The
story is told of a terrible two car accident which involved two men who were
driving in one of the cars. The one man
died in the accident and the other man who was the passenger survived but ended
up losing a leg.
The two different families representing
these two men who had been in the same car together, sued the other driver who
had caused the accident.
Both families went to court. The family of the man who died because of the
accident didn’t win their case. But the
family of the man who lost his leg from the same accident ended up winning over
3 million dollars.
Now why did the family of the man who died
not get a dime? And yet the family of
the man who lost a leg was able to win all of that money? They had both been in the same car, the same
accident, and yet two very different court decisions.
It’s pretty simple. Every day that the court met to discuss this
case, the family would wheel in the man who had lost his leg in the accident. And so every day, the jurors would be face to
face with this man who had lost his leg.
This had a huge psychological impact on the
people in the courtroom.
Was it fair? We would probably say, ‘no.’ But isn’t it true that
when we actually see suffering face to face, we are more likely to do something
about it?
I was thinking of this story as I read our
scripture reading from the Book of Genesis.
I believe that this story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and Ishmael teach us
what it means to respond to the suffering in our world.
Here
we have Abraham, a man who responded to God’s call to be the father of a great
nation back in Genesis chapter 12.
And just to show that anything is
possible, God makes a way for Abraham’s wife, Sarah, who is past child bearing
years to have a baby and they end up calling this baby “Isaac” which means “He laughs.”
This was a fun little play on words to
show what an incredible miracle Isaac’s birth was. Everybody was laughing but God had the last
laugh the day that Isaac was born. Isaac
was the miracle baby, if you will. We
are reminded in this story that with God, all things are possible.
But before Isaac was born, Sarah, not
thinking that this whole pregnancy thing was going to work out, gets the idea
to have Abraham marry Hagar, who was her maid.
And Sarah encourages Abraham to have a child through the two of
them. And Hagar conceives.
Let’s get real here. We all know that this
isn’t going to end up being the happy Brady Bunch family. This is going to be a recipe for disaster.
When the news is out that Hagar passed the
pregnancy test, she proceeds to flaunt her good news in front of Sarah who you
remember is childless and Sarah doesn’t take too kindly to this as you might
imagine.
So she goes to Abraham and complains to
him about it. Then she says a few choice
words to Hagar. Notice that the Bible doesn’t
get specific with what she said. And
for good reason. Let your imagination
fill in what was said during those exchanges between Sarah and Hagar.
They
must have been pretty dicey words because before you know it, Hagar is out of
there. She’s in the wilderness. And the Lord reassures Hagar as she’s out
there in the middle of nowhere and tells her that everything is going to be
OK. Don’t worry because when your son is
born, he will begin a great nation himself.
Thirteen years later, the Lord visits
Abraham out of the blue and tells him, “Well
it’s time. It’s now Sarah’s turn to give
birth – just like I promised would happen five chapter ago.” Abraham has a good laugh over that one,
but God wasn’t laughing. God was
serious.
And God says, “Since you think this is so funny and impossible, I already picked out
a name for this child - I want you to
name this child ‘He laughs.’ I know that
you wanted to name him ‘Abraham Jr.’ but this way, whenever you say the name,
‘Isaac,’ which means ‘He laughs’ you will remember that with me, nothing is
impossible.’”
So Sarah ends up giving birth and names
her baby, “He Laughs” or “Isaac” and Sarah has this great line soon after Isaac
was born. She says, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with
me.”
Well, there was one person who quit
laughing once Isaac was weaned – and that person was Hagar. Remember her?
The mother of Ishmael who Sarah banished to the wilderness for a period
of time several years before?
Remember, this dysfunctional family is
living under one roof, and one day Sarah had it up to here when she noticed
Ishmael playing with his younger step-brother Isaac. On most days, Sarah could bite her tongue,
clench her fists, and count slowly to ten.
But not on this day.
On this day, when she got to the count of seven,
she blew up and she looks for Abraham and finds him. Abraham is in a no win situation. Two children, two different wives, all living
under the same roof.
Sarah says, “This is the last time I’m going to tell you – Get her out of here. Far away!
Like to a different zip-code. Or better
yet, to a different time-zone. Just get
her out of here, like right now!”
Abraham’s heart just sinks right there on
the spot. He loves them both. He loves the boys. What to do.
The Lord tells Abraham, “I feel your pain, but you’re going to have
to let go. You’re going to need to send
Hagar and the boy away because this just isn’t working. But, trust me, because I will take care of
them both.”
So Abraham provides them with some
provisions and sends them into the wilderness – not a good place to be
sent. The wilderness. That sounds like
it’s a place with lots of wildlife and vegetation, but in Israel, the
wilderness refers to rocks, desert, and hot sun.
The wilderness is code for a place of
suffering and lostness. You don’t want
to be in the wilderness. But this is where
Hagar and Ishmael are sent.
And now I want to really slow the story
down and I want you to place yourself there with Hagar out there in the
wilderness and just watch what happens.
Even if you want to turn away and tune me out – hang in there and hear
our scripture reading this morning.
Picture Hagar emptying the last drops of
water into young Ishmael’s mouth. It’s
been several days now. It’s hot. The sun is beating down. There’s no place to turn. There’s nobody to call on who can refill that
water skin. That’s it. She’s at the end of her rope.
Watch this mother do really the only thing
that she can do. Just watch her carry
the limp body of Ishmael over to some bushes where there is a little shade
because she knows that he isn’t going to live too much longer, not in that
beastly heat and without anymore provisions.
At least he'll die in the shade.
What would you do if you were the mother? Would you stay by your son waiting for the
inevitable to happen? Or would that be just too much to bear?
We are told that she goes a good way off, about
a bowshot away, and there she weeps.
She weeps.
And she talks to God.
Wow!
Can the Bible be any more gripping, heart wrenching, and real? By the way, I’m always amazed at people who
like to boil the Bible down to four easy points or turn it into a set of abstract
principles especially when you read stories like this.
The Bible is not meant to be reduced to a
set of formulas that somehow convey spiritual truths. No.
The Bible invites you and me to live at the heart of what it means to be
truly human. We are left with a mother
watching her child die.
Is there anyone else watching this child
die? Do we dare watch? Or is this too real?
But if you remember, Hagar did something
critically important on behalf of her son.
She prayed for him.
And this is what we read beginning at
verse 17 - "God heard the boy
crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her,
"What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying
as he lies there.”
Take note of that all
important phrase in the middle of that verse – “And God heard.”
This is an important story to remind us
that God really does hear our prayers even though we might wonder if there is
anyone listening on the other end of those prayers.
Earlier this year, I prayed for someone
who was going through a difficult time in his life. I was really worried about
him because he was shutting his family out and they were concerned that he
wasn’t making good decisions for his life.
There were so many things that I could
have asked God to do for him during my prayer time that morning, but when it
came right down to it, the main thing I wanted to know was that he was OK. So
one morning during my prayer time, I asked God to just give me a sign that this
person was OK. I could have prayed for a number of things, but really, that was
the most important thing I needed to know, just to know that he was OK.
By the way, prayer has a way of helping us
to sort through all of our confusing feelings so that we can focus on what is
most important on our heart in any given moment. In that moment, all I really
cared about was that this person was OK.
So I go through my day and went to sleep
that night. At around 10:30, about a half hour after I went to sleep, I got a
call on my cell phone. It was someone who knew this person who I was praying
about earlier that morning.
This is someone who also was concerned about
this person. He told me that he happened to be in the same town visiting family
where this person lived that evening, and he decided to go see him. He told me
all of this, and then said, “I just
thought you would like to know that he’s doing OK.”
Alright, this person who called me knew nothing about
my prayer for this person earlier that day. How incredible that on the same day
as my prayer, this person who called me that night would have been in the same
town as the person I was concerned about, and then, felt led to see how he was
doing, and then to go the extra step and give me a call to say that he had seen
him, and that he was OK.
After I hung up the phone, I said, “Thank you God, for answering my prayer.”
Friends, I have no doubt that God hears
our prayers. Now, we might not always get an answer like I did before the end
of the day, but God does answer our prayers.
Here’s another example of God answering
prayer. This past February, our church held a special dedication worship
service for our new building improvements. The theme of that Sunday was for our
church to be a haven of blessing and peace.
During that worship service, we offered
this prayer of dedication. Here is that prayer, word for word from that special
Sunday:
“O God, we pray that people who walk by
our church building on any given day will see our church as a haven of blessing
and peace. We pray that the light of Christ will shine through these windows
and be a blessing to all. O God, we dedicate this new entrance to your glory.
In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.”
The very next day, following that special
dedication worship service, a college student was walking by our church and
felt led to come into our building. She just wanted to talk to someone about
some questions she had about her faith.
Rick happened to be here at the time and
provided a listening ear, and at the end of their conversation, he offered a
prayer for this college student.
Just one day earlier, we as a congregation
had prayed for our church to be a haven of blessing and peace for people who
walk by our front entrance, and in that short amount of time, God used our
church to be a blessing to that person.
God hears our prayers. And God answers our
prayers.
Throughout these summer Sundays, we will
continue to focus on stories from the Book of Genesis like this one today about
Hagar, Sarah, and Abraham. These are stories about a dysfunctional step-family,
a blind date, a brother who cheats his brother out of a birthright, and a
brother sold into slavery. These are crazy, crazy stories, and yet, the
dysfunctional people of these stories are considered the matriarchs and
patriarchs of our faith.
I think these strange and all too familiar
stories are included in the bible just to show us that God is bound and
determined to hear and answer our prayers even in spite of ourselves. God is
determined to use ordinary and flawed people like you and me to live out God’s
purpose and to be a blessing to the people around us.
If anything, these stories show us that if
you’re worried if you are holy enough to pray, don’t be. God is accustomed to
hearing the prayers of dysfunctional, broken, flawed, shortsighted folks like
you and me. That’s nothing new for God. We have these stories from the Book of
Genesis to prove it.
I think you’re going to enjoy these
stories in church this summer. They are quite entertaining. But more
importantly, these old stories are important to hear because we can see
ourselves somewhere in these stories. In varying ways, we can identify with
these characters, because we’re all human.
For today, know that when you feel like
you’re at the end of your rope and you have nowhere else to turn, you do have
this going for you. You can pray and see how God will guide you through any
situation, problem, or adversity you may be facing.
Just remember, we are always just a
bowshot away from God hearing our prayers.
Amen.
And God Heard
Small Group Questions
Genesis 21:8-21
June 25, 2017
This summer, the sermons are focusing on stories from the Book of Genesis. We begin with this story from Genesis 21:8-21. It's a story about the tension between Abraham's wives, Sarah and Hagar. The story concludes with Hagar and her son, Ishmael being banished to the wilderness, where Ishmael almost dies of thirst. God heard the prayers of Hagar and Ishmael survived.
Share a time when you felt that God heard and answered your prayer.
The story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, and Ishmael is a story of many miracles including Sarah becoming pregnant at a very old age and young Ishmael surviving the brutal heat of the wilderness. Stories like this remind us that God is present in our everyday lives more than we may think. We've been calling these, "thin place moments" where there is a razor thin space between heaven and earth.
Share a "thin place moment" when you experienced God's presence in a very real way.
Like many of the stories in the Book of Genesis, we read about flawed, dysfunctional, and sinful people who ended up becoming the matriarchs and patriarchs of our faith. These stories remind us that God can use anyone to accomplish his purposes.
Share a time when God called you to respond in faith even though you felt inadequate for the task.
