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Either/Or
During Advent, members of the A Nun’s Life community will be posting reflections on the Jesse Tree and the O Antiphons.
Day 6 :: Isaac written by Sister Julie
"Sacrifice of Abraham" by He Qi
The story of Abraham being asked by God to sacrifice his child Isaac reminds me of my first philosophy class in college: Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. As fascinating as Nietzsche is with the whole “God is dead” thing (love him or despise him, Nietzsche definitely got people thinking!), I was particularly taken with Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), a Christian philosopher who wrote the book Fear and Trembling which including a mind-blowing section on the sacrifice of Isaac. Kierkegaard wanted to understand what Abraham must have been going through as he tried to reconcile the demands of his two loves and to make an impossible choice between the two. While I can’t say I understand all the philosophical wonderings of Kierkegaard, I can say that I started looking at this story from a whole new perspective.
It was sort of like getting inside Abraham’s head and looking at the situation as he was going through it, not with the advanced knowledge that in the end, God would prevent him from sacrificing Isaac. What was that “either/or” (the title of another of Kierkegaard’s works) like for Abraham? Did he envision anything beyond either/or? How did he contain all of these emotions and thoughts as he tried to “act normal” with Isaac, his wife Sarah, and his friends? The 3-day journey to Mount Moriah must have been torturous for Abraham. And then I think about Isaac who probably felt his dad’s dis-ease but had no idea what it was about until that fateful, terrifying moment when he realizes his dad is going to kill him. How does he possibly come to terms with this? And not just Abraham or Isaac, but what about his wife Sarah or his companion Eliezer or that poor ram that eventually did take a hit for the team?
Life seems full of either/or’s, like we are always being forced into a binary — either yes or no, either in or out, either for or against, etc. Yet even if we don’t quite understand what happened in the story of Isaac, we can know that other possibilities exist. The story gives us a greater breadth of understanding when we face our own either/or situations. For me, I feel called to be open to the unimaginable, to not give up on loving even to the knife-sharp point of death.
Think about your “either/or”. What helps you break the binary and see possibility? Where is God in either/or for you?
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{ 4 comments }
Your post reminds me of this song,” Abraham’s Offering” by Danielle Rose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoJMdhDdN5c
I think it speaks of the torment and the sacrifice that was being asked. It also speaks of the great faith and trust that Abraham has in God, even though he doesn’t understand why God is asking this of him, to proceed – trusting that God has a plan and that all will be well.
I read Kierkegaard’s piece on Abraham and Isaac when I was 19 or 20 – and it has always stayed with me – so it was a joy to see you sort of unpack it here, Sister Julie! Thanks.
“god is dead.”–nietzsche
“nietzsche is dead.”–god
For me, my Catholicism in particular is a very “both/and” kind of faith – I am both body and soul, I am both saint and sinner, I can embrace both faith and reason. Yet I know there are times when I am called by God Himself to make an either/or decision. He tells us that there are times when we must get off the fence and not be “lukewarm” or He will spit us out of His mouth (His words, not mine). However, when I do need to take those either/or stands, and my neighbor takes an equally firm either/or stand which is different from mine, the bridge of compassion must remain open between us. It’s like I see the Holy Spirit as the bond of love between Father & Son, I also see this same bond of love, or at least mutual respect, must flow between my neighbor and myself in those places of either/or which matter most to us. That is how God is in the either/or of life for me – He still connects me to my brothers and sisters through his Spirit of love, regardless of agreement.