Flows like gasoline

Praying with Isaac in Genesis 22

This coming Sunday we continue to hear the story of Genesis -- and whereas last week was a personal favorite of mine (Hagar calling God El-Roi) this one is ... not.

This week it’s Genesis 22:1-14, which is honestly one of my least, least favorite stories in the Bible, such that I have never preached once on it in my 13+ years of preaching. It is the story of God testing Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, which Abraham is about to do — when God intervenes. It has a happy ending but ... whew. The tension. The idea that God might ask a beloved servant like Abraham to do this is horrifying.

Sometimes I wonder this story made the editorial cut. Like, of all the stories in the Bible, why did the faithful people stitching together the oral traditions and divine poetry keep this one? Nowhere else does God ask something this horrifying of a parent.

And I suspect one reason is that -- putting the character of God aside for a moment — there is something achingly true of family in it. One of my most favorite bands is called Hardworker, and they wrote a song about this scene in Genesis, from Isaac’s perspective -- and it’s called “Moriah.” You can find it on all streaming platforms and I really recommend giving it a listen this week.

Here are some of the lyrics:

When daddy says carry the wood,
You carry the wood.
Threw out your back
To do what you could.
And I know,
you hate that you swore to be good,
Carrying son.
When daddy says get in the car
You get in the car.
Follow him anywhere
No matter how far.
He tells you who are.

In Moriah
There’s a mythic destination
Where your father’s approval
Flows like gasoline.

I’ve been listening to this as prayer this week. It’s one of the best tools we have to engage with Bible stories that are tough: poetry. Imagination. Looking at the story from a character’s perspective and totally allowing our prayerful imagination to run wild -- not to rewrite the Bible, but to remember it is living, and so are we, and the comingling of life is also sacred.

Come Sunday, let’s climb Moriah together.

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PS: YES, this is the same band with the song “Born Homesick” that they were gracious enough to let me quote in my book, God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us. As John Green has The Mountain Goats for singer-songwriter theological angst, I have Hardworker!