Made a Holy Temple

Inspired by Bishop Rob Wright’s weekly practice of writing a 150-word reflection on the upcoming Sunday’s lectionary readings, I’m going to try to write a reflection on the readings each week in 250 words or less…

Made a Holy Temple
Pentecost 5 – Year A  – Proper 8 (Track 1) – June 28, 2026

Genesis 22:1-14
Psalm 13
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42

In this Sunday’s Collect, we pray that we “be made a holy temple,” built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Jesus as the chief cornerstone. Holy means “sanctified”; and the apostle Paul explains that our sanctification is marked by God’s generous gift of eternal life, not death. More literally, holy means “set apart”; and in Genesis, God sets Abraham apart from the many Ancient Near Eastern cultures who performed child sacrifice. Although Abraham is tested indeed, he is ultimately not called to sacrifice his son Isaac, but rather to sacrifice and relinquish his theology of sacrificial violence,[1] a theology that the prophet Jeremiah later repudiates when he tells the people of Israel that any form of child sacrifice is “a shocking perversion of all that God commands” (7:31). God then provides Abraham a ram, who symbolizes the self-giving love of Christ the Lamb who offers himself to us every day.

Our collective identity as “holy” is built upon the foundational teachings of apostles (like Paul) and prophets (like Jeremiah) who insist that our God is not a bloodthirsty deity, but a God of life who cares especially for the vulnerable; and Christ, the chief cornerstone, reminds us how much God loves “these little ones” and rewards those who provide for them. May we be joined together in unity of spirit by these teachings so that we may indeed be made a holy temple acceptable to the Shepherd who gives himself to us, as a Lamb.

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[1] Thomas Merton teaches that when the angel calls out to Abraham before the sacrifice, Abraham “passes through darkness to light. By his consent, it is not Isaac who has died, but the last vestige of self has died in Abraham.” Thomas Merton, Notes on Genesis and Exodus: Novitiate Conferences on Scripture and Liturgy 2, edited by Patrick O’Connell(Eugene OR: Cascade, 2021), 74. For a closer reading of Genesis 22:1 – 14, see “Lament and the Lamb” https://deforest.london/2020/06/29/5523/ and “Letting Go of a Violent God” https://deforest.london/2017/07/05/letting-go-of-a-violent-god/.