Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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Indeed, there is a wideness in God's mercy , without which I could not stand before you and preach. Throughout history God has used imperfect humans to proclaim the Word, and I pray that God will use me to speak the truth of God's grace. If you do not think that God uses imperfect humans, let me remind you of the background of some of the characters in the Old Testament reading for this morning:

Abraham receives God's promise that God would make him a great nation, and he begins a journey based on trust in God. However, on two occasions along that journey he tells the rulers of his host countries that Sarah is his sister. The deception is that he is married to his half-sister. On several occasions, God reiterates the covenant promise to Abraham, but when Sarah remains barren, Abraham has a son, Ishmael, by Hagar, Sarah's maid. This sets the stage for the drama that unfolds in the reading today after Sarah bares the promised son, Isaac. Yet despite Abraham's imperfections, he becomes the patriarch for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Sarah goes with Abraham on the journey and plays along with the deceptions. When at an old age she hears the promise that she will have a son, she laughs in disbelief and denies it when confronted. Even though she is the one who suggests that Abraham have a child by her maid, in jealousy Sarah sends the pregnant Hagar out into the wilderness. God saved Hagar and brought her back, until once again Sarah has Hagar and Ishmael sent into the wilderness after Sarah gives birth to Abraham's son Isaac.

Hagar should not be considered totally innocent. After Ishmael is conceived, she showed contempt for the barren Sarah, which brought about Sarah's jealous rage against her.

There is a certain advantage to not having too much time to prepare a sermon. One thing is totally depending on God to speak. Actually I should do that with all my sermons and the rest of my life. Another advantage is that there is no time to get wrapped up in problematic story lines. I have had several weeks to live with this Scripture after Bill asked me to preach today and after I decided to use the Old Testament lectionary passage. As I read and reread this passage, as I studied it and lived with it, I found much in this passage that is troubling, and yet, there is much that can give us hope.

God had made and reaffirmed a covenant with Abraham, but with human impatience and a level of disbelief, Sarah had arranged for Abraham to have a child by her maid, Hagar. Even before the child was born trouble erupted between Hagar, who now had increased her status from slave-girl to mother of Abraham's child, and Sarah who remained the childless wife of Abraham. Abraham let Sarah do as she wanted. Sarah was cruel to Hagar, who ran away into the wilderness. God saved her and brought her back with a promise of greatness for Ishmael. Sarah laughed with disbelief when the three visitors came, but soon she would laugh for joy when Isaac was born. The child of the promise had finally been born, but now trouble was stirred once again. The teenaged Ishmael had rights as the first-born son, but Sarah would make a claim for her son. The text in the NRSV reads that Sarah saw Ishmael playing with Isaac, but Walter Brueggemann and others point out that the text really should read that Sarah saw Ishmael displacing her son Isaac. Once again Abraham shows little regard for Hagar, but he is concerned for his son. So the next morning he sent them into the wilderness with as much food and water as she could carry. Don't let anyone tell you that dysfunctional families are something new. If you read through the Book of Genesis, you will find that some of the same themes from the story of Abraham and Sarah are echoed in subsequent generations of the patriarch's family.

God had made a covenant with Abraham and Sarah, but because they were impatient and tried to force the promised outcome, there was a family rift that exists to this day. Should we be surprised that there is discord in that area of the world, and should we expect that the animosity that has existed over millennia will be resolved easily by us or anyone else? I don' t think so unless that "anyone else" is God. I am not saying that we should not do what we can to stop the killing, the violence, the suffering, and the injustice.

What I am saying is that God made a promise to Abraham and Sarah, fulfilled through the birth of Isaac; but God also made a promise to Hagar for Ishmael. The problem with Hagar and Ishmael was created when humans tried to help God by engineering a solution for what they saw as a hopeless situation. What I see still today is an effort to engineer a solution to the problem by those directly involved for their own benefit and by outside forces for their benefit. I cannot tell you what the solution is to the problems in the Middle East, nor can I tell you when the problems may be resolved, but I can tell you that God's covenant is greater and surer than anything we can engineer.

Ishmael means "God hears." When the clash over Abraham's sons came about, God heard and reaffirmed the promise made for Ishmael. Although Ishmael would not be the child of promise and God's covenant with Abraham, God still had a plan and promise of greatness for him. When the human provisions were depleted and death seemed immanent, God heard and provided for Hagar and Ishmael. The human relationships may have failed and the human provisions may have been exhausted, but God was steadfast through promise and provision.

That is the message for us today - God remains steadfast, and God hears our cries. God hears us, but do we hear God? Do we even try? When we do hear God, do we trust in God's promises or do we try to engineer a solution to our liking in our timeframe? What does God want for us?

The Psalmist felt justified when he cried to the Lord because of what he did or did not do. Paul reminded the Romans and us that we are justified through Jesus Christ. The opening of the Communion ritual says, "Christ died for us while we were yet sinners; that proves God's love toward us." God through Jesus has given us an inheritance that cannot be denied us. We have received the gift of life. Our lives may not be easy or perfect by human standards, but we have been freed from the domination from sin and death, not that we can sin more but that we may sin no more. The burden of sin is lifted from us. God hears our cries for help and provides for us in our time of need. God has a plan for us that we may not comprehend, but through God's grace, we move beyond our limitations to receive this gift and become part of God's blessing to all people.

This morning I would like to take some time right now for each of us to pray silently, to offer our lives to God and to listen for God's response…

Wesleyan Covenant Prayer.

Dear God, we cry to you for help. We are assured that you hear us and will respond to our needs. Open our hearts and minds to your will and your timing that we may follow your plan. Fill us with your Spirit that we may be well provisioned for the journey of life, for we ask this in Jesus' holy name.
Amen.