As You Sow You Grow

This morning we hear the first parable recorded in Matthew’s gospel – the parable of the Sower and the Seed.  There is no way of knowing if this was the first parable Jesus told because Matthew does not record things in chronological order.  He chooses rather to group similar things: first teachings, then miracle stories, and then parables.  We will be hearing several of his stories over the next few Sundays.

The Sower and the Seed is straight forward enough.  It explains why different people receive the good news of God’s kingdom in different ways.  The evil one works on some the way birds eat seed.  Some folks have limited depth and, like seed in shallow soil, lack a sufficient ‘root’ system to sustain the faith.  Like seed that falls among thistles, some people are so tangled up in the cares of the world that way of the kingdom gets choked out.  And some people, like good soil, receive the word and it produces a bountiful harvest in them. 

While Jesus’ parable tends to lop people into on category or another, I recognize each of the soil conditions as being present in my own life.  I have areas where I am particularly susceptible to the evil one.  There are other areas where I am shallow or indifferent.  There are still other areas where I care more about the world than the kingdom.  And there are parts of me that are open to God and, hopefully, very productive.  Both by the grace of God and through some effort of my own, I hope that this part of the ‘field’ that is me is growing.

I like too that Jesus identifies how some harvest produces grain a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.  It suggests that each of us will be productive in our own particular way.  I will yield more fruit by teaching or preaching or volunteering in the Food Pantry than by singing in the choir, although I still respond to God’s kingdom through the church’s hymnody (I just try not to belt it out too loud!).  Where are you most productive (the hundredfold), where do you contribute something significant (the sixtyfold), and where do you make a difference simply by participating (the thirtyfold)?

In the parable as Jesus tells it he sees himself as being the sower.  He is the one who is spreading the news of the kingdom and we are the soil receiving that seed.  But it is helpful for us to change roles and to ponder how we ourselves are sowers.  We now are the ones who share the Good News of God in Christ.  We now are the ones who spread the kingdom of God through word and deed.  How are we doing?

In Jesus’ day a farmer prepared a plot of land for planting.  When it was ready he walked the plot scattering seed as he went.  This method of broadcasting, especially when caught by the wind, meant that some of the seed would fall on ground not cultivated.  While a sower would not be sloppy about the work, neither would he be restrictive or tentative.  First and foremost, you have to sow seeds if you want to produce a harvest.  It is an act that is one part adventure, one part daring, one part curiosity, and one part faithfulness, all held together by a sense of grace and hope – something interesting may come of this.

I have been sowing some seeds of late that may produce an interesting harvest.  Some of you know that I post my sermons on a blogsite – checkoutthesermons.blogspot.com.  I know that some of you go there and revisit my sermons after you hear them on Sunday morning.  Some of you, when you cannot be here on Sunday, go there to read what you missed.  And some of you share them with friends and family members who live out of town but want to remain in touch.  In the five years I have been posting sermons there has been nearly 7,500 pageviews on the site.  That is a kind of seed sowing and you never know who it will reach.

This became abundantly clear to me last Monday when I received an e-mail from James Goodman, who wrote a book I quoted in a sermon two weeks ago.  A friend of his came across that sermon and e-mailed him the link.  He saw it and wanted me to thank me for my careful reading of his book on the Binding of Isaac and for mentioning it in my sermon.  I was both amazed and terrified by the e-mail: amazed at the reach my words have simply by putting him on the internet and terrified at the prospect of being read and scrutinized by people much more knowledgeable and capable than me.  I was relieved that the e-mail from Mr. Goodman did not end with “you will be hearing from my lawyers and I will be contacting your bishop.”   I always take preaching very seriously and hold myself to a high standard because you deserve nothing less and God’s word demands it.  Ultimately, posting my sermons heightens my sense of responsibility in positive ways knowing that I do not know where my words are going.

Here is another seed I am sowing: I am organizing a September bike ride in Williamsburg to raise money for Camp Chaco and for Episcopal Relief & Development.  I have participated in events like this, but never have spearheaded one before.  Like blogging, it is both amazing and terrifying.  I am grateful for help I am receiving from various people.  Ann Turner, the communications officer of the diocese, worked with me to select and set-up an on-line registration and fund-raising site.  I now know infinitely more about this than I did a few months ago.  I have found a website that allows me to map out riding routes that lists directions, mileage, and even elevation changes.  I am meeting this week with a member of Bruton Parish who is an avid biker and member of a large cycling club.  I have no idea where this will all end – hopefully the legal waivers attached to registration will keep me from going to prison in the event that something goes wrong – but I am excited about the possibility of raising money and awareness for two great ministries of our church.

I think there is a direct link between congregational vitality and seed sowing: the more people who sow seeds the greater the vitality of the church.  Did you know that Debbie Askew is running a summer horse camp for parishioners two days a week at her farm?  On Tuesdays she has younger children come out and Thursdays are for older children.  They work with the horses, ride, share a lunch, a craft, and a bible study.  Our kids love it and are learning a lot about horses and about being in community with one another.  What a great ministry!

As I said earlier, sowing the seeds of the kingdom is an act that is one part adventure, one part daring, one part curiosity, and one part faithfulness, all held together by a sense of grace and hope – a belief that something interesting may come of it.  I see this faith at work when someone offers a bible study or volunteers in the Food Pantry or signs up to host a Coffee Hour or grills up burgers and dogs for a Sunday cookout. 

It seems to be true that the more seeds a person sows the more the soil that is that person becomes open to the seeds that God is sowing.  As you sow you grow.  What adventure would you like to engage with God?  What might you dare?  What peaks your interest?  What is faithful to the gifts God has entrusted to you?

Heavy Yokes

Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

How was your Fourth of July?  Did you get to cook out or cook in?  Did you have any friends over?  Did you have a few drinks?  Did you maybe overdo it a little bit?  If so, you are in good company.  There is someone else I know who always enjoyed having a good time and knew how to celebrate with friends on special occasions.  Jesus of Nazareth.  Yes, that is right, Jesus!  In today’s Gospel reading he acknowledges that his critics think he is a glutton and a drunkard.  His critics also don’t care much for his choice of company, complaining that he is friends with tax collectors and sinners.

This highlights something we see woven throughout the gospels: Jesus approached religion very differently than did the religious leaders of his day.  For them, religion was a duty, an obligation, perhaps even a burden.  It was laden with rules and requirements that spelled out in exacting detail what one must do in order to be clean and holy and right in the eyes of the Lord.

Jesus takes a different approach.  For him religion is life-giving and life-affirming, rather than life-restricting and life-denying.  “We humans were not made so that there would be someone to keep the Sabbath laws,” he taught, “rather, the Sabbath was made for us so that we might have a day of rest from our work.”  “All of the laws come down to this,” he said, “Love the Lord your God with all you heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.”

In the Christian tradition an ox’s yoke is an image of discipleship.  It suggests that we are bound to something that guides and directs our actions in life.  Jesus notices that those who understand religion to be nothing more than rules and obligations are weary and carrying heavy loads.  He invites them to change yokes, to take on his yoke in order to be guided by him.  When Jesus says “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” he is saying that his approach to religion gives life.  It does not take it away.

The burden of a heavy yoke runs deep in the Hebrew tradition.  When the Israelites came into the Promised Land they assimilated into a region already inhabited by numerous clans and tribes.  These varied groups practiced all manner of different things.  The Lord God gave Moses The Kedoshim, or Holiness Code, along with a healthy dose of ‘do’ and ‘don’t’ laws to follow in order that God’s priests and God’s people would be holy (literally ‘set apart’) from the culture around them.  God’s people were not to blend in, but to stand out by standing for something very different.

In preparation for the program at our Wednesday evening pot-lucks I have had the wonderful opportunity to reread the Book of Leviticus.  It contains of plethora of directions.  Here are some of the laws about what can and cannot be eaten:

·   All animals with divided hoofs that eat cud are acceptable with the exception of camels, badgers, hares, and pigs (I’m thinking our cookout after the service could be a code breaker).

·   All water or sea creatures with fins and scales, but none without fins and scales (so much for shrimp cocktail and crab cakes).

·   No eagles, vultures, osprey, buzzards, kites, ravens, owls, cormonrant, water hen, stork, heron, hoopee or bat (well, God didn’t have to tell me I can’t eat bats because I was already on board with that one).

·   No winged insects except locust, crickets, and grasshoppers.

After these dietary laws follow copious instructions about what a person who touches a carcass must do in order to be clean again.  Women are unclean and impure after childbirth.  Unclean for seven days and impure for 33 days after giving birth to a boy, 14 days and 66 days after giving birth to a girl.  There is an entire chapter set aside for how to deal with this.

Perhaps the most unappealing section of Leviticus is the one that describes various skin diseases and how the priest is to examine people for them.  A lengthy process is laid out for declaring a person clean from leprosy and the kinds of offerings that person is to make over a period of time.  Priests were charged with going into a leper’s home to make an inspection.  I am glad none of this is in my job description! 

The Lord God is concerned with balding.  Here is what is said to Moses:  “If anyone loses the hair from his head, he is bald but he is clean.  If he loses the hair from his forehead and temples, he has baldness of the forehead but he is clean.  But if there is on the bald head or the bald forehead a reddish-white diseased spot, it is a leprous disease… and he is unclean.” (13:40-42).  I think I make the cut!

Here is a list of other subjects covered in Leviticus:

·   Bringing sacrifices to the tent of meeting.

·   Prohibitions against eating blood.

·   Prohibitions against uncovering the nakedness of kin.

·   Prohibitions against certain sexual practices, especially when linked to pagan rituals and worship.

·   Prohibitions against eating sacrificed food after it is two days old.

·   Commands not to reap an entire harvest or to pick up fallen grapes.  These are for the poor.

·   Commands on how to treat the disadvantaged.

·   No cross-breeding, cross planting, or clothing of mixed material (19:19).

·   No witchcraft, haircuts, beard trimming, or tatoos commemorating the dead.

·   Do not make your daughter a prostitute.

·   Treat aliens well.

·   Do not cheat other people.

·   No child sacrifices.

·   No mediums or wizards.

·   Special instructions for priests (with special emphasis on not accepting animals for sacrifice that are less than perfect).

·   The appointment of festivals – Passover, Unleavened Bread, first fruits, atonement, harvest (booths).

You cannot begin to imagine the complexity that emerges around making sacrifices.  First, there are several different kinds of sacrifices and while they may involve the same things to be sacrificed, different things must be done depending on the purpose.  Sometimes the priests eat the meat that has been sacrificed and sometimes they don’t.  Two of Aaron’s sons make a mistake and throw out what they are to eat and the results are, well, not pretty.

And speaking of things that are not pretty, let me introduce you to a little tradition known as The Ordeal of Bitter Water from the 5^th chapter of the Book of Numbers.  It provides the Lord’s direction for a husband who suspects his wife has been unfaithful.  If a husband is overcome with a “spirit of jealousy”, i.e., thinks his wife has strayed, he is to take her to the priest.  He presents to the priest a grain offering to which the priest adds holy water and dust from the floor.  This mixture becomes known as the Curse of Bitter Water.  The wife in question drinks the potion.  If it makes her violently sick then she is guilty.  If it does not she is innocent. 

And as if all these religious decrees were not burdensome enough, centuries of commentary gets added to them the way more and more laws get tacked on to the US tax code.  Eventually no one understands them and everyone lives in fear of being wrong.  No one wants to be audited either by the IRS or by God.

The initial value of all these laws was to keep the Israelites as a people set apart from the culture around them.  Some of this related to distinctiveness – they do this, but we do that.  Some of it related to practicality and common sense – they eat whatever, but we won’t eat things that may make us sick.  Some of it represented an advance in civilization – you sell your daughters into prostitution but we will not.  And some of it – like the Bitter Waters – is ripe for reform. 

Whatever purpose it served, by Jesus’ day it had become oppressive.  It is against this backdrop that he says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  C.S. Lewis once said that Christians don’t think God loves us because we are good, but that God makes us good because God loves us.  I think that is a wonderful yoke to carry.

I’ll leave you with a blessing from the Methodist writer William Arthur Ward, whose thinking inspired many over the course of the last century:

   The adventure of life is to learn.
   The purpose of life is to grow.
   The nature of life is to change.
   The challenge of life is to overcome.
   The essence of life is to care.
   The opportunity of life is to serve.
   The secret of life is to dare.
   The spice of life is to befriend.
   The beauty of life is to give.

Now there is a yoke I would like to bear.  Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

 

The Akedah

 

 

This morning we hear again one of the most dramatic stories in all of Scripture.  Its Jewish title is the “Akedah” – the Binding of Isaac.  Just nineteen verses long (we did not read the last five this morning), it is noteworthy that this event is referenced nowhere else in the entire Old Testament.  No prophet, no psalmist, no king, no priest ever spoke of it or wrote about it in such a way that it made it into the biblical canon.

 

It is tempting to hold that the entire story was simply too toxic to touch, but, in fact, this is not true.  It is one of the most discussed and plummeted episodes not just in the bible, but in our entire culture.  Countless people down through the ages have reflected on one aspect of the story or another.  Ideas are explored, opinions put forth, and new insights continually emerge. 
 

For example, why did God want to test Abraham?  The Book of Jubilees, written two centuries before the birth of Jesus, connects this testing to the testing of Job.  Jubilees contends that a dark angel by the name of Mastema went to God and questioned whether Abraham’s faith was a strong as God believed.  This set in motion a testing just as Satan’s question about Job begins his ordeal.  According to Jubilees, Mastema and the angel Gabriel accompany Abraham and Isaac up the mountain and Gabriel eventually intervenes to save the child. 
 

What does Abraham think of all this?  Some rabbis writing material contained in the Talmud and Midrash hold that he is stoic and obedient while others contend that he is wracked with guilt and washed over with distress.  And what about Isaac?  Does he have any idea what is about to happen?  Does he resist or submit?  Is he afraid or does he have faith?  Some suggest that he actually asks to be bound so that he is not able to flinch at the last second and ruin the sacrifice. 
 

There is a 15^th century work called The Brome Play.  It is a short drama performed by a travelling band out of the back of a wagon.  The only characters in the play are Abraham, Isaac, God, and the angel.  As the drama unfolds Abraham confesses to Isaac about the impending sacrifice.  Isaac, puzzled, asks what he has done wrong.  Nothing, Abraham replies.  God requires it.  Isaac accepts his duty, but Abraham begins to waver. 
 

Isaac:

And is it God’s will that I should be slain?

Abraham:   

Yea, truly, Isaac, my son so good,

and therefore my hands I wring.

Isaac:          

Now, father, against my Lord’s will

I will never complain loud or still:

He might a send me a better ending

If it has a been his will.

Abraham:   

Forsooth son, unless I did this deed

Grievously displeased our Lord would be.

Isaac:         

Nay, nay father, God forbid

that ever ye should grieve him for me…

Therefore do the Lord’s bidding,

and when I am dead, pray for me.

But father, tell ye my mother no thing.

Say I am in another country dwelling.

Abraham:  

A, Isaac, Isaac, blessed may thou be.

My heart beginneth strongly to rise

to see the blood of thy blessed body.

Philosophers from Augustine to Kant to Kierkegaard have seen in this story how the ethical becomes suspended by the religious.  In his 1920 poem Upon the Altar, Yitzhak Lamdan sees in it the trials of Jews down through the ages, always being sacrificed and offered up to God.  Bob Dylan even wrote a song about it:

Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son"

Abe says, “Man, you must be putting me on”

God say, “No.”  Abe say, “What?”

God say, “You do what you want Abe, but

The next time you see me comin’ you better run”

Well, Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”

God says, “Out on Highway 61”

As I said, there a wide array of folks who have looked at this story down through the ages. 

I spent the week reading James Goodman’s book But where is the lamb?  In it he explores the way this narrative has been imagined and reimagined over the centuries.  He attributes the vast diversity of thought to two factors.  First, the story itself is so dramatic and its primary characters demand or do things we would never expect.  And second, the narrative is so utterly economical and lean.  While it tells much, it leaves out even more: God’s motivation, Abraham’s thoughts, Isaac’ understanding, and more.  These gaps invite reflection and interpretation and keep the story always alive and always fresh. 

And it is possible for the same person to turn it and see something completely different than he saw years before.  I hope you had a chance to see the e-news that came out on Friday.  In it I included pictures of two works by Rembrandt inspired by this story.  The first, an oil painting, was done in 1634.  In it, Abraham forcefully holds down his bound son.  His arm is cooked, but a small angel flying above him has grabbed it and the knife is falling.  Abraham seems startled that the proceeding has been interrupted.  He is prepared to do his duty and is puzzled that it is suspended.

Rembrandt’s second work is an etching completed in 1655, twenty-one years later.  By this point in life, the artist has had to bury children and now has only one son.  It goes without saying that he possesses a much broader and deeper emotional experience than when he did the oil.  In the etching, Abraham holds Isaac close to himself.  There is an angel behind him whose wings fan out from one edge of the work to the other.  This angel has both arms wrapped around Abraham in an embrace so tight and intimate that the arm with the knife is unable to move.  The angel is so close it appears to whisper in Abraham’s ear and he is turning to face God’s messenger.  In this second work, Abraham appears not to be startled but emotionally exhausted.  This experience has taken a toll on him, just as life has taken a toll on the great artist who created it.  Yet, through it all, the more he has gone through the closer he has experienced God to be.

Reflecting on the insights of current biblical scholars, Goodman writes,

“The story we know can only be understood in the context of [God’s promise to make Abraham’s offspring a mighty nation] and the threats to [this promise], which means in the context of the entire Abraham cycle.  It begins with God’s first call and command (give up your past) and God’s promise (I will bless you) and proceeds from there, ever so slowly, characterized by confusion about both the promise and the plan, by questions about who was going to get what when, by uncertainty and doubt, by snares and detours, by heartaches, grave threats, and near death.  Nothing is for certain.  Nothing comes easy – without testing, trial, without degradation.”

I think the older Rembrandt would applaud this statement.  Perhaps more than anything else, the Akedah speaks to the reality that life is not always blue skies and seashells.  There are times when it is downright gritty and gut-wrenching.  Faith is not for the faint of heart.  The only way through life is the way of testing, trial, and degradation – what Jesus calls the Way of the Cross.

The person of faith will exhibit both obedience (as did the Abraham in Rembrandt’s oil) and reflection (as we see in the etching).  The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas believes that the key moment in the narrative is when Abraham drops the knife.  “That Abraham obeyed the first voice,” writes Levinas, “is astonishing: that he had sufficient distance with respect to that obedience to hear the second – that is essential.”

Well, in addition to my “copious” research, I spent the week in conversation with several colleagues who also were eager to gain a deeper understanding of the Akedah.  The finest insight I received came from that noted theologian, choir member, food pantry volunteer, and bulletin folder, our own Nancy Bangley.  When I told her I was reading about the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, she looked off into the distance and said, “Well, sometimes life is really difficult and you don’t know what to do, and then – puff (as she said this she waved her arms in a big circle) – God shows you the way to go and everything is OK again.”  That just may be the single best summation of this story in the last 3,000 years!

We all have had our Akedah moments of testing, trial, and challenge.  More await us in the days and years to come.  At these times, if we locate the moment in this story, some of the following thoughts emerge for us to ponder:

·   Why is this happening?  Did I cause it?  Is God behind it?  Is the only reason this is happening is because it is?

·   How is this moment affecting me?  Have I distanced myself from my emotions or have my emotions taken over?  Either way, is it helpful or not?  Am I thinking clearly?  Who can I share this with in order to gain the wisdom and perspective of another?

·   Where is God in all of this?  If I don’t know, then can I trust that God is present and have faith that I will see and sense God at some point in the future?  Do I believe as Abraham did, that on this ‘mount’ the Lord will provide?

·   What is the ‘knife’ I have to drop?  What is the thing I must let go of in order to transform this awful moment into something holy and grace-filled?

 

Hagar & Ishmael

Today’s Old Testament reading is part of a larger narrative and needs to be put into context.  For years, Abraham and Sarah have been playing out a drama related family, inheritance, and faith.  God has promised that Abraham will be the father of a mighty nation.  In order for this to happen he must have at least one son.  The problem is that Abraham is old and Sarah is well past the child-bearing age, so she takes matters into her own hands.  She owns an Egyptian slave girl by the name of Hagar (the bible gives us no indication of how Hagar came to be in her possession, but tradition holds she was the daughter of the Pharaoh and was given as a gift).  Sarah offers Hagar to Abraham.  It is an act that, on the surface, appears selfless, but is also faithless.  Sarah does not trust in God’s ability to fulfill a promise.  Abraham, not surprisingly, accepts her offer and while this doesn’t fit with what we think of “bible teaching about marriage”, it was in keeping with the customs of time.

One of the amazing things about this story is that while Abraham and Sarah are the main characters, our moral sympathy lies with Hagar, the slave.  No one asked her if she wanted to be given to Abraham, just as they surely didn’t ask her if she wanted to be a slave or to leave Egypt.  Neither Abraham nor Sarah even speaks about Hagar using her given name.  They only talk about her as “my slave girl” or “your slave” – robbing her of her humanity, her dignity, and her basic rights.  Sarah goes so far as to say the child Hagar bears will not belong to her, but to Sarah. 

It comes as no surprise that after she conceives Hagar looks on Sarah with contempt.  Nor is it surprising that Sarah becomes bitter about the plan she hatched as it comes to pass.  She projects her anger on to Abraham who, in turn, disassociates himself from any responsibility and puts the whole mess back in Sarah’s lap.  And what is the end result?  Hagar, pregnant, alone, and in a foreign country, must flee into the barren wilderness.

There, in the desert, an amazing thing happens.  God appears to Hagar just as God appeared years ago to Abraham.  For the first time in the bible, God demonstrates a quality that will become central to Hebrew and Christian theology, namely that God sees affliction and comes to the rescue of those wrongly persecuted.  God makes a promise to Hagar and also a demand.

The promise: that God will make a multitude of her son’s offspring and that this multitude will be given a land, albeit the desert; a promise on par with the one made to Abraham.

The demand: Hagar must return to Sarah and submit to her.

Return to the place you were treated so badly seems like an odd request, but it is made by the same God who Jesus says cares for every bird that falls and numbers every hair on our head.  That Hagar takes comfort in God’s promise and acts on God’s demand demonstrates she alone in this narrative comes close to having what we think faith to be.

So Hagar gives birth to a son that Abraham names Ishmael.  While we don’t read it in today’s lessons, it is interesting to note that when Abraham makes a covenant with God, Ishmael is the next person after Abraham to enter into the covenant through the sign of circumcision.  Out of a dubious beginning Abraham receives a son whom he truly loves.

And then some thirteen years later Sarah gives birth to Isaac.  For a brief time the step-brothers exist peacefully in what surely was a shaky family arrangement.  Then, in the reading we heard this morning, Sarah catches the older Ishmael ‘playing’ with the much younger Isaac.  Now the Hebrew word translated as ‘playing’ contains some dark overtones.  Some bibles translate it as ‘mocking’ – Ishmael was mocking Isaac.  Beyond this (and here comes a PG-13 warning) the word hints at sexual molestation.  (In Genesis 39, where Potiphar’s wife is unsuccessful in her attempts to seduce Joseph, she tells others that Joseph tired to make ‘sport’ of her by sleeping with her – and ‘sport’ is the same verb as play or mock.)  Two other traditions are worth noting.  One holds that Ishmael was making pagan idols and sacrificing insects before them.  This kind of “play” would have been a bad influence on Isaac.  Another tradition is more direct.  It holds that Ishmael was using a bow to shoot arrows at his 3-year-old step-brother.

Well, whatever Sarah observes taking place between Ishmael and Isaac, her reaction is immediate and volatile; Hagar and Ishmael must be cast from the house, expelled from the land, and cut out of any inheritance.  Abraham delays.  That this is not an easy decision indicates he has some affection for Ishmael and Hagar.  Abraham then has a dream that God will protect and bless the two.  Only then does he send them off with provisions.  But Abraham, who in the past has demonstrated gracious hospitality to visitors and generously with his nephew Lot, only provides the mother and son with a loaf of bread and some water.  These meager rations, while amounting to little more than a death sentence, also provide a Eucharistic image of God’s presence and care.  When the provisions run out, Hagar and Ishmael are in dire straits.  God comes to her again, promises blessings, and reveals the location of nearby water, the source of life in the desert. 

Ishmael is the displaced rival, the birthright will go to the younger boy, but God’s blessing goes to both.  In time Ishmael will father twelve sons who become the pillars of the Arab people.  Muslims will trace their ancestry to Abraham though him.

Over the years, extra-biblical stories continue to emerge about Ishmael, just as they do about Abraham.  Both Jewish and Islamic traditions hold that Abraham made journeys into the desert to visit Hagar and Ishmael.  Muslims locate Mecca as the site where God revealed the water and gave the blessing.  Here, Abraham discovers the ka’aba – the large black cube said to have been built by Adam.  Damaged by the flood in Noah’s time, Abraham and Ishmael come together to restore it.  When their work is completed Abraham calls on all creation to make a hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca – an act which to this day remains one of the five pillars of Islam.

Other legend stories are not so kind.  For instance, one story in Judaism (but not the bible) contends that God put nine-tenths of all that is repulsive in life into the Arab people, and only one-tenth of all that is good.  Such stories are little more than reflections of strained relations between Judaism and Islam at the time of their authorship, but they have a way of coloring our world-view even today.  It is an understanding that cannot be supported by the narratives in Genesis. 

Many Christians hold that God rejects Ishmael and has little regard for Hagar.  In the supplanting of the older by the younger, St. Paul sees a metaphor of the Law being supplanted by the Gospel.  As such, we in the Christian tradition have been happy to relegate Hagar and Ishmael to the shadows.  This too is not good.

The Genesis narratives call on us at least to do the following:

·   To acknowledge the moral complexities of life.

·   To understand that faith and faithfulness are the not exclusive domain of those within our own tradition.

·   To confess the injustices those in our tradition have committed and to repent of ramifications in our own day.

·   To recognize that God’s blessing, God’s concern, God’s providential care, and God’s heart lies with Ishmael and his descendants as much as it lies with Isaac and those of us who trace our ancestry through him.

·   To keep in mind that families are fragile and delicate entities whose balance and harmony are easily lost as one person’s actions affect the entire group.  Acts of faithlessness send shockwaves through those closest to us.

·   To trust that if God cares for even the smallest creatures then God cares for us; that we who trust in God remain in God’s care and keep.  Even Hagar and Ishmael, bit actors in the salvation story we tell and teach, were guarded and governed by God.

·   To strive to create in our own world in our own time a harmonious family of faith that Abraham desired, but failed to achieve between his sons Ishmael and Isaac.

This one final thought… if Abraham is the father of our faith, than we might want to think of Hagar as our mother in affliction.  She was the first person in the Genesis story to be treated harshly and unjustly.  And that treatment elicits from God and compassion that remains true to this day.  As one scholar puts it,

“Hagar stands for all women exploited, abused, rejected.  She is the alien without rights, the woman who faces her pregnancy alone, the wife divorced for the sake of another woman, the homeless woman, the welfare mother, the woman who lives for others, works for others, serves others and then finds herself abandoned.”

If we don’t care for how Hagar is treated in these stories then perhaps we need to rethink our attitudes about and concern for women like her in our own day.  Surely God cares about them as much as God cared about Hagar.