Pentecost 3A
June 25, 2017
Genesis 22:1-14
Matthew 10:40-42
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Families.
They can be such a joy for us, offering us safety, protection, and love. Many
of us name family as that which is most important to us, that which brings us
more joy than anything else on this earth. Families can certainly be a
blessing.
Unless, of
course, they aren’t. Some, when they think of their family, don’t think of
words like, “safety, protection, and love,” but rather, their opposites: abuse,
instability, disfunction. Even if you have an overall pretty good, stable
family, there may still be some dark spot: an estranged sibling, an emotionally
abusive parent, a grown child who never calls. Or it may be that the sheer
amount of love you have for one another causes its own problems: anyone whose
children live far away, or who married someone whose family lives in a
different state and has to navigate who goes where for what holiday ought to
know this!
Yes, families
are complicated. Some of us, when we read Jesus’ difficult words in our gospel
today, think, “No way, I would never turn against my
mother/father/son/daughter. Nothing could make me do that.” Others may say,
“Yeah, I could see that. In fact, I have seen that.” It is interesting, I
think, when people refer to their congregation as a “family church,” because
while that has a positive connotation for many, it could just as easily have
the opposite effect on someone for whom family has not been a place of safety,
stability, and comfort. It could bring up memories of being excluded, trampled
on, held to impossible standards, or forced to fill a role you don’t want to
fill.
This summer,
we will be reading through the book of Genesis, a book full of stories about
the complexity of family relationships. Two weeks ago, we heard the creation
story, including the creation of the first human family, Adam and Eve. How
lovely it was in the Garden of Eden… until it wasn’t. Eve gives birth to Cain
and Abel, and then… out of jealousy, Cain kills Abel. Ladies and gentlemen: the
first biblical family. What a start! Last week we heard the story of the birth
of Isaac, the long awaited son of Sarah and Abraham. But this birth didn’t come
without plenty of family angst. Abraham and Sarah were so old and had not yet
received the child God kept promising them. In desperation, Sarah takes matters
into her own hands, and gives Abraham her Egyptian servant-girl, Hagar, who
conceives. But the idea backfires: Sarah is consumed by her jealousy: her
husband lay with another woman, who was then able to give him what she could
not! In her jealousy, she chases Hagar away.
Now a part
we didn’t hear last week. I said last week that I find scripture most
meaningful when I can find my own story in the biblical story. This is the part
of Hagar’s story where I am first able to see some of my own story. Hagar finds
herself in the wilderness, pregnant and alone. She was driven there by someone
apparently chosen by God, someone who asked a favor of her, and when she came
through on that favor, she was punished for it. She was blamed instead
Any of that sound familiar? Does it
describe any of your own wilderness experiences? It does mine! The good news,
though, is I also see myself in the next part. You see, God doesn’t leave her
there. In her anguish, God comes to her. God tells her she is a part of God’s
plan, and must return to this difficult situation because God has called her
there. God promises her that the child in her belly will also be a great nation,
that she and he both will be taken care of. No, this child is not the chosen
one, but he is, nonetheless, a treasured one. In this moment of promise, what
touches Hagar is the mere fact that: God has seen her. In fact, at this point,
Hagar becomes the only person in the Bible to name God: El-roi, God who sees
me. God has not left her alone: El-Roi sees her and loves her. She returns to
Abraham and Sarah.
Back to our
text for today. Fast forward 15 years or so, and Isaac, son of Sarah, has been
born and is being celebrated. True to his name, which means laughter, he is
giggling away, playing with his older half-brother. Hagar has continued to live
in Abraham’s household, along with Abraham’s eldest son – a blended family if
ever there was one! But Sarah has never gotten over her jealousy. She sees the
boys playing, and feels that familiar ache in her stomach – she sees the boy as
a threat to the son she gave to Abraham. In yet another rage, she tells
Abraham, “I want her out of here. Both of them – send them out. I don’t want to
see them anymore.” Abraham is distressed (this is his son, after all!) but God
tells him, “Go ahead, Abe. Do as she said. I’ve got this taken care of.” And so
Abraham, showing minimal compassion, sends Hagar and her son (his son!) off
once again to the wilderness with only a loaf of bread and some water, to fend
for themselves.
Once again, Hagar
finds herself in the desperation of the wilderness. Her family, the father of
her own child, had done this, claiming it as a moment of faithful action, and
God had done nothing to stop it. Once in the wilderness is bad enough – but
twice! Once the water runs out, Hagar has reached rock bottom. She casts her
son under a bush, unable to bear watching him die of hunger and thirst, and she
raises her voice to God, and weeps.
Here, too, I
see my own story: I, too, have desperately wondered what on earth God could
possibly have in mind here, wondered how I would survive a situation, hidden
myself even from things that I love in an effort to escape pain. I have wept in
despair. Have you?
And in my
story just as in Hagar’s: God hears. God gently asks Hagar what troubles her,
and urges her not to be afraid. The God who sees, El-Roi, is also a God who
hears – hears our deepest pains, our saddest woes, our unspoken desires, even
when all we can articulate is our sobs and weeping. God sees us and hears us.
In this moment, the name of Hagar’s son, Ishmael, becomes a promise: it means,
“God hears.”
And from
there, God shows Hagar that not only does God see and hear, but God also
provides. God opens her eyes, and there, not 50 yards from where she sits, is a
well. She had not seen it before, perhaps too blinded by her woes, but God
shows her. And she drinks. And gives drink to her son, “God hears.” From the
brokenness of her contentious blended family, to the deepest wilderness, Hagar,
the outsider, the disenfranchised, the Egyptian slave-girl, has come to know
God more intimately than perhaps anyone in the Old Testament: she names God,
has a child whose name embodies God’s promise, and experiences God’s providence
in her very darkest moment.
Hagar did not have the easiest time
with her family; for all the joy they may bring, we don’t always have the
easiest time with them, either. Families are often a blessing to us, but
nothing in the Bible says they will always be a blessing. To the contrary,
scripture is replete with stories of pain in families. Jesus even acknowledges
that in today’s reading, warning that following him may even have a divisive
effect on our family relationships. Perhaps that is why the Bible doesn’t say
that we should love our families with all our heart and soul and mind and
strength and our neighbor as ourselves, but rather, that we should love God in
this way. That love of God, and following Jesus, is the good above all others.
Because while families may on some days provide everything we could hope for –
God always provides everything we could hope for and much more: water in the
desert, sustenance, forgiveness of sins, life out of death, and eternal and
unshakable love. God is a God who sees us and knows us. God is our God. God hears us when we call out,
and even when we don’t. God will provide for us – not always what, when, and
where we wanted, but somehow and some way, God makes a way where there was no
way. With this conviction in our hearts, we will indeed find our way through
the dividing swords of life, and find peace.
Let is pray… God
who sees, God who hears, we give you thanks for the many blessings in our
lives, and especially for the gift of family, wherever we may find it. But most
of all, we give you thanks for the many ways that YOU see and hear us and all
our needs, even when we find ourselves out in the wilderness, and for the many
ways you love us, from now until eternity. In the name of the Father, the Son
and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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