The History of a Preference

On the second anniversary of his death, we remember our dear friend Enzo by publishing a talk he presented in Modena in 1978. An unexpected contribution to a deeper understanding of the theme of the Fraternity Retreat, “Abraham: the Birth of the ‘I’”

by Enzo Piccinini

The figure which more than any other throws onto the Old Testament the prophetic light of faith is the patriarch Abraham. As a figure of faith, he is venerated by the three great monotheistic religions. The fact that he is, still today, the point of union and recognition among Jews, Christians, and Muslims is sufficient in itself to demonstrate the exceptionality of this man.
Striking, too, is the contrast between the immensity of Abraham’s echo throughout history and the very small amount of historical documentation we have about him. When did this sheik live, this nomad who moved about with his wife, slaves, and livestock, who carried out raids and sought good pastureland, just like certain caravanner tribes of today? Historians waver between the eighteenth and sixteenth centuries BC, and these are only hypotheses. The events of his life are among the most common in the history of that time: migration in a world of migrants, the birth of a son, the conflict between a mistress and a slave, a human sacrifice, the acquisition of a piece of land. More than history itself, this is the dust of history, but charged by God with an immense significance. God really does scandalize our reason completely, even from the beginning. Abraham represents the essential characteristic of God, who is different from man and violates his schemes. Man can relate to Him only by outdoing himself, by going beyond himself.

The promise
Abraham is an origin–he represents how God relates to man at the origin–because he embodies God’s method, an original method and thus a constitutive and absolute one.
Among the passages in the Bible which speak of Abraham, there is one that more than the others highlights his valor full of faith. It is the night scene in Genesis 15:1-6. Abraham is suffering because he has no sons and his heir will be a servant. But this substitute cannot replace having a son of his own loins, the only one a man can feel as continuity, a continuation of himself, of his own essence beyond death.
Hearing his complaint, God makes a promise, “Count the stars if you can. Just so will your descendants be.” Abraham believed. According to its root, the Hebrew word should be translated “took as certain,” “considered God to be certain,” “leaned on God with certainty.” This is a pure act of judgment; no act or gesture immediately embodying that belief is narrated. Looking at the stars and his own sterility and that of his wife, Abraham believed the promise. Paul’s comment is, “Though there seemed no hope, he hoped and believed that he was to become father of many nations in fulfillment of the promise, ‘Just so will your descendants be.’ Even the thought that his body was as good as dead–he was about a hundred years old–and that Sarah’s womb was dead too did not shake his faith. Counting on the promise of God, he did not doubt or disbelieve, but drew strength from faith and gave glory to God, fully convinced that whatever God promised He has the power to perform. This is the faith that was reckoned to him as uprightness” (Rom 4:18-22).

The power of God
It was his surrender to Mystery that made him upright; this was the matrix of his uprightness, and for this reason he was pleasing to God. Uprightness in the Bible is always the fruit of “doing,” of works. Man is judged on the basis of these; it is works that must be pleasing to God. Now, in this passage, faith appears truly to be a work, a different and greater one than the works of the law–this is why Paul leans so heavily on Genesis 15:6 (cf. Rom 4:2-5). But John too distinctly defines faith as a work: “Then they said to him, ‘What must we do if we are to carry out God’s work?’ Jesus gave them this answer, ‘This is carrying out God’s work: you must believe in the One He has sent’” (Jn 6:28-29). The act of faith, taken in its formality, is an act of judgment, it is the judgment one gives when he acknowledges God as the foundation of himself and of life. Abraham judged the Lord capable of keeping His promise, and he trusted Him. This was the work that made him upright, the one from which his other works also drew their uprightness. Thus for us, faith is work, the work of our lives. In this sense, faith is to know God truly. Whoever does not judge Him to be solid, certain, substantial; whoever does not treat Him as the only substance and certainty of existence, does not know Him. Whoever has no faith does not know who God is. He is ignorant of Him in His profound characteristic: the capacity to accomplish, realize, change; in more traditional terms, His power, His omnipotence. Not to have faith means treating God as not omnipotent, not capable of doing anything. “For God everything is possible” (Mk 10:27; cf. Jn 18:14; Jer 32:14; Lk 1:37).
This phrase is really and truly a confession of faith. Having faith means confessing God’s power over us, the world, and history. Abraham’s faith was not always on the same level of completeness and decisiveness. In Genesis 15:7-18 (which comprises a different narrative unit from the verses immediately preceding), Abraham asks for a sign from the Lord, who has promised him land: “How can I know that I shall possess it?” And the Lord replies with the famous scene of the rite of imprecation, with the animals split in half and the divine flame passing through them, a rite by which pacts containing promises were sealed in those times (as an analogy, see Jer 34:18). The Lord answers Abraham’s request for a sign with His solemn commitment; in the final analysis, His promise, once again.

Obedience
According to the priestly tradition, Abraham also went through a moment of disbelief (Gen 17:17-18), considering it a sufficient fulfillment of God’s promise that a son, Ishmael, had been born to him from his slave. “May Ishmael live in your presence!”(Jn 17:18). Abraham’s life, dominated by the promise, was a continual wait for fulfillment, and thus adherence to all the ways in which the promise seemed to be fulfilled: through the adoption of his faithful servant, through his slave giving birth–all means established by the customs and laws of his time. Then God made him understand that the way the promise would be fulfilled was different, and Abraham had to wait longer, until the supreme moment when, after a son had been born to him of Sarah, God asked for the child in sacrifice (another custom that was usual at the time). Then, too, Abraham was willing to start all over again. In him, faith is not passiveness or lack of initiative, but rather taking the initiative in the direction that God seems to trace out, in the most complete readiness to cancel everything out and to change direction toward where God makes it clear that one is to go.
Thus, the logical expression Abraham’s faith takes in life is obedience. This is the method of life in which faith is embodied. Abraham sets out for a country still unknown to him (Gen 12:1-4). When he has to divide the land between himself and his nephew Lot, Abraham lets the other choose (Gen 13:8-9). He knows that by doing this he is leaving the choice up to the Lord (Gen 13:14-15). When God asks him to offer his son as a holocaust, Abraham is stopped only by God Himself, who had “put him to the test” (Gen 22:1).
Man is put to the test when he has to offer to God the thing he holds most dear, the thing that for him is everything or almost everything. God, to be truly acknowledged as God, has to be preferred above everything else. This is the object of Abraham’s obedience: total offering. Abraham expresses all of his adherence to the mystery of God in the moment when he sacrifices everything to Him, when he lets everything go.
To love God above all else: the parabola of Abraham’s life reaches its apex in this supreme preference, in this supreme value judgment.