September 21, 2025
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus
“The Sacrifice of Isaac in 2025"
Sermon by Rev. Rick Nutt
September 21, 2025 Based on Genesis 22:1-14; Matthew 2:19-23
Odd though it is, I have asked you to read the story from Genesis in silence this morning because
it is, to say the least, a problematic, even inappropriate, tale. There are many, and I am among them, who
think that this narrative should generally be addressed only in an adult Sunday School or Bible study
session. It is not a story that I think should be proclaimed in worship, and certainly not with “Holy
Wisdom, Holy Word” pronounced at the conclusion. However, it is included in the lectionary, and I will
deal with the passage as best I can. As you will hear, I am convinced that the writers of this story present
a gross misunderstanding of God. So, I thank you for your indulgence.
In 1984 the biblical scholar Phyllis Trible published a seminal book titled Texts of Terror. Writing
as a feminist at a time of growing feminist theology, Trible chose four biblical stories in which women
were abused or mistreated in some way–in short, terrorized–and examined those narratives from a
feminist perspective. It was a groundbreaking book and, at the time, a revolutionary approach to the Bible
which inspired similar work.
Had Trible not been pursuing an analysis of the ways in which the Bible sometimes portrayed
women as tools to be used by men, I suspect she would have included the story of the binding of Isaac as
an abhorrent text of terror. Let me be very clear from the outset in this sermon: I completely and utterly
reject the notion that God would call on Abraham to perform the series of actions with Isaac that we have
read this morning in Genesis 22. This is, to me, a horrendous and mistaken portrayal of God in which
God asks Abraham to carry out an act of terror–indeed, it describes God terrorizing Abraham, as well. I
do not believe that God did, or ever would, require such an act. I hold that the writers and editors of the
biblical story, at this point, misrepresent the nature of God and how God relates to the humans whom God
created to love.
I do not care that this crucial story in Jewish and Islamic religion–tradition says that the location of the intended sacrifice was the site of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, now the site of the Dome of the Rock, from which Muslims also believe the prophet Muhammad made his night journey into Paradise. I do not care that this story originally arose to tell why the Hebrews came to reject the human sacrifice of the firstborn child to a deity in favor of animal sacrifice. I do not care that in its current form the story became for readers an inspirational lesson in how faithful Abraham was to God, even to the point of the death of his child and the stopping of God’s promise for Abraham to father a great nation. I accept those readings of the story as true and admit there is value in those ideas. I reject the idea that they are sufficient to overcome the damage of the theological assertion that God imposes such terror on any human. I reject that God wills the kind of trauma that fell upon Abraham and Isaac in the course of this story of terror. The consequences are too horrible and too deep.
Let us think together about perhaps the most important Christian theological doctrine that is related to this presentation of God: the substitutionary atonement theory. Substitutionary atonement has dominated Protestant understanding of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus since the Reformation. Most, if not all of us, were raised on this doctrine, and even today many of our hymns teach it.
Substitutionary atonement teaches us that God sent Jesus to die for our sins. Mind you, it doesn’t say that God sent Jesus into the world to show us God’s love and how to live in God’s will and was then crucified by humans in the process; not that Jesus’s death was the result of his faithfulness to God that got him
killed by the power structures of the day. No, substitutionary atonement says that God knowingly and
willingly sent God’s son into the world for the purpose being killed. That is not my understanding of
Jesus’ death, and I believe the Bible gives us alternative ways of understanding his death. Not
surprisingly, this doctrine has long been linked to the Abraham story and been the means for accepting its
portrayal of God. Is that the concept of God with which we want to live?
Which takes me to a point in the Genesis story that I cannot fathom: why didn’t Abraham resist?
Why didn’t Abraham say, “No?” God had been gracious, and loving, and giving with him. What could
there have been in Abraham’s relationship with God to make him think that God would ask such a thing?
When that voice came into his head, or the idea presented itself–or however he thought that God was
communicating with him–when that happened, why didn’t Abraham say, “No, that can’t be what God
expects me to do. There is something wrong here–this cannot be from God, and I am not doing it.” I don’t
believe God sent God’s own son specifically to die, and I don’t believe God would ask Abraham to kill
Isaac. It is simply too abusive and traumatic Why did Abraham think otherwise? How could he think that
killing his son was acceptable, and that God could ask it?
I reject the idea that it is ever acceptable for a parent to abuse a child, and even more so to think
that of God. I reject biblical and theological teaching that would lead anyone ever to embrace that.
I titled this sermon The Sacrifice of Isaac in 2025. What has this gut-wrenching story to do with today? I would argue that we adults of the world all too often sacrifice children in the contemporary world. I do not have in mind here the obvious cruelty of child abuse in its various forms. The horror of that is plain enough and we recoil from the news reports we occasionally hear. I have in mind other actions, or inactions, on the part of adults today.
We cannot think of the children of the world and forget the crying need for food and healthcare. The lines that form at the food pantries of this nation testify that far too many live with food insecurity and hunger, and that some die of starvation. Hundreds of thousands of children live without healthcare, or they have healthcare that is woefully inadequate. That does not even speak of the starving millions of the world who now die in greater numbers from lack of food, or healthcare, or vaccines, partly because we, through our government, have ceased to provide necessary aid. Why? So that stock portfolios can grow at a great rate, so that taxes can remain low, so people can continue to afford the nice things that they want?
I do not believe, and I don’t think you believe, that God approves of such sacrifices, much less that God
wills them. How can those who make choices leading to those sacrifices think they can ever be acceptable, that God could ever accept them? Where is our response, where are the people going into the streets and
bombarding our representatives with the demand that they stop sacrificing the Isaacs of 2025 on the altar
of America First?
Now we come to the unspeakable, literal, sacrifice of Isaac in 2025: death by violence. From Columbine, to Sandy Hook, to Uvalde, to Denver, and all the others in between, children suffer on the altar of gun ownership. If violence against elementary school children is not enough to force every reasonable adult into action, I cannot fathom what it will take. The streets are too empty, the halls of our capitol buildings are too vacant, our legislators do not have their phones ringing off the hook and mailboxes overstuffed with cries that something must be done now.
What of the children of Gaza? Tens of thousands have been orphaned, maimed, or killed, and any
child still living faces a lifetime of emotional recovery from the deep and ongoing trauma they suffer. My
friends, our nation is complicit in all of that, thanks to decades of unquestioning support for Israel’s policy
of occupation and ethnic cleansing, in which we have supplied the very weaponry that kills and maims.
How can we sleep at night? How can we not do something to demand a shift in policy?
We dare not, I contend, think that God who created life wills or approves such sacrifice. The Isaacs of 2025 are suffering on the altar of violence that we adults have built. God, have mercy.
There will be other sacrifices of children that ought to be remembered. For instance, we might note the sacrifice of our LGBTQIA+ youth, or the separation from families and deportation of immigrant children escaping injustice, danger, and poverty.
I reject the concept of a God who calls on people to sacrifice as in this story of Abraham and Isaac. I am convinced that God values a different kind of faithful obedience. Let’s consider another biblical father.
In Matthew, Joseph learns that his young fiancé is pregnant. That was a matter of great shame in that culture, and Matthew could be expected to reject her out of hand–in fact, the text says that he resolved to put her away quietly. However, he has a dream in which an angel of the Lord tells him that the child to be born is of God. Joseph, like Abraham, is a faithful man, but rather than sacrificing his son he chooses to embrace him in the midst of what must have been a difficult social reaction. Then, after the birth of the child, in our reading this morning, he has another dream in which he hears the outrageous message that people are looking to harm his child. Again, Joseph faithfully responds and chooses to protect his wife and their young son. How? By becoming a refugee in Egypt with all the attendant hardships of the immigrant life.
That is the kind of faithfulness that I believe God desires from us, a faith that does all that a person can to protect children in their limited capacity to protect themselves. Action on behalf of the children of our neighborhoods, our towns, our nation, and our world is the test of faith that I believe is placed before us in this time in this place. How will we act on Isaac’s behalf in 2025? Amen.
WE GATHER IN AWE AND PRAISE
PRELUDE “Great is Thy Faithfulness” arr. Ralcuca Bojor
INTROIT “Be Joyful in the Lord” Donald Moore
WELCOME
One: This is the day that the Lord has made
All: Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
*CALL TO WORSHIP
One: The Lord is gracious and merciful,
All: slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
One: The Lord is good to all, and God’s compassion is over all that God has made.
All: All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord,
One: and all your faithful shall bless you.
All: Let us give thanks and praise to our loving God.
*HYMN 19 “God of Great and God of Small” GOD OF GREAT AND SMALL
*PRAY OF CONFESSION Mary Rebekah Fortman
Merciful God, we have not lived faithful lives. Sometimes we do that which is not your will, and therefore do what is evil and call it good. We sing praise to you on Sunday and often forget you on Monday. We call our work at church your work and fail to recognize your presence in all of life. Forgive us for attempting to limit your power. Help us serve you each day and make us worthy disciples in all that we do. Amen.
*ASSURANCE OF PARDON
*RESPONSE OF PARDON 752 “Dona Nobis Pacem” DONA NOBIS PACEM
Sung twice through; first time all together, second time as a round beginning with pulpit side, followed by font side, with the choir as the third entry.
*PASSING OF THE PEACE
One: The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all,
All: And also with you.
WE LISTEN FOR GOD’S WORD
ANTHEM “Jacob’s Ladder” arr. Daniel Kallman
Betsy Tullis, Skye Johnson, soloists
CHILDREN’S MESSAGE Trip Porch
SCRIPTURE SEE INSERT
SCRIPTURE Matthew 2:19-23 NRSV
When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got up, took The child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazarene.”
SERMON Rev. Rick Nutt
WE RESPOND TO GOD’S WORD
*HYMN 39 “Great is Thy Faithfulness” FAITHFULNESS
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH from A Declaration of Faith PCUS
God created all the worlds that are and upholds and rules everything.
We affirm that the universe exists by the power of God’s Word and Spirit.
God has chosen to give it reality out of the love we have come to know in Christ.
God still works through the processes that shape and change the earth and the living things upon it.
We acknowledge God’s care and control in the regularity of the universe as well
as in apparently random happenings. There is no event from which God is absent and God’s ultimate purpose in all events is just and loving. That purpose embraces our choices and will surely be accomplished. The Creator works in all things toward the new creation that is promised in Christ.
Amen.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
TIME OF OFFERING online giving is available at www. indianolapres.org/give
OFFERTORY “The God of Abraham Praise” arr. James Michael Stevens
*OFFERTORY RESPONSE 709 “God We Honor You” ABUNDANT BLESSINGS
*PRAYER OF DEDICATION Book of Common Worship, adapted
Blessed are you, God of all creation; through your goodness we have these gifts to share. Accept and use our offerings for your glory and your will. In Christ we pray, Amen.
*HYMN 343 “Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life” GERMANY
TIME OF COMMUNITY SHARING
Moment for Mission - Peter Maurath CROP
CHARGE & BENEDICTION
CHORAL RESPONNSE “Amen” Peter Lutkin
POSTLUDE “Minuet” Phil Beaman
Acknowledgments: Unless otherwise indicated, all texts and music are printed and broadcast under OneLicense.net license #A-702452