OLD TESTAMENT TEXTS

The Old Testament texts for this Sunday are about divine testing.  Genesis 22:1-14 is the story of how God tested Abraham in commanding the sacrifice of Isaac, while Psalm 13 is a lament that provides liturgical language for how we approach God during times of testing.

Genesis 22:1-14 - "To Fear God Is to See God"
Setting.  The story of  Genesis 22  is sinister. God's command for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in the opening verse is outrageous, and, even though the narrative progresses to a solution that bypasses the execution of the opening command, the reader cannot help leaving this story with a shudder. In  Genesis 22  the divine request is too big and too terrifying to be resolved by the narrative logic of the story line. Or, to say it another way, the gap between t…