July 24, 2016 Hagar s Story Psalm 23 Genesis 16: 1 16, 21:8 21 Matthew 26: 36 39 Theme: Hagar s Story Sermon Hymn: My Shepherd, You Supply My Need #80 Chalice INTRODUCTION TO SCRIPTURE As you know, we are doing a sermon series on Women in the Bible and the woman that I will preach on today is usually a bit player in a larger story, one that is understood as the foundation of the people Israel. Now, a few weeks ago, we heard Sarah s story so we know that she will become pregnant and bear a son, Isaac and she and Abraham will found a great nation for many generations. What we will hear today is sort of a prequel. It is between the first time the Sarah hears the prophecy that she will get pregnant and her actually becoming pregnant. Both of today s OT readings are part of the story of the Abraham and Sarah, 1
the patriarch and matriarch of the Israelites. As you may remember, God has promised an heir to Abram as he was called prior to his covenant with God, and through this heir, God has promised that Abram and Sarai will be the parents of a great nation. However, much time has gone by and Abram has gotten quite old and, perhaps, more troubling for him is that his wife, Sarai, is beyond child-bearing years. Our scripture this morning begins here, as Sarai and Abram decide to take matters into their own hands. And then, in the New Testament reading, we find Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he is facing the prospect of the crucifixion and where he prays that God will relent and not require this suffering. So, listen for the Spirit to speak in the reading of the Word. GENESIS 16: 1 16, 21:8 21 MATTHEW 26: 36-39 Will you pray with me? 2
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer. Well, the story of Hagar is some story, isn t it? And you might well ask what it can possibly have to do with the scene in which we find Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Hagar in the wilderness and Jesus in the Garden. Well I believe these two moments of fear and isolation, can teach us a great deal about God s inescapable presence with us in times when evil is most threatening and we find ourselves hanging by a shear thread of desperation. So, let s begin with Hagar s story. It s a story within the larger triumphal story of Abraham and Sarah, and the birth of their son and heir, Isaac, the story of the founding of a people. But I wonder what would happen if we do what I like to think of as looking at the text sideways? What if we experience it through the eyes and feelings of the third character in this plot? 3
What if we take Hagar s point of view in this story? So Hagar, we learn, is Sarai s slave-girl. She is the property of Abram and Sarai and as property, they can do with her as they choose. So, what does Sarai choose to do? Why, solve the problem of no heir. She tells Abram to go in to Hagar. She tells her husband to go and have relations with her slave girl. I think it s important to stop right here and think about what s really going on. Hagar is a slave-girl a teenager alone. She s been separated, somehow, from the family of her birth. They took her from her mother and father. They took her from her home in Egypt and she can t even imagine where Egypt is or how she might get back to it. She spends her days doing whatever the slave owners tell her to do. Oh, Abram and Sarai are nice enough they give her food and shelter but still, she has no control over her own body. 4
So, the scripture tells us the Abram went in to Hagar s room and she conceived. So, there seems to be a solution to the no heir problem but the next thing we hear is that Sarai has had a change of heart. Hagar has come to understand her situation was all part of a plot to get her pregnant, a plot to make out of her a surrogate mother so that Abram and Sarai could realize their dream of founding a nation, a dream that was promised them by God but a dream they fail to TRUST God to provide. (But all of us know a little about that, don t we? Not TRUSTING God?) And so, Hagar comes to understand she was being used. And now, when it looks like Abram and Sarai have gotten exactly what they hoped for, things take a turn. In work that I ve done with conflict, especially conflict as it relates to married couples or couples in a relationship, the one emotion that pretty much guarantees that 5
a relationship cannot be saved is when there is contempt. Sarai complains to her husband that Hagar is now looking on her with contempt. And so Abram gives his wife permission to do whatever she wants to about it. Hey, he says, she s your slave. You can do whatever you want to with her. And so she does. She treats her harshly. And like many other slaves in the years before this story and in the years after, Hagar runs away. And so, we come to the next part of this story. Because unlike the God of the Israelites that we find in Exodus, the God of liberation, who sides with the slaves and sends Moses to free them from their bondage, here, the Angel of the Lord tells the pregnant Hagar to go back. Return to slavery. Submit to the man who owned you and can do with you whatever he wishes. Return to the woman who sent her husband in to get an heir and then, treated you harshly afterwards, 6
Return, says the angel of the Lord. Go back. You know, this text is one of the Bible scriptures that was used by slave holders in the antebellum American south to provide themselves with a Christian justification for their peculiar institution of slavery. They would preach it to their slaves on their plantations hoping to prove to them that God sanctions slavery. They preached sermons to their slaves, using this text to prove that some people, perhaps ones from the same continent as the Egyptian Hagar, are just meant to be slaves. And that as good slaves, they should show their love of God by submitting to their earthly masters. That s one way that this text has been used to perpetuate more terror a few millennium later.. But I think something else is going on here. Because in this situation, in Hagar s situation, there are only two choices. 7
Stay out in the wilderness pregnant, alone, hungry, weakstay out there and die. OR, return to Abram and Sarai and live. What I hear in this command of the Angel of the Lord is not a command in favor of slavery. What I hear is a command in favor of survival. Go back, give birth, and live for another day. And so she does. Now the story might just end here and that would be sad. But it doesn t. A time comes when Sarah, - you may have noticed that Abram and Sarai have by this 21 st chapter of Genesis, become Abraham and Sarah for they have received God s covenant and so often in the story of God s people, names are changed to denote a special relationship with God. So Abram and Sarai have become Abraham and Sarah, the patriarch and matriarch of God s people Israel. And so now, as we continue to look at this text sideways, we find that Sarah has, against all odds, 8
despite her advanced age, given birth to her own son, Isaac, and has received the fulfillment of the promise of God to Abraham, They have both come to understand that God can be TRUSTED to fulfill God s promises. And so Sarah decides that after using Hagar, they don t need her anymore. Neither she nor her son, Ishmael. The spare heir is no longer needed. And so, Hagar is cast out into the wilderness. Perhaps to assuage their consciences, Abraham and Sarah give her a loaf of bread and a skin of water before they kick her out. They knew, deep down inside, what would happen to a lone woman and her small child in the wilderness. They knew that a loaf of bread and a skin of water would only get her so far. But, that s all they needed for her to get just far enough away so that they could put her out of their minds. So that they could feel good about themselves. 9
Now, this might seem at first glance in our sideways interpretation like Abraham and Sarah are really venal people. But this is one thing I like so much about all of Scripture. The people are not one-dimensional, cardboard cut outs. The good people are always doing bad things just like us, And the bad people always have some redeeming value just like us. So, Abraham and Sarah get rid of their problem by casting her out and they hope for the best by giving her some bread and water. And so, we find Hagar out in the wilderness once again, but this time, there is no going back. This time she has her child with her. And we mothers know that there is nothing more terrifying than being unable to protect your child. I can t think of anything more terrifying than being alone, out in the wilderness, the bread and water long since run out and contemplating the prospect of having to watch your child die of hunger and thirst. No wonder she puts little Ishmael under a bush and walks away. No wonder she gets just far enough away, about a bowshot away, 10
so she can still see him but can t hear his cries. He s going to die and she cannot bear to watch, but she can t stop looking. It all seems so hopeless, but Hagar soon learns what we already know, It is never hopeless with God. For Hagar encounters God once again, and once again, this is the God of survival. A life-giving well springs up, a well of survival, and like a cup overflowing, the well overflows with the water of life and she and her son rise to not only survive, but to live and live abundantly, going on to found a great nation themselves. That s Hagar s story, but what about Gethsemane? What does this have to do with that? Well I think that the God of ultimate survival was also there in the Garden of Gethsemane, there with Jesus. Jesus knew what was coming, and he prayed to God not to have to go through his terrifying 11
ordeal. My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. But God s answer was the same one that he gave Hagar that first time. Go back, submit, there is no escaping this fate. And Jesus submits to the plans of evil people and well, you know the story. He is put to death. Many theologians over the centuries have interpreted the cross, the death of Jesus, as God s instrument of salvation for humankind. That Jesus serves as some kind of surrogate, a stand-in for the sins of all people. But just like I think that Hagar s role as a surrogate for Sarah was the result of an evil act, I, like a number of theologians, cannot believe that my salvation, all our salvation, depends upon another evil act perpetrated not by a loving God, but by evil men. the brutal murder of the sinless Son of God acting as some kind of surrogate for us, in sin. 12
No, I think our salvation can be found in the resurrection, the resurrection, Jesus victory over the evil of his crucifixion. God is there, there with Jesus in his survival. God is there, there with Hagar, in her survival. And that is the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That no matter what happens to us in our lives, God intends for us to survive. That when we enter that valley of the shadow of death, we can be sure that God is with us. Like Hagar, we may have to go back, we may have to face the struggles of life and live through the sorrow, and suffering, and pain. And in our community of humankind, we know that the suffering of any member of the body of Christ impacts every member of the body of Christ. But like Hagar, we know that God does not abandon us. We know that God does not leave us alone in the wilderness. God is not the author of evil. God does not ordain the suffering that we frail humans encounter, individually or collectively, 13
but God is with us in the Wilderness of pain. God is with us in the Garden of tears. And we can be assured that with God, our survival, our resurrection is assured. Close your eyes. See the well. God is there. AMEN. 14