SERIOUS BUSINESS fohn M. Buchanan
Lukej|4:25-33 Broad Street Presbyterian Church
November 6, 1983 Columbus, Ghio

Is the bottom line a loyalty which, by any cther measure, borders on the barbaric?
Dees Ged demand a devotion so total it is capable of destroying one's own child?
Did Jesus seriously want a commitment so zealous it is capable of turning against
parents, spouse, brothers, sisters? Or are these stories in the canon of the Bible simply
to get ovr attention? Are they simply God's way of reminding us that what he has
to do with us is very serious business? .

It helps me to remember that the Bible was not written in the quiet solitude
of a professor's study, nor by a cleric on summer vacation at the ocean. Rather,
most of the Bible was written by people in crisis, by faithful men and women who
had been reminded that faith can be very serious business, indeed, and who were in
the process of paying dearly for their convictions,

The two texts today intrude on our Sunday morning peacefulness with their
brutality. They make us uneasy. My guess is that you haven't heard many sermons
or the harrowing story of Abraham and Isaac nor, for that matter, on Jesus’ suggestion
that following him implies hating one’s parents...particularly on Stewardship Sunday.

I am preaching on those texts today, precisely because of their strange power,
They jar me out of my comfortability. They remind one that what we are about is,
in fact, very serious business.

Yt has been suggested that we would lock up any father today who acted like
Abraham. It appears to be a barely civilized story, a relic of a barbaric past which
practiced atrocities like human sacrifice. It has been suggested that the only possibile
reason for the inclusion of this story in scripture is to illustrate how far we have
come in the historic evolution of religion. We would rightly curse a God who requires
the death of a son just to prove a point. In fact, we would throw a man who acted
Hke Abraham in jail. And if he insisted that he was simply doing what the voice of
God was telling him to do we'd put him away in a mental hospital.

What does it mean, then? To answer we must look carefully at what it meant
to Abraham. Isaac, after all, is the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham and
Sarah in their old age. Isaac is their future, the only future they have. Oriental cul-
tures have always been more honest about the special immortality one anjoys through
one's progeny. We enjoy it too, only more surreptitiously, But Isaac is all Abraham
thinks he has. Isaac and his seed are the only hope that Abraham's life might have
some lasting significance and not fade as quickly as his pipe-dream about Jahweh
and a covenant and a mighty nation. One is tempted to speculate that Abraham is
over-invested in this only son: that Isaac's potential significance as Abraham's immar-
tality ~ may be interfering a bit with Abraham's ability to be himself with the lad
- to love him and enjoy him and father him for what he is ~ namely his son,

In the most vivid terms possible - in a story so intensely human we can barely
abide it, the Bible is suggesting that when we look for salvation ~ anywhere other
than God - we are in trouble. When we expect anything to save us ~ give us meaning,
significance, permanence, joy - other than God's grace - we are headed for trouble.

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follow where God was leading. You know the story: they were elderly, childless,
well-to-do, settled. And suddenly God tells them to let go of all of that; let go,
pack up and move to a strange new place, where old Sarah will conceive and have
a baby who will be the first of a mighty nation. One writer speculates about how
the neighbors must have reacted to the hair-brained scheme: "Don't leave home!
Enjoy! You've worked hard and done well! You're home safe. Don't throw it all
away for a wild dream." (R. Raines, Going Home, p. 27)

"They left their nets and followed him," is the strikingly direct way the Gospel
according to Mark describes Jesus' encounter with men who would become disciples:
Simon, Andrew, James, John. He didn't query them as to their understanding of
historic monotheism in relationship to the polytheistic cult of Rosie. He didn't even
ask about their morals. He simply summoned them to follow and the response was
in the form, first, of letting go - of livelihood, job, camaraderie, way of life: letting
go of every structure of meaning and security upon which their lives had been built.

_—~. Human sin, the theologians teach, is not so much doing bad things, committing

a ‘
“ ethical blunders as it is trying to build one's life, one's security, on the wrong founda-

tion. Unlike the other living things in the created order, we know about our own
mortality. You and I will never be as unselfconsciously free as the birds, the rabbits,
the dogs. They are free of that which concerns us fundamentally. They think they'll
live forever. They don't know any better, but we do. And so we hold tightly to what-
ever feels like security, permanance, safety. We squeeze, grasp, protect - whatever
it is that seems to be an antidote to mortality: a person, a job, a stock portfolio,
a reputation, a house. We hold on literally, for dear life until there is no strength
in us, and more often than not the accumulated squeezing and holding has pressed
the life and beauty and meaning out of whatever it is - the relationships, the reputa~

' tion, the job. Nowhere do the ideas of faith and sin collide with such strength as

\\ here.

The dynamic pervades our lives. What is the most important thing your parents
taught you? There is only one answer to that question. The most important thing
parents teach children is how to be a person without them, how to stand alone, how
to be - without parents. That's what parenting is about. Nothing is more critical
than the way in which the person moves away from parental security, into the fright-
ening world of independence, autonomy and wholeness. Bruno Bettleheim notes
how frequently the motif turns up in the fantasy stories of children. And writes,
"...being pushed out of the home stands for having to become oneself, Self-realization
requires leaving the orbit of the home, an excruciatingly painful experience..." (The
Uses of Enchantment, p. 79)

Philosopher Sam Keen underscores the point by observing that "letting go"
is the essence of that developmental earthquake called adolescence, and laments
that permissive parents shortcut the process by "refusing to be committed to any
values against which young people might rebel." (The Passionate Life, p. 75) He
writes: "To say a single ‘yes’, we must say 'no’ a hundred times. The first and hardest
no! is the decision to sever our ties with home, to endure the alienation that inevitably
comes from leaving all that is familiar. Our temptation is to remain in safety, beyond
tragedy. But if we do, all the delightful virtues of childhood will become twisted
into independent vices. Instead of becoming responsible, we will be reactionary:
instead of creative, conservative." (p. 62)

~3a-

Did he mean that literally? I think the answer is implicit in the fact that he
not only didn't hate his own family, but loved and cared for his mother and with his
dying breath was providing for her. Of course he didn't mean that discipleship requires
hatred for one's family. Part of the answer is literary, He used vivid language, drama-
tic hyperbole - here and elsewhere. He conjured up images of a camel trying to squeeze
through the eve of a needle, of a two by four in a man's eye. It is a linguistic device
which he used with great effectiveness.

What he meant, I believe, is not far from the intent ef the Abraham-Isaac story;
namely, that religious faith is ultimately a very personal matter, that Jesus Christ
calls each of us to account as individuals: not in bunches, net in marriages, families,
but as solitary people, Tom and Jane and Dick and Mary. Our parents, our spouses,
our friends can't do cur believing for us. Before God, we stand alone.

The peonle on the road to Jerusalem with him thought they were on thelr way
ta a coronation and fully expected him to claim his throne and become a royal victori-
ous king He had to tell them directly how wrong they were: that what was ahead
was danger and sacrifice: that the faint of heart would not make it; that each would
have to stand strongly alone. With great consistency Jesus told his friends that they
would have to become new people; be converted; act and think differently. He asked
them, for his own sake, and on his own authority, for everything.

When we preachers get up in our pupits (on the first Sunday of November Jand
talk about stewardship we need to remember that while the church needs financial
support in order to survive, the subject is not finally budgets and money and pledges
~ but discipleship, conversion, faithfulness. Stewardship is always about conversion,
about the castly demands of faithfulness.

The danger is always that we will make it ton easy on curselves, Instead of
conversion, the danger is that the preacher will be satisfied with an increase of 9.6%.
Donald Messer, the distinguished President of Mlif School of Theology, wrote recently
that we have “made stewardship so safe and sanitary that the radical and revolutionary
meaning of this key religious commitment has lost its transforming dynamic.” (The
Christian Ministry, 11/83, p. 16}

Messer thinks that one of the major problems of the modern church is that we
don't ask nearly enough of ourselves, We assume that if we work gently at nurturing
people in the faith they will commit more of themselves, Not true, Messer suggests,
Rather, in faith, the act of commitment comes first, growth follows. The cail to
faith isn't to study and think about it for awhile, it is to follow Jesus Christ in a life
of obedient faithfulness.

We are privileged Christians, not only by reason of our comfort and wealth,
but primarily by reason of our freedom to believe or not to believe as we please.
It has not always been se comfortable. it is net so pleasantly comfortable elsewhere
in the world today. Christians in Central America, for instance, are struggling today
with what it means ta be faithful and how far they are willing to go to live out their
faith. Archbishop Oscar Romero was murdered in San Salvador by one of the netorious
Right Wing death squads which still operate in El Salvador. He was murdered because
his discipleship to Jesus Christ motivated him to stand with the poor, And members
of his flock are learning by terrible example about the cost of faithfulness,

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We can expect the living Christ to continue to ¢ghallenge the mentality which chovuses
to escalate the arms race to guarantee securjty ~ against the couneci of a multitude
of experts who now see the futility of that. We should expect the spirit of the living
Christ to challenge us ~ as owe-House—ef Representatives. responds to uncertainty
by funding svete MX missiles .an i ~i5— 2ara;-of-the-testing-of

Thinking like that can get you in tro Erdest Campbell writes: “This is
how Jesus got nailed to a cross. He na of agrant i epefide ce of-ajl the principali-

ties and powers. We keep clutching oyf Social Sdeyrity >; our mi plans,
our bankhooks, our stocks. And we wanf/to know w y-we are not free,”

Those who followed him found’ new life, life deeper, richer, passionate, full.
Those willing to let go found something in following him infinitely more precious
than the old certainties. So the summons, the call, comes to each of us, not necessari-
ly in a bUnding flash of light, or cataclysmic emotional upheaval ~- but perhaps in
a relentless dissatisfaction with the quality of life we are leading: perhaps in a
late-night discovery that the certainties for which we Hve and die are not so certain
after all. The call of Jesus Christ comes, I believe, to each and though the sense
of it is as different as we are, the essence is always to let go, to loosen our grip,
to lay down nets and fellow.

For some that may mean radical departuret letting go of job, life style, and
moving on to another place. But for most it ig not a matter of radical displacement,
but internal change. We are called, someone observed, not to imitate Jesus, not

to be carbon copy disciples, but to follow him with integrity where we are, t
we may hav go are old pat s, ald habits, old ways iving Z eelating

in order, nta, the ne “ifte, -Foseme it will ‘tiean letting pe;@t controtling,~_,
manipdlati ehaviorLin-siir marriages, our familfes, our vocations, and adopting ~

a new, open, and loving posture. \

For all of us, to hear the call of Christ, to let go, will mean a conversion at
the deepest level of the soul, Spiritually, we are most uncomfortable with the thought
of not being in control, predictable, secure. But it is precisely to this new open
handed faith that our Lord calls us. At a level so deep we are uncomfortable even
discussing it, we are called to trust him: to trust Jesus Christ with our future, our
welfare, our happiness. At the deepest level of the soul we are called to let go.

The promise is that when we let go of all that is impermanent, temporary,
and nonessential, we will encounter that which is ultimately real, permanent, eternal, —
namely the love of God. The promise is that when we let go, we are held in arms
that are everlasting. Amen.

Bue

The good news is that when Abraham trusted, God provided. The good news
is that the Gospel is not finally all sacrifice and grim self denial, but warmth and
joy and life abundant; life overflowing with goodness and affection and happiness
and peace,

The good news is that Abraham and Isaac came down from the mountain and
lived out the rest of their lives as an extraordinary father and son. The good news
is that once Abraham learned the difficult lesson and loosened his grip on his son
a bit, he wag given him back, and loved him more, and appreciated and enjoyed
him more than he ever thought possible - not as a possession from which Abraham
had to squeeze his salvation, but as a gift.

The good news is a great mystery. It is that when we have mustered the
courage to stand alone and commit everything to Jesus Christ, he gives back what
we need: and we reclaim the life we have dedicated, the tasks, the goals, and the
dear relationships, the parents, spouses, children, brothers, sisters, friends - who
axe now, by God's good grace, infinitely more precious than ever before.

The good news is finally a great mystery which we can't explain, but only
witness: namely that in losing fe we find it: in loosening our tight grip on things.
we begin to see their true meaning: in releasing what sometimes can be a suffocating
grip on other people - we begin to know their precious and infinite value.

The good news is that when we give everything we have, everything we are
to God + what we get back is our salvation. Amen.