Thursday of the
Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Genesis 22:1b-19; Matthew 9:1-8)
In considering the story of Abraham being called to slay his
beloved son Isaac, we cannot help but being horrified by the proposal. It seems preposterous for God to suggest that
anyone take an innocent life because He has written on our hearts an injunction
against it. Natural law tells us that
murder is wrong and that murdering one’s own offspring is especially abominable. We accept the story as revelation but are forced
to question, not unlike those who ponder how God might permit a tsunami killing
hundreds of thousands of people or a genocidal regime taking a ten times that
number, divine benevolence.
Of course, the text says from the beginning that God is
testing Abraham. Tests are by nature
hypothetical. They do not mean
everything they say. In true or false tests, for example, not
every statement of the teacher is true.
Does this mean that she lies? Tests,
it should be acknowledged, are at least as much a stimulus to learning as they are
a tool of evaluation. In fact, in the
long run students are more likely to recall a wrong answer on a test than a correct
one.
The crucial lesson in Abraham’s test is that he and by
extension we must subordinate ourselves to God’s will. We are not the most important persons even,
in our own small universe; He is. If
Abraham is ever to father a truly great nation, he and his descendants must
learn that national interest does not trump justice, that one’s leisure should
not take preclude the obligation to worship, and that one’s concern for family is
not a reason for denying the poor outside one’s door. Question God’s reasons if we must, but always
render Him sovereignty over our lives!
