June 28, 2026 - Open and Affirming Sunday

Genesis 22 begins as the text that is hard to hear, the one that sounds like God asking Abraham for the unthinkable. Psalm 13 stands beside it as the beloved prayer that gives language to fear, anger, grief, and trust. Together, these two texts start pecking away at each other, like an itch that cannot be scratched, until Genesis 22 begins to look less like bad PR for God and more like a story for people who already believe and are trying to stay in.

Genesis 21 had already shown the nature of God through Hagar and Ishmael. God hears, God listens, and God sees. Hagar is not an afterthought, and Ishmael is not a throwaway child. God makes a mirror covenant with Hagar and Ishmael, just as with Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac. Both sons are blessed. Both descendants matter. Both are held in covenant by God.

Genesis 22 then presses the question deeper. God’s test of Abraham is not sadistic cruelty, but a question of relationship. God needs to know whether Abraham is completely devoted to God. Trust, not obedience, binds Abraham to God. Absolute love and absolute trust make both sides vulnerable, and vulnerability is always risky. God has already known grief over human evil, and it takes courage for God to stay in relationship with humanity just as surely as it takes courage for humanity to stay in relationship with God.

Psalm 13 matters because God can handle the whole relationship, not just the polite parts. God can handle temper, yelling, fear, and the cry, “Look at us. Look at me.” The world gives plenty of reasons for that cry: disasters, hunger, children torn from parents, violence, school shootings, and suffering that makes the faithful wonder whether God has shown up. Yet Psalm 13 remembers the love of God already known, even when everything looks bleak.

The Trial of God brings that same audacious relationship into view. Auschwitz survivors and rabbis put God on trial, find God guilty, and then rise for evening prayers. Job, Abraham, and the Jewish tradition dare to stand before God because real relationship can bear real anguish. To put God on trial is also to put humanity on trial, especially humanity’s uses and abuses of God. God shows up when God’s people show up, in prophets, disciples, congregations, children, signs, mercy, and action. This God cries, holds, and cares, even in the moments when God’s presence feels most unsure.

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Key Takeaways

• 1. God hears the cast-out ones [26:45] God’s covenant with Hagar and Ishmael refuses the idea that some people are only side characters in someone else’s promise. Ishmael is not treated as an accident, a surrogate, or a spiritual inconvenience. The God who hears and sees builds blessing where human fear has created exile. [26:45]
• 2. Trust binds deeper than obedience [30:52] Genesis 22 does not make faith look easy, clean, or comfortable. The hard center of the story is relationship, where trust exposes both Abraham and God to pain. Obedience can perform a command, but trust risks the self before the One who gives and may seem to take away. [30:52]
• 3. God can handle honest anger [33:22] Psalm 13 gives holy permission for anger that refuses to leave the relationship. The faithful cry does not pretend suffering is smaller than it is, and it does not clean itself up before speaking to God. Real prayer can say, “Look at me,” because real covenant is strong enough to bear complaint. [33:22]
• 4. Prayer can follow accusation [37:41] The Trial of God shows a faith so fierce that it can prosecute God and still turn toward evening prayers. That is not contradiction, but relationship at its most painful depth. The same God who is questioned is still the God before whom grief kneels, argues, and refuses to walk away. [37:41]
• 5. God shows up through people [41:03] The question “Where is God?” becomes painfully concrete in the face of hatred, poverty, war, and violence. God’s presence is not reduced to human action, but God’s people become one of the ways God’s care takes on flesh. When Amos, Isaiah, Mary, Lydia, congregations, children, and ordinary servants show up, the suffering world catches sight of God with us.
  
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Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [23:28] - Psalm 13 and Genesis 22
• [24:25] - A Beloved Psalm and a Troubling Text
• [25:15] - Abraham’s Family Problem
• [26:45] - God Hears Hagar and Ishmael
• [27:36] - Genesis 22 Continues the Lesson
• [28:08] - Bad PR for New Disciples
• [29:15] - Helping Believers Stay In
• [30:17] - Trust, Not Mere Obedience
• [31:15] - Love Makes God Vulnerable
• [32:21] - From Isaac to Cross and Resurrection
• [33:22] - Psalm 13 and Honest Anger
• [35:47] - Elie Wiesel and the Trial of God
• [40:20] - Where God Shows Up
• [41:39] - God With Us in Uncertainty

Bible Reading

Genesis 22:1-19
After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” [23:31]
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 of which I shall tell you.” [23:47]
So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. [24:13]
On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. [27:36]
Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” [28:43]
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. [29:03]
And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” [29:11]
Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. [29:15]
When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. [30:20]
Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. [30:41]
But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” [30:52]
He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” [30:17]
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. [32:29]
So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” [32:34]
And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven [32:37]
and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, [33:01]
I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, [33:12]
and in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” [33:18]
So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba. [40:05]

Psalm 13:1-6
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? [24:25]
How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? [24:47]
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, [33:29]
lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. [34:12]
But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. [35:15]
I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me. [35:34]

Genesis 21:8-21
And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. [25:15]
But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing. [25:24]
So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.” [26:33]
And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. [25:58]
But God said to Abraham, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. [26:06]
And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.” [26:58]
So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. [26:54]
When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. [27:03]
Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Let me not look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. [27:08]
And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. [26:45]
Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” [27:17]
Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. [27:31]
And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. [27:33]
He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. [27:34]

Observation questions

1. In Genesis 21, what does God do for Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness, and what words in the passage show that God is paying attention to them? [27:31]
2. In Psalm 13, what kinds of emotions and requests appear in the psalm before it turns toward trust and praise? [33:22]
3. In Genesis 22, what repeated words or actions stand out in Abraham’s response to God and to Isaac, especially the phrase “Here I am”?
4. What examples of suffering and public grief are named alongside the cry, “Look at me,” or “Look at us”? [35:04]

Interpretation questions

1. Genesis 22 is often heard as a story about obedience, yet the deeper issue may be trust within relationship. How does that shift change the way this passage is understood? [30:52]
2. Genesis 21 shows that God hears Hagar and Ishmael, and Genesis 22 shows Abraham facing the possible loss of Isaac. How do these two stories together shape the picture of God’s care for both sons? [27:23]
3. Psalm 13 complains honestly to God and still ends in trust. What does that suggest about the kind of relationship God invites with frightened or angry people? [33:35]
4. The image of people putting God on trial and then rising for evening prayers shows a faith that refuses to leave the relationship. What does that reveal about lament, protest, and prayer in times of great suffering? [37:41]

Application questions

1. When life has felt upside down, what has helped a person stay in relationship with God instead of quietly pulling away? [29:35]
2. God hears the cast-out ones and sees those others overlook. Who might be easy to treat like a side character right now, in church, in family life, or in the wider community? What might it look like to truly notice them? [26:58]
3. Psalm 13 gives room to say, “How long?” and “Look at me.” What words would a person use if they prayed that honestly today? [35:04]
4. Trust makes people vulnerable. Where does trusting God feel costly or risky right now: in grief, in uncertainty, in relationships, or in stepping outside comfort? [31:15]
5. There are moments when people wonder whether God has shown up at all. Where has that question felt especially sharp recently, either in personal life or in the world? [40:20]
6. God often shows up through people who act with mercy, courage, and welcome. Where might God be asking this group to show up in a concrete way for someone who is hurting? [41:03]
7. The world gives many reasons for anger, sorrow, and protest, yet God still holds people in love. What helps a person remember God’s steadfast love when the news, or their own life, looks bleak? [35:15]