Although I have been to my fair share of religious and historic monuments, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is certainly unique. It has been closed to the public for several years now, but I had the opportunity to visit it several times when I was living in or visiting Israel/Palestine. It is quite expansive, covering about a fourth or a fifth of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is slightly elevated above the surrounding areas and thus provides some nice views. Trees, which are quite rare in the Old City, are planted here and there on the Mount. The whole area feels set apart, in a world all its own. When that feeling combines with the knowledge of what has happened in that spot over the course of millennia, it is no wonder that there is indeed a sense of perhaps religious awe.

There is also the fact that the Temple Mount in Jerusalem has been and remains one of the most contested spots on earth. There is so much history and passion centered on that site that many have warned World War III could result if a conflict is sparked there. For example, one hates to imagine what could have happened if, in the 1980s, during the Cold War, a plot by a radical Jewish group to blow up the Temple Mount had not been foiled by the Israeli police. More recently, it was Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to the Temple Mount seven years ago this month that sparked the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising.

Other than a period during the Middle Ages, the site has never been especially important to Christians. When the Christian Crusaders ruled the area in the 12th century, it was at the center of their kingdom. It is, for example, from their newly established base on the Temple Mount that the Knights Templar of the Middle Ages received their name.

For Muslims and Jews, however, the site is of markedly greater significance. Indeed, it is the religious significance of the site that is the source of passion and conflict. For Muslims, the Temple Mount is the third holiest site in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. They believe that the Temple Mount was the physical location for a spiritual journey, known as the Night Journey, that Muhammed took into the layers of heaven. To commemorate that journey, several decades after the Arabs conquered the area, at the end of the 7th century, they built what is known as the Dome of the Rock. Now over 1300 years old, with its circular and octagonal shape, and the mathematical precision of its proportions, it is an architectural wonder. It is one the most aesthetically pleasing buildings in the world.

The building gets its name from the huge rock that dominates its interior. According to Islamic tradition, it was on that rock that Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Ishmael. Yes, I said Ishmael, for in Islamic tradition, which traces its Abrahamic roots through Ishmael, the story is about Abraham and Ishmael, not Abraham and Isaac. The Qur'an tells the story this way: We [meaning God] gave him news of a gentle son. And when he reached the age when he could work with him, his father [Abraham] said to him: 'My son, I dreamt that I was sacrificing you. Tell me what you think.'

He replied: "Father, do as you are bidden. God willing, you shall find me steadfast."

And when they had both submitted to God's will, and Abraham had laid his son prostrate upon his face, We called out to him, saying: 'Abraham, you have fulfilled your vision.' Thus do we reward the righteous. That was indeed a bitter test. We ransomed his son with a noble sacrifice and bestowed on him the praise of later generations. 'Peace be on Abraham!' (sura 37)

For Jews, on the other hand, the significance of the Temple Mount derives primarily from the fact that it was on that site that Herod's Temple stood, the temple we read about in the New Testament, and before that, the temple built after the exile had stood there, and before that, Solomon's Temple. In other words, and perhaps more to the point, the Temple Mount had been the location of the Holy of holies, it had been where the physical presence of God had dwelt on earth. For orthodox Jews, the Temple Mount is thus the most holy place on earth. So holy, as a matter of fact, that orthodox Jews are prohibited from going on the Temple Mount. Instead, the closest they are supposed to come is to the outer retaining wall of Herod's temple, more commonly known as the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism.

But if you go back before the temples, even before Solomon's temple, Jewish tradition gives the site an older importance. 2 Chronicles 3:1 tells us that Solomon built his temple on Mount Moriah. The land of Moriah is also mentioned in our Biblical text from today as the location of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac.

This area, in other words, provides the setting for the story of Abraham's sacrifice of his son, whether that son is understood to be Ishmael in the Islamic tradition, or Isaac in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Our story, as found in Genesis, is an unusual one. The background to the story is that God has called Abraham and promised that he and Sarah would have a son. Many years go by without a son, and one can forgive Abraham for doubting. Only after Abraham and Sarah are already quite old do they miraculously conceive. Having finally had their own son, God now asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. The reason given by the text is that God was testing Abraham.

In examining the passage, several irregularities stick out. Firstly, by this time Isaac was not a child -- various Jewish traditions suggest he was between 17 and 37, and thus certainly stronger than his father, who was over 100 years old. Furthermore, God repeatedly says, "your only son," presumably to emphasize how dear Isaac is to his father, but earlier the text makes clear that Ishmael was Abraham's son as well, though not the child of the covenant. And why does Abraham say to the young men, "we will worship, and then we will come back to you?" Why the "we"? Did Abraham really expect Isaac to come back from the sacrifice?

The deeper, more disturbing questions, however, are not the questions of detail, but the moral questions this passage raises about Abraham and God. What kind of God asks for the sacrifice of a child? What kind of father would be willing to do such a thing? Is this the kind of encounter that should be held up as a model for a religious community, whether that community is Jewish, Muslim, or Christian? Indeed, as pastor Duane Morford writes, "This story of 'The Testing of Abraham' could easily be the most dreadful, threatening, and passionate narrative in the Bible. Someone even suggested that this story is 'R' rated material -- not a story you'd want to read to your children at bedtime." (Word and Witness, 6/27/99)

Scholars rightfully point out that at a time when child sacrifice was common in surrounding societies, this story functions to explain why the Hebrew God, our God has never endorsed such a practice. But in my mind, that explanation is not sufficient, I am more disturbed by this story than that, I am not willing to let God and Abraham off the hook so easily, especially in a world where religion is all too often used to justify violence.

So what do we do with this text, how do we interpret it?

Jewish scholar Woody Allen offers one such interpretation. He relates the story as follows:

And Abraham awoke in the middle of the night and said to his only son, Isaac, "I have had a dream where the voice of the Lord sayeth that I must sacrifice my only son, so put your pants on." And Isaac trembled and said, "So what did you say? I mean when He brought this whole thing up?"

"What am I going to say?" Abraham said. "I'm standing there at two a.m. I'm in my underwear with the Creator of the Universe. Should I argue?"

"Well, did he say why he wants me sacrificed?" Isaac asked his father.

But Abraham said, "The faithful do not question. Now let's go because I have a heavy day tomorrow."

And Sarah who heard Abraham's plan grew vexed and said, "How doth thou know it was the Lord and not, say, thy friend who loveth practical jokes, for the Lord hateth practical jokes and whosoever shall pull one shall be delivered into the hands of his enemies whether they pay the delivery charge or not." And Abraham answered, "Because I know it was the Lord. It was a deep, resonant voice, well modulated, and nobody in the desert can get a rumble in it like that."

And Sarah said, "And thou art willing to carry out this senseless act?" But Abraham told her, "Frankly yes, for to question the Lord's word is one the worst things a person can do, particularly with the economy in the state it's in."

And so he took Isaac to a certain place and prepared to sacrifice him but at the last minute the Lord stayed Abraham's hand and said, "How could thou doest such a thing?"

And Abraham said, "But thou said ---"

"Never mind what I said," the Lord spake. "Doth thou listen to every crazy idea that comes thy way?" And Abraham grew ashamed. "Er - not really . . . no."

"I jokingly suggest thou sacrifice Isaac and thou immediately runs out to do it."

And with that, the Lord bid Abraham get some rest and check with him tomorrow." (see Woody Allen, Without Feathers, pp. 26-27, as quoted on www.hjnc.org/about_us/dvar_eckhaus

Now, at this point, you may be thankful that I don't have a deep, resonant, well-modulated voice, thus you are welcome to question what I say. Indeed, contrary to what Abraham says in Allen's rendition of the story, our tradition encourages us to wrestle with and question God's word. In wrestling with this passage, I am therefore inclined to agree with the famous theologian Soren Kierkegaard, who said, "Is it because Abraham had a prescriptive right to be a great man, so that what he did is great, and when another does the same it is a sin, a heinous sin? . . . If faith does not make it a holy act to be willing to murder one's son, then let the same condemnation be pronounced upon Abraham as upon every other man . . . The ethical expression for what Abraham did is, that he would murder Isaac; the religious expression is, that he would sacrifice Isaac . . . " (Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, trans. by Walter Lowrie, Princeton University Press, 1968, p.41, quoted in Word and Witness, Liturgical Publications, 6/27/99) In other words, whether we use the word 'murder' or 'sacrifice,' whether we invoke religious reasoning or not, we must condemn the violent destruction of human life, regardless of motive.

But lest we too easily condemn Abraham for his apparent willingness to sacrifice Isaac, perhaps we should remember that too often we sacrifice our own children to lesser gods. As Walter Lowrie writes, "How odd that we who make our home and plant gardens under the shadow of the mushroom cloud, who regularly discard our innocents in sacrifices to much lesser gods than Yahweh, should look condescendingly upon old Abraham." (Walter Lowrie, see above, p. 27) When I think about how 'security' has become a god in our world, how we will do almost anything, torturing others and sacrificing our children in the name of the security god, it makes me think maybe we aren't so different from Abraham after all.

Wrestling with the Biblical text does not mean ignoring it. Often it is the texts with which we have problems and concerns that have the most to teach us. While we can and indeed should be disturbed by this text, it nevertheless teaches us something valuable about God, and about discipleship. Part of what this text suggests is that sometimes it takes God to stop people from killing in the name of God. But more than that, at its deepest level, this story is about a God that both tests and provides. The key verses of the passage are the first one, where it says that God tested Abraham, the 12th verse, where God says, "for now I know that you fear God," and the 14th, where Abraham names the place, "the LORD will provide" after God provides a ram to be sacrificed.

A God that tests us and provides for us. The idea of a God who tests us is a common theme in the Old Testament. It occurs throughout the Psalms and the prophets, in the book of Job and in Exodus 20, immediately after the Ten Commandments. And as Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann writes, "we may find the notion of "testing" primitive. But Christians may take no comfort that this is the Old Testament. The same issue is clear in the New Testament. Nowhere is it more visible than in the Lord's prayer. How odd that settled, complacent believers pray regularly, "lead us not into temptation" (Matt 6:13; Luke 11:4). The prayer commended by Jesus is that God should not put us in a testing situation where we are driven to choose, decide, and risk for our confession of faith. The prayer is the petition that our situation of faith may not be so urgent that we will be found out. The prayer bespeaks fear that we will be found wanting if such testing comes." (Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, John Knox Press, 1982, pp. 190-191)

In his discussion of the testing theme, Brueggemann writes, "testing is no marginal notion in the faith of Israel. It occurs only in a faith in which a single God insists upon undivided loyalty, a situation not applicable to most civil religions. Testing is unnecessary in religions of tolerance. The testing times for Israel and for all of us who are heirs of Abraham are those times when it is seductively attractive to find an easier, less demanding alternative to God. The testings which come in history (and which are from God) drive us to find out whether we mean what we say about our faith being grounded solely in the gospel." (Brueggemann, p. 190)

We may prefer a God that provides for us without testing us, we may prefer a God that loves us without expecting anything in return, but that is not the God of this passage, that is not the God of the Old Testament, that is not the God that we know in Jesus Christ. The God that we know throughout the history of revelation is not a God of cheap grace, rather it is a God that expects everything from us in return, a God that bids us to take up our crosses and follow, even at the risk of losing our lives.

In his concluding remarks on this passage, Brueggemann writes, "The call to Abraham is a call to live in the presence of this God who moves both toward us and apart from us (cf. Jer 23:23). Faithful people will be tempted to want only half of it. Most complacent religion will want a God who provides, not a God who tests. Some in bitterness will want a God who tests but refuse the generous providing. Some in cynical modernity will regard both affirmations as silly, presuming we must answer to none and rely upon none, for we are both free and competent. But father Abraham confessed himself not free of the testing and not competent for his own provision. . . It is the same God who tempts and provides. The connection is that God is faithful. IN the end, our narrative is perhaps not about Abraham being found faithful. It is about God being found faithful." (Brueggemann, pp. 192-193)