Delivered by Amy Higgins on June 25, 2023

Scripture: Genesis 21:8-21

On the second day of my first Annual Conference several years ago, I came out of the last session of the day and it was pouring down rain. I was staying in Maggie Valley and needed to take a trolley back to my car which was parked in an outlying lot. A group of us took shelter under one of the empty vendor tents still up outside the auditorium. Being good Methodists we talked about our churches and tried to see if we had any ministers in common. It was just us old folks under that tent, so the teen aged boy coming up the sidewalk by himself caught my eye. He could have very well been there for Conference with his family or he might have been a part of the Youth Retreat also taking place. There was room for one more under the tent, so the young man, without a word, tucked in among us. Well, as luck would have it, the rain let up just as another trolley pulled up, so I made a run for it and went on with the rest of my day.

Today’s passage tells the story of Hagar and Ishmael being banished from Abraham and Sarah’s home. It’s a well known story but, let’s look back at how this came to be. God promised Abraham, at the time still called Abram, he would be the father of all the nations. He and his wife Sarah, at this time she is still called Sarai, are up in age and it will be a miracle for them to have a child. Years go by and Sarai grows impatient and doubts God will provide. Without consulting God, she gives her slave girl, Hagar, to Abram as a handmaid, a surrogate to provide Abram with the child God has promised. 

In Chapter 16, Hagar is mistreated by Sarah because she resents Hagar and blames Abraham, even though it was Sarah who took matters in her own hands rather than waiting for God’s plan as He had promised. Hagar runs away but, the angel of the Lord tells her to go back and she will also be blessed with more descendants than can be counted. She is to name her son Ishmael, which means “God will hear” and Hagar gives God the name El Roi, which means “the God who sees me”.

Hagar needed to be seen. And we, like Hagar, experience God in the way we need Him. We may have different names for God depending on where we are in our lives, what we may be experiencing in a particular season or even a moment. The God who heals, the God who comforts, the God who loves, the God who forgives. The God of second chances, and third, and tenth, and more than I can count. The God of Grace. Hagar is the only person in the entire Bible to give God a name. In all other instances – Elohim, “the Creator”; Yahweh, “the Covenant Maker”; El Shaddai, “the Almighty”- God names Himself. This insignificant, non-person slave girl, and an Egyptian at that, names God. And in doing so, not only names what He means to her but, that she means something to Him, that He see her, He values her. And this God, El Roi, the God who sees her is not a distant, somewhere out there God. This God is personal and present. And so, Hagar goes back and she gives birth to Ishmael. But as we see in today’s passage, she leaves again. Only this time it is not by her own choice.

Ishmael is now older, around eleven or thirteen, and Sarah has now provided Abraham with a son, a legitimate son, Isaac. And a few years later, seeing Ishmael and Isaac together, Sarah has Hagar and Ishmael banished to the desert with very little to sustain them because again, Sarah wants them to be punished for her lack of faith. And although Abraham does not want to choose between his sons, he obeys God’s command to do as Sarah asks. And so, they are sent out, with little food and only a skin of water, into the barren desert.  With what little provisions they had now gone and no means to produce more, Hagar sees no hope for their survival. But again, God sees. And in the midst of nothing, a barren desert, when no one else sees them, no one else helps, God – El Roi – provides and sends an angel.

But why would He? God’s covenant is not with Hagar or Ishmael. It is with Abram and Sarai. Sarai is even given the name Sarah, which means “princess”, to indicate her exalted place as the mother of Abraham’s son. Hagar too provides a son, and the first born at that. However, she is not honored with a new name. In fact, her name, Hagar, means “forsaken”. And she remains so, at least by Abraham and Sarah. Sarah is still given the promised son, despite her disobedience, and he is named Isaac, which means “laughter” And Sarah takes this to mean “laughing with joy” although, we could easily see that laughter as the disbelieving laughter of Sarah’s reaction to God’s promise or even mocking laughter of those deemed unworthy. And yet, Ishmael, though the banished child of a slave girl, is also blessed as is the exalted Isaac. In Isaac, the lineage of Judaism and in Ishmael, the lineage of Islam. And Abraham, through both his sons, is the father of all nations as God promised.

The story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, and their sons, is more than the birth of the nations. It is who we are. And not just the lineage and ethnicity Jews, Christians, and Muslims. This is not just the story of our ancestors. It is a mirror to who we are. How often do we grow impatient with God’s plan and take matters into our own hands? And by God’s grace still receive what He has promised despite our lack of faith? And how often do we take that favor as superiority to and fear of the “other”, banishing them to the margins and thereby abusing the grace we have been given? How often do we think our Father should choose between His children? When are we going to realize that there is no point? He is never going to choose because God hears all His children no matter who we may think they are. 

When I made it to the trolley that rainy afternoon, I jumped in the front seat by the window. A gentleman older than I sat down beside me. The trolley pulled away from the auditorium and made its way to the next stop in front of the hotel. As we waited for more passengers to board, the man beside me reached across me, pointing toward the window and said, “What do you think that is?” I looked out the window and saw the young man I had seen earlier. He was not Caucasian; possibly bi-racial. His hair was styled into a somewhat mohawk that was green, he was wearing a women’s black tank top with skinny little straps, tight, black stretchy pants that came to his knees, and black flip flops. Now whether it was all he had, or he was dared by some other youth to dress that way, or that he liked what he was wearing I don’t know. And whether he intended to illicit a reaction from anyone, he certainly did from the man next to me. Anyone who knows me well won’t believe that I hesitated to answer. As much as I have my daddy’s mouth, there’s enough of my mama in me that will keep me from making a scene, sometimes. But, as I looked at that poor boy in the back of the line, soaking wet and shunned by everyone around him, Daddy smacked me in the head and I turned to the man and said, “That’s a child of God.” It took a moment, but the man’s face finally melted into a soft smile and he replied, “Yes, he is.”

God will hear the cries of those in despair whether their cries are on their lips or on their hearts. He sees those who have been oppressed and forsaken, banished to the wildernesses we create; how we treat one another when our faith is tested and we’re afraid. He hears us when we declare who is worthy, and He certainly hears our silent judgments. And He will hear whether we speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. No matter what we do for ourselves or to others, God will hear, and provide and protect all His children. Will we do as we should or will we make the angels work harder than they have to?