Readings and Sermon
Genesis 21:8-21 |
God's Inexplicable Mercy |
June 19, 2005 |
Gospel reading (MP3) |
Sermon (MP3) |
Sermon text (PDF) |
The story is filled with pathos, nail-biting suspense, raw human emotion, and blatant injustice. It's the stuff of human life unedited, unembellished, more real that "reality TV," and God is immersed in it up to the neck. God had made a promise to Abraham, a promise that prompted him to leave his home and life in Haran behind and to venture forth on a journey with a clear destination but a very hazy road map. The promise was quite explicit: "Go from your country and from your kindred and your father's house to the land I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing . . . and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." There was, though, no word on when the promise would be kept. As time passed and as Abraham and Sarah continued to age, any fool could see that the possibilities of the promise being fulfilled were growing more and more remote. It all hinged on the birth of a child and by this point in the journey these senior citizens were, as scripture puts it, "as good as dead." And so, they took matters into their own hands. Sarah gave her slave Hagar to Abraham to act as a surrogate mother. Hagar bore a son who was named Ishmael, but then, as it sometimes happens, the child Abraham and Sarah had given up on ever having was conceived. Isaac, the child who brought laughter to Sarah's heart, was the child of promise.
Abraham loved both his sons, and Ishmael was as much his son as Isaac. But Sarah found herself feeling more and more resentful of Hagar and Ishmael. They had been little more than a means to an end, and now that God had fulfilled the promise, now that Sarah had herself bore a son, there was no longer any need for them. If only they would just disappear, her life would be better. Hagar and Ishmael were for Sarah daily evidence of a mistake she now wished she had never made. No doubt, she grumbled and complained and found every opportunity to draw comparisons that made Ishmael appear inferior to his younger brother. One day as she watched the boys playing she found that she could bear it no more and demanded in terms that left no room for compromise: "Cast out this slave woman, with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac." She couldn't even bring herself to call them by name. It was the equality of the thing that galled her, actually the inequality. While Isaac was her son, both were Abraham's sons and by the traditional right of primogenitor Ishmael, the oldest, though born to a slave in the family, would receive the larger portion of his father's estate.
Abraham was caught in the middle. He loved Ishmael and he knew that to accede to Sarah's demand was tantamount to a death sentence for the child and his mother. There was no peace, no respite. He appealed to God in prayer and God answered: "Go ahead. Let Sarah have what she wants. I will make it right." So, early the next morning Abraham gave Hagar some bread and a skin of water, placed their son in her arms, and sent them away. Hagar wandered in the wilderness until the water was gone, and, unable to go on any farther, placed her child in the shade of a bush, and unwilling to watch him die, sat down at a distance from him and wept.
Hagar and Ishmael were disposable people, throw-a-ways. The world is filled with them-men and women, whole populations who have been shoved aside, out of sight and out of mind, because their presence reminds the rest of us of our own mistakes, lapses in judgment and complicity in the sins of the human community. They are shoved aside, out of sight and out of mind because their presence reminds us that the world is not the safe and fair place we pretend that it is-bad things do indeed happen to good people, all things are not, after all, "bright and beautiful." They are the victims of domestic violence or sexual abuse, the mentally ill, "special needs" children and their families, HIV/AIDS victims, minority groups on the other side of the world whose plight is often quickly forgotten when the media, by necessity, moves on to the next crisis du jour. Some grow cynical; some just barely cling to hope; and some, overwhelmed by the despair of helplessness, like Hagar, sit down to weep till death should relieve their misery. Some of you may have been there. Some of you may even be there now.
There is no justice in this story. The two brothers are separated. One remains the child of promise; the other, the bastard child of human exploitation, is sent forth to die. Hagar the victim of human manipulation is victimized once again. But this is not meant to be a story of justice. It is, rather, a story about God's mercy and faithfulness in the midst of unedited, unembellished, human life. In spite of the failures of the principal human instruments, God's promise is kept. A child is born to Abraham and Sarah, and through the birth of that child God confirms the promise to bring blessing to all the people of the earth. God is faithful still, even in the face of human faithlessness. Neither our active opposition nor our passive lack of cooperation will thwart God's purpose for creation. For, you see, while the promise was guaranteed through Abraham and Sarah, that did not mean that Hagar and Ishmael fell beyond the sphere of God's love and care. While God keeps the promise through Abraham and Sarah, God also hears the sound of young Ishmael's cry and responds. The voice of an angel of God asks his mother: "What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him." And then Hagar saw what her grief and tears, her anger and desolation, had blinded her from seeing previously, a well of life-sustaining water. God hears the cry of the weak, the powerless, the vulnerable, and the exploited. God is moved to compassion and reaches out to comfort and to sustain, even to deliver. Indeed, our Lord Jesus sought out just that sort of people-the sinners and tax collectors, the sick and the marginalized, the cast-aside people of human society and invites "come unto me all you who labor and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest." He reaches to heal, to forgive, to give the water of life. Jesus invites: "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink." (John 7:37b-38a) And he promises: those who drink of the water I will give them will never be thirsty. The water I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." (John 4:13,14) The wells of water surround us, but sometimes we too, like Hagar, in our moments of wilderness isolation and loneliness fail to see them. Blinded by our anger at the injustice done to us, the blatant unfairness of human life, our frustration with our own helplessness, or our despair at the events in our lives, we do not see them and do not drink from them. In truth, we are for each other, by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, channels through which the water that brings refreshment, sustenance, renewal, and new life flows. Some of you, perhaps even unknown to you, have been that for me in my journey.
Through us the voice of God is heard speaking up for the marginalized, the lost, the cast-aside people of our community and world. Through us the voice of God is heard challenging the injustices, the "business as usual" mindsets, the casually justified exploitation of the weak and the powerless that too often mar life together in the human community. And through us the voice of God is heard inviting those same ones into the circle of the love and fellowship of the Christian community of the church. With God there are no throw-a-way people. Every human life is precious. Indeed, in Christ God has entered into unedited, unembellished human life; taken his place alongside us; struggled with and for us; and ultimately suffered and died for us that we might be delivered from the grip of sin and freed from the domain of death.
We are inheritors of the child of promise. By faith in Christ we too are children of Abraham. That gift is both one of privilege and responsibility for as we receive the gift of blessing, so are we called and commissioned to carry the good news of the blessing into the midst of unedited, unembellished, and all too often unjust human life where all things are not "bright and beautiful," and where human failings, shortcomings, and sins, continue to bring pain, disillusionment and despair. Doing that can be a daunting, if not disillusioning task and we ourselves may well despair of anything ever really changing, but God has promised and God will keep the promise.
J. Dudley Weaver, Jr.
First Presbyterian Church
Portland, Oregon
