Sermon

St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham, NC

June 22, 2008 - Proper 7 (A)

The Rev. Arianne R. Weeks

Genesis 21:8-21
Psalms 86:1-10, 16-17
Romans 6:1b-11
Matthew 10:24-39

You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.  In the Name of God.  Amen.

The scripture I announced is verse 15 from the psalm we just intoned, Psalm 86.  But unfortunately the great lectionary gurus in the sky cut it out for this Sunday so we didn’t get to hear it.  In my opinion, it’s too bad they did.  Because given the scripture we ARE hearing today, personally, I would have found it a comfort to be reminded that God is indeed abounding in steadfast love for us.  As someone who has just entered what I believe to be a very loving, vibrant and engaged community, as someone who has been charged with being a pastor in this congregation to the children, youth and adults who care for them, as someone who has a family herself – I want to hear Jesus speak positively about the relationships that constitute the myriad types of families of which we are all a part.  I would like to have been told that indeed it is within those relationships that we will experience steadfast love and faithfulness.

Now I have to tell you, that the Holy Spirit has been so good in leading me to St. Philip’s.  This has been affirmed time and again as she has graced me with gift upon gift in the working out of so many details in this transition.  So when Jonah called to tell me the Sunday I would first preach here, I raced to read the texts thinking that surely, surely, that same Spirit would continue in kind and grant me scripture that resounded with words of peace and comfort – words of burdens being lifted as the good shepherd cares for, gathers, and leads his flock.  But when I hear Jesus’ words this morning – when I hear the story of a woman being thrust out into the desert with her only son – it doesn’t sound to me like family is a place where we find much stability and security.   Matthew presents us with a fiery Jesus who makes clear that if they thought God came to bring peace, if they heard those shepherds make that exact announcement on that hill when he was born, well, they heard wrong.  Today Jesus proclaims: Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.  Jesus describes the family unit, the family system as one of conflict and dissension, as one where people who should be bound together in love will be at each other’s throats.  So it wasn’t until further reflection, after that phone call, that I realized that as we begin our relationship together – us, you, and I – it’s no coincidence that in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit we were graced with this scripture to wrestle with this morning.   To hopefully break open the Good News of God’s continual promise for us of new life.

Most of the time, new family members are received as signs of a living promise. They represent hope, new opportunities for the future. The chapters of Genesis that we have been walking through the past weeks are the stories of Promise. God’s choosing and inviting Abraham to enter into a unique relationship.  And long before the event described this morning, God tells Abraham to “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them, so shall your descendents be.”  It was this promise of God, this assurance of blessing that established Abraham as the beginning of the Davidic line.  And as is often the case with our sacred stories, God promises something that appears to be impossible.  Sarah and Abraham were not newlyweds.  Sarah was barren and both were old.  Not having children would be a source of pain and anxiety for both of them.  Who would receive their inheritance?  Who would care for them as they aged? 

And for Sarah in particular, it was also most definitely a source of humiliation.  Because it would be assumed that she was at fault for their childlessness.  And while they were faithful servants, this divine promise of progeny is simply too much to be believed.  So Sarah does what most of us do when it feels too risky to trust in the limitless possibilities of God – she takes matters into her own hands.  She follows an ancient legal custom and gives her female slave Hagar to her husband to have a child on her behalf. This will make Hagar a surrogate mother and a second wife to Abraham, but legally the child will be Sarah's. Abraham accepts this arrangement and Hagar conceives.

And while Sarah believes this is a logical and practical choice undertaken for the good of her family, she – like some of us might – underestimates the effect this drastic decision will have.  Are any of us surprised that this most intimate of transactions – no matter how planned or rationalized – would lead to pronounced tensions?  How could it be otherwise, given human nature?  No matter what the cultural tradition, how could Sarah not be consumed with feelings of anger and jealousy?  For Abraham to bear his son through her slave must have added further humiliation to what already felt like a punishment.  These relationships now undergo some complicated and stressful dynamics.  Hagar knows her status in this family has shifted – as the bearer of Abraham’s son, she can no longer be viewed as the same servant.  Sarah sensing this curses Abraham because she feels Hagar now looks upon her with contempt.  And Abraham abandons Hagar. His priority is keeping the peace between himself and his wife so Sarah is told to do with Hagar as she wishes.  Sarah does and because of her harsh treatment – Hagar decides to flee.  She runs out into the wilderness.  And it is there that we have the first biblical annunciation scene.  An angel appears and tells her that she too will bear a son – and just like Abraham, God promises her that this son will be the first of a multitude.  You will call him Ishmael she is told – which means, “God will hear.”

Hagar, following the angel’s command, returns to Sarah.  And one wonders what it must have been like – I doubt it was a pleasant home life – but they managed to tough it out and Ishmael was born.  And then God reminds Abraham of the earlier promise – that Sarah indeed will bear him a son.  This causes Abraham to fall to the ground and laugh at the foolishness of God who apparently hasn’t changed plans despite this family’s new circumstance.  Abraham says to God – why don’t you just look with favor on Ishmael?  I already have a son, remember?  But God says, No. Sarah will bear you a son.  And while I hear you about Ishmael, and I promise he will be blessed, Sarah will have a child.  Because it is God’s intention that through Sarah’s child the covenant begun with Abraham will be made everlasting.  We heard this last week in the story of the three messengers but this time it is Sarah who laughs at this absurd revelation.  But Sarah has a child – who God names Isaac – which means “one who laughs.”

And now we have arrived at this morning’s text.  Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael are a family.  And sure there are many differences between this ancient family and the families of our day – but I suspect there are many similarities as well – which you have already picked up on.  Infertility, surrogacy, adoption – these situations are part of our world and I know for some of us, a part of our own experience.  And regardless of specifics, we all know family stress.  The dynamics at work here are pretty accessible to us.  So it’s not too hard to imagine that the simmering pressure between these people inevitably erupts. Sarah watches Ishmael and Isaac playing together and this time it strikes fear and anger into her heart.  She tells Abraham he must banish Hagar and Ishmael from their household to ensure that Isaac receives the promise.  Just as she did when she told Abraham to conceive with Hagar – Sarah does not trust in what God already revealed.  Even though she herself experienced the miracle of God’s promise with the birth of Isaac, she insists on taking matters into her own hands, in trying to control the situation in her way.  So, this vulnerable mother, Hagar, is cast into the desert with a piece of bread, some water, and a child to fend for.  There is no other expectation then that the two of them will die.  And when the water runs out all there is to do is wait.  Not being able to bear the cries of her son – she places him under a bush and sits farther away to weep alone in her misery. But as his name foretells, God hears.  God hears the boy’s cries and an angel repeats God’s promise.  God opens Hagar’s eyes, water appears and they are saved.

It is frustrating at times for me – perhaps for you as well – that when reading the Bible, particularly these Old Testament narratives, it appears that God was more intimately involved in human lives.  God sent angels.  God spoke directly to people, reached in and enacted tangible changes in human events in clear and decisive ways.  And if we progress along those lines, this is just a happy ending to this family’s ordeal.  But I think as we spend time with the story, we see something more.  Primarily, God has allowed the humans in this drama to make their own choices and deal with the consequences.  God made a promise.  Abraham and Sarah reacted to this promise in different ways.  It’s too easy to vilify Sarah for being controlling, for being cruel and selfish in manipulating people to get what she wants.  It’s too easy to blame Abraham for being passive – for following either God or his wife and not taking a stand against what you would think any religious person would see as ethically problematic, to say the least.  And that’s the point.  The narratives show that God works with and through these faulty, frail, and very real human beings.  The people are not chess pieces that God moves around at will.  And no human failings are glossed over or removed to soften the story.  The treatment of Hagar, not only her son, is appalling.  The family God chooses to establish as the patriarch and matriarch of the Davidic line is not the ideal family – because there is no ideal family.  The ideal family, the one we sometimes, or maybe a lot of the time, believe we are missing out on, the one as perfect on the inside as it appears to be on the outside – that family does not exist.  That is a false and idealized notion of the gift of family that God gives.  And how do I know that this ideal is not the reality of family in God’s creation?  Because that is what Jesus is telling me in Matthew – one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.  Why?  Because as Abraham and Sarah learned, trying to follow God and trying to follow through on perhaps the best of intentions for ourselves and for those we love is bound to lead to multiple conflicts of interest.

You see, we have emotions.  And the relationships we have with our family members are probably the strongest we know – our children, our spouses, our mothers and fathers.  My goodness, think of the therapy dollars spent on the parental relationship alone!  It is these relationships that make us who we are.  We struggle in them and with them over the course of our entire lives!  And here Jesus is telling us that despite those commitments, we must love God over all – that whoever loves father or mother more than God is not worthy of him.  The language Jesus uses here is exceedingly harsh for a very important contextual reason.  Jesus is speaking to groups of people who define their identity through their bloodlines.  The Gospel of Matthew does not open with Jesus’ birth or Jesus being baptized.  It opens with the account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.  Abraham and Sarah were trying to create their family based on a legal loophole.  Jesus is telling these people that these boundaries, these loopholes, God has no need of them.  In fact, God now rejects them.  God wants everyone to be a member of the house of David.  In Jesus, God manifests a reality of the covenantal love that was extended to them through Abraham.  Jesus is asking them to forgo their emotional attachments to the families they know and open their arms in wide embrace to all those outside the family tree.  To embrace the Hagars of their world, the dejected, the outsiders, those low in status and authority.  To embrace the Ishmael’s – the Muslims, the Gentiles, those of all the other traditions.  To remember that the familial bonds – mother, father, sister, or brother – are no more worthy or in fact different than any other bond.  The bond that matters in the household of God, in the family of Jesus is the bond of neighbor.  And fortunately – and unfortunately for them and for us – all of us are neighbors.  We are all members of the same family in the eyes of God.

Ishmael and Isaac go their separate ways.  God fulfills God’s promise to each and from them come nations.  We do not know of their relationship or to what extent they interacted, but the writers of this sacred text thought it important to include a final episode from their lives.  The brothers come together a last time to bury Abraham.  One assumes that it was only an event, a death as meaningful as their father’s that would, that could bring them together.  That is the blessing and the curse of those family ties, yes?  Because sometimes in families we hold onto past grievances because it is hardest to forgive those we love the most.  But, on our best days, we are able to put aside all past wrongs to come together when it matters most.  And when we do this, we touch on the steadfast love and faithfulness that God offers us – which is how I know, even though we didn’t recite it in our psalm, that we can and do feel God’s presence within our own family units. And I am certain many of you have had that experience within the family of this congregation.  What Jesus reminds us of this morning is that the love God offers God’s family, while it will be a difficult road, a narrow path to follow, it is contingent on nothing but loving God.  We may pick and choose who it is we want to have as family, but God does not.  God counts the hairs on each one of our heads!  And not one of those heads will ever fall apart from God.  We are reminded today that God promises that God will hear us.  We may laugh at the absurdity of believing one human family, one kingdom under God, could ever be a reality – but that is why we are human and God is God.  You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.  May we go out into the world trusting in God’s love and faithfulness – trusting in God’s promise.  Amen.

Sources Consulted:

Good, Deirdre.  Jesus’ Family Values.  New York: Church Publishing, 2006.

Newson, Carol A. and Sharon H. Ringe, eds.  The Woman’s Bible Commentary.  Westminster John Knox Press, 1998.

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