be considered wise Christian service. Certainly, this accusation has been levied on us, and I imagine we have foolishly judged others in the same way. But we cannot any longer, because “living by faith” overrules—and must overrule—the “living by sight” offered by universals.
May we all search ourselves to hear that still, small voice and sort through the clutter appropriately, with great hope, and with fear and trembling.
 |
| As a visual aid, this chicken exhibited much fear and trembling. |
