Getting Lost in the Woods

Today’s lesson  from the Hebrew Scriptures is one of the most beautiful, terrifying, and complicated texts within our holy scriptures.  It is known as the  akedah , or the binding of Isaac.  In the story we witness our God asking the unimaginable of Abraham.  God instructs Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering, the same son that Sarah and Abraham had longed and waited for until their old age.  This particular year I find it difficult to hear a text about human sacrifice and not connect the dots to George Floyd in Minneapolis, MN; Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY; Eric Garner in New York City; Trayvon Martin in Sanford, FL, and Emmett Till in Money, MS.  As our church engages in the work of taking off our lens of white privilege, I thought it might be helpful to consider this text in three different ways, starting off with some common interpretation within our own tradition. The story begins,  “After these things God tested Abraham.”...

In today’s gospel lesson we witness the apostles’ transition from students to interns.  They have abandoned their former lives as fisherfolk and tax collectors to learn from Jesus as he engages in the work of proclaiming the good news of God’s love across the region.  In what may have been one of the most terrifying moments of their lives, Jesus commissioned these twelve apostles to the work of preaching, teaching, and healing. Jesus gives the apostles some parting instructions:   First, their work should only focus on their fellow Jewish neighbors.  The work of sharing the good news with the Gentiles, those outside the Jewish community, will come later.  Second, they don’t need to pack anything.  Instead they are to rely on the hospitality of those they encounter along the way.   Third, they will meet resistance as they spread the message of God’s love.   Some are going to feel threatened, particularly those with power and privileg...