Genesis 21:8-21 Commentary

Illustration:

A while ago I heard a reporter, a Middle East correspondent with decades of experience in Palestine and Israel, being interviewed on the news.  He was responding to push back from a listener who didn’t think he gave enough background in a recent news report.  You could almost hear the wry smile in the correspondent’s voice when he replied, “When it comes to Jews and Muslims, I don’t think we ever go back far enough. In fact, I’m often tempted to begin every news report by saying, “Abraham had two sons. One named Ishmael and the other one named Isaac…”

A whole lot that we see in the news today has something to do with Abraham’s two sons.  How do we read the story of Isaac’s chosenness as “good news” for us without making it bad news for anyone who isn’t us?

Commentary:

Let’s ground our reflections on Genesis 21 in its antecedent passage, Genesis 16, the story of Hagar, the mother of Ishmael.  In Genesis 16 Abraham has just received a renewal of God’s covenant promises — that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars, that he will be a great nation and that all nations of the earth will be blessed through him.  Years pass. Abram and Sarai stare at one another over a still-empty bassinet.

So Sarai proposes something, which is a scandal to us today but, in her time and culture seemed like the next logical step.  Abram agrees to Sarai’s scheme. Sarai’s Egyptian maid-servant becomes pregnant.  Then, as any observer of human nature might have predicted, things became a little crowded in Abram and Sarai’s tent. Sarai’s jealousy and disappointment lead to mistreatment, abuse and the frightened foreign woman flees into the desert. Perhaps she was attempting to return home to Egypt. Perhaps she needed to get away to clear her head. Perhaps she went out into the wilderness to die.  All she knows is she cannot stay in the home of her mistress even one minute longer.

All of the abused, abandoned, alienated suffering of the world is personified by the pregnant woman curled under a scrub bush next to a spring in the desert. That is where we find her in the story. But we aren’t the only ones who find her there.

“The angel of the LORD” finds Hagar. This is the first appearance of “The angel of the Lord” in Scripture. Angels we have aplenty. But add the definite article “The angel of the Lord” and commentators largely agree, this demonstrates the very presence of God. Some even argue that this character is the manifestation of the pre-incarnate second person of the Trinity. At the very least, we can say with absolute certainty that God didn’t send in the second-string for the servant-woman.

“Hagar, servant of Sarai,” prods the angel of the Lord.  For the first time in the story, this foreigner, this piece of property, this slave-girl is addressed by one of the other characters by her name. “Hagar.”

And the angel enquires, “where have you come from, and where are you going?” The question echoes an ancient question.  God, in the Garden of Eden, comes walking and asks, “Adam, where are you?” In the aftermath of the first murder, God asks Cain, “Where is your brother?” Now God asks Hagar.

Adam defends himself, “The woman you gave me…”
Cain deflects his guilt, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
But Hagar—powerless, forthright Hagar, the mother of Ishmael—declares, “I am running away.”

The Angel of the Lord tells her, “Go back, Hagar. Submit to your mistress.”  But before we recoil in horror from this difficult word, the Angel of the Lord adds, I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.” I’ll grant that the promise comes with its attendant difficulties.  But, for Hagar, the promise comes as a blessing, a hope of love and protection, a legacy.

More importantly, notice what happens as the end of this conversation. Hagar names God, which make her (if you think about it) the Bible’s first theologian.  “You are the God who sees me.” To name is to have power in Scripture. Hagar has an experience of God that empowers her to give voice, to give name and identity to God.

Our gracious God sees it as no waste of effort to dispatch top-tier angels to seek and to save all those who are lost, beginning with Hagar. Hagar, who receives God’s ministry does the work of theology in naming—and thereby knowing—God. Hagar, the mother of Ishmael. Ishmael, one of Abraham’s two sons.

Now to Genesis 21 where, again, Hagar is sent away by both Abraham and Sarah.  They’ve got their own legacy now.  Ishmael is a has-been or, worse, a threat. Again she finds herself in the desert but, this time, she is not alone.  Again, God sees and hears and the Angel comes. Again God promises her “Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.  Again, Hagar sees and receives new life and the conclusion of the matter is this “God was with the boy as he grew up.”

Sarai abandons Hagar. Abraham abandons Hagar and Ishmael.  But God never does.

Illustration (reprised):

God’s unwillingness to give up on Hagar and Ishmael has implications for this present moment — for the way that we think about and interact with Muslims, as well as people of all faiths and no faith.  In my tradition, we have a doctrine of “common grace” that articulates the idea that God speaks truth, enacts justice and highlights beauty in places other than the church and through people other than Christians.  It seems to me that Hagar and Ishmael are important “test cases” for the doctrine of common grace.  What does it look like when Christians lead with the assumption that there is something of God’s truth, justice and beauty to be found in and through Hagar’s descendants as well as anyone else not least because, while God’s people punish and exile them, God doesn’t.

Can we take our lead from Abraham’s two sons? In Genesis 25:8-9, we learn “Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people. His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him…”. What does this imply for us today? Not only that the enmity between Abraham’s two sons still lives in the conflicts we see today but the hopeful possibility that comes from two sons working together to honor the father they both have in common.