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Lent Humans dont like confusion, but God waits for us in the
mess
By DIRK DUNFEE
God put Abraham to the test. Genesis 22:1
Most of us, I daresay, are not very
comfortable with mess, with unanswered questions or with unresolved conflicts.
Wed like things to be clear and wed like to be able to understand
things -- even, and perhaps especially, difficult and discomforting things. For
my money, the story of Abraham and Isaac is one of the more disturbing passages
in all of scripture, because it brings up all kinds of messy and uncomfortable
questions. What the story says about Abraham is bad enough, considering that
wed imprison a man who killed his own child; if he said that God had
ordered him to do so, wed commit him.
What it seems to say about God is more disturbing still. Did God
really put Abraham to the test? Why would God do such a thing? Doesnt God
know our hearts already? And why would God test Abraham in such a
soul-wrenching way? Bringing the questions even closer, would God ask me to
give up the person closest to my heart? If I take Christianity seriously, is
God going to ask me to sacrifice my future?
As discomforting as such questions are, we cannot shy away from
them. Neither can we safely ignore the more difficult parts of Gods Word.
This is because its not simply a question of ignoring or paying
attention; rather, its a question of finding God. Hamlet says, as he
contemplates a discomfiting prospect, theres the rub. God is
to be found in the rub, in that point where things dont move freely but
rub against one another; the point of friction, the point where things
dont seem to go together and dont make a great deal of sense.
Thats where God is. Think of it! The entirety of our Christian religion
is grounded in a rub, in a paradox: the paradox of God made human. The ultimate
truths of life are this very kind of thing: We find ourselves by losing
ourselves; we gain love only by squandering it; we attain freedom only by
choosing to live within limits. These essential truths, then, are things that
dont fit together very well and dont make a great deal of sense. Or
how about this one: Jesus was born of Mary, and neither Joseph nor any other
man had anything to do with it. Theres an unresolved conflict for
you.
I remember an old German priest from my time in Zimbabwe, well on
his way to senility. This became clear one Sunday when he was speaking the
words of consecration while presiding at Mass. After saying, This is my
body, he stopped dead, skipped a beat, looked at the host he was holding
and said What nonsense! And you know what? He was right. The Real
Presence doesnt make sense, and theres no disrespect in saying so.
How can something that looks like one thing be another thing? It doesnt
make sense, but its true and its where God is.
If youre expecting me to resolve the Abraham and Isaac story
for you, I can only say that youre barking up the wrong tree. I
dont have the answer. Some people say that Abrahams wife, Sarah,
was there all the time, hidden, pushing the ram up the hill in order to save
her child. It wouldnt surprise me to find that a woman once again had
saved the day, and once again had been Gods instrument -- and had been
left out of the story. I suspect that the story says more about the way the
ancient Israelites understood God than it says about God himself or herself,
but I dont know that. There may not even be an answer, and maybe
scripture is not a library of answers to lifes difficult questions.
Thats all right, and that doesnt mean we should give up looking, or
that we should give up trying to understand things that seem by their very
nature to defy understanding. Keep looking for the answers, keep engaging God,
and dont turn away from that which is difficult.
Uncertainty is a fearful thing, and not knowing what is going to
happen is, to say the least, stressful. I dont know what God is going to
ask of you. I dont think God is going to ask you to do something you
cant do, but thats small comfort at best. I dont know whether
God is going to ask you to sacrifice something that is precious to you.
Its certainly happened before. I do know this one thing, though: God is
right there, in the midst of the confusion, waiting for you, with infinite
love.
Jesuit Fr. Dirk Dunfee is minister to the Jesuit community at
Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Mo.
National Catholic Reporter, March 17,
2000
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