The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”
Genesis 22:1-2

Last Sunday I talked about Abraham and Sarah.

There is a wonderful scene where the “messengers of God” come as strangers to visit them by the oaks of Mamre, and they repeat the promise that Sarah will conceive and bear a son whose descendants will become a great nation. As Abraham talks with the men, Sarah is inside the tent listening, and when she hears them tell Abraham that they will conceive a child now, at the age of ninety, she laughs. The strangers ask her why she laughs at the promises of God and she says she didn’t laugh. One of them repeats the promise and then ends the announcement saying, “But you did laugh.”

I love the image of Sarah, laughing at the promise.

That is one of the high points in the story. When the child is born, they name him Isaac, which means laughter.

But just a few verses later, the narrative turns dark and cold.

God calls Abraham to sacrifice his son. Some readers may be comforted by the notion that it is “a test,” but it is a monstrous test. And more than a few readers are likely to stop right there and give up on the whole biblical enterprise.

If one of the central stories is that immoral, how can the Bible claim any authority in our lives?

One interpretation notes that after this incident God never speaks to Abraham again and suggests that this is because Abraham so totally misunderstood what God was calling him to do. Another ancient commentary rebukes Abraham for his failure to argue with God for his son’s life, as he argued against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Still others point to the last minute intervention:

‘But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’ And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.” (Genesis 22:11-13)

A Jewish prayer book instructs the reader to stand and take a few steps backward, as if staggered by the story. It is in so many ways incomprehensible.

As I researched interpretations, I came across a poem by Wilfred Owen, called “The Parable of the Old Man and the Young.”

Owen was one of the great poets of the First World War. He was badly injured in battle and sent back to England to recover. The injury was more than enough to keep him at home, but he volunteered to go back to the front. He won honors for his gallantry in battle and was promoted to First Lieutenant. He was killed in action on November 4, 1918, exactly one week before the armistice. He was twenty-five years old. As the church bells were ringing to celebrate the end of the war, his mother received two telegrams, one told of his promotion and the other reported his death.

When I read the story of the Binding of Isaac, I am appalled, and I know that we modern people would never do anything so barbaric. 

But then I am brought up short by the last lines of Owen’s poem:

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
and builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Of course, we tell ourselves, we would not sacrifice a single child. Yet the reality is that we have sacrificed millions to the god of war.

Over and over, the old men sacrifice the young men to the gods of Nationalism and Pride.

The Children of Abraham at Duke

The path to parenthood was not an easy one for Abraham and Sarah. God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation, but he and Sarah were childless. So Sarah insisted that her servant Hagar would bear child in her place. And she did. But when Sarah finally was able to bear a child of her own, she demanded that Hagar and her son Ishmael be cast out into the wilderness. Abraham sent them away, with just a skin of water, knowing that they had little chance of survival.

When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink. God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow.
Genesis 21:15-20

Judaism, Christianity and Islam all trace their roots back to Abraham. For Judaism and Christianity, that line runs through Isaac. For Islam, the line runs through Ishmael.

Though they share a common ancestry, and are often linked as “the three great Abrahamic religions,” Judaism, Christianity and Islam have an uncomfortable tension built into their stories of origin.

In my last post, I wrote about how in Wahhabi extremism that tension often turns deadly.

But it also plays out in less deadly ways.

Recently the good folks at Duke University tried to foster interreligious tolerance and understanding when they announced that every Friday at 1:00 p.m. the chapel would broadcast the adhan, the Muslim call to midday prayers in Arabic and English.

The response was swift if not surprising. The Rev. Franklin Graham, whose extremist views often seem at odds with his kinder and gentler father, responded with his typical thoughtfulness on Facebook:

Ashley Pratte, writing on Breitbart.com, saw it as part of a larger sinister pattern. “As campuses continue to foster political correctness,” she wrote, “they use it as a way to favor religions seemingly at war with Western Civilization and Judeo-Christian beliefs.” She went on to observe, “Frequently, we see students fighting for their religious freedom on campus—especially Christians. We hope that Duke University will also allow equal opportunity for Christian students to gather to pray and respect their religious freedom.”

If Ms. Pratte knew anything at all about Duke, she would know Christianity is alive and well. The chapel has regular Christian worship services Sunday mornings at 11:00 a.m., as well as at other times through the week. Every day at 5:00 p.m. they have a carillon concert, audible across the campus, that frequently includes Christian hymns. Duke is also home to a United Methodist seminary, Duke Divinity School, and Duke has maintained a United Methodist connection since its founding.

Ms. Pratte, Rev. Graham and their many allies on cable news can rest easy. Duke has reversed its decision. There will be no broadcast of the call to prayer.

David Graham (no relation to Franklin) reported in The Atlantic on line that Omid Safi, Director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center said that the University’s response was understandable since there had been "numerous verified instances of credible threats" against leaders of the University. "My disappointment is primarily directed toward people who find it acceptable to have recourse to violence, even the threat of violence, to make the point they want to make—particularly if they see these threats as being substantiated by their own religious conviction." he explained. "We all know about the Muslim community having our crazies, but it seems like we don’t have a monopoly on it."

To be clear, neither Ms. Pratte nor Rev. Graham was calling for violence, but in our hyper-sensitized times the threats are not surprising.

In the Atlantic article, the other David Graham comments, “Now, one might argue that while Duke's gesture was well-intentioned, the timing was wrong—why rile people up at a moment when nerves are already on edge about Islam? But I think it's the other way around. There's no time when it is as essential to stand on the side of a minority as when that group is under fire.”