If we love our children too

A sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Pentecost by Rev’d Deb Bird. (Genesis 22.1-14; Matthew 10.40-42.)

I grew up toward the end of the Cold War but not as a politically aware child. I did not understand the tension between the Soviet Union and United States. I didn’t grasp the number of nuclear weapons poised for launch as I went about the business of schooling and socialising. But I was also of the MTV generation and like every child, I could sense fear. I heard it in songs of the day like “Two Tribes” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, “Land of Confusion” by Genesis, and especially “Russians” by Sting.

‘Russians’ is a song haunted by the possibility that whole nations might be drawn by escalation of pride and propaganda into destroying one another. It criticizes the logic of mutually assured destruction: the bizarre idea that peace could be maintained by the threat of complete annihilation. Its chorus is a single sentence upon which all the hope of the songwriter hangs: It would be such an ignorant thing to do, if the Russians love their children too.

We say children are our future. We say they are precious. Many of us would lay down our lives for the children we have birthed, raised, taught, loved, or been in one way or another entrusted with. Yet again and again, adults build worlds in which children bear the cost of distorted agendas: wars in which children are killed in staggering numbers; economic systems that make health, housing, safety, and wellbeing harder to protect; homes marked by domestic and family violence; millions of children trapped in slavery and exploitation; environmental neglect of the world they will inherit; and political slogans that demonise children and young people in order to win power.

To say we love our children is inconsistent with tolerating behaviour that compromises their lives, their dignity, and their future. Which is why we must also name the problems we see in stories of our faith.

Last week we heard Abraham and Sarah cast Hagar and the child Ishmael into the wilderness. When Sarah was believed to be barren, the couple had used Hagar’s body to secure an heir. But once their own child Isaac arrived, the desire became to restrict the inheritance and blessing of God to themselves. They cast out the mother and son, leaving them for dead.

Today we heard the next chapter in that story - Abraham is now to make a sacrifice of his son Isaac. They go to the mountain. Isaac is to carry the wood. Abraham carries the knife. Isaac is bound. Abraham lifts the knife. The violence is intimate: father and son, trust and betrayal, faith and terror melded together.

Now let me be clear. If you have ever heard this story used to imply this kind of ‘testing’ is a necessary part of your faith, you have heard this story misused.

We are Christians. We follow the God revealed in the Christ, who does not desire violence against children, does not sanctify abuse, does not ask the vulnerable to be traumatized by threats for the sake of parental ambition, obedience, or holy theatre. To the contrary, the God revealed in Jesus welcomes children and gives his own life rather than diminishing or demanding the lives of others.

So what do we do with this terrible story?

For a start it’s important to note that just because something made its way into holy scripture it doesn't mean it should be spiritualized. Horror is the only appropriate Christian response to violence, no matter where it is found.

We can recognise that the prevalence of violence presented as God-sanctioned throughout scripture is one of the reasons people legitimately reject Christianity. We have to be honest about that and learn how to responsibly read these texts.*

And finally, we should ask why this story has endured as something we pass on. Perhaps, like the story of Jesus on the cross, Genesis 22 is not given to endorse violence, but to expose the terrifying human habit of justifying violence as a means to an end. History gives us no shortage of examples in which the name of God has been invoked to bless atrocity. Perhaps this story holds up a mirror and asks: will Abraham harm even his own child in the name of a hoped-for destiny? And more painfully still: will we see, before it is too late, the terrible cost children continue to bear for the ambitions, fears, and agendas of adults?

We should not wait until the child on the mountain is our own before we raise these questions.

If there is anything holy in this story, it is that the violence is interrupted. The knife does not fall. Another way is given.

And according to the gospel, that other way is welcome. The presence of God is never found in the hand that holds power over the vulnerable, but in the offering of water, in the safe provision for the little one. Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me” and presses us to ask: who are the children who need our welcome and protection right now? Who is being made to carry wood up the mountain while another carries a knife?

God says, “Do not lay your hand on them.”

That is the gospel voice in this story.
The voice that interrupts violence.
The voice that stops adult affairs from becoming a child’s burden.
The voice that insists no promise of God is secured by sacrificing the vulnerable.

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*I recommend the work of John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg to help with this.