Desert Scribblings: June 22, 2008 - Sixth Sunday After Pentecost

When have you ever felt excluded?

We are in a time when exclusion seems to be the dominant form of behavior. Oh sure, we try to be inclusive in regards to things like race and ethnicity and religion and other various labels that we can slap on people. But when we disagree with someone, instead of being in relationship with that person our tendency is to exclude, to shun, to ignore or even demonize. There is little (if any) dialogue in regards to philosophical or ideological or theological differences of opinion. We polarize, push away, ignore instead of asking questions, entering into relationship, trying to understand where the other person is coming from.

Excluding the other is not anything new to the human race, however. While we don’t exclude on basis of labels and prejudice as much as the past, even though we still have some ways to go in issues like race and gender and other areas, and while our most fervent exclusions these days revolve around matters of opinion and thought, our tendency to exclude others not like us is still holding strong.

The story of Hagar and Ishmael being dismissed from Abraham’s household brings these tendencies to the surface and how we often react when faced with it. Sarah sees Hagar, the handmaid that Sarah had given to Abraham to try and force God’s promises into existence, playing with her son Isaac, she decides that Hagar (or maybe more properly, her son and Abraham’s first born Ishmael) is a threat and must be put away. So Sarah tells Abraham the ancient form of, “It’s either her or me.”

Maybe Sarah was afraid that she’d lose her place in Abraham’s heart to Ishmael. More likely, there was a fear that Ishmael would receive the inheritance and status as the first born son over and against her own son Isaac, thus threatening her own status, power, and wealth within the family unit, thus prompting her to force Abraham to cast out Hagar and Ishmael who threatened her proper place.

I’ll give Abraham some credit: he does seem reluctant to do so. He doesn’t seem to really want to do it; Ishmael is his son, and Hagar is a woman whom he had a past sexual relationship with. There are emotional ties that cause Abraham to hesitate. And it’s at this point that one of those things that are often troubling about the Old Testament appears: God seems to agree with Sarah’s exclusion of Hagar and Ishmael.

God agrees with the plan: cast out Hagar and Ishmael, for it is Isaac through whom the promise will be fulfilled. But what could simply have been a story that justifies Isaac’s descendants (i.e.Israel) over and against all others instead takes a bit of a sudden turn. While God’s promise to Abraham will be fulfilled through Isaac, God declares that Ishmael will also be blessed. This isn’t a case of us versus them, and more of a story that says us and them. The descendants of Isaac and Ishmael are touched by the creator God as children of Abraham.

The second part of the story then deals with what awaits Hagar and Ishmael as they journey from the house of Abraham. Hagar’s meager supplies, which she received from Abraham as she left, have run out and she puts Ishmael under a bush, maybe to protect him from the heat, and then removes herself some distance from him because she doesn’t want to watch his inevitable death, and she lifts up her voice in mourning.

Verse 17 strangely says that God heard Ishmael’s voice, not Hagar’s. I’ll not speculate on that seemingly weird construction, even though my inner feminist’s ears perk up and it ponders a little. But in what is one of several instances in the Old Testament, God hears the cries of one in need. God heard the cry of Abel’s blood, God heard Rachel and grants her a son, God heard the cries of the Hebrews in Egypt, and in this story God hears the cries of Ishmael.

God hears the cry of the outcast, the victim, the one excluded. When the people of the covenant, symbolized here by Sarah and Abraham, push others out God is still there with them. God will be with and provide for the ones that the in-crowd say is not good enough. God is a God that works beyond our understandings, outside our fears and doubts. When we, those who claim God as Lord, exclude and push out the other, the one different, the one that our fear tells us needs to go for our own sake, God is still at work in their lives.

God does not abandon us to the wilderness, if we will just be open to hearing God’s voice in the midst of our struggle and heartbreak. And if we are the ones doing the casting out, maybe we need to take a step back and take an honest look at ourselves and our motivations. Is this person truly a danger, a threat, or are our prejudices, fears, and insecurities fueling an unfair prejudice?

God is a God of embrace, a God of mercy, a God of healing and wholeness and reconciliation. But when we make a mistake and exclude and push out those that are different, even with the best of intentions, God is still there. Our own failings do not mean that God is less than faithful, just that we still have places to grow.

Who are we in this story? Are we Sarah and Abraham, fearful of what it might mean to take God’s covenantal love seriously, wanting to push out those that threaten our places of comfort and security? Are we Hagar and Ishmael, the ones excluded, the ones pushed out into the wilderness with little to nothing to help us find our way? Could we be either one at different times and in different circumstances?

There is a word of comfort: “Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.” God is faithful and just and hears the cry of those in need. We are not abandoned to the wilderness places of life, when it seems the world and those in it have turned their backs. It is in those times that maybe God is trying to get us to see a new way, a new path that we could not have imagined before.

Shalom,
Geoff