Hagar and Ishmael - A Sermon from the Hospital

Tell me a story. My daughter asks me all the time for stories, and she wants them to be interesting. What makes a good story? They need to have plot twists and they need to keep her attention. Whether it’s Winnie-the-Pooh, or other, lesser literature, it is the unexpected part of the story that keeps us interested. It is the unexpected twists and turns that keep our attention, make us laugh or cry, that make us care what happens to the characters. What’s your favorite story? I love the classics – Jane Austin and Charles Dickens are two of my favorites. I also love TV – I’ve been following Lost since it first came on – and movies like Indiana Jones. I love to follow their characters as they make mistakes and get surprised by life. It is deliciously frustrating to see pitfalls coming and to watch them fall into them in spite of their best intentions. And it is gratifying, after all of that frustration and trouble, to finally see them reach their happy ending – the kind ones receive kindness, the mean ones receive just rewards, and those who deserve to, live happily ever after. Tell me a story.

But of course, in real life, it is never so much fun to receive plot twists. It is never so delicious to follow frustrations and pitfalls. No, in real life these surprises are often painful and all too costly. Even when they are of our own making, they often lead us to unexpected and unwelcome journeys. It is difficult to see how anyone gets what they truly deserve in life. It is difficult to see how anyone ever expects to live happily ever after. But that is just when God says, “Tell me a story,” just as in the reading today he said to Hagar, “What troubles you?” God is not asking an idle question here. God is not toying with Hagar. He truly wants to know her story – what brought her here, what frightens her, what she expects of the future. And then God pulls that story to God’s self, and makes her story his own.

In the story that we read today from Genesis, Hagar and Sarah and Abraham are three people who got caught up in the twists and turns of their story. Sometimes these twists are of their own making. Sarah and Abraham had received a promise from God, the promise that they would be the parents of a great nation, and their offspring would be as numerous as the stars. But they misunderstood the promise. Believing that the promise was only for Abraham, Sarah insisted that he have a child with Hagar, her maid. Of course, anyone who knows anything about stories knows that this will only lead to trouble. Abraham is a good man, and he treats his first-born son as a good man should. Perhaps he also treats his son’s mother well; perhaps he even loves her. Whatever the case, Sarah is going to be jealous. We know it before it even happens, because this is what happens in stories. Already, Sarah has brought trouble on herself. She now has to adjust to a future in which she is no longer the only woman in Abraham’s life. Worse, she has to adjust to Abraham’s first-born son, by tradition his heir and possibly his favorite, being the son of another woman. Whether or not she bears the promised son, we know that there will be trouble. Luckily for Sarah, she already knows the promises God has made for Isaac’s future. She just doesn’t want to share them. Now Sarah must adjust to a new and different future, one of her own making.

Abraham must adjust to a new and different future as well. He had gotten used to being childless, and God informs him that this will change. He has gotten used to having Sarah for his wife, and Sarah informs him that he must take another woman into his bed. When at last he has not one but two sons to inherit the promises, he is informed that he must part with one of them. He must send his first-born son, Ishmael, and the boy’s mother out into the wilderness. We know that he loves Isaac, the child of Sarah. And we also know that he cares for Hagar and her son, that he was distressed on account of them. He had likely been looking forward to an old age watching the boys grow up together, enjoying their company, and being the patriarch of a large household. Now he must adjust to a new and different future, one in which the jealousies of the women and the rivalries of his sons are the deciding factors. Luckily for Abraham, he already knows that both boys will receive God’s favor, that God will take care of Ishmael as well as Isaac. Now, though he is assured of their future, he must adjust to his own.

Hagar has to adjust to a new and different future as well, one which, as far as she knows, holds nothing for her and her son but fear, probably even death. She is completely at the mercy of others. As a slave, a handmaid, she has no choice but to leave when she is cast out. No one defends her claim, and she must leave. Friendless, defenseless, forced first to lay with a man not her husband, then to bear his child, now she is being forced to leave his camp, going to certain death in the wilderness. She must adjust, not so much to a new and different future, as to a lack of a future, both for herself and for her son. She has been forced into it by others’ meanness and jealousies, by others’ lack of trust. She has not heard any word of promise or assurance from God, as Sarah and Abraham have. What kind of story can she look forward to? What troubles you, Hagar?

What troubles you? What kind of story do you look forward to? Hagar has a story in her mind that is primarily about death for herself and her son. That is the story that many of us here at Abbot Northwestern are familiar with. And there are many other stories going on here today – stories of loss, pain, anxiety, even some stories of celebration. Despair is just one of the thousands of stories held in these walls. What troubles you? God is asking. God really wants to know. When we have given up on happy endings or just desserts, God is asking, “what troubles you?” It is easy to miss God’s question. When we are hurting, or when we are watching loved ones hurting, our focus closes in, and all we can see is this moment, this time, this story. All we hear is this moment, this time, this story. It is easy to block out God’s question, to miss God’s gently urging to share, “what troubles you?”

Like the rest of us, Hagar’s focus has closed in to the story in front of her, and she is not hearing or seeing what God has put before her. What Hagar forgets in her moment of despair, what she perhaps never knew, is that hers is not the only story at work. Her story is part of a larger story, the story of God’s work in the world. Even as she despairs over the end of the story, God is at work making this story God’s own. Sarah had heard God’s promises for Isaac, and Abraham had heard God’s promises for both of his sons, but it is not until here, in the desert, when things are at their very worst that Hagar is assured of God’s promises for her own son. Finally, when she is most uncertain of her story’s end, God assures her that her story is also God’s story. And suddenly, her focus opens up! Her eyes are opened and she sees the well of water. Her focus expands, and she finds refreshment and a future. “She went and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.”

“What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard.” It seems odd that all throughout this story, Hagar’s son has been called “the boy” or “her son.” Nowhere in the story is he called by his name, Ishmael. But when read in Hebrew, something wonderful appears. The name Ishmael means “God heard,” and so verse 17, “And God heard the voice of the boy,” when read in Hebrew, (Vayishma Elohim) says “Ishmael.” In hearing the boy’s cries, God names the boy. In naming him, God claims him, drawing Ishmael’s story, and therefore Hagar’s story, into God’s story, making them God’s own.

We also are named and claimed by God. Though I am not named Ishmael, Ishmael is a promise to me that God hears, even and especially when I feel lost and in the wilderness. As Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans, in baptism we are united with Christ. Our story is joined to the story of our crucified and resurrected Lord, who names and claims us in our baptism. For Christians, Jesus is God come into the world, and we know that God has claimed us. God went to death on a cross in order to join each of us where we are, in our suffering, in our despair. God went to death on a cross in order to join each of our stories to God’s. When we say, tell me a story, this is the story that we are told. This is the story: that my life, and your life, each one, is joined to the life of Christ, to the death of Christ, and to the resurrection of Christ. This is the story: that my story, your story, each one, is joined to God’s story. Knowing that, we know that God hears, and that God responds. Just like Hagar, we will receive refreshment, and comfort in knowing that God holds us, and hears us, even when we feel alone. That is our new and different future. That is our happy ending.