The Son: The Word of God

1. St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
The Road
2 Lent March 1, 2015

2. March 15, 2015
 The Son: The Word of God

3. Collect for Young Persons
BCP p. 829
 God our Father, you see your children
growing up in an unsteady and confusing
world: Show them that your ways give
more life than the ways of the world, and
that following you is better than chasing
after selfish goals. Help them to take
failure, not as a measure of their worth, but
as a chance for a new start. Give them
strength to hold their faith in you, and to
keep alive their joy in your creation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

4. The Son
For those of you who have read the novel
or seen the movie, how would you
describe:
 the son at the beginning of the story?
 the son at the end of the story?

5. The Son
 The son is incredibly compassionate in a
way that the father is not. There are
several examples of this in the novel,
including a final conversation the son
has with his father about a boy they had
recently seen. [Read pp. 280 – 281].

6. The Son
 The Son is also uncommonly grateful, and
also has an innate desire to reach out and
help others survive, though in one case the
father discourages this. [Read pp. 161 -165]
Watch 1:03 – 1:08
 The reason for the Father’s hesitancy is that
taking on another person might slow them
down, make them more vulnerable to attack,
and deplete their food reserves. The irony in
the story is that when the father dies, it is the
generosity of a new family that brings the son
in with them – something the father would
never do.

7. The Son
The Near Sacrifice of Isaac
Genesis 22: 1- 19
 Have someone at your table read the
story from Genesis, and then consider
these questions: (10-15 minutes)
 How would describe the character of Isaac?
 How do you describe the character of
Abraham?
 What parallels do you see between the
father and son in Genesis and in The Road?
 Abraham is asked by God do something
morally depraved – why does God require
such a thing?

8. The Son and Isaac
 From both characters we learn about
vulnerability:
 Isaac is vulnerable to God’s will
 The Son is vulnerable to the looming death of
his father.
 It is from this vulnerability, in both stories, that
life comes forth renewed. In the Genesis story
we read of the angel promising to Abraham: “…I
will bless you and make your offspring as
numerous as the stars of heaven and as the
sand that is on the seashore.”

9. The Son and Isaac
 In The Road we read from p. 55:
 [The Father] “All things of grace and
beauty such that one holds them to
one’s heart have a common provenance
in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.
So he whispered to the sleeping boy, ‘I
have you.’”

10.  “All things of grace and beauty…have
their birth in grief and ashes” (or mud!)

11. Next Week: March 15, 2015
 The Coast: Love’s Embrace