Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Official Report
764KB pdf
Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. I welcome everyone back after the recess and to our first ever Tuesday afternoon sitting.
The first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection, and our time for reflection leader today is the Rev Scott McKenna, minister at Mayfield Salisbury parish church, Edinburgh.
The Rev Scott McKenna (Mayfield Salisbury Parish Church, Edinburgh)
At its very best, religion is rational and philosophically rigorous. In the Old Testament, King Solomon prays for wisdom, for an understanding heart. In this context, the “heart” is the seat of reason. Later this month, Mayfield Salisbury parish church is hosting a festival of science, reason and religion, with leading thinkers from Scotland and England.
One of my favourite faith narratives, which is common to the Hebrew Bible—the Tanakh—the Christian Bible and the Qur’an, is the shocking story in which Abraham, the father of faith, is commanded by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, on an altar in the land of Moriah. Abraham rises early in the morning, travels to the mountain top, builds an altar of wood, binds his son and lays him on the altar. The Bible says:
“Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.”
At the very last moment, an angel of the “LORD” says:
“Abraham, do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him for now I know that you fear God.”
Isaac was released and a ram was offered in his place. What a brutal story—the sacrifice of a son! It is ghastly—and yet.
The Bible needs to be handled with care and many of the faith narratives within it are not to be taken at face value. In the 19 verses that make up this story in the book of Genesis, the word “God” appears five times in the first half; in the second half of the story, the word “LORD” appears five times. The Hebrew people were not always monotheistic: in the first half, “God” is the God Elohim and, in the second half, the “LORD” is the God Yahweh. Elohim is the God of justice and Yahweh is the God of compassion. Brutal as it sounds, this ancient story is, in fact, a narrative on an ancient people wrestling with the nature of God and the social and ethical values that follow as a consequence. They are wrestling with justice and compassion and, in the end, they find that they need both. Later, the Bible refers to only one God, Yahweh Elohim. They needed both, but Yahweh, the God of compassion, had the upper hand.
God bless you in your work.