“He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.’”

— Genesis 22:2 (NRSV)

There are some scriptures, some pericopes, I just do not like. This is one of them.

Whenever it shows up in the RCL or in a Bible study, whenever it rears its ugly head, I struggle with it. I wrestle with it. Sometimes I feel it breaking parts of me while I demand my blessing from it.

What can we find to redeem this narrative of child abuse?

Abraham and Isaac seem to have some kind of relationship before Genesis 22 but very little afterward. Verse 19 reads, “So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham lived at Beer-sheba.” Abraham returns to his young men. Isaac is not explicitly mentioned. Did they walk down the mountain together? We are not told. More striking still, there is not a single conversation recorded between Abraham and Isaac after this story. Not one.

In Genesis 23, Sarah dies. In Genesis 24, Abraham arranges for Isaac to marry Rebekah, but the text does not even place father and son together for that conversation. Something has changed.

I was talking with our youth the other night about forgiveness. I told them that when sin enters a relationship, it wounds it. Sometimes it kills it altogether. When we harm another person, we damage the relationship we share. Even when we apologize, though Abraham never does. Even when we think we were right all along, and I suspect Abraham did. Once the threat is made, once the gossip is spread, once the lie is told, once the harm is done, we cannot simply undo it. The wound remains.

That sounds hopeless, but it is not.

We serve a God who is making all things new. We serve a risen Savior who was executed by the state, laid in a tomb, and raised again. Death does not get the final word. Not physical death. Not the death of dreams. Not the death that enters relationships. Christ still bore the scars of crucifixion after the resurrection. The wounds remained, but they no longer defined the future.

Isaac and Ishmael eventually buried their father together. There was some measure of reconciliation, but their lives were not unmarked by what had happened. Healing does not erase scars.

I wonder if I remembered how easily I can cause harm, I would comport myself differently. I wonder if I would be less certain of my own righteousness. I wonder whether Abraham ever regretted what happened on that mountain. Did he understand the damage he had done? Did he know what it cost?

Beloved, the wounds we bear run deep. Dr. Phil was fond of saying, “Hurt people hurt people.” There is truth in that. We often explain our harmful behavior by pointing to our own wounds. But at some point, do we not have to stop excusing the harm we cause? Do we not have to acknowledge when we have done wrong, repent, and choose a different path?

I attended our local Pride event after Annual Conference. It was a joy to be present, and it was heartbreaking to hear story after story of the harm done by the church. I stood alongside clergy colleagues and listened. We could not undo what had been done. We could not erase the wounds. But we could acknowledge them. We could tell the truth. And we could promise that, by God’s grace, we are doing everything we can to be better and do better.

Beloved, may God give us the courage to tell the truth about the harm we have caused, the humility to repent, and the hope to believe that even scarred relationships can find healing in the hands of Christ.