Rewards, Obedience, and Liberty
THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Genesis 22:1-14 • Psalm 13 • Romans 6:12-23 • Matthew 10:40-42
In Indian religion and philosophy, the concept of karma is “the universal law by which good or bad actions determine future modes of an individual’s existence.” [1] The goal is to be released from the cycle of birth and death or at least to be reincarnated into something good, and good actions will lead to good and bad actions to bad. Karma is individualistic and “independent of the gods.” [2] I get what I give. Westerners, including Christians, are quick to claim or appropriate karma, but how does this cause and effect relationship relate to Christians who do not live independent of our God? How do we understand Jesus when he speaks of a “reward”?
In our culture, to receive an award is typically an accolade for a job well done, recognition of an accomplishment we have achieved. When Jesus speaks of rewards, however, I am more inclined to think along the lines of karma, that the rewards of which he speaks will be sorted out in the heavenly kingdom or the life yet to come. Similar to last week when Jesus spoke about the harder aspects of apostleship, today I hear an edge to Jesus’s words I’d rather ignore. A prophet’s reward is often to be run out of town. Righteous persons are rarely at the top of the social order. And those who share a cup of water in the name of a disciple won’t lose their reward, but what reward do they who are already undervalued by society have to begin with?
“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” Given lessons in discipleship and power and authority, the followers of Jesus are sent out by the One who sent. They might not realize the significance of it until after the resurrection—if ever—but they are the ones who bring the presence of God to all they meet. As believers, their reward is simultaneously to abide in God, to share the Good News, and to anticipate everlasting life. Jesus offers assurance that the life to come is different from this world with all its oppression and suffering. The reign of God is different. The reward of God is different from anything we know.
God’s reward is different because we are not rewarded for what we do for our own sake. Sure, we can do good and feel good, and that might feel like reward enough, whether others are watching or not. Doing what is good and what we think is right, we can reckon with a sense of righteousness. Ideally, righteous people do good, are good, and receive good. But are we doing what is good for accolades and recognition, with a sense of self-righteousness? What was Abraham’s motivation for doing what he thought was right?
We are told at the beginning of today’s lesson that “God tested Abraham.” I’m listening to another novel by Louise Penny, where agents are diligently investigating a murder, as they do in all the murder-mysteries. The detectives rarely say anything to the witnesses or suspects without another meaning or ulterior motive, and as I read and hear these words that God says to Abraham, I am reminded of the event we read last week and that in his own time likely still weighed heavy on Abraham’s heart and mind: the casting out of Hagar and Ishmael.
God says, “‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love…and offer him there as a burnt offering.’” God and Abraham both know there was another son. God and Abraham both know Isaac is the favored one by Abraham and Sarah. God and Abraham both know the love Abraham has for Isaac, the love of a father of his son. And God is testing Abraham. For what?
As a Christian, I hear the greatest commandment coming to mind, Jesus’s summary of the law: to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Abraham didn’t have the voice of Jesus in his mind, but he had the Word itself speaking to him, directing him. “Thou shalt have no other gods above me.” It’s the words on the list of commandments that hung above my grandmother’s table in the dining room. It’s the King James’ English translation. In the Torah, however, the first commandment is, in English, “I am the LORD your God,” the one who delivered you from Egypt, and the command to have no other gods follows thereafter. God’s relationship to God’s people is personal, singular as it is corporate. Abraham, faithful as he is, knows this, believes this, lives this. Remember how distressed Abraham was at sending Hagar and the child away? God assured him a nation would come from Ishmael, too, but Hagar did not return to Abraham. Abraham did not have physical proof or assurance that they were safe, let alone alive, for he knew he did not send them with enough provisions to survive the desert for long.
Might Abraham have thought that the command to sacrifice Isaac was his reward for casting out Hagar and Ishmael, sending them to their death unless God did, in fact, intervene? Might Abraham have thought that God was judging him and Sarah for their love of Isaac above all others, maybe even above God? Isaac had been such a miraculous gift! Abraham was a man of faith, still in conversation with God in whom he believed. God was testing Abraham’s obedience. Abraham obeys what God has told him to do, thankfully intercepted at the last moment by a messenger of God and provided the sacrificial ram. The reward for our obedience is what God says it is. We are not independent from God. We are also bound to this mortal flesh, this earth and its human ways. Abraham listens to God. Abraham obeys God. And Abraham is provided for by God. And the nations to follow from Father Abraham have an exemplary model of obedient faithfulness to our God above all else, come what may.
Was it right? Was it good, what Abraham was commanded to do? As we have been discussing justice in our adult forum, we find that while everyone believes justice is important, there is no universal understanding of what constitutes justice, what makes things right and equitable. And the justice for our Hebrew ancestors, the justice around the time of Jesus, and the justice around the world today are not equal or parallel from our perspective. Neither do we know how to interpret or administer the laws among the many peoples and nations.
We could get caught up in that Abraham is told to sacrifice his son. Ours is not a tradition that condones human sacrifice, though it is a topic rich with theological debate. Our focus here is on the faithful obedience of Abraham. What is right is listening to God. What is right is putting God above all else. What is righteous is faithful obedience. The reward is right relationship with God, being in a covenantal relationship with God. We’re not told if Abraham ever knows anything else about Hagar or Ishmael. We don’t have documented in scripture if Abraham talks to Isaac or Sarah ever again after this incident. We also aren’t told if God ever speaks to Abraham again, making the last thing we know God to said to Abraham through a messenger: “...now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” To fear God is to have awe, reverence, and deep respect, and to love God above all else. Was this test a consequence of having sent Hagar away out of a mindset of jealousy or scarcity? Was it a test to see if Abraham truly believed God provides for God’s people? Whatever the test, Abraham passes, humbly, and goes on to live a quiet life, a presumably good life for the rest of his days.
I would fail such a test. I promise you that I would not sacrifice one of my children. I wouldn’t even bother chopping the wood or making the trip. And yet…I confess to you that I do believe we are all sacrificing our children and future generations with our disobedience to God, depriving them of the kind of life God would have them live. Because if we believed as devoutly as we would hope, we would not have the poor among us. We would not have a housing crisis. We would not have food insecurity. We would not have police brutality, discrimination, racism, or riots in our streets or the streets of France or people clamoring to the borders, crossing seas, chasing or racing toward hopeful liberty. If we were prophets and righteous, we would be run out of town and condemned for our radical sense of love and justice. Well, maybe we are getting closer in that regard.
I’ve shared with many of you the three L-words that Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has repeated, naming what God is about, what God’s dream for us is: life-giving, loving, and liberating. “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God,” he says, and I would further clarify that if what we are believing and therefore doing is not creating conditions for life, love, and liberation, then we have our moral compass skewed. I do believe we are trying to get back on track.
Our moral compass is set by God’s faithfulness and righteousness with us, bound to us in our covenant, our baptism. We are born into life in Christ that is set toward Divine Justice where all God’s children, all of Creation abides in God…in Love. That abiding is the peace that passes all understanding…that is the kind of life, the kind of liberation, the kind of love we seek because that is from whence we come; “whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” We are not independent from God, nor are we separate from one another. Our greatest freedom is in the selfless giving of ourselves to unconditional love and acceptance. Our great surrender is our ultimate liberation.
In completely giving, whether it be ourselves or that which we have come to love above all else, we find what is right and good. We find what it means to have true reward not in the eyes of this world but in the vision of our Creator. Maybe we’ll get tastes of that reward sooner than later, or maybe all shall be revealed when we come face to face with Christ. Step by step, day by day, we have the gift—and our own kind of test—to choose life, love, and liberty for all.
[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/karma : Encyclopedia Britannica’s online definition for “karma”
[2] Ibid.
© 2023 The Rev. Sara Milford
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas