I get the feeling that this love heart, spotted in a local baker’s window conveys certain truths that it was not intended to convey.
One response to “Eid, Pride and Abraham’s Sacrifice”
-
As one who grew up(?) in churches leaning toward the view “it’s a tough story for a tough world, how else would God be just?” in varying degrees, I agree the face-value-narrative understanding of the story is repellant.
One thing stood out for the first time during Sunday’s reading: the plurality in Abraham’s line – “…and we will return to you”. I’ve been idly wondering about that since.
It doesn’t make the story wholly acceptable as Abraham still ploughs on ever closer.
But if one’s goal is to find a “by faith, Abraham” in there, better to say it’s the prior confidence that things will somehow work out well (which I thought was how Hebrews was trying to define it), than to locate the commendable quality in violence (which, by rabbiting on about resurrection, Hebrews does).In the absence of other clear & wholly mitigating contexts in which to place the story, certainly it’s simplest, easiest and probably best to file it under “that’s how they saw God back then” and move swiftly on.
Oofft.
Previous Posts
-
Big Sing
There is a Big Sing at St Saviour’s tonight at 7.30 pm More details on www.saint-saviour.org Not to be missed.
-
Sermon – 23 Jan 05
I was away for part of this week in Perth at the diocesan clergy conference. I?d like to be able to fill the sermon this week with the wisdom that I was able to soak up there. However, things don?t always work out that way. I must be honest ? whatever wisdom was on offer…
-
Adding spice to the liturgy
Much puzzlement this morning over the wine at the 8 am communion. I knew something was wrong with it the last time I celebrated (on a Wednesday). There was a taste of something familliar, yet I could not quite put my finger on what it was. What it was, was cinnamon. And the wine was…
-
Clergy Conference
Somehow the heather managed to avoid being set alight at the diocesan clergy conference this week. No buzz groups. No buzz. Then back last night to the Book Club. This month’s book was The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. This was a good discussion. I’m still mulling over whether the central character…
Leave a Reply