Obedience
June 28, 2005
Okay. I’m sorry. I’ve been harping on this text about Abraham and Isaac for far too long now; but it won’t leave me alone. I preached on it on Sunday and it went fine - I definitely opened the text up a bit, but I’m still no clearer myself on what to do with this text.
I want to know what place obedience has in our faith. I am repelled by Abraham’s obedience because it jeopardizes and traumatizes another person’s life, but I can’t discount his obedience entirely. My intellectual bent wants to say that we are responsible for questioning God and railing against God and all of things that I know are acceptable. But, I wonder if I don’t miss the ability to simply subject myself to God’s will (which is a very scary, obscure phrase by the by).
I give up. I am so lost in this text. I want to just put it aside, but I can’t. Someone please help me. How do we live in this paradox of obedience and questioning? Is there a place for both? Why does this story only lift up one?? Argh.
Posted in uncategorized by Sarah
mark said:
June 28th, 2005 at 9:42 am
new blog! congrads…looks good..
same blog service? yall are now def blog dating..
mark
Adam said:
June 28th, 2005 at 11:13 am
Sarah - just so people know, I did not pressure you to get a Typepad blog…but it is the natural progression that occurs in every true blogger
I’m glad you found your true calling….
Sarah said:
June 28th, 2005 at 7:05 pm
Mark - not blog dating - good grief . . . you just want us to be blog dating so you can say you know people who are blog dating, but if you said that now, you’d be lying . . .
Adam - you did too . . . and this is not my true calling . . . just wait . . .
elizabeth said:
June 29th, 2005 at 9:21 am
like everyone else i also enjoy the new look for the blog. but i do want to talk about the text. i do whole-heartedly believe that there is room for both obedience and questioning. i think that’s what we’re called to do. but maybe this text is written this way on purpose. i mean, it got you to question, didn’t it? and i think it is the silent voices of the text (isaac, sarah) who are doing all the questioning. i wonder if God questions what God did here. because it’s an angel of the LORD who shows up with the ram. is God embarassed of what God’s done? (I’m crazy just like you are…and i’m rambling…) i think writing from the perspective of obedience only is what gets us to questioning. and we ask for ourselves as well as for the psychologically traumatized isaac. do you think there’s a connection between this event and sarah’s death 10 verses later? that would be interesting…
Gabe said:
June 30th, 2005 at 1:04 am
New blog, new bookmarks, new RSS, CHANGE!
But change is good. [as long as it's found in the couch cushions;-0]
My dad used to say something that I hated then, but I think applies here and now I think I finally get it (after 23 years).
Obey first and ask questions later.
We are called to obey, by God who is so much greater, and He knows why but we do not. Will we obey? Once we have, God can shed light on the situation (not that he will, yet). We are free to question, and we will see that He chose, we followed and the result is good.
Also, if we do obey, our heart is known, not to Him for He always knew, but to us. That just might be the encouragement we need to go on.
Rachel said:
June 30th, 2005 at 9:24 am
Gabe,
What if we accidentally misinterpret what God is telling us? What if we think we’re being obedient but we’re actually making a mistake? God’s words don’t come to me quite as clearly and concretely as they do to Abraham in this story. I think obeying without questioning is dangerous.
Gabe said:
June 30th, 2005 at 11:47 am
- True, I don’t think any of us hear the voice of God the way Abraham did (but if some do, I wont argue, that’s just an entirely different discussion).
- I do think that through prayer we begin to find direction and that, like all things, we should pour it through the sieve that is the bible. If something doesn’t hold up to the Word, it’s no good. I believe that when we seek to do what is right (regarding a right/wrong circumstance) God will honor that and allow clarity. In other matters there is more flexibility. God knows what we are going to do, that doesn’t mean he mandated it. So wether we choose to live in Dallas or Duluth isn’t something he will always provide the answer for.
I could be wrong though. Further discussion?
- Gabe
Tracy said:
July 4th, 2005 at 1:05 pm
I get concerned about obedience when I think of some of the things that people have said they did because God told them to. How do we know God didn’t tell them to? If Abraham were to follow God’s command today wouldn’t we brand him a religious zealot and marginalize him? I have a realy problem in this area.
- kp - said:
July 16th, 2005 at 4:58 pm
I’ll put my two cents in, which are really on loan from one Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who uses the story of the calling of Levi (Mk 2:14) to talk about obedience:
“The call goes forth, and is at once followed by the response of obedience. The response of the disciples is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith in Jesus. How could the call immediately evoke obedience? The story is a stumbling-block for the natural reason, and it is no wonder that frantic attempts have been made to separate the two events. By hook or by crook a bridge must be found between them. Something must have happened in between, some psychological or historical event….
…Unfortunately our text is ruthlessly silent on this point, and in fact it regards the immediate sequence of call and response as a matter of crucial importance. It displays not the slightest interest in the psychological reasons for a man’s religious decisions. And why? For the simple reason that the cause behind the immediate following of call by response is Jesus Christ himself….
…And what does the text inform us about the content of discipleship? Follow me, run along behind me! That is all. To follow in his steps is something which is void of all content. It gives us no intelligible programme for a way of life, no goal or ideal to strive after….
…The old life is left behind, and completely surrendered. The disciple is dragged out of his relative security into a life of absolute insecurity (that is, in truth, into the absolute security and safety of the fellowship of Jesus_, from a life which is observable and calculable (it is, in fact, quite incalculable) into a life where everything is unobservable and fortuitous (that is, into one which is necessary and calculable), out of the realm of finite (which is in truth the infinite) intot the realm of infinite possibilities (which is the one liberating reality). Again it is no universal law. Rather it is the exact opposite of all legality. It is nothing else than bondage to Jesus Christ alone, completely breaking through every programme, every ideal, every set of laws. No other significance is possible, since Jesus is the only significance. Beside Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters.”
PHEW! I’m almost out of breath after that ridiculously extended quotation, but I felt it was necessary to include all of those words from Brother Bonhoeffer, which, when read in light of your struggle over a presumed “paradox,” help to shed a bit more dark on the act of obedience.
Grace and Truth,
- Kellen
[Apologies if there are any type-o's in that quote. I'm too lazy to read back through....]
Sarah said:
July 16th, 2005 at 6:43 pm
Is there no distinction between following Jesus and the call to sacrifice your son as in the Abraham story? Both call for unquestioning obedience? What about the call to suicide bombing (to accomplish God’s will?) or purifying the Aryan race?
In this age where God’s presence is so often unclear, how do we discern God’s call for obedience?
Rachel said:
July 17th, 2005 at 12:30 pm
Sarah, that is such a good question! I am wondering quite a lot lately: how do I discern God’s call/voice/command from all the other influences, distractions and noise in my life? If you figure it out, please let me know!
- kp - said:
July 17th, 2005 at 1:25 pm
“In this age where God’s presence is so often unclear, how do we discern God’s call for obedience?”
This question presumes that God’s presence was “clear(er)” in the times of Abraham and Levi than it is now. I don’t really think that’s the case. I think that God’s presence always has been “often unclear,” especially on the Mount in Moriahs, by the Sea of Galilee, and in the garden of Gethsemane. There you will find struggles to “discern God’s call for obedience” combined with the willing faith to obey.
I think that the bottom line for me is that a call to obedience from God is only a call insofar as it is clearly from Jesus. And I direct you back to Bonhoeffer’s statement: “It is nothing else than bondage to Jesus Christ alone, completely breaking through every programme, every ideal, every set of laws. No other significance is possible, since Jesus is the only significance. Beside Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters.”
- kp - said:
July 17th, 2005 at 1:26 pm
Oops. Moriah*