Genesis 22:1-14
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42
“All the while Abraham had faith, believing that God would not demand Isaac of him, though ready all the while to sacrifice him, should it be demanded of him. He believed this on the strength of the absurd; for there was no question of human calculation any longer. And the absurdity consisted in God’s, who yet made this demand of him, recalling his demand the very next moment.” –Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
I spent a bit of time early in my life as a stringer for the Roanoke Times & World News in Christiansburg, VA. On the staff room bulletin board there was an article prominently displayed that had an attention-grabbing headline. It was called “First, Kill Your Babies.” It was not about homicide, but about writing. It was a variation on the quote often attributed to William Faulkner: “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” Stephen King—an expert on killing one’s darlings—put it this way: “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even though it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill all your darlings.” The point, of course, is that often it’s the clever little touches, the ones we most enjoyed, that need to be brutally excised from an article or story in order for it to be a good article or story.
I thought of that as I reread Soren Kierkegaard’s striking interpretation of the story of Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice his son Isaac. It may seem at first an odd comparison. After all, Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac is not light-hearted writing advice but easily the most disturbing story of the Bible.
Kierkegaard, a Danish Christian existentialist, dared to confront this story’s tension-packed content with honesty, in his essay, “Fear and Trembling.” For Kierkegaard, Abraham’s attempted sacrifice was not the act of a murderer, or an insane man, or a simple man: it was a monumental act of faith. It was faith in the God of the Absurd: A God of blessings and love, yet paradoxically he calls upon a loving father to sacrifice his child; a God who would make Abraham a promise on the one hand, then threaten to take away the child who was the evidence of the promise; a God who would demand a sacrifice, and then stop the very sacrifice God demanded.
And faith, says Kierkegaard, is to believe the absurd. He writes: “Abraham believed this on the strength of the absurd; for there was no question of human calculation any longer. And the absurdity consisted in God’s, who yet made this demand of him, recalling his demand the very next moment.”
Faith, in other words, is to believe not just that God deals in impossibilities, but absurdities: to sacrifice something is to save it, to give something away is to have it; when God breaks a promise, God fulfills it. This absurd faith should really be nothing new to us Christians, of course, because Jesus calls us to it: “Those who save their life, will lose it; but whoever will lose his or her life for my sake will find it.”
It’s difficult to understand Kierkegaard’s concept of absurd faith, so let’s put it terms we might better understand. For the past few years, certainly the ten I’ve been St. Stephen’s pastor but arguably for decades longer, we have seen a decline in attendance. We’ve tried various tweaks to fix the problem, but the decline has been steady. What we’ve tried to do is maintain the basic integrity of our understanding of St. Stephen’s core values, even as we’ve tried to change to address a changing world.
But if we were to put ourselves in Abraham’s place, we might well hear God saying, “I’d like you to take St. Stephen, this church you love, with all its programs, its values, its history, its music and worship style, its mission outreach like Room in the Inn, it’s intentional inclusiveness, its beautiful grounds and building—and offer it all as a burnt offering.”
And if we had the absurd faith that Kierkegaard is talking about, we would do it. We would kill our darlings.
I know I’ve just scared the pants off about everybody in the room. Maybe I should be worried that you’ll kill the preacher.
That anxiety I’ve just provoked is why Kierkegaard called his essay “Fear and Trembling.” “That which people forget in the story of Abraham is his fear and anxiety,” Kierkegaard writes. It is the willingness to move forward in spite of this fear and anxiety that comprises the faith of Abraham. It takes the unique courage of faith, he says, “to close my eyes and confidently plunge into the absurd.” Absurd faith calls us to stop trying to figure out what we may “reasonably” do to change things, and to struggle with the unreasonable, the unlikely, even the repulsive.
The courage of faith that allows us to dare this absurd analysis comes from our confidence, ultimately, that God is good and that we are right to place our destinies in God’s hand. Ultimately absurdity lies at the core of Christian faith. We believe that the invisible, insubstantial, all powerful, completely alien God who made all that there is, took human form and became one of us. This is more than impossible. It is absurd. It doesn’t make sense. We believe that this God, in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, willingly suffered the indignities of political and religious persecution, finally killed by the very people he came to save. But we also believe that this very death resulted in the salvation of humankind. The most apocalyptic act that humans ever engaged in—the murder of God—was completely, and absurdly, flipped upon its head and has become the thing that saves us all.
We believe in the absurdity of grace. And that belief in the absurdity of grace will allow us to kill our darlings, because we know that in losing them, we save them.
Nearly two weeks ago, I was called upon to testify before a General Assembly Committee meeting to consider whether to divest from Israel. I had a minute and a half. There was no time for frills. I didn’t have room for my favorite anecdotes or cleverest turns of phrase. That was true for everybody who had to testify, though not everybody had the good sense to know it. Two of the speakers, who were well-known and considered themselves practiced speakers, ran out of time before they even got to their point. It was disappointing. They were two of our most powerful voices. The problem was, they knew it. Ironically, their love for their topic and their self-confidence had betrayed them. One of them came back disgusted with herself. “I should have known better,” she said.
The next day she had the opportunity to speak again. She’d prepared. She spoke less than the time limit. There were no frills. Two powerful stories and a core message and nothing else. It was amazing and it was powerful, because it was not her style at all, but it was her at her best.
She’d had to kill her darlings. But it was worth it.
All Kierkegaard quotes are from Soren Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling.