God Provides - Sermon for Pentecost 4A (Genesis 21:8-21)
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| Son of Hagar - Frank Wesley |
Today is Father’s Day, and our reading from Genesis 21 features a father named Abraham. However, he’s not the primary character in the story. In fact, Abraham comes off rather poorly. The same is true of Sarah, his primary wife. In many ways, the primary character in this story is Hagar, along with her son Ishmael, who also happens to be Abraham’s firstborn son. Then there is Isaac, who is Sarah’s firstborn child. Things get messy because after Sarah has a child of her own, she doesn’t want Hagar’s son to be Abraham’s heir.
The two sons of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, are innocent parties in this family drama that pits two mothers against each other. After Sarah demands that he get rid of Hagar and her son, Abraham sends Hagar and her son into the wilderness with nothing more than some bread and a skin of water. Fortunately for Hagar and Ishmael, God provides a way out of a mother’s distress after God hears Ishmael’s cries.
The story of Abraham is foundational to three faith traditions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The story really begins in Genesis 12, when God makes a covenant with Abraham, promising that the nations would be blessed through his descendants. The problem is that Abraham and Sarah, his wife, didn’t have any children of their own. Not only that, but Sarah was really past the age of childbearing. Because that was true, Sarah offered her slave, an Egyptian woman named Hagar, as her surrogate. Hagar produced an heir for Abraham, and everyone was happy, at least for a moment. After Hagar bore a son, she named him Ishmael, and she held it over Sarah. Things changed, however, when Sarah had a child of her own, a boy the parents named Isaac. Now, Hagar’s son posed a threat to her own son’s claim on Abraham’s inheritance, so Sarah decided that Hagar and Ishmael had to go. Abraham complied with his wife’s wishes, with God’s apparent encouragement.
When Abraham sent Hagar off with some bread and water, he was sending her and Ishmael to certain death in the wilderness. As I said, Abraham doesn’t offer us a very good model of fatherhood. After the water ran out, Hagar put her young son in the bushes a bow shot away so she didn’t have to watch Ishmael die of thirst. Then she sat down in the desert and began to weep.
Fortunately, there is good news in this story, because God heard Ishmael crying in the bushes. Then, a voice from heaven asked Hagar what was troubling her. But before she could answer, the voice told her not to be afraid because God had heard the boy’s cries. The voice then instructed her to take Ishmael by the hand and draw him close to her. Then the angel of God made a promise that was similar to the one God offered Abraham. The voice told her that God would make a great nation of Ishmael. Then God opened her eyes to the presence of a well so she could provide water to Ishmael. Not only didn’t Ishmael die, but Hagar found a wife for him in Egypt so that he could fulfill God’s promise that his descendants would form a great nation.
Although Abraham might not have been the best father, both mothers looked out for their sons’ welfare. And God blessed both sons. There is a very poignant scene later in Genesis that takes place after Abraham’s death. We’re told by the narrator that Isaac and Ishmael joined together in burying their father (Gen. 25:7-11). I believe that this is an important event in the biblical story because it suggests that whatever enmity might have existed between the two, they overcame this division so they could attend to their father’s burial.
One of the reasons why I like this story about the burial of Abraham is that two peoples look to these two sons as their ancestors. While Jews look to Sarah and Isaac as their connector to Abraham, Muslims, and in particular Arabs, look to Ishmael and his mother as their connector to Abraham. Since as Christians, we trace our spiritual identity through Jesus to Abraham by way of Isaac, three religions look to Abraham as a primary spiritual ancestor.
There is another dimension to this story. That concerns the status of migrants and refugees. Abraham and Sarah were migrants. They had left their homeland because God called them to go to a strange land. Hagar was a refugee because she was sent away from the household of the father of her child. Since yesterday was World Refugee Day, it’s worth pondering this story about two refugees, whose cries God heard.
So, in this one story, we have a word from Scripture that speaks to God’s concern for the welfare of refugees. I believe this means we should be concerned about their welfare also. Secondly, I believe this story offers us an interfaith bridge to both our Jewish and especially our Muslim cousins, all of whom trace their spiritual ancestry to Abraham. One through Isaac and his mother, Sarah, and the other through Ishmael and his mother, Hagar.
As I’ve pondered the story of Hagar and Ishmael, I’m reminded that God hears the cries of people in need, including people who live outside our own circles. This reading is fitting at a time when we’re wrestling with immigration policy, the fate of refugees, and the legacy of slavery in this country. This passage is fitting because it reminds us that Hagar was a slave, and as an Egyptian, she was African. This is why the story of Hagar figures prominently in African American churches. Hagar’s story is essentially the story of how God liberated an African slave and her son.
This story has many angles to it, and we could spend hours exploring them. For one thing, this story offers us the opportunity to highlight the role of women in the biblical story. It also invites us to consider the question of slavery, both ancient and modern. Biblical scholar Wilda Gafney notes: “I read Hagar’s story through the prism of the wholesale enslavement of black peoples in the Americas and elsewhere; Hagar is the mother of Harriet Tubman and the women and men who freed themselves from slavery.” [Gafney, Womanist Midrash, (p. 44). Kindle Edition]. The reading also speaks to how God views refugees. God hears the cries of the ones who suffer, which says to me that we should do the same.
As I read this story, and the larger story of Abraham and his family, I gain insight into the breadth of God’s love and grace, which is much greater than we sometimes embody. Although Abraham didn’t always behave appropriately, God is faithful to the covenant promises. That is good news for us since we are Abraham’s spiritual descendants through whom God blesses the nations. When it comes to the story of Hagar and Ishmael, I am again reminded that God’s family is much larger than we often imagine. That’s why I am struck by the story of Abraham’s death and burial that takes place at Hebron.
When I read this part of the story, I envision a moment of true reconciliation taking place between two members of an extended but estranged family. Ishmael had every right to be bitter about the way Abraham treated his mother and him. He could have been jealous of his younger brother, Isaac, who supplanted him as Abraham’s heir. Yet, God had blessed Ishmael, making him a great nation (Gen. 25:7-11).
The story of this joint effort to bury Abraham has important implications for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It suggests that members of these three religions can live in peace with each other. Two of my friends, one who is Jewish and the other who is Muslim, and I have been working on a plan to visit Abraham’s tomb in Hebron so we can pray for peace between our peoples. As my Jewish friend, Ed, puts it, we will go to the tomb and offer our apologies to Father Abraham for not fulfilling our side of the covenant promise to be a blessing to the nations.
We have the opportunity to embody this dual promise in our own lives as we listen to the voices of those who cry out to God. Might we who are the recipients of God’s compassionate grace share that grace with those who cry out to God, including the refugee, the migrant, and the enslaved? Might we who are Abraham’s descendants find a path to peace in the midst of conflict? Might we heed these words from Edward Wheeler, who addresses the ongoing conflicts that separate Abraham’s children?
As we continue to wrestle with deep distrust among Abraham’s heirs and violent power struggles in the Middle East, we must remember that both Jews and Muslims are God’s children. Injustice perpetuated against one by the other robs both of an awareness of God’s promises to all. Just as Isaac is heir to God’s promise, so is Ishmael blessed by God through his relationship to Abraham. [Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, p. 293].
Abraham might not win Father of the Year; nevertheless, this story reminds us that God is always present with those in need, including the exile and the refugee. It also reminds us that there is another branch of the family tree to get to know. Then together we can share in the promises of God and then embody the blessings of these promises in our daily lives as we live together in fellowship with the God of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah.
Preached by:
Dr. Robert D. Cornwall
Pulpit Supply
Tyrone Community Presbyerian Church
Tyrone Township, Michigan
Pentecost 4A
June 21, 2026
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