Thursday, XIII Ordinary Time
(Genesis 22)
We may be so outraged by the idea of child sacrifice that we would rather ignore the first reading today. However, after our indignation has passed, we do well to examine this text as a critical lesson of faith. At the start we should note that God never intends that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac. God only wants to test Abraham’s faith. Although we still have to accept the story as picturing God as deceptive and perhaps not as perspicacious as we know Him, we need not question His goodness.
This story is meant to assure us that God sees on our behalf. Moriah is derived from a pun on the Hebrew word meaning “to see.” There God both sees or knows the steely faith of Abraham and sees to or provides a worthy offering in the ram. Of course, God does not need to administer such tests to know who believes. Nor are such provisions such as a ram in the pinch required for us to know of His mercy.
We often think of faith as a body of beliefs tendered for our acceptance. In a secondary yet essential way faith is our embracing doctrines that tell us who God is, what God demands, and what He has planned for us. But first and foremost faith is trust – that God loves us and will provide for our salvation. In a world where humans vaunt their accomplishments, we easily become discouraged when our lives are not as fruitful as we like. We may forget then that God sees what we need even more clearly than we do and that He will provide for us. Our responsibility is only to retain our trust in Him by not abandoning His ways and asking His assistance.
