Summer of Stories. During these warm months of 2022, we are looking at stories from the scriptures about children or with children as major characters. This task is challenging because our stories are not often clear about the age of the characters, but we are still able to identify with so much of what happens in these stories for they are often the stuff of real life. Last week, we explored the story of Cain and Abel, the first siblings in the biblical narrative. Right from the beginning of the scriptures, sibling rivalry and conflict lead to disastrous consequences: the first murder and the first estranged son of the story. After Adam and Eve are removed from the Garden of Eden and settled on farm ground east of the garden, selfishness and jaded jealousy lead their firstborn son Cain down a dark path that ends in his younger brother’s body, lifeless on the ground and in Cain, lying to God about what has happened and arguing with God about what a just or fair punishment might look like. While family conflict is an age-old challenge, we also find out that God’s mercy and unfailing love for God’s created beings is right there in the midst of even the most difficult or downright evil moments. God sends Cain away from the family farm to the land of wandering and gives him a mark of protection so that anyone whom he meets will not be able to kill him. At the end of the story, we are amazed at God’s patience and love as Cain walks away from his family.
Our next story is many, many years later after a great flood, the mixing of languages at the tower of Babel, and the calling of another son to wander away from his family. Unlike the wandering Cain, who is no longer allowed to be a farmer because of how he polluted the soil with his brother’s blood, Abraham is called by God to wander, leaving his family and journeying with God wherever God leads. In the continuing story of Abraham’s wandering, we learn not only of the promises or covenants that God makes with him, but we hear about how his family evolves and changes over his years on the road. Today’s story is about Abraham’s firstborn son, Ishmael, though he is never named in our actual text. Ishmael is only referred to as the child, boy, or son of Hagar the Egyptian servant of Abraham and Sarah, a reminder of his inferior status in the family.
We enter our story this morning in the midst of celebration as Abraham’s second son, Isaac, the one promised by God to Abraham and Sarah in their elder years, has been weaned by his mother. In these ancient cultures, scholars estimate that Isaac was most likely 3 years old or so. Sustaining a child to this moment was worthy of celebration because of all of the threats to an infant’s life in this time period, let alone the threats to the life of his mother for often as we shall see later in the story, the child’s life was often shaped heavily by the experiences of his mother. By this time, Isaac’s older brother Ishmael, at least according to the narrator of the story, is around 17 years old, depending on exactly how old Isaac is. Ishmael is 14 years older than Isaac. At the celebration, Sarah notices Ishmael playing or laughing with Isaac. Some translations even say scoffing or mocking. I wonder if older teenage brother is having a little fun with his toddler little brother, and it infuriates Isaac’s mother, Sarah. I’m imagining that it is much more than just his poking fun or laughing at Isaac that really irritates Sarah at this moment. She is realizing how much of a mistake it really was to have Abraham sire a child with her servant Hagar, but Sarah had been desperate. She was getting older, and no matter how much she and Abraham tried, a baby never came.
She thought that this was the best solution. At least then, they would have an heir whom they had raised to care for their family, rather than some distant relative like their shameful nephew Lot or the servant-heir Eliezer of Damascus. Things had changed though in the last few years. Hagar had run away with Ishmael once already, and God had told her to return. Then visitors had told them that Sarah would be having a child in a year’s time, which Sarah had chuckled about. Oh how foolish she had been. Her body had gone through the change, but somehow God had still provided a son for them, for in a year’s time, she had a child, one who would be forever remembered by his mother’s laugh. Now, Ishmael was not nearly as important to all of the plans that they had made, and he seemed to be realizing his proper place in the family as the oldest. Sarah wanted no part in letting Ishmael be an heir, so she told Abraham that very day, the day that she weaned Isaac that Hagar and that boy needed to go.
Abraham couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This had been Sarah’s idea all along, and he hadn’t been sure about it from the beginning. Ishmael was shaping up to be a great farmer and shepherd as Abraham had raised him, so why would he send them away now? But then, God spoke to Abraham and told him to listen to Sarah and let Ishmael go. God said that he would assure his safety and continued growth, for Ishmael would be a great nation. So Abraham sent them on their way, out into the wilderness or desert of Beer-Sheba, and he never heard how things turned out for them.
When Abraham visited Hagar the evening of the celebration, she had seen it coming all day: the way that Sarah was watching Ishmael and the comments that she continued to make to the rest of the servants. She had seen this look in Sarah’s eyes before, but Hagar had deserved it then. She had been contemptuous of Sarah after Ishmael was born, proud of the son that she could give to Abraham. When she ran away from that look, that anger, God had told her to come back. Where was God now? Abraham said that she and Ishmael needed to leave in the morning, so they did with a few pieces of bread and a skin of water, meager portions for a woman and her son in the wilderness.
It is this moment in the story when the narrator seems to get confused. What we thought was a teenage young man based on the timeline that is offered has now become a much younger small child who can be carried on Hagar’s back or shoulder. After they wander and wander for days, Hagar wonders what her next steps should be. Should they try and walk to one of the cities or villages nearby, but who will want to take her in, especially when she has someone else’s child already? Who could she trust anyway? Would anyone treat her any better than Abraham had? They kept on walking. When the food and water ran out, the weariness and exhaustion took over. They both became weaker and weaker as they searched for any source of water that they could find. Finally, Ishmael couldn’t go any longer. Hagar had noticed his breathing slowing. He had been sleeping a lot and been complaining about the hunger. She couldn’t bear to watch him pass away, so she finally laid him down under a bush in the shade and wandered away where she wouldn’t have to watch or listen anymore. “Mom,” she heard as she walked, a faint whisper. “Mother,” a bit louder but still strained. Finally, just a few screams or shouts or noises, and Hagar began to weep. She sat down not too far away, and the tears flowed, what few would come. Her parched mouth and panging hunger only exacerbated her overwhelmed and helpless feeling. Where was God? God had told her to return to Abraham and Sarah. How could God do this to her? And she called out over and over and over, God’s name with what little breath and energy that she had left.
Suddenly, she heard her name, “Hagar!” Had she really heard it though? Was she imagining it? Maybe it was Ishmael. Maybe it was someone to help… or maybe to harm. She sat still but didn’t hear or see anything else, only the small shape of Ishmael lying under the bush a ways off. “Hagar, what troubles you?” She still couldn’t see who it was, but she didn’t respond. Who was talking to her? “Do not be afraid, Hagar. God has heard Ishmael’s voice. Come and hold the boy, for I will make a nation of him yet.” God! God has heard! Where had God been this whole time, Hagar thought. But she looked again and saw something that she hadn’t noticed before. Not too far beyond where Ishmael was lying, a well. O my goodness. a well! She stumbled to her feet and rushed to Ishmael, hoisting him in her arms and carried or pulled him, whatever her strength could allow. She filled the skin with water and quickly tried to get him to drink, little by little, and then she had her fill. God was here. God had saved them.
Ishmael would become a great archer and ancestor of the nomadic peoples of the wilderness. God again had provided a way in the midst of the brokenness and disfunction of family dynamics and power-plays. Yet, while I find hope in the midst of this story, I also am keenly aware of the desperation that is front and center to the story as I think about refugees, mothers and children, who have left any number of conflict zones, including Ukraine or Sudan or Syria or Colombia. I think of the refugee camps around the world where people can hardly get food, medical care, or education. Or I think of mothers around our world, hopeless in the face of another mouth to feed, wondering how they will provide the next meal for their little ones. I identify with the Hagars of the world as they sit and wonder, “Where is God in all of this?” I think of also the cries of parents who have lost children to any number of horrible things: car accidents, gun shots, cancer, or pregnancy and birth complications. I realize that I don’t have all of the answers for these kinds of situations, nor can I answer for why God intervenes or does not in the ways that God seems to.
However, I also realize that sometimes, I am not looking for God or God’s provision in the midst of these things. I find myself asking God to open my eyes as God did for Hagar. The well had been there all along. What can I do that I am blind to in the midst of the injustice and brokenness of the world? How am I in need of God’s revealing to me what could be done or what resources are available to bring even a little bit of relief to situations of suffering? These are the questions that I pose to you as well.
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