Tag Archives: Love

The Paradox of Loving

Living in the Spirit
June 23, 2014 

Scripture Reading: Genesis 22:1-14 

After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.’ —Genesis 22:1-2

Of all the scriptures in the Bible, these two verses would be my pick of the first two to edit out, if I drew such an assignment. Of course, I will never draw that assignment. On a visit to Monticello, I saw the Bible from which Thomas Jefferson had removed all the parts he did not like. So I am apparently not the only person who just wishes some things were not in the Bible. Lots of commentaries have been written trying to make sense of these two verses in light of what we think we know about God. There has been conjecture about what this whole story is all about and rationalizations to make these verses more palatable.  The bottom line seems to me to be that God really means it when God commands us to love God more than anything or anyone else.

I have wondered how much it was God testing Abraham and how much it was Abraham testing Abraham regarding his fidelity to God. I think we need to remember that Abraham had already given up one son, Ismael. Abraham didn’t kill Ismael but he clearly did not know what the boy’s fate would be sending him and his mother out into the dessert with a bag of water. Did the father in Abraham need to treat these sons equally? Tradition has it that Abraham maintained a loving and long relationship with Ismael visiting him regularly. I doubt if he took Sarah with him on those trips.

This I do know and it is a paradox. If we truly place God first in our lives, loving God with all our hearts, minds, and strengths, our capacity to love others grows exponentially.

Prayer: Lord, open our hearts and minds to love you more nearly to the way you want to be loved so that we are enabled to love ourselves and others in the way you want us to love. Amen.

 All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Wholeness—Oneness—Justice

Living in the Spirit
June 16, 2014

 Scripture Reading: Genesis 21:8-21 

 The child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, ‘Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.’ – Genesis 21:8-10

Why do we do the awful things that we do? Indeed, part of our way of being was penciled in generations before we were born by our culture and our specific family’s traits. Sarah came from a culture that valued only women who could have children. Part of that was economic: like selling a cow that could not produce a calf. A non-producing animal is not worth its feed. Part of it was patterns of inheritance. We see that throughout the Bible. The oldest son is the primary heir. Oh, wait I favor Isaac over Ismael, Jacob over Esau, Ephraim over Manasseh. The story we read today came from the tradition of Sarah descendants.  I wonder how God’s perspective would read. Do we ever think that what we do today may still be festering on battlefields 4000 years later?

Reading further into the scripture, God does not render any judgment on Sarah’s behavior or whether it is a part of God’s vision for the world. God simply states that God can continue to work out God’s plan through Isaac and that Ismael will lead a great nation, also.

The subject of this website came from stories like this. Wholeness leads to oneness and oneness leads to justice and justice leads to wholeness. It is a great spiral. We chose whether it goes up or down. When we work to be whole ourselves through the love and healing force of God, we too can love each other and justice will result. When we allow our lives to wallow in self-deprecation, we usually become alienated from our neighbors who then become our enemies, and there is no justice.

We serve an awesome God who loves us and wants the very best for us—all of us. We are never made better by the denigration of another and we always suffer the consequences of our failure to love.

Prayer: Lord, teach me how to love you, myself, and my neighbor. Amen.

 

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.