Child of the Promise
The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
January 31, 2016
Child of the Promise
Genesis
21:9-21
But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian,
whom she had borne to Abraham,
playing with her son Isaac.
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.”
The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his
son.
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.
As for the son of the slave woman,
I will make a nation of him also,
because he is your offspring.”
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.
When the water in the skin was gone,
she cast the child under one of the bushes.
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.
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.
Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand,
for I will make a great nation of him.”
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.
God was with the boy, and he grew up;
****************************************
It has to be one of
the most dramatic stories
in the Old
Testament:
Abraham and his son
Isaac
climbing to the top
of a high mountain,
called there by God,
called there to
offer a sacrifice.
Abraham called to
sacrifice Isaac, his son,
the son of his wife
Sarah,
the son of their old
age,
the son in whom they
delighted;
their only son.
Isaac was still very
much a boy,
with all his life
before him
as he followed his
father obediently,
as they journeyed
into the wilderness,
as they hiked up the
mountain;
Isaac trusting his
father,
asking no questions,
even as his father
bound him
and laid him on the
crude altar
Abraham had built on
that mountaintop.
Did the boy show any
fear in his face
as his father raised
his arm
high into the cobalt
sky,
the dagger in his
hand glinting in the bright sunlight?
Did the boy see the
pain in his father’s face
as his father
thought about what it was
that he was about to
do?
Did the boy hear the
voice of God’s angel
who called out
before the knife struck,
“Abraham, do not lay your hand on the boy
or do anything to him,
for now I know that you fear God,
since you have not withheld your son,
your only son from me”?
(Genesis 22:12)
Isaac would grow up
and grow old.
He’d become the
father of two sons,
Esau and Jacob,
as well as
grandfather to many.
Isaac was a child of
promise,
God’s promise.
But there was
another son,
another child of
promise
in Abraham’s story:
his firstborn son,
his son Ishmael,
the son born of
Hagar, Sarah’s maid,
the maid Sarah
herself gave to her husband
that Abraham might
have a son by her,
once Sarah realized
that she would
never be able to provide
her husband
with a son.
Four thousand years
ago
there was nothing
unusual about that –
a man having more
than one wife,
a man having
children by other women.
Jacob fathered
twelve sons
who became the
patriarchs of
the twelve tribes of
Israel,
twelve sons by four
different women.
Four thousand years
ago,
that was what we
would call
traditional biblical
marriage.
Sarah gave her maidservant
to her husband,
so her husband could
have a son,
and Ishmael was
born.
But then, a few
years later, Sarah gave birth,
gave birth to a son:
Isaac,
and with Isaac’s
birth,
jealously reared its
ugly head.
Sarah could not
abide even the idea
that Ishmael, the
son of her maidservant,
was the firstborn
son,
the one who would
stand ahead of her own son Isaac.
So, in anger, she
demanded that her husband
send Hagar and Ishmael
away,
away:
“Cast out this slave woman with her son;
for the son of this slave woman
shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.”
Sarah’s demand sounds
to us so cruel,
so vicious, so
heartless –
no thought for her
loyal maidservant Hagar;
no thought for the
young boy Ishmael,
no thought for her
husband, Ishmael’s father.
Sara was so filled
with rage
that she couldn’t
even speak their names,
her words coming out
like the hiss of a viper:
“Cast out this slave woman with her son,
for the son of this slave woman
shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.”
Abraham did as his
wife demanded:
he sent them away, Hagar
and Ishmael,
Hagar and his son,
Abraham’s son,
his firstborn son.
Abraham provided
them with
almost nothing for
their journey,
a bit of food and a
little water,
only what Hagar was
able to carry on her shoulder.
And
off they went, into the desert,
The text tells us that they,
“wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.
[and] When the water in the skin was gone,
[Hagar] cast the child under one of the bushes.
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.
Hagar wept, wept for
her son Ishmael.
who was about to die
of thirst in the desert.
The only thought
that could have comforted Hagar
was knowing that she
would shortly
follow her son in
death,
that she too would
die of thirst,
that the pain of
losing her son would be short-lived.
But God was with
Hagar
and God was with
Ishmael:
“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.
Come, lift up the boy
and hold him fast with your hand,
for I will make a great nation of him.”
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.”
Ishmael survived;
Ishmael grew up and
grew old.
Ishmael would go on
to have sons,
twelve sons,
and probably
daughters,
as well as grandsons
and granddaughters.
Ishmael would
thrive, for,
as the text tells
us,
“God was with the
boy”.
Ishmael, a child of
promise,
God’s promise to
Ishmael,
God’s promise to
Abraham,
…I will make a nation of him also,
because he is your offspring.”
Ishmael, son of Abraham,
child of promise,
who we, over the centuries,
have turned into an
outsider,
even vilified as the
patriarch of
of those we are quick to
think of as enemies.
Yet, he was precious in the
eyes of God,
precious in the eyes of
God’s angels,
precious in the eyes of our
ancestor in faith Abraham.
We Christians can be so thoughtlessly exclusive,
as though we were part of a club,
a select few;
We on the inside,
striving to fortify the walls
to keep out those not already in,
letting in only those we approve of,
and sometimes even thinking about ways
to cast out those in with us –
so quick are we to judge.
But doesn’t our Lord Jesus teach us
that God is a God of love,
a God of welcome,
a God of inclusion?
Isn’t that why Jesus teaches us
to love our neighbors?
Isn’t that why Jesus teaches us
to define neighbor as anyone,
everyone?
It was the Reverend Peter Marshall
who described Jesus
in one of my favorite ways:
as standing at the doorway
with his “big carpenter hands”
opened wide in welcome,
teaching us to do the same:
Welcome to you,
welcome to me,
welcome to the tax collector,
welcome to the fallen woman,
welcome to the poor,
welcome to that motley crew of men
who became his first disciples,
welcome to the man from this country,
welcome to the woman from that country,
“welcome,
sit with me;
be fed.”
The name Ishmael means “God has heard”
and God heard Ishmael’s cry,
Hagar’s cry,
even Abraham’s silent cry,
and God honored his promise to each
that Ishmael would be a child of promise.
In a book written some 150 years before
the birth of our Lord,
a book called Jubilees,
-- a book that is one of dozens, hundreds of books
written thousands of years ago that tell bible stories,
but were not included in the Bible –
the writer tells of how Moses spent his 40 days
on top of Mount Sinai,
how Moses spent those 40 days in history class,
an angel of the Lord teaching Moses
the history of God’s children,
the history of God’s promises.
In a very touching story within the book,
Abraham realizes that he is nearing
the end of his life,
and so he calls all his children to him –
not just Isaac,
but Ishmael, and all Ishmael’s children,
as well as all the children
Abraham had with Keturah
the woman he married after Sarah died.
And we read that Abraham,
“commanded them…
that they should guard the way of the Lord
so that they might do righteousness
and each one might love his neighbor,
and…that it should be thus among all men
so that each one might proceed to act justly
and rightly toward them upon the earth.”
(Jubilees 20:1ff)
Now these may not be words from Holy Scripture,
but it seems to me that
they capture God’s hope
for all God’s children,
that all are children of promise,
that God’s love knows no boundaries
and that we, God’s children,
are called to love our neighbors
and to act justly
and rightly
toward all,
…toward all.
AMEN
posted by Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson @ 11:00 AM
