Last Sunday, Trinity Sunday, our Bishop was our guest preacher, so I had no 'thoughts going in' for that Sunday. Next Sunday, the 29th, I will be on vacation and so will have no thoughts going in for that day either. For this Sunday…
Genesis 21:8 The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was
weaned Abraham held a great feast. 9
But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was
mocking, 10 and she said to
Abraham, "Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's
son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac." 11 The matter distressed Abraham
greatly because it concerned his son. 12
But God said to him, "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your
servant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that
your offspring will be reckoned. 13
I will make the son of the servant into a nation also, because he is your
offspring." 14 Early the
next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar.
He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on
her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba. 15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one
of the bushes. 16 Then she went
off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, "I cannot watch
the boy die." And as she sat there, she began to sob. 17 God heard the boy crying, and the
angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What is the
matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there.
18 Lift the boy up and take him
by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation." 19 Then God opened her eyes and she
saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the
boy a drink. 20 God was with the
boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. 21 While he was living in the Desert
of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.
This
Sunday we re-enter the ‘ordinary’ time of the church, the green season, as we
pick up on the Sundays after Pentecost. ‘Ordinary’ is a rather unfortunate term
to be used for this time of year. In our daily language, the implication of the
word is ‘ho-hum,’ nothing special. That’s far from the intended use of the
word, however. A more helpful understanding would simply be to look at it as
‘ordered’ time. It’s a time of the year when, liturgically speaking, there are
no major themes or festivals under consideration. It is, rather, a time for
ordered/orderly study of the word. Hence, the readings tend to proceed IN
ORDER. An enhancement of this idea comes to us with those readings known as
“semi-continuous” on the lectionary. This is where the option exists to take an
extended look at particular passages in the Old Testament. This year the semi-continuous
readings begin in Genesis with the story of the sending away of Hagar.
There
is so much in terms of background info needed in order to make sense of the
story—and even then I use the term ‘make sense’ loosely. It *does make sense,
but only within the ancient culture from which it hails. First of all, we need
to remember that the tension in the story—Abraham has essentially a ‘main’ wife
(Sarah) and a ‘secondary’ wife (Hagar)—was entirely created by themselves. In
Genesis 16 Sarah suggests to Abraham that God’s promise to give him an heir was
to him alone and not to her per se,
and hence, he should take Hagar as a secondary wife/concubine and have a child
with her. Abraham agreed. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But then when
Sarah finally also gave birth to the real child of promise (Isaac), there’s
now trouble. The lesson here is that when we try to wrestle the steering wheel
from God and drive in our own lives (instead of having that OH SO DIFFICULT
THING known as patience), sometimes we just end up complicating things. By the
time Genesis 21 occurs, things are complicated!
MUCH
has been made of what exactly vs 9 means: But
Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking.
The Hebrew word that is translated as ‘mocking’ in the TNIV is subject to
debate. The word “Isaac” means laughter. Isaac is so named because when Sarah
first heard she would conceive, she laughed. Later she laughs for joy when the
child is born. The point is that in vs 9 the word that is used in the Hebrew is
a form of the word laughter. So what exactly is Ishmael (whose name,
incidentally means “God hears”) doing? Some think Ishmael is mocking his
younger brother, or at least mocking the situation. Another, of several
interpretations, is that he is being presumptuous. Legally, he is on equal
footing with Isaac—even greater, since he is the elder child—but Sarah sees
this as a presumption because *her child is the child of promise.
Regardless,
the thrust of the story is about the plight of Hagar and Ishmael. Specifically,
even though the name or word Ishmael doesn’t occur in this reading (he’s always
referred to as the boy or the lad), vs 17 is the key point: God heard the boy crying, and the angel of
God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What is the matter,
Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there.
Several
applications of this passage come to mind. The first is that Hagar and Ishmael
are having a real ‘wilderness experience,’ but God hears their cry. Most of us
may think that’s a nice start, but hearing isn’t so great if that’s all God
does. Thankfully, that’s not all God does. God also comforts. He tells Hagar do not be afraid. Again, this sounds
great, but isn’t so easy especially when there are many frightening things
around us. I think the most interesting part of the passage is vs 19: Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well
of water. Where did the well come from? Was it a miracle? Had the well not
been there before, but then in a flash God created it out of nothing? I suppose
that’s one option. But another equally valid option is that the well was there
all along, but Hagar couldn’t see it because she was consumed by worry, fear
and doubt.
As
I meditate on this passage, two big things come to my mind: (1) may we, when we
find ourselves in the wilderness, always remember to pray that God would OPEN
OUR EYES, so that we too can see the help that is already there; or at the very
least, so that we too would not be so consumed by worry and fear that we were
blinded to help that was already there. And then (2) there is the constant call
to be on the lookout for people in the wilderness. Hagar and Ishmael were
alone. It literally HAD to be God who helped them because there was no one
else. This is, however, the exception—not the rule. Usually people are not
suffering alone…they’re, rather, suffering in a sea of others—and yet
abandoned. Just as the old saying goes, “you are the ONLY Christ some people
will ever encounter,” you are also the only ‘well in the desert’ some people
will ever encounter.
Cheers,
TM
