2008-06-22 “Abraham: The Not-So-Good Father”
Genesis 21:8-21 and 22:1-19
James McTyre
Lake Hills Presbyterian Church (USA)

We've been talking this month about Abraham, the great-great-great grandfather of our Christian faith. He's also the father of faith for the Jewish faith and for the faith of Islam. Whether you're Christian, Jewish or Muslim, if you start tracing the history of faith, all roads eventually lead back to Abraham – to Abraham and especially as our scriptures tell us today, to Abraham's children.

In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, we read where around 4000 years ago, God called Abraham. God chose Abraham, and Abraham chose God back. That's how 4000 years of faith got started. That simple: God chooses Abraham and Abraham chooses God back. It makes you think about how important your choices might be. Imagine if your decisions of faith had 4000 years of impact.

Anyway, when Abraham was 75 years old, he was chosen by God. God told Abraham to leave his father's house in Ur, that's what's now Iraq, and go to the land around what's now Palestine. So, Abraham packed up his wife and kinfolks and moved away from there.

Ten years later, Abraham is 85 years old, and his wife Sarah figures it's not really looking like they're going to have any kids. So in an act of self-preservation (that is, preservation of the family line, preservation of the family wealth, because you have to have a male heir back then), in an act of self-preservation that she later comes to regret, Sarah gives Abraham the gift of her Egyptian slave-girl, Hagar, to be his second wife. Hagar gives birth to Ishmael, a half-Egyptian, half-Ur-anian.

(OK. We're not even out of Genesis, and Palestine, Iraq and Egypt are already intermingled in the founding family's affairs. Is it any wonder the Middle East has been fighting with itself forever?)

And we're just getting started. When Abraham's 98, God tells Abraham he and Sarah are going to have their own baby boy, after all. (“Surprise!”) Abraham and Sarah have their own child, Isaac, which means, “He laughs.” (And if you're having your first-born at age 99, you'd better be able to laugh.)

Abraham is the founding father of our faith. He's the founding father of three faiths. However, all you dads, if you're looking for parenting skills, Abraham is probably not your best role model. As the Bible told us today, Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac, the child he'd been waiting 99 years to have, almost sacrificed him as a burnt offering. And, because of Sarah's jealousy, Abraham (with some remorse, the Bible tells us) sends his wife Hagar and their son, Ishmael, into the wilderness to die.

Last Sunday was Father's Day. It made me wonder, if Abraham's sons gave him Father's Day cards, how would they sound?

So I got on eBay, because you can find everything there. And sure enough, I procured actual Father's Day cards Isaac and Ishmael sent their dad. (At least, that's what the seller told me. And he has five stars.)

Here's Isaac's:

On this day so sentimental
I often stop and ponder
How close you came to roasting me
On the altar over yonder.
You told Mom and the servant boys
We were going out to pray.
But I smelled something fishy
At the sacrifice that day.

Please hide your lighter,
Isaac

And, here's the card from Abraham's half-Egyptian son, Ishmael:

Dear Dad, I know it grieved you
Sending Mom and me away.
To leave us in the wilderness
As food for birds of prey.
Stepmother Sarah hated us,
Said we didn't know our place.
Like Isaac we'd have roasted
If it weren't for God's good grace.

Thanks for the pyramids,
Ishmael.

(I'll be donating these to a museum. But if you'd like to look at them, they'll be up here after the service.)

Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah, is the branch of the family tree that leads to Judaism and, eventually, Christianity. Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, is the branch that leads to Islam. Both the Bible and the Qur'an tell the stories of Abraham and his wives, and his sons. Now, admittedly, they tell them very differently. In the Bible, Ishmael is a bit of a footnote. God promises to make a great nation out of him, but we don't read about the fulfillment of that promise. In the Qur'an, Isaac is the one who's kind of a footnote, and the story is told so that Ishmael, not Isaac is the favored son. For example, in the Qur'an, just as in the Bible, Abraham almost offers his son as a sacrifice. Except that in the Qur'an the favored son, the one offered, is Ishmael, not Isaac. (Not that being your father's burnt offering is a sought-after sign of favor, but that's beside the point). Abraham and his sons, and his wives – all of Abraham's family is well-known in the Jewish Bible, the Christian Bible and the Qur'an. If you walked up to a Jew or a Muslim and you said, “Abraham is the founding father of faith,” they'd say, “Right.” But if you asked, “Was he a good father,” you'd probably get some squirming. “Well, what do you mean by 'good'? Does good mean the kind of dad you'd like to take you fishing? Then, probably not. Or, does good mean, righteous, does good mean, God-fearing, does good mean, obedient, does good mean, faithful? Well then, maybe yes, Abraham was and is a good father.” It's possible that the Bible – and even the Qur'an – would have as its founding father a man who's a not-so-good example of how to be a good dad, but still a good father.

In the story of Abraham and Isaac, by our standards, Abraham (and even God) are senselessly cruel. Archeologists and historians have told us that even 4000 years ago, in the region where Abraham lived, human sacrifice simply wasn't practiced. It was a barbaric, outrageous, unthinkable thing. So why, you might ask, would God even bring it up? Why did it get written down in the Bible, instead of excised to make the book more G-rated? Why is this one of the stories we (still) teach our kids in Sunday School? (That's easy; because someday they'll be teenagers, when child sacrifice is understandable. Not legal, but understandable.)

I think the point of the story of the almost-sacrifice of Isaac is not what Abraham almost did, but what drove him to almost doing it. Abraham is a good father because he's so devoted to God he's willing to give up everything, everything, in service to his God. We would say that this passionate willingness to give up everything for God is fulfilled in the example of Jesus Christ, who gave up everything to die on a cross. The worst fulfillment of this passionate willingness to give up everything of God is a suicide car bomber. Through the story of Abraham and Isaac, the Bible teaches us that “God will provide.” Abraham is a good father example because his sacrifice and his faith were so strong that even the outrageously impossible became possible to him.

In the story of Abraham and Ishmael, wife Sarah is senselessly cruel, and father Abraham is the reluctant wimp who caves in to her wishes. Again, why even put this story in the Bible? Why show mother Sarah and father Abraham in such unflattering lights? And if we're not going to mention Ishmael again, why not sweep his memory under the Persian rug of dirty little family secrets? Why even bring up the idea that the children of Isaac and the children of Ishmael, all the children of Abraham might, might just be worshiping the same God as their good father?

I think the cruelty of the story of Ishmael and Hagar's banishment isn't what Abraham did, but what God did with even the most horrible behavior of his chosen one. Abraham is a good father because God says he's the good father, because God's made a covenant with Abraham and with Abraham's children that not even Abraham can kill. So the failure of Abraham's cruelty becomes the opportunity for God's promise that Ishmael, too, will become a great nation. God works with the raw material at hand, and sometimes that material is pretty raw. In Ishmael, we see God's mercy, and God's loving care. We see God's healing providence at work even when God's people are at their most hideous.

Is Abraham a role model? No. Abraham is not a role model, but he is an example. Abraham is an example of how God will provide. Abraham is an example of how God's mercy will prevail. Even when humanity is at its darkest, God is still God. Even today, when children of Abraham slaughter each other in the name of their respective god, God is still God, and God's mercy, God's loving care, God's providence will prevail, whether we are children of Isaac or Ishmael or Sarah or Hagar.

We know that God is still God, we know that God's mercy, God's loving care, God's providence will prevail because we believe (and God help us to believe with the faith of Abraham) that whoever's children we may be, above all else we are sisters and brothers of Jesus Christ. Because we know Jesus Christ, we know that God is still God, we know that despite all human cruelty and stupidity, God is still God and God will provide, God will prevail, God will proclaim that the all the world will be redeemed, all the world will be blessed, all the world will be resurrected to a new life, where cruelty and stupidity among fathers and mothers and their children are no more.

If Abraham is a sign that leads us down the road to this hope, then he is a very good father, indeed.

---

Bonus Online Track: Bluegrass Gospel song, “Oh Abraham”

On this day so sentimental
I often stop and ponder
How close you came to roasting me
On the altar over yonder.
You told Mom and the servant boys
We were going out to pray.
But I smelled something fishy
At the sacrifice that day.

Oh Abraham, Oh Abraham,
Father of Multitudes
Had a family with big troubles
and centuries of feuds.

Oh Abraham, O Abraham,
Christian, Muslim and Jew:
We never would have known who's God
If it were not for you.

Dear Dad, I know it grieved you
Sending Mom and me away.
To leave us in the wilderness
As food for birds of prey.
Stepmother Sarah hated us,
Said we didn't know our place.
Like Isaac we'd have roasted
If it weren't for God's good grace.

Oh Abraham, Oh Abraham,
Father of Multitudes
Had a family with big troubles
and centuries of feuds.

Oh Abraham, O Abraham,
Christian, Muslim and Jew:
We never would have known who's God
If it were not for you.


(Shave & haircuts...)

Please hide your lighter,
Isaac

Thanks for the pyramids,
Ishmael.