Sermon Tone Analysis

*“Masques:   Now I see...”*

*Genesis 22*

*October 2, 2005*

*Frank Shirvinski*

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Paper faces on parade.

Hide your face so the world will never find you.

Each face a different shade.

Look around there’s another masque behind you.

And yet, each face is a different role I play.....father, husband, worker and friend.

Each face a different message that I send.

And yet, the person inside remains the same.

All is known to God.

So, why am I so afraid?

Hide your face so the world will never find you.

So what do you think we’re so afraid that they’ll see?

Last week we asked the question, “Who is the face behind your face?

When you look in the mirror, who is the me inside?”

When you went home this week and you looked in those mirrors each morning, rubbed that stuff out of your eyes, did you see something different?

Did you see anything that surprised you?  Masques and mirrors - that was the question last week.

But that is not the end of the story by any means.

In fact, it’s just the beginning.

And, in fact, the story I told last week about my friend’s parrot ...that wasn’t the end of that story either.

He sold that parrot, as a matter of fact, to a pet shop.

The parrot never got better - still was kinda rude - so he gave it to a pet shop.

The guy in the pet shop put it up for display.

So, this young couple walks in, the parrot sees them and says, “Hey, mister,” the man says, “Hey, what?”  “You’re ugly and so’s your wife!”

The man’s like....whoosh...this has gotta be a joke - right?

So, he goes on and starts shopping, comes back the other aisle.

“Hey, mister,”  “Hey, what?”  “You’re ugly, so’s your wife!”

This time the guys had it.

He’s embarrassed - right - so he goes, finds the manager, tells the manager what happens.

The manager is furious, comes out, opens the cage, grabs the bird, shakes the bird around and says, “Promise you’ll never say that again.”

The bird says, “I promise, I promise.”

Throws him back in the cage, closes the door.

A few minutes later the man is about to leave with his wife, walked into the check-out aisle and he hears, “Hey, mister,” “Hey, what?”  “You know what!”  Sometimes we know what - right?

Sometimes we know what.

The problem is we don’t want to see it.

We don’t want to look in the mirror and see what we know is there.

So, we hide it behind a masque so the world won’t see it either.

But, what happens when you’re forced to see it?

We’re going to look at a text today out of Genesis 22 and for me this text is a mirror to me.

You can see it a lot of different ways.

It’s a story of the aka-Da (?), the binding of Isaac.

It’s the story where Isaac takes his son, his only son whom he loves, binds him and is going to kill him because God told him to.

And, people have talked about this story for generations.

And, each time, it’s like a diamond, something different shows up....you know you look through a diamond - different

colors - never the same.

Not only what we see in the story but also what it sees about me when I look at this story of the binding of Isaac.

What will we see in this story?

It opens with God.

He is going to test Abraham.

What is a test?

You’ve been given a test in high school, college, grade school - right?

You’ve had tests.

It’s a collection of questions designed to do what?

Well, you know what, Robby’s right.

To figure out how smart you are.

But, you know what - not really, it’s not about grades.

Tests are designed to find out what goes on in here.

This story is like that.

It asks questions.

Not questions just of what’s out there - questions about what’s in here.

There were four guys - kinda cutups in school - right - never did everything right.

So, they had a big test in school.

And, they’re late, as usual, and missed most of the test.

So, they came walking in -- “Hey, you know....sorry we’re late.”

Had a flat tire.

Sorry I missed the test.”

The teacher says, “You didn’t miss any test.”

She puts all four of these guys in four corners of the room.

She says, “This test has one question.

Pass or fail.

Which tire?”  Good questions help to see what’s inside of us - right?

Better questions help us to see how the world sees us as well.

Jesus was a master at asking questions that look inside.

Jesus, uh...should we pay taxes to Caesar or not?

I don’t know.

Whose face do you see on this?

Who owns it?

“Jesus, uh...what’s the greatest commandment?”

How do you read it?

“Jesus, uh...who’s my neighbor?

Who is that person I should love?”

Let me tell you a story about a man on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho who fell among robbers.

Who do you think his neighbor was?

The story of the good Samaritan.... he had a way of taking these and looking deep inside.

And, for Abraham, this test is going to look inside of him as well.

Look at verse 2, if you have your Bibles there.

It says this, “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.”

Why the long description of Isaac?

I mean Abraham knew who Isaac is - right?

God knew who Isaac is.

Why this description?

... “take your only son, Isaac, whom you love.”

In fact, this is the first time the word ‘love’ is used in the Bible because Abraham and God both know the stakes.

They both know what’s involved.

I cannot imagine being asked to sacrifice Luke or Jacob or Abbey.

I can’t fathom that.

A couple of years ago, when I was back in Georgia, a young girl was in a car accident and it was tragic because she had fallen asleep at the wheel and her face had hit the steering wheel and knocked her teeth back into her windpipe and she lost oxygen for too long.

She was in the hospital in a coma for two weeks.