This week’s lectionary readings include the Genesis story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Even though we know that (apparently) God was only testing Abraham, and we know that God stopped the killing, the incident seems cruel. I know of no other Biblical tale that could so terrorize a person!
God’s unusual, God’s unpredictable request here reminds us that often God is – or at least seems to be – unpredictable. Certainly, there are stories of God’s unpredictability throughout the Scriptures.
Note how often historically God called the most unlikely person for some significant task:
• David was only a shepherd boy who loved music. Yet, God tapped him to lead the nation.
• Amos was but a keeper of sycamore trees. But God sent him to preach repentance to the nation.
• Saul was committed to persecuting the early followers of Christ. However, Christ blinded him on the Damascus Road in order to recruit him as God’s premier evangelist.
God has continued such unpredictability, since the first century, by recruiting common persons who became historic “giants”:
• In the 16th century, God tapped Martin Luther, a grumpy priest, to lead a reformation of God’s Church.
• In the 18th Century, God touched the heart of John Wesley, an insecure Anglican Priest – and the Methodist movement was born.
• Who could have guessed that a gaggle of competitive colonial leaders would dare to confront the British monarch by declaring independence?
• How unlikely that Abe Lincoln’s unconventional faith would provide him with an enduring a vision that encouraged the people then and has guided our nation since then.
God is unpredictable enough to have seen the potential in each and all of such persons. It may be more accurate, however, to suggest that God saw the strength of the potential of the unpredictability of such people. In other words, I’m suggesting that God calls us to be unpredictable. Think of the ways Jesus asked his followers to be unpredictable – to “think outside the box”:
• In spite of our instinct to think of self above all else, Jesus asks us to love our neighbors as ourselves!
• In spite of our natural habit to identify our adversaries, Jesus ask us to love our enemies!
• In spite of being taught to be “careful of the company we keep,” Jesus ate with sinners!
• In spite of the world’s obsession with power and privilege, Jesus proclaims that the first shall be last, and that the one who would be a master must be a servant of all.
Jesus never pretended that following him would be easy. He often used the metaphor of the narrow gate to underscore the demands of discipleship. In Luke 13:24 he said, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.”
Jesus is more specific in Matthew 7:13: “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Our instinct is to avoid difficulty – to choose the easy way. We love shortcuts, we welcome technological assists. But discipleship, a fidelity to God in Christ, expects and demands the unconventional. In today’s world, that’s the unpredictable.
Fortunately, there is an ultimate predictability. Those who are willing to live beyond easy conventionality, will find God’s predictable love and support and strength!
Rev. William McCartney is a retired United Methodist minister and a professor emeritus of the Methodist Theological School in Ohio.
