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Peculiar People: Hagar/Hajira Selections from Genesis 16 - 21 Introduction to the Scripture reading: The earliest stories surrounding the beginning of our faith tradition center around the character of Abraham and are shared by our Muslim and Jewish sisters and brothers. These ancient texts have helped shape our theology - our understanding of God - and our understanding of our relationships to each other. There are variations in the details of the stories, in the interpretations through the centuries of those stories and of our contemporary viewpoints. They influence beliefs about land in the Middle East and play a role in the conflicts and wars raging today. These stories involve grand plot lines, intrigue, lies, surrogate mothers, jealousies, rejections, inconsistencies, high drama, the offering of children in sacrifice, dreams, appearances of angels, rescues by God, near death experiences, name changes, promises from God and human foibles, follies and glories. Our ancestors in faith come from amazingly dysfunctional families. It's reassuring how God seems to able to work with and through just about anyone! Names you know fill the pages: Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, Ishmael, Lot, Mrs. Lot . . . Well, perhaps some of those names are more familiar than others. Today, we learn about and from Hagar as her name is pronounced in Hebrew or Hajira as her name is pronounced in Arabic. (And, no, she has nothing in common or to do with the cartoon character, Hagar the Horrible!) Her story is told in Genesis and also in the Koran. We'll begin with Genesis. I'd like to quickly summarize the plot that leads up to the part of the story Dorothy will read. The first 11 chapters of Genesis have brought us through the Creation Story, the Story of Noah, the Ark and the Rainbow and the Story of the Tower of Babel. The stage has been the whole world and the sagas cosmic and sweeping. Now in chapters 11-50 "the stage narrows down to a small town in Mesopotamia, to a single family, to the mind and heart of a single individual - Abraham." (The New Interpreter's Bible, volume 1, page 417) God leads Abraham from his home near the Persian Gulf to the area of modern day Israel, promising him the land and a nation. Then there is a famine and Abraham, Sarah and his extended family go to Egypt. As they arrive there, Abraham tells Sarah to pretend she is his sister. He feared that the Egyptians will see how beautiful Sarah is and want to kill him in order to have her. She is noticed, taken to the Pharaoh's house and although the Bible doesn't tell us what went on there, you can draw your own conclusions from chapter 12, verse 16 "Pharaoh treated Abram (his name is changed to Abraham later in the story) well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels." Then God also afflicts Pharaoh with plagues and when he discovers that Sarah is Abraham's wife, he sends them packing - their whole family and all the acquired goodies too. So they return to the land again, Abraham and his relative Lot, dividing portions of it between them. Next, Abraham acts as a military leader, God makes a covenant with him and promises him many children and a great nation and the land. But you remember, don't you? He and Sarah were very old, much past menopause for Sarah. So Sarah comes up with a solution for their problem, a solution that would not have been unusual in the culture and time. They would use a surrogate mother, one of those Egyptian maidservants, one named Hagar. Abraham agrees. Takes Hagar as another one of his wives and, she conceives. But conflict and jealousy erupt between Hagar and Sarah, and things get so bad that Hagar flees to the desert. There an angel appears to Hagar and announces that her descendants will be too numerous to count, says that she will have a son, that she should name him Ishmael. (This is the very first annunciation story in scripture and certainly reminds us of Mary's visit from an angel, doesn't it?) She named God that day, "El-roi" meaning "God who sees." Then she was also told to return to her mistress and submit to her. And so she does. Years later, Ishmael is now a teenager, Sarah conceives and bears a son, Isaac. But conflict and tension continue to plague this family. We hear more about it and Hagar in today's reading. The child Isaac grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah saw Ishmael, the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac.a 10 So she said to Abraham, "Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac." 11 The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, "Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. 13 As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring." 14 So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. 15 When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, "Do not let me look on the death of the child." And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, "What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him." 19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink. 20 God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.Oh, I have had to summarize so much here! The story is so rich and complex and interesting. I can't figure out why no one has made an epic movie out of it. (apologies to Bruce Feiler who poses this question in Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths.) So time demands that I narrow my focus to our Peculiar Person for today's sermon: Hagar. Hagar, oppressed, a slave, an alien, surrogate mother, abused, mistreated. She has no voice in the matter of Abraham fathering a child with her. She has no voice in the reality that her child is meant to become the child Sarah has been unable to conceive. She has little recourse for her suffering, other than running away. Perhaps she meant to return to Egypt. But God has other plans and send her back to Abraham and Sarah where she gives birth to her son. Abraham's sons: Ishmael and Isaac. Both promised great nations coming from them. Isaac, the Jewish people trace their lineage to him. Ishmael, Muslim people trace their roots to him. Over time, the interpretation of that famous story in the Abraham tales where Abraham believes God is requiring him to sacrifice his son, over time, two traditions have developed. One in which that "favored son" is Isaac. Jews and Christians hear the story that way. One in which that "favored son" is Ishmael. Muslims hear the story that way. And in the Islamic version of the Hagar and Ishmael story, called Hajira and Ismail, they settle in the place where God made that miraculous spring of water to save them, and that place became what we now call Mecca. When Muslims gather in Mecca for the Hajj, that high and holy annual time of pilgrimage, Hajira and her search for water for her son, Ismail, and Ibrahim and his offering of his precious child and God's provision of an animal sacrifice instead are central to the observance at the Hajj. Hajira is a much honored mother in Islam, while she gets eclipsed by Sarah in Judaism and Christianity. So whether we call her Hagar or Hajira, what might this ancient woman, ancestor in three faith traditions have to say to us today? What would this brave and resilient woman who was the only person, ever, in the Bible to give God a name - "El-roi" tell you and me? What advise would the woman who was the first person to receive a messenger from God offer us? The author Vanessa Ochs in her book, Sarah Laughed has some ideas of what Hagar - Hajira might say. Based on her ideas, (and using some of her words directly) I offer these reflections from Hagar, our sister in faith. When my handsome son and I were dying in the wilderness, I feared that not only had humans abandoned me, but God as well. But God did not leave me or my child. In the midst of my anguished cries, God heard me, God saw me, God saved me. God was moved by the intertwined pain of my son's tears and my heartbreak. God gave me a powerful directive for the time being and for the future. God said, "Come, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him." God gave me hope and wisdom in that moment, and I pass that along to you. It was as if God was saying to me, "Although the place you stand in now may feel utterly bleak, have the courage to imagine that a time will eventually come when the crisis of the current moment is behind you. It could take time, but it will come. Even when you are challenged, if you hold on to the possibility of change, you may discover you have the resources to help unfold it." As my son and I drank from the well in that holy place, I could see that no matter how harsh our fate was at that moment, God had provided us with a resource that would allow us to sustain ourselves into the future. It wasn't just the water. It was resources that had been there all along; My love for my son, my resilience, my plans and hopes and dreams for him because of the promise God had given me about him. It is the gift of imagination, of envisioning something that is not yet, but still could be that I found in the desert that day. And I offer that gift to you. From the most ancient of days, I say to you, when all looks most bleak, imagine there is hope. I encourage you to do as I did, I allowed myself to feel and express my anguish. I reached out for help. I allowed myself to be comforted and lifted up by God and I learned that when you wipe away the tears from your eyes, you can see more clearly, you can discover what you do have. In fact, you just may discover that the solutions you desire and the resources you need are right in front of you. I say this with much life experience: trust that even in the bleakest of times, you still have the capacity for clarity of vision and hope. Wipe away your tears. Open your eyes. When you dream of a better future ahead, you will discover it. And speaking of a better future, please let me add one more thing. My heart breaks that the children of Sarah's son Isaac (what you call the Jews and Christians) and the children of my son Ismail (what you call the Muslims) have fought and hated and killed each other for so many centuries. I pray - and I ask you to join my prayers and to put action to your hopes - I pray that in your lifetime, all of Abraham's children might dream of rising above differences, learn to celebrate common origins and achieve peace. El-roi, the God who sees, the God who watches, our God, waits for all the family to love one another some day. Amen. |
