Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, New York
Br. Josep Martinez-Cubero
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, June 28, 2026
The desert monk Abba Poemen said: "Do not be always wanting everything to turn out as you think it should, but rather as God pleases, then you will be undisturbed and thankful in your prayer."
Today’s reading from the Book of Genesis is one of the most famous and compelling, but also one of the most horrifying, and abhorrent stories in the Bible. The story is the culmination of a series of episodes in Abraham and Sarah’s life, beginning when God calls Abram to go from his country to the land that God will show him, and God promises that his descendants will be “a great nation,” and that in Abraham all the families of the earth will be blessed. Thus begins Abraham’s epic, with themes of descendants, inherited blessing, and trust.
But there’s a dilemma- Abraham and Sarah are unable to have children. So, they hatch a plan to use Hagar, an enslaved Egyptian woman in their household, as a surrogate mother, and Ishmael is born. But then, Sarah miraculously gets pregnant and bears Isaac. And so, we get to the story we heard last week. For jealous, self-serving, greedy and likely racist reasons, Sarah wields her power over Hagar and Ishmael. She tells Abraham to get rid of them so that Ishmael would not have a share in the inheritance and Isaac alone would inherit God’s blessing. Nice. Abraham is distressed over this, but he gets over it pretty fast and says he is listening to God, who tells him to listen to Sarah and “send Hagar out”, meaning out to die in the desert! Abraham clearly can’t distinguish God’s voice from his own. And Sarah’s motive is not to do the will of God, but to see that God does hers! No worries, the story shows us how God’s plans are always perfect even when beyond our comprehension and carried out in spite of the chaos we manage to create in ourselves because of our blind self-interests.
The event exposes the mixed motives driving Abraham and Sarah at this point in the story. (And I’m sure we all can relate to mixed motives.) On the one hand, they have faith in God’s promise. They left their homeland of Ur for an unknown place. On the other hand, they maneuver to advance their legacy by excluding others, and by doing so dishonor the spirit of God’s larger goal that, through them and their legacy, “all the families of the earth shall be blessed”. In fact, it seems their scheme to use Hagar as a surrogate itself shows a lack of trust in God. It is an anxious attempt to take matters into their own hands.
Isaac is now the sole means for their legacy, for the fulfillment of God’s promise, for the “great nation” to come, and ultimately, for God’s plan to bless “all the families of the earth.” And so, we get to today’s distressing episode. Both accounts are really written as a consecutive, parallel pair. When both stories are read together, one can easily see how the central drama is a kind of death march for one of Abraham’s children, with God saving the child at the last moment. Both stories circle around the themes of descendants, inherited blessing, and trust. And in both stories, divine promises are vindicated: God will make “a great nation” from Ishmael no less than from Isaac. God desires neither Ishmael nor Isaac to die. On the contrary, God protects them both, cares for them both, and fulfills promises to make them both ancestors of multitudes. Why then, one might ask, God’s command for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac?
First, it’s important to understand that, as horrific as it sounds to our 21st Century western ears, the reality is that child sacrifice was a feature of ancient semitic devotion. For the Canaanites, Moabites, the people of Tirah, and other established civilizations in the Mediterranean Near East the custom would have been far from unknown.
The very beginning of the story makes God’s purpose crystal clear: “After these things [meaning casting out Hagar and Ishmael and saying God told him it was OK] God tested Abraham”. The test echoes the ordeal he has put Hagar and Ishmael through. He sent Hagar out into the desert on a death march with her only child. Now he is the one who is walking on the death march of his other child. He attempted to cut off Hagar and Ishmael from inheriting the covenantal blessing. Now he will contemplate being cut off from the covenantal blessing by his own hand. If Isaac dies, Abraham will have no heir. The death of Isaac would mean the death of God’s promise that his descendants will become a great nation, and that Isaac will inherit God’s blessing- the inheritance Abraham and Sarah tried to hoard when they exiled Hagar and Ishmael. He manipulated for gain. Now he will face losing everything. He must choose between serving God and serving his own blind self-interests, between control and faith, between self-preservation and true love, which seeks to serve and to share, not to arrogate blessings to itself.
The story invites us to ask ourselves some fundamental questions about our relationship with God:
What really drives my faith? Confidence or fear, trust or anxiety, devotion or self-preservation. Do I really desire to serve God or serve myself using “faithful obedience” as a strategy for gain? All acts of “obedience” and “faith,” take place under a temptation to maneuver for gain- to obey in order to acquire an advantage.
The story makes it clear that God’s mercy always transcends mere punishment. Yes, there is accountability for what Abraham has done to Hagar and Ishmael, but more importantly there is a purging of manipulation and control necessary for a true strengthening of faith. In the end, Abraham’s faith and God’s promise are vindicated. God says to Abraham, “Now I know that you fear God.” Fearing God in this sense means regarding God with deep respect, reverence, and awe.
In the evolution of human consciousness, the sacrificial instinct has to do with the deep recognition that something always has to die for something bigger to be born. From human sacrifice to animal sacrifice, human consciousness has gradually gotten closer to what really has to be sacrificed- our own ego! We will all find endless disguises and excuses to avoid letting go of what really needs to die for our own spiritual growth- our beloved passing self. It’s about developing the humility that finds strength in vulnerability. The vulnerability found when we accept our powerlessness, let go of our need for control, and truly believe and accept that God is in charge and has a plan much bigger and better than our ego’s plans.
This is the vulnerability Jesus demands from his disciples when in today’s Gospel story he gives them instructions, not about extending welcome, as it may seem, but about receiving it, in his name. He sends his disciples to share the good news of God’s Reign as vulnerable outsiders. They had no religious institutions to back their efforts, or political tools to wield. And Jesus instructed them to carry nothing- no money, no food, no extra clothes. They had nothing at all, except the power of the Holy Spirit moving through them to heal and serve. Even the simplest, most basic need, a cup of cold water, would have to be met by others.
The Desert Monastics taught that true peace can only be found by surrendering our own ego and will. They emphasized that inner transformation requires giving up the need to control. Again, Abba Poemen: "Do not be always wanting everything to turn out as you think it should, but rather as God pleases, then you will be undisturbed and thankful in your prayer." And Jesus said: “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” ¡Que así sea en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+
