We’re never satisfied by the biblical tale,
we are often embarrassed by it and want to:
expand it, embellish it, and explain it,
because we fail to realize that it is more sophisticated than we give it credit for…
And this is nothing new…
When Jewish thinkers ran into other cultures, and shared their stories,
they were skewered for calling these tales sacred and holy…
After all, so much of storytelling in the dominant cultures of the ancient world was about asserting greatness and lifting up feats of renown
—stories of strength,
stories about heroes…
or maybe they would occasionally go as low as tragic heroes…
or perhaps they would feature Greek Choirs singing about tragic heroes…
But that was as humble and human as they were likely to go…
and then you have the Bible…
Apologists of all sorts would try to change it
—make the people of God into figures like Hercules or Agamemnon, Romulus and Remus
—Superheroes instead of humans like you and me…
But, the tales were already there, too entrenched in the religious imagination to be easily erased…
the bare bones tales of the Bible are so incredibly honest
—they tell tales of God’s people—warts and all.
Hesitant and stuttering liberators,
bizarre traumatized prophets,
puzzling sages and wisemen talking in circles,
and Messiahs who die.
And today’s story about the family of Abraham is no exception.
A new family member comes on the scene
—little Isaac
—and every piece of the puzzle changes
—it’s a o’ so human drama worthy of TV shows like Yellowstone or Succession,
or literature like Shakespeare’s King Lear or Richard the 3rd or Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov…
or at least the tawdry tabloid take on the British Royal Family…
O’ so human, these people of God.
Prayer
There is a question that shapes the whole of this story
—what does it mean that Ishmael played with Isaac?
Some folk turn it into a “William Tell” kind of game
—shooting an apple off the head of a newborn…
others read it as sexual abuse…
Still others dismiss it as word play
—Sarah laughed about Isaac, and now Ishmael laughs about Isaac…
But let’s read it flat, the plain meaning, playing…
an older brother and a younger brother playing…
they are siblings, from the same family, playing…
It’s a natural, ordinary, thing
—one big happy family…
And Sarah doesn’t like that family arrangement,
she can’t stand it…
After all, she consents to this set up,
was the one who invited Hagar into her husband’s bed…
she regrets she chose to allow Abraham to make such an arrangement with their slave girl.
She responds to that regret by viciously casting Hagar and Ishmael out,
separating them from the family.
Have you ever done that?
-Have you ever regretted a choice and lashed out?
-Have you ever been angry at yourself,
but attacked someone else instead?
-Or been angry at someone who has power over you,
and you couldn’t punch up,
so you punched down instead?
-Have you ever pulled the rung out from under the feet of someone, climbing the same ladder as you?
When she comes to Abraham with this,
he plays Hamlet
—indecisive and cowardly
—heart torn by two families
Pulled tight like a bungee cord at a monster truck rally
—eventually snapping back fast, and hurting people…
Abraham at least holds out for a promise from God
—that both houses will have a future.
But then he gladly grasps the easy solution
…that is…
easy only for him and Sarah
—he gets rid of them,
casts his slave girl and son out of the household.
Perhaps Hagar initially experiences this as freedom… after all she remembers her previous escape from slavery to Abraham and Sarah,
caught out in the desert,
where she sees God…
Perhaps she begins by assuming she will be saved in the desert,
for God will see her again,
see them.
But out there in the sun and elements,
bearing Ishmael through the wilderness,
this sweet hope,
this taste of freedom,
curdles,
and she moves to desperation and despair
—like those harrowing and horrible stories of enslaved mothers on slave ships,
who fling their children overboard,
so the child will not endure the cruelty of their mother’s plight
—so too Hagar flings the boy, casts off Ishmael into the desert to die of exposure.
Cast out,
where God hears his cry,
hears Ishmael
—out where the Angel of the Lord intervenes
—calls on Hagar to look up!
(I love the physicality of this in the Hebrew,
she lifts up her eyes,
as Abraham will famously do in the next chapter)
Look up!
Look up to providence
—water in wilderness heat,
look up hope!
It’s not over! Look up!
A Future despite being cast off and cast out!
Lift up your eyes,
God is here!
An amazing story
—the cast off and cast out are heard and held by God
—that might not be heroic in a conventional sense…
but to those of us transformed by the unconventional reality of God’s grace!
It’s gospel!
In the dry wilted thorn-grey-brown of wilderness
the wideness of God’s mercy is on display!
Mercy wide like oceans,
wider than galaxies,
if you looked lightyears away
—God would be on the other side of the telescope still loving you there too!
There’s a theme that runs through Genesis,
of family lines chosen or not,
Isaac not Ishmael,
Sara not Hagar,
Rachel not Leah,
Jacob not Esau,
Joseph not the 11…
yet God’s blessings abound, splash out of any stingy cup we might try to hold it in
Yes, the chosen are blessed,
but the cast out are too!
There is enough God to go around,
to overcome despair and desperation,
To mend a torn heart and buoy even the cowardly with promise!
The generousity of God can take a vicious choice,
self-hatred and loathing even,
and empty it of wrath,
disarm it
and right even awful wrongs.
We’re never satisfied by the biblical tale,
there aren’t enough super heroes,
if you really read it,
it’s too honest about people…
human O’ so Human…
I’m just glad it is also honest about God.
Amen?
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