Sermon for June 22, 2008

There are really only two realities in the world, aren’t there? I mean, there’s my reality and there’s your reality. Sometimes they gel and sometimes they don’t. The only reality that really matters to us is our own. Would you say that’s true? I would say that’s the way of the world. It’s that way in our daily lives, with our families and friends. It’s that way in our work. It’s that way in our politics. It’s that way in our religion, and indeed in all of the world’s religions. I’d say it’s been that way since the Biblical world.

We need look no farther than the intertwining stories of Sarah and Hagar.

Sarah has one reality. She is a wife, a wife of a prominent man, the man who has been called to be a father of many nations. She leads a life of affluence with servants at her beck and call. She dresses well, eats well, entertains with style. But she lives a life of shame. For the most significant contribution a woman could make to society in those days was to give birth to a son. And Sarah has no son. She doesn’t even have daughters. She has never given birth to new life. When the women gather at the well to talk about the antics of their children, Sarah is excluded. When women sit with their daughters teaching them to stitch or make a stew, Sarah does not share in the experience. She is shamed, less than a woman, deprived of motherhood, deprived of the joys of raising a child, deprived of full community acceptance.

But at the age of 75 her reality shifts and God speaks directly to her husband. It’s preposterous really, it makes her laugh. God has said that Sarah is to have a son. She is to give birth. Sarah’s reality is that it can’t be. But there is a glimmer of hope. Perhaps it could be true? Perhaps God could make it happen?

But then many years go by. Sarah is getting older. Abraham is getting older. Perhaps God expects them to be creative. Perhaps God didn’t mean that it would be Sarah herself who would actually give birth.

And so another woman is introduced into the story. A woman by the name of Hagar with a different reality. Hagar does not know the love of a husband. Hagar does not share in a life of privilege, she does not even have the privilege of choosing her daily routine. Hagar is a servant, one called upon to care for the home and needs of another. Hagar is young and beautiful and strong. But Hagar is property. She is the property of Sarah. And because she is so young and strong, able to endure the stresses of pregnancy on her body, she is given to Abraham in order that she might conceive the promised offspring for Sarah. God does not speak to Hagar. God does not give Hagar promises. Hagar is an unwitting participant in God’s plan. Her reality is that she is used; she must do as she is told, even enduring the touch of a man to whom she means nothing.

Hagar gives birth to a son indeed. Her son is named, not by Hagar, but by Abraham. And many years go by. The reality of the story is that these two women, instead of a bond of motherhood for the same son, have an animosity for one another. Their relationship is founded on mistrust, on jealousy. They fight and they bicker.

Until finally God speaks again, about thirteen or so years later, directly to Abraham and Sarah. Sarah is indeed going to have a son, from her own womb. Sarah is going to provide an heir from her own body for Abraham. And a year later, the reality is, that Sarah is nursing a boy. A beautiful, healthy baby boy; a boy who brings such joy to her that she can only name him for the emotion that bubbles up out of her—laughter.

Sarah is now a mother. She shares in the sleepless nights of other mothers, she has been surrounded by the other women coaching her through the birthing process. Her value to her husband and in society has increased. Her reality has changed.

As has Hagar’s. Hagar’s son, once the only son of Abraham is now brother to Isaac. Hagar is now not the only mother of Abraham’s son, she is now the servant who bore a child.

Our story today finds us in the midst of a celebration. Three years after his birth, Isaac is weaned. He is now a toddler exploring his world. He has survived infancy and it is cause for celebration. But in this household, across the yard two women watch as their sons interact. One a cherubic baby, putting things in his mouth, falling over his feet as he navigates the terrain. And the other, a young man, strong through the shoulders, whiskers shadowing his chin. He teases the baby, swinging him through the air, outrunning Isaac in a game of chase. Ishmael is a man child. And the reality is that each of these women see’s in the other boy a threat to her own son. There are two boys, but only one can be heir of the promises of God. One must forfeit his role in the story. And Sarah is not above sacrificing Ishmael for the good of her son Isaac.

The reality of the biblical witness is not that God’s grace is borne out of a loving community. But God’s grace illuminates stories of basic human emotions like jealousy and mistrust and deceit and rivalry. God’s grace shines through stories of despair. For it is when Hagar faces her own, as well as Ishmael’s imminent death in the wilderness, that God finally speaks directly to her. God hears the cries of her son and offers her a word of comfort and hope, a word of grace and peace. And when God speaks, Hagar is able to see clearly the well in front of her, she is able to see a way to salvation and life.

I wonder how different the story would have turned out had Sarah welcomed Hagar as a sister. I wonder what would have happened if Ishmael and Isaac would have been allowed to grow together. I wonder what would have happened if God’s promises had been heeded. I wonder what would have happened if eyes had been opened earlier in the story to the abundance of God’s grace sufficient for Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac; that no one would have to do without. I wonder what would have happened if all the characters in the story would truly have stopped and listened, listened to God’s speech. I wonder if it would have been heard differently.

Would Abraham have looked up at the stars and contemplated room on the earth for many nations to live in peace? Would Sarah have stopped laughing long enough to ponder what it would mean for all the children of the earth to have enough to eat? Would Hagar have heard a whisper of hope as she anticipated the birth of Ishmael? Would Ishmael have heard a promise uttered on his behalf? Would Isaac have heard the laughter of God delighting in his first steps? Would God’s reality of grace, have been recognized had they pushed aside their own realities instead of pushing aside a mother and her child?

These questions haunt me. They haunt me because they aren’t questions for a people long ago. They are questions for our day and age. They are questions for last Friday. Does anyone know what last Friday was? It was World Refugee Day. A day set aside by the UN to recognize the injustices that go on in our globe that forces mothers and sons, fathers and daughters to flee homes and loved ones. Almost 40 million people were added to the list of refugees globally last year. Forty million Hagar’s and Ishmael’s sent into a wilderness with nothing but what they can carry.

And Friday was a day to call into question our own lives, our own realities, while our brothers and sisters struggle for survival. Friday was a call to action for those of us who, like Sarah, live in the reality of plenty.

God speaks to us just as God spoke to Abraham, in visions and by angels sent to minister to us. When God speaks what do we hear? Do we hear promise for all nations? Do we hear promises to be hoarded? When God speaks what do we see? Do we see wells of living water to be shared only with those whom we know and trust? Do we see wells of living water, alive and bubbling enough for the global community? When we hear God, do we hear “enough, there is enough?” Is our reality God’s reality of a kingdom with room for all people? Or is our reality the reality of our culture that encourages us to take care of ourselves and ourselves alone; that others are not to be trusted or welcomed?

I wish to leave you today with a story of refugee women, not so different from Hagar; women who were forced out of Darfur and found their way to a refugee camp in Chad with their children; but women who had heard the voice of God.

They gathered at the aid station, these women. They waited in the hot sun for the arrival of food rations. Their children grew weaker and sicker and they waited for the doctors and the nurses. They waited for their turn in the long lines, standing on the cracked, baked earth. It became too hot to hold their children to their breasts and the children labored to breath.

The women gathered in a circle, placing the children in the center and they began to sing. Do you see the whisps of white in the sky? Yes, yes I do. Do you see the clouds gathering in the horizon? Look, the clouds are growing larger and darker. The rains are coming. Do you see? Yes, yes I do. Do you feel the cooler breezes, laden with water? Do you feel it? Yes, yes I do.

More women gathered and the song grew louder and stronger. I see the rain; it’s coming.

And as they sang, the children died.

As the aid workers came for the bodies, they looked to the unobstructed skies, they looked at the heat waves on the horizon and asked the women, “why did you sing that song.”

“Because,” they said, “we will not allow our children to die without hope.”

Hope is the only reality that matters. Amen

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