My dear father worked for many years in banks throughout different cities in Mexico. I remember that he would sometimes take my brother and me to school, and then he would go to his office.
When I was little I didn’t really understand what my dad really did. He dressed every day, very handsome, of course, with a suit, tie, and always very clean shoes. Every Sunday afternoon, he took time to clean and shine all or almost all of his pairs. All this while the golden sunset light flooded the little room. In this ritual, my brother would join from time to time with his Kaepa tennis shoes, those that had little different color triangles that were replaced and he lost all the time.
Sometime in my elementary school years, I heard something about credit cards. That evening, when my dad came home, I asked him what that was. He gave me an answer that, frankly, I almost don’t remember, but something did stick. What I recall is: “If the bank lends money to someone, it’s because they trust them to pay them in the agreed time.”
Years later, I understood that the lending process that banks have is much more complicated. Banks require evidence of income, properties, payment history and sometimes even a cosigner. In this way, institutions find guarantees to recover the loan in case they are not being paid back.
This type of banking “trust,” which requires research, evidence, and guarantees, was the type of trust I could imagine when I first heard the story of God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.
My internal dialogue was as followed:
Hmm what?
Am I supposed to love and trust someone who asks a father to sacrifice his only child?
Hmm. Common sense tells me otherwise. That doesn’t sound very loving to me. It reminds me of banks. It is as if God had said: I have given you so much, and now I am charging you, give me your son.”
How was it for you the first time you heard this story?
Several years ago, when one of my daughters was in her First Communion preparation, she asked me after hearing this same passage:
“Why is God so cruel?”
My heart sank. I know I gave her an answer, that didn’t convince her. And it didn’t convince me either. That has always been a difficult passage for me to process. “I get it,” but it doesn’t feel right.
Regardless of how I received this story, it seems that Abraham trusted God.
And you, how do you trust?
It would seem as if God’s promise to Abraham was only because he trusted, or feared, God after he almost sacrificed his son Isaac.
Seeing God’s blessing as a consequence of what we do or fail to do is valid, but incomplete.
God loves you, not because of what you do or don’t do, but because is the nature of God.
Some situations may come to your mind in which you have trusted others, only for them to deceive you, betray you, and lie to you. Maybe you have given little, or a lot. And it hurts.
Jesus the carpenter also experienced pain and betrayal, like you and me. And he continued trusting.
How about we ask ourselves, not what Jesus did to trust, but how did he do it?
That changes our focus not to what we do, but to how we do it.
And perhaps, it may not have been what Abraham was going to do with his son, but how he was going to do it in his heart. With great pain, and even more confidence.
At the beginning, it is normal to want to “earn” God’s trust with actions, such as trying to give evidence that we are worthy of it. There just comes a time when that no longer works for our hearts. The idea of exchanging guarantees to have trust from God gives the feeling of a conditional relationship.
In the banking world, and in conditional relationships, trust is based on an exchange. In healthy and loving human relationships, trust requires knowing each other, familiarity, closeness, mutual knowledge, time.
Perhaps, that is why Abraham did not argue with God when he was going to sacrifice his son Isaac. Because there was mutual knowledge, they were familiar with each other, they were very close, they knew each other well, because they had spent time together.
Perhaps that is why Jesus freely lived his passion and death. Because there was mutual knowledge, they were familiar with each other, they were very close, they knew each other well, because they had spent time together.
And perhaps, you and I could in our personal relationship with God, come to know each other, to be familiar with each other, to become closer, to know each other better, by spending time together.
We began sharing this time together with the question: “Why trust in God?” Perhaps we are called to trust God, because God trusts each of us, without investigation, guarantees or repossessions.
For love, because he loves you, and expects nothing more from you. His love is not conditional.
May our actions be in gratitude for that love.
Trust can increase and deepen when a relationship becomes increasingly close and intimate. If you would like to trust God more, this is the invitation for you, to spend more intimate and close time with God, who is already within you.
Spend more time with God, get to know each other, get familiar and even have fun. Your trust in his love will grow.
P.S. To hear the story of when Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac, and also a canticle of trust, you can refer to the readings for the Second Sunday of Lent, cycle B
