Sunday, June 21, 2020
Genesis 21
1.
The son of Hagar and the son of Sarah are playing together.
It's a feast day, a celebration day, and Ishmael and Isaac are playing together. Their parents rapt in serious conversation, or toasting their good fortune and fertility. But the son of Hagar and the son of Sarah are doing what children do. Rolling in the dust, chasing birds around the yeard, playing and enjoying one another's company. Ishmael and Isaac. The son of Hagar and the son of Sarah. Enjoying one another's company.
It's a complicated story, of course, and it takes a painful turn at just this point. Because Sarah sees their playing, their frolicking, their 'brothering' (if you will). And she is jealous for Isaac (and her own bloodline), and she is contemptuous of Ishmael--and Sarah can't stomach the possibility of Ishmael growing alongside her son, maturing with Isaac, inheriting Abraham's birthright with him. It's too much for Sarah--and she demands that Abraham send Ishmael and Hagar away. "Cast her out," she says.
And this playful moment in Genesis, this narrative of brotherhood and communion--Isaac and Ishmael at play--turns toward contempt, division and exile. Hagar and Ishmael banished. Wandering the wilderness of Beer-sheba with just a bit of bread and just a skin of water.
2.
Now it's important, I think, to have a sense of the dynamics--cultural dynamics, oppressive dynamics--that set this story in motion. You remember how Sarah and Abraham were getting on in years. And you remember how Sarah was unable (for a long, long while) to conceive. And you remember how she insisted Abraham take Hagar (her Egyptian slave) as a mistress.
You see, in the ancient, patriarchal world, Sarah was diminished, devalued by her inabilitiy to bear children. And this weighs so heavily on her--this cultural, patriarchal expectation--it lands so heavily on Sarah that she sends Hagar into Abraham. And when Hagar conceives a child, when Ishmael is born, Abraham's first son, the pain, the sorrow, the diminishment is complete.
(Of course, in God's mystery, in God's grace, in God's passion for surprises, Sarah does, in time, conceive. And she bears another son "for Abraham": Isaac. And this leads to the scene in this morning's reading: the two boys rolling in the dust, chasing birds around the yard, playing together.)
But you can see how the world of patriarchy and oppression; the world in which women are judged and valued according to their utility in men's lives; the world in which others are simply kept, owned and manipulated as slaves--you can see how Sarah and Hagar strain against the injustices, the bigotry, the systemic sin of institutions, expectations and cultural norms. They both make choices; but Sarah and Hagar bear the wounds of misogyny and slavery together. They're set up for suspicion, envy and exile. This is a story about a lot of things; but it is indeed a story about systemic sin, and the price we pay for systemic oppression.
3.
So isn't it stunning, then, as Hagar weeps out there in the desert, as she fears for the end, that her weeping itself seems to summon God's mercy, God's justice. (Remember how Jesus will say, "Blessed are those who mourn--for they will be comforted." That begins here, with Hagar.) Her weeping seems to summon God's mercy, God's justice, God's angel: and God hears the crying, the wailing, the suffering of Hagar's son.
And in a moment of justice and providence, in a moment of revelation and liberation, God opens Hagar's eyes; and she sees a well of water; she sees God's mercy face to face; she sees a future for her, for her son--and (in a sense embraced by Muslim friends around the world) a future for Arab peoples everywhere, and for Muslims, and for the worldwide community of the Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him).
Though Hagar basically disappears from the biblical tradition--or at least mainstream Judaism and mainstream Christianity--her example shines across the centuries as faithfulness, and vulnerability, and what it means to trust God in the turbulence of conflict and loss. It's so interesting that Muslims remember Hagar on their most sacred journeys, their hajj pilgrimages to Mecca, when they trek back and forth, between two hilltops; and they do this seven times, recalling Hagar's frantic search for water for Ishmael. And they remember--in their bodies, with their communities of faith--what it means to reach the end of our energies, our resources, and then, and then to let God provide. Think about it. In her weeping and seeing, in her seeking and loving, Hagar is a mentor to us all, a spiritual companion in dry and barren lands, a reminder of the urgency of trust. And this is peace. And this is surrender. And this is Islam: to let God provide.
4.
I think that the message this morning, maybe even the good news this morning, is that Hagar's story need not be lost on us. She's easily forgotten, and for too long the Church has been complicit in that forgetting--but we can confess that complicity and address patriarchy, come to grips with systemic misogyny, and systemic racism, and islamophobia too. We can seek out Hagar in the experiences of women whose spirituality is resistance, whose leadership is bold, and whose faith is merciful. We can seek out Hagar (and Ishmael, too) in the stories and struggles of Muslim friends, who identify so powerfully with Hagar, Ishmael, and (yes) Abraham too. We can welcome Hagar and Ishmael home, as we open the doors of our homes and hearts to immigrants and refugees--who bear Hagar's spirit in their persistence, in their loving, in their bones and marrow. In a sense, friends, every immigrant everywhere, crossing every desert anywhere, is Hagar. And every refugee everywhere, hiding under any bush anywhere, is Ishmael.
I really think it's up to us--the 21st century church, the 21st century faith community. Do we lose track of Hagar and Ishmael, consign them to a biblical footnote? Do we settle for division and conflict, and suspicion and contempt? Or. Or do we seek them out, honor their stories and traditions, center their yearning, and then work with them to overcome all the fear, all the oppression that's torn us from one another? It's up to us.
I go back to that lovely, human, evocative image--of two children, two very different children, playing together on the feast day. Communion in the dust! Communion in their playfulness! We are created for communion: Muslim and Jew and Christian. We are created for communion: black and brown, hispanic and anglo, asian and indigenous. And it's a communion that leans into celebration, it's a communion that conspires and collaborates in justice.
The spiritual project, the human project is to cast our hopes on the one merciful and compassionate God--who hears every cry and stirs in every heart with all the courage we need to name all this bigotry that divides us, to repair the torn fabric that diminishes us, and then to gather the children (all the children, Isaac and Ishmael, and all the beautiful, blessed children) in peace, in play and in joy. Amen.
