This story of Abraham and Isaac answers the basic questions that every story is required to answer.  Who?  Abraham and his now only son, Isaac.  What?  A test.  When?  After these things; that is, after the casting out of Hagar and Ishmael.  Where?  The Land of Moriah?  How?  A burnt offering sacrifice.  But at first reading, it surely raises more questions than it answers.

Why isn’t Abraham talking back to God?  Why isn’t Abraham arguing with God that this will ruin the promise?  Why is Abraham so compliant with a God who appears to capricious as to fulfill a promise and then put it at risk.  After the first few words of the story, we have questions.  But Abraham is not asking.

The narrator never puts a question to God in Abraham’s voice.  God calls out Abraham’s name and Abraham simply says, “here I am.” Told by God to take the child – the child that was promised and finally given to Abraham in his old age and the child upon whom the whole promise of a great multitude of descendents rests – and make an offering of the child to God that will cost the child’s life; Abraham has no questions! He begins to do what God asks without posing a single question!

In an eerily straightforward way, the narrator describes in great detail, with a wonderful economy of language, the events that unfold.  Finally, half way through the story, the character whose very life is at risk dares to ask a question.  “Father,” Isaac says.  Abraham responds to him just as he has earlier responded to God, “Here I am.” And then Isaac poses a simple and obvious question, “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” What! No why question! No How question! No accusation, “you forgot the lamb?” No doubt even that there is a lamb.  Just a question about its location.  “Where is it?”

“God will provide it,” Abraham assures his son.

The question answered, apparently to Isaac’s satisfaction, the two walk on together.

But the story has not ended, and we do not yet know if God will provide the lamb.  The narrator keeps us in great suspense, and just as God has tarried in the fulfillment of the promise for Isaac’s birth, God seems to tarry until the very last moment before providing the lamb that will save Isaac in this story.  But at last, just as Hagar lifted up her eyes and saw water in the desert, Abraham lifts up his eyes and sees the ram required for the sacrifice has indeed been provided.

The narrator moves the story so quickly– and our relief is immense at the sighting of the lamb, that we forget for a moment that we had a lot of questions as we heard this story.  And a lot of them are “why” questions.

Why is there a story in the Hebrew testament that suggests that God approves of child sacrifice?  Why would Abraham go so far as to lay his own child on the altar with a weapon raised?  Why would God even suggest such a scenario?

Tradition has answered some of these questions.  It has been suggested that in ancient near eastern culture, where child sacrifice was not unheard of, the reprieve given Isaac taught the Hebrew people that their God did not demand such sacrifice, and that they, therefore, should not engage in this horrific practice.  So the story may have introduced a new ethic to the Hebrew people.

It is also important to know that this story probably arose as a traditional story for the Hebrew people during a time of exile.  So when much of their lives had been sacrificed because of the unfolding events of history, they were reminded in this dramatic story that once before, their future had been at risk, and God had provided then.  The God who provided then will surely provide now.

This story is a story about a test all right! But it is not just Abraham’s faith that is being tested here.  It is also God’s reliability.  And both Abraham and God are found to be trustworthy.  Much, much later, when the Apostle Paul is interpreting the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as God’s salvation for both Jews and Gentiles, he will again and again rely on Abraham as a model for faith.

That faith is first expressed in this story when it is evoked by the child’s question.  “Where is the lamb?” evokes the response “God will provide.”

Abraham’s answer to Isaac articulates faith as radical trust.  But Abraham’s faith as it is tested and displayed in this story is not a passive faith.  Abraham does not sit down on the spot and wait for God to produce the lamb for the sacrifice before proceeding on his journey, or preparing for the sacrifice.  Abraham walks on.  Constructs an altar.  Lays the fire, prepares his son as though he is to be the offering, and places him atop the wood, and reaches out to grasp the weapon to complete the next part of the offering ritual.  Then, and only then, at the last possible moment, God calls out again, and the third time Abraham says, “here I am.”

This story portrays Abraham as radically available and obedient to God.  And it portrays God as worthy of Abraham’s trust.  And both Abraham’s faith and God’s trustworthiness are revealed not as a foregone conclusion, but as a result of the ongoing, step by step, moment by moment obedience of Abraham to God’s call.

It is easy for us to get hung up on the terrible and very real emotional tension in this story.  What horror must Isaac have felt, what grief must Abraham have felt, when it seems as though the sacrifice is about to be completed! But I think that if we are caught in horror at that moment, we have missed the hinge point of the story that is built into Isaac’s question.

“God will provide.”

Abraham believes this.  And because Abraham is trustworthy in Isaac’s eyes, Isaac believes it to.  It is possible that right up until the very moment God provided, Abraham and Isaac never doubted that God would provide.  It is possible that they were not afraid, but eager to see what was next.  They just waited for God to answer the “where” question.  They might have been looking around – a little anxiously to be sure, and asking “now where is that lamb?”

Not that why questions aren’t real…they are.  But maybe faith doesn’t dwell on the why questions so much as it looks around with a sense of anticipation and asks, “Now, where is that help that I know God is providing?  Who is the person who is going to help me out here?  What is the next thing I need to do to get through this experience?”

Abraham and Isaac did not doubt that what they needed would be provided.
Neither did they sit down and refuse to go forward until it was provided.
Three times Abraham says, “here I am.” And Isaac, who voices only a question, is the one who is literally there – on the altar.  His “Here I am” needs no words.

Remember, the narrator has told us that this episode is a test.  God’s whole salvation enterprise at this moment in the story rests on Abraham.  God needs to know if Abraham will continue to answer “here I am,” even if asked to risk the very thing that is most valuable to him.

This story perhaps answers God’s question about Abraham more than it answers Abraham’s questions – or ours – about God.  God knows that Abraham is reliable.

So, I wonder, does God have any questions about my faithfulness?  Can my faith ever be as great as Abraham’s?  If it were, how would I express that kind of faith?  What kind of test would it take for me to express this kind of faith?

Abraham’s test is set up as an invitation to make an offering.  In fact, we have opportunities for making an offering at every worship service.  The first i nvitation is simply that we are invited to be here.  We offer our presence.  But just being physically present is not being radically available.  We are invited to give our voice, our attention, our heart and mind to the words, the songs, the movement through time of the acts of worship.  We are then invited to respond to the word of God with an offering of material resources.

What state of mind and point of view do we bring to these invitations to make an offering to God?

So often, there is an attitude about the offering that suggests that by giving a little to God, we have permission to withhold most for ourselves.

Abraham is here willing to offer everything in faith – without any sense of resentment that God would demand it.  After all, Isaac was God’s gift to begin with.

When we make an offering, do we see it a expressing our willingness to offer everything to God?  How much do we need to give before we recognize that God wants our life – our moments and our days, our hands and our minds, our thoughts and our actions, our heart and our intellect.

Isaac’s question lingers, “where is the lamb?”

And God’s question lingers.  “Can I count on my people to be radically available?”

And finally – this is worship.  That we offer ourselves – all that we have and all that we are – before the God who has provided, who is providing and who will provide.

Where is the offering?

Here we are, Lord – here we are.