“Choosing to See”
Genesis 21.8-21 & Matthew 10.24-39
June 21, 2020
For the longest time, I thought I lost it. Though I hadn’t seen it in years, I remember what it looked like, how it felt in my hands, and I could even remember its faint novel smell when I first opened it up. Looking back, I didn’t engage it enough when it was in my possession, but I remember how I treated it like my most precious possession. Probably because I saw how dedicated my dad and my grandpa were to theirs.
Every morning before us boys would wipe the sleep away from our eyes, my dad would be in his chair exploring his, taking notes and even writing in it—I didn’t know you could do that to such a holy item! Like my dad's, my grandpa’s was worn, marked and tabbed, and opened effortlessly to the truths of Christ’s teachings on blessings and promises of peace. I remember thinking as I held his in my hands as a boy, “I hope one day, mine looks like his!” At the time, I didn't realize it, but now I do. So much of their life and their experience was influenced by the stories of faith.
A few years ago, when I moved to Lincoln, I found it in a box I packed up about the time I headed to college. Here in my hand, I hold my first Bible was ever given to me—which I received according to the inscription, on Christmas 1992.
It may not be as worn as my dad’s or my grandpa’s, but this Bible is the one that opened my eyes to the beauty of Scripture. Little did I know that this Good Book would become the tools of my trade.
For the longest time, I approached the Bible as a book about how to get to heaven. The characters were unrelatable to me. Not simply because they lived two to four thousand years ago, but because to be in the Bible they must have had all their ducks in a row. A task I'm still figuring out. However, as I got older and read the chapters before and after some of my favorite stories, I recognized my conjectures weren’t entirely accurate. Rather, I'm learning how the Bible is a living, breathing book that reveals how the action is here. Life is here. The point is here. It’s a library of books about the healing and restoring and reconciling and renewing of this world—our home.
Indeed, the Bible is the story of God, making God’s home in our world—in our lives. The Bible is not an argument. It is a record of human experience. The point is not to prove that it’s the word of God or it’s inspired, or it’s whatever the current word is that people are using. The point is to enter into its stories with such intention and vitality that we find what it is that inspired people to write these books. We read in the Bible the stories of ordinary humans, like us!
Guess what? Like our stories, their stories are full of beauty and tragedy, joy and heartache, love, and despair. Yet, in all their human experience, God speaks and reveals.
Take, for instance, the story from Genesis. Just last week, I applauded Sarah for her faith and tenacity—the way she laughed at God and was the very womb from which the promise of God would begin. Without Sarah, there wouldn’t be Isaac or Jacob, or…you get the point. Yet, Sarah’s story is troubling—a terrible text, really. Especially in the way she treats Hagar, Abraham’s first wife—the mother, Ishmael.
We meet Hagar in chapter 16 when Sarah tells Abraham to wed Hagar so that he may have a child. However, jealousy soon haunts Sarah’s heart, and she begins to afflict Hagar, her slave. Sarah’s abuse of power becomes so much that Hagar leaves for the wilderness. Now, here is where the story becomes liberating but also problematic. God comes to Hagar and announces to her that she will have a child and name him Ishmael. This moment is significant because Hagar, the slave girl, and foreigner, is the first woman in Scripture God speaks to, and she is the first to receive an announcement about a birth. Furthermore, and more pertinent, Hagar, the outsider, is the first to name God—“So she named the Holy One who spoke to hear, “You are El-roi,” for she said, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing [God]?”
What a powerful moment, right? A person of little to no power is the first to name God!
Except all of this happens after Hagar is told to go back to her afflicter—Sarah.
Which she does. And it doesn’t get any better for Hagar. As we read last week, Sarah gets pregnant after all and gives birth to Isaac. The story tells us that one day Sarah sees Ismael playing with Isaac, and Sarah gets jealous and initiates a plan to safeguard Isaac's power and privilege—afraid that Ishmael will take his true inheritance as the firstborn instead of Isaac, Sarah asks Abraham to send Hagar and her boy away. Abraham agrees, and with little to no water or food, Abraham banishes Hagar and Ishmael to the wilderness per Sarah’s request.
For Hagar, this is no exodus but an exile.
She wanders in the uncertainty of what is to come, like the water and food running out. Unlike the last time in her wilderness journey, there is no angel to bring water. Instead, in despair, Hagar contemplates the imminent death of the child. It is more than she can manage. For the only time in this entire scene, Hagar speaks—saying she doesn’t want to see the demise of the child. So she weeps. She lifts up her voice and cries.
And God hears her voice. Though God never lets Hagar speak, God opens her eyes, she sees a well of water, fills the skin, and gives the boy a drink. Life overcomes death. Hagar sees God, but Hagar also sees the material resources to nourish her child in the wilderness of exile. Hagar’s tragic story ends with her giving Ishmael a wife—an Egyptian.
The Bible isn’t always full of Noah’s rainbows and Paul’s proclamations of peace. Mixed in the stories of redemption and resurrection, are stories of oppression and destruction. We admire Sarah’s strength—especially since God rescued her twice from Abraham selling her off as a prostitute to save his own life, and we applaud her defiance in the face of the absurdity. But we should not condone her treatment of Hagar and the abuse she inflicted upon her. The Bible, like so many of our lives, is full of paradoxes and people of hypocrisy. I do not believe this takes away from the profundity of Scripture. Instead, it speaks to how God is a part of all our lives—not only the lives of those we attribute with great holiness. Above all, this story reminds us that no one people of faith has a corner on God. God's love and care aren't limited to us and ours.
In the Gospel lesson, we read the famous line of God’s eye on the sparrow. As God pays attention to the sparrow, so God pays attention to us—especially to the oppressed cries of Hagar, too. God does not inflict this pain on us, but when they arise, God does hear and moves towards us. As people of faith, we are called to do the same. It is essential to look at the “big picture of Scripture,” while also heeding God’s call to render aid in the immediacy of suffering, even if it is only food for the local pantry or a check to a relief organization, or a call demanding action from our political leaders. Why? Because the way of Jesus calls us to seek healing with civility in our relationships – to promote justice, to support the vulnerable, to sacrifice for the greater good, to encourage morality among our leaders and in our social life together.
My grandpa was not afraid to underline in his Bible. Most of those verses are ones about living as the new creation. To live as a new creation, we must put the needs of others, especially the most vulnerable, ahead of our own. As a people of the Good Book, we must be willing to see which characters we really are in our favorite stories: are we Sarah, or are we, Hagar?
Then when we discover whose side God is on, when we choose to see the vulnerable, we will be changed.
Of course, to do this, we must open our Bibles and read them—frequently. To the point where they become worn, marked, and tabbed. That’s when we will know the stories aren’t about heaven. Instead, they are about home.
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