One of our favorite cartoons is “One Big Happy.” Ruthie, the young daughter, is always getting things mixed up. One day she goes up to the “library lady” and says something to the effect of, “Library Lady, my grandma reads to me from that book where there are naked people who eat an apple, and this king kills his neighbor and marries his wife.” And the library lady says, “Oh, you mean the Bible.” And Ruthie replies, “Yeah, that’s it. It’s like a great big soap opera.”
She’s right. The Bible, especially the Old Testament, reads like one big soap opera. I read this story, and I think, “Oh what tangled webs we weave…” Last week in our reading from Genesis had Sarah and Abraham being told that they would have a son and that from him would come a great nation. Well, before that (back in chapter 16) we find that Sarah was frustrated because she had not had a son, so she tells Abraham to go in a sleep with her maid, so that he will have a son. Now I get the idea that Abraham was a little hen-pecked, because he seemed to do just anything that Sarah tells him, so he went in and slept with Hagar. (Sam says it's a matter of "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.")
The problem is that once the maid, Hagar, had conceived and was pregnant with Abraham’s child, she started to “look with contempt on her mistress.” This naturally makes Sarah mad and she complains to Abraham and he tells her, “she’s your servant, do what you want to her.” So she begins to treat Hagar harshly and Hagar runs away. It’s impossible to run away from God, so God finds her and tells her to go back. When she goes back, she bears a son who is called ‘Ishmael.’ This all happened when Abraham was 86 years old.
And you remember last week when Abraham and Sarah are promised a son, it said that Abraham was 99 years old. So in today’s lesson, four years have passed and Sarah bears a son and he is about 3 years old. They name him ‘Isaac’ which means ‘he laughs.’ Sarah sees Hagar’s son Ishmael playing with her son Isaac and she gets jealous. No other word for it, she’s jealous and greedy.
Ishmael is older (14 years) and she’s afraid that Ishmael will inherit all or at least the first son’s portion of Abraham’s accumulated wealth. So she goes to Abraham and complains again and asks him to cast out Hagar and her son, Ishmael. This was against the “code of behavior” for desert people. You don’t cast people out from the camp, because it is tantamount to a death sentence, but like I said, Abraham is henpecked.
Abraham gives Hagar bread and a waterskin and casts them out. Then they run out of water and Hagar leaves the boy and goes and sits at a distance because she can’t bear to see him die. Our scripture says just when Hagar thinks that they are going to die, God hears the boy cry and is moved by compassion for him. Just when things seem hopeless - totally devoid of any salvation - God opens Hagar’s eyes so that she sees a well.
There is a song - it goes something like this:
Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.
Open the eyes of my heart,
I want to see you, I want to see you. (Repeat)
To see you high and lifted up,
Shining with the light of your glory,
Pour out your power and love,
As we sing holy, holy, holy.
Holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy.
Holy, holy, holy. I want to see you.
And suddenly hopelessness gives way to hope…. Hagar fills the waterskin and gives Ishmael a drink, and she knows that everything will be alright. God makes a promise. He tells Hagar, “Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” (Ishmael is 17 years old at this time.)
All through this passage, we get over and over that God is going to make a great nation from both of Abraham’s sons. So even though Sarah had Ishmael cast out so that he would not receive any of the inheritance that she felt rightfully belonged to her son Isaac - God blessed him anyway.
Sarah is something like those people who want to put God in a box, all neatly wrapped up with a bow on top, that they can take out and brush off to show to visitors when they come by. Sarah was under the impression that God takes sides and that in order to secure God’s blessing, she had to get rid of Hagar. She was not willing to share her blessing or her son’s blessing with another.
But we see over and over, that when we strive to force God into a corner – to do our bidding – he refuses to stay there. God will always find a way to bless those he wants to bless - those who are abused - those who are mistreated - those who are forgotten or alone. Just as Sarah tried to get rid of Ishmael, just as the religious authorities of the first century tried to get rid of Jesus, God finds a way to accomplish his purpose in spite of humanity.
So the next time you find yourself at odds with that person who irritates the heck out of you, just remember that God wants to bless that person, too. Scripture tells us that God blesses us so that we might be a blessing to others. And when we bless others, that just might make the difference in their life that will change their whole perspective and therefore the direction that they are headed. So I ask you, how can you live that out in your own life in the midst of this congregation and of this community?
You nailed it! Thanks for sharing.
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