Genesis 21:1-21
The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God
had spoken to him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. And
Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded
him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Now Sarah said, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” 7 And she said, “Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
8 The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. 10 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.” 11 The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. 12 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. 13 As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” 14 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.
15 When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16 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. 17 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. 18 Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” 19 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. 20 God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
We are living through historic changes. With all the twists and turns of a season finale of
The West Wing and the religious fervor of a mega church, it feels like a spiritual roller coaster.
But that might be because we are locked in on what it right in front of us. In times like these, our souls desperately need a longer view.
Historian Jon Meacham said, “The story of America is…one of slow, often unsteady steps forward. If we expect the trumpets of a given era to sound unwavering notes, we will be disappointed, for the past tells us that politics is an uneven symphony.”
Studying this text this week, I was reminded of an earlier movement in the American symphony. Another time that was emotional and historic. It was three weeks after 9-11, and Aaron Sorkin released the first episode of Season III of the West Wing. It was titled Isaac and Ishmael. I bet you remember how the 9-11 attacks left a gaping wound on American
consciousness, and there was an almost uncontrollable urge to sort people into good and evildoer, us and them, hero and villain, much as there is now.
In this episode, the White House was on lock-down due to a possible terrorist attack, but
as it turned out, a Muslim man who had the same name as a terrorist had been wrongly arrested.
During the episode, the first lady is stuck in a cafeteria with high schoolers who ask how all this started. [Show Video Clip.]
Isaac was heir to God’s blessing, the torch bearer, the covenant carrier. His name meant
laughter. That’s because Sarah thought that God’s promise to her of a son in her old age was
laughable until it happened. She thought the laughter was directed at her, but then verse 6 makes this beautiful correction. The laughter was for her. Against all odds, Isaac was born, and God’s blessing laughed its way through his lineage.
And in the shadows, if we remember him at all, there was Ishmael, the actual first born of
Abraham with the servant girl, Hagar. When the child Ishmael was seen laughing with little
Isaac, Sarah burned with jealousy and Ishmael was rejected and illegitimized. Despite this
heartbreak, Ishmael made his way to Egypt and his enormous lineage grew in the shadows of the Biblical story.
Seen this way, our spiritual history begins to look like a great family tree singed down the
middle by lightning, dividing the children of Isaac and the children of Ishmael from then on, like the West Wing portrays it. Seen this way, it looks like a sibling rivalry turned into a seismic rift spanning history. Seen this way, we are locked in a great feud between Israelites and the Egyptians, Jews and Christians and Muslims, between Palestinians and Israelis, an inescapable spider web of fault lines spanning the globe. Seen this way, it barely feels like a blessing.
But there is another way to see it that is more true to the Biblical telling. When we read
this story closely, Ishmael’s life was in many ways an echo of Isaac’s life. More like lightning
and thunder. For example, God promised to bless Ishmael and make a great nation of him, just as he did with Isaac. When Ishmael nearly died in the wilderness, God provided water for Hagar and for him in the nick of time, just like God will spare Isaac with a ram in the nick of time in the next chapter. Ishmael’s name means God will hear. That name is almost the same word as the famous prayer of Jewish life, the Shema, Hear O Israel. When we tell the story this way, we can see how God cared for Isaac and Ishmael, how God blessed both Isaac and Ishmael. We notice that God was always at work on both sides of the story.
Frederich Buechner wrote, The story of Hagar is the story of the terrible jealousy of Sarah and the singular ineffectuality of Abraham and the way Hagar, who knew how to roll with the punches, managed to survive them both. Above and beyond that, however, it is the story of how in the midst of the whole unseemly affair, the Lord, half tipsy with compassion, went around making marvelous promises and loving everybody and creating great nations like the last of the big-time spenders handing out hundred-dollar bills.
In our lives where we see such stark divisions, it is hard to believe that the Spirit could
still be leaving wells of reconciliation on land that we have deemed totally desolate. But this is our story and this is our song. This is how Jesus operated in the world, crossing all the tired borders we’re scared of, including the grave, and surprising us with grace.
In times like these, one of the bravest spiritual questions a person can ask is, “Do you
believe that this could be happening for you not just to you?” That’s the question just beneath Sarah’s laughter when it shifts from snark to weepy amazement. It’s sometimes the only faith question that matters. Can you trust God is still at work where there are historic rifts, between Republicans and Democrats, Israelis and Palestinians, Americans and Russians, or even you and that person or situation in your life that feels almost written off? Is there any way this could be happening for you and not just to you? Could this open your eyes to some holy wells that you could only see through the eyes of desperate thirst?
In my life, I have had to ask that question many times. The most absurd time I asked it
was February of 2020. We had just learned that my mom had just a few weeks to live. Just shy of her 70 th birthday. Just a few weeks before her retirement. Just a few months before her 50 th anniversary. The special 70 th birthday trip to Italy was cancelled because it was just going to be too hard physically. Like Sarah, I took these big numbers personally. Like Sarah, I felt like time was mocking me. Like Sarah, I felt like other people’s blessings were happening at me. I saw a picture of a silver haired couple I knew standing near the Trevi Fountain, and in a moment of anger I made this ridiculous demand of God, “God, if my parents don’t get to go on their big anniversary vacation, then no one should get to go! No one should get to go anywhere!” Like Sarah, I chuckled at how entitled I must have sounded to God.
But then, a pandemic arrived out of nowhere. Suddenly, no one could travel. No one
could go anywhere. I had an embarrassing follow up conversation with God that was just as
ridiculous as the first, “Lord, you know I wasn’t serious about that, right? It’s not even my
theology to attribute a global pandemic to my prayer on a random Tuesday.” But in this midst of that grasping, I was forced to ask myself that spiritual question: Could some of this be happening for me not just to me? Could there be a blessing here?
Mom passed away in March of 2020 and for a full year, I didn’t have to go to a building for work or even put on real clothes. The next year, I was able to laugh with a friend, “Everyone deserves an entire year of pjs following a loss.” There was a merciful angel at work even in the part of the story that I wanted to banish completely.
The Christian life is uneven symphony. Sometimes it moves too fast for us and other
times far too slow. Sometimes we miss our notes and other people miss theirs. But over time, we learn to trust the conductor. We learn to trust the score. We might even learn to hear God in each other. In Christ, there are too many grace notes to count.
Amen.