Genesis 21:8-21
The story of Hagar and Ishmael is one of the more painful stories of the Old Testament. You may not be very familiar with it—it’s not a popular story—so I’ll give you the background before reading the scripture.
God promised Abraham, then called Abram, “I will make of you a great nation.” Then Abram married Sarai and thought she would soon be popping out these little nation-builders. But Sarai did not get pregnant, and so Abram pled his case to God. Again God promised, this time more specifically: Your descendants shall be as numerous as the stars in the heavens. But still Sarai did not conceive. So she said to Abram, “The Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.”
I am very aware of the multi-generational nature of our worship during the summer so I am choosing my words carefully. But I want you to be clear: Sarai gave her slave girl to Abram in order to conceive a child. The slave, Hagar, probably a teenager, was of course not given any choice in the matter. She did conceive, and we are told by the scripture that once she did so, she “looked with contempt upon her mistress.” The story suggests that the girl’s ability to conceive when her mistress could not was the reason for her contempt—an “I’m better than you” kind of thing. But it seems to me that Hagar had many reasons to have contempt for Sarai.
In response Sarai “dealt harshly with her”—so harshly that Hagar ran away. But in the wilderness the angel of the Lord came to her. Hagar was the first person in the Hebrew Scriptures to be visited by an angel—and she was both a foreigner and a female. This angel had some bad news and some good news. The bad news: you need to go back to Sarai and Abram. The good news: Your son will be named Ishmael, which means “God hears,” and through him another nation will be born. In response Hagar named God “El-roi” which means “God who sees.” So Hagar returned to Abram and Sarai and gave birth to Ishmael. Thirteen years later God appeared to Abram, changed his name to Abraham, made a covenant with him, and renewed God’s promise of children, this time specifically saying it would be through Sarai, now named Sarah. And the next year Sarah gave birth to Isaac. This is where our scripture picks up the story. From Genesis 21:
The child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “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.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink. God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
This story is difficult on so many counts that it’s hard to know where to begin: slavery, forced reproduction, abuse, banishment, and this from the ancestors of our faith. Because we don’t often read the ugly stories in church, we think of Abraham and Sarah as the wonderful couple who conceived in their old age and became the patriarch and matriarch of the Jewish faith and thus our own. And they are that. But they are so much more, good and bad together.
I saw an article this week about a police officer who shot and killed a man in handcuffs. The outrage over this death multiplied when people realized that this police officer is the same one in another viral video: but that time, he helped a homeless man by buying him a pair of boots. People are shocked that the same man could commit such different acts. But folks, we all are capable of great, selfless deeds and horrible, selfish acts. One bad decision in the heat of the moment can snowball into a catastrophe we never could have predicted. Our own capacity for evil would shock most of us—except those who have already learned it the hard way.
The Bible does not whitewash the stories of our ancestors in the faith. We do that by our selective reading and selective remembering. For those of us who have already discovered our ability to make really bad choices, this is comforting. Look what God could do with those incredibly flawed people. Maybe God can forgive me and bring something good out of my mistakes. Still, I wish there was repentance. I wish we saw, later in the story, Sarah welcoming Hagar back into the family, after she realized the pain of what she had done. I wish we saw the wounded being healed.
I find it astounding that this was the lectionary text for today, with its stories of assault, abuse, and abandonment . . .when just yesterday I heard similar stories of assault, abuse, and abandonment from other children of God. Yesterday some members and friends of our church marched in the Portland Pride festival, as we have for a number of years. But this year we did something different. In addition to walking, we also had a booth and table. We hung a banner from the top of our booth, which could be seen from a distance. It read: “Wounded by the church? Please come let us apologize.” We didn’t know what kind of response we would get. Quite a few people thanked us for the sign. Some said they didn’t need an apology, but they knew others who did. Some people said they had healed and moved on, but still appreciated the sign. But then there were those—at least a dozen or more—who told us their stories. I spoke to a woman who was removed from leadership in her church because they found out she loves someone who is transgender; another who had her ordination credentials taken away for being lesbian; a man who was deeply wounded by a UCC congregation during their Open & Affirming process; a man who was told at his partner’s funeral that he was going to hell. I heard stories of assault by ministers and ministers saying, directly, “We don’t want you here” and people who lost their church and have been too afraid of getting hurt again to look for another. I saw their tears; I smelled their fear; I tasted their bitterness. And I thought, It’s Hagar and Ishmael all over again . . . the people of God sending other people of God out into the wilderness, to wander hungry and thirsty, perhaps to die.
I came home exhausted . . .from listening to others’ stories, from hearing some that were way too familiar to my own, which felt like someone poking my own wounds to see if they have healed. For me, they have . . . because, like Hagar, I met the God whose name means “God sees.” I discovered that God sees me, with all my woundedness, with all my wounding of others, at my best and at my worst. God hears my cries and my laughter; God sees my ecstasy and my sorrow.
Yesterday reminded me why our work isn’t done. It reminded me why being Open & Affirming is the beginning, not the end. It reminded me that voices of hate are so much louder than voices of love, so the voices of love need to be amplified and repeated tenfold. And it reminded me of how many people need what we have to offer. Yesterday someone said to one of our members, “I’d like to go to church, but I’d like to go as myself,” and our immediate response is “Of course!! Come as you are!” . . . until the man in the rainbow tutu actually shows up at the door, and then I wonder if he would feel so welcome.
My experiences yesterday also reminded me that our efforts cannot stop at the letters LGBT&Q. The gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender community is well-organized, which gives us the opportunity to do what we did yesterday. But theirs are not the only stories we need to hear. What about the disabled people who have been told, subtly or not-so-subtly, that they are not whole? What about those with mental illness, who have been told that if they would only trust God, they wouldn’t be so anxious? What about those who have kids with special needs, who can’t find a church because their kids can’t be quiet?
To my knowledge, every successful movement within this country has needed allies: men who voted for voting rights for women; whites who fought for the rights of blacks; straight people who fought for gay and lesbian rights. We need to be allies for others on the margins. How are we reaching them? How will we reach them? And what about those who long for community but don’t realize that church is relevant to their lives because for too long it wasn’t? People aren’t going to come pouring through our doors simply because we say “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.” Oh, it’s wonderful to hear that once they get here, but that won’t get them through the door.
But you know what? That shouldn’t even be our goal. Our goal should be lives transformed, not butts in the pews. We need to hear their stories. We need to say “I’m so sorry that happened to you.” We need to offer blessings for their journey, even if we are only a rest stop on it. But that means we need to meet them where they are.
God names the abandoned child Ishmael, which means “God hears.” And the abandoned child’s mother names God El-Roi, which means “God sees.” God hears and God sees. Do we? God made a covenant with the outcasts. Will we?