Not Forgotten

The child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.  Genesis 21:8-19

When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.

Martin Luther once observed that the life of faith is holding in tension the agony and ecstasy. Faith is about holding together joy and pain; blessings and brokenness; or what I sometimes call the messy middle of life.  Most of the time, we tend toward one extreme.  We say we are a glass is half full, optimistic person.  Or we say that we are a realist who see that the glass is really half empty.  We are a party sunny or party cloudy kind of person.  This gets translated into our politics especially, we are supposedly either a Republican or Democrat, even as most of the country claim to be staunch independents...or in other words, in the messy middle.

Essentially we are holding together the both/and places in life.  Our last post was on laughter, this one could be on grief.  Right after the joy of welcoming a son...FINALLY...Sarah has moment of envy and jealousy.  She doesn't like seeing her son play with Ishmael, who was born to Hagar from Abraham.  And God plays marriage counselor by saying, "Do not be distressed, do what Sarah asks."  So, Abraham sends them away.  And Hagar is distraught...she sees no other option than to put Ishmael in some reeds and wander away, essentially abandoning her son.  It is a gut and heart-wrenching moment.

How many times have we been there...between the proverbial rock and a hard place.  We see no good options, back into a corner.  So, we surrender, we throw in the towel, and give up.  This passage is a moment of agony, right after the ecstasy of Isaac's birth.  

Yet, this passage, which is too often forgotten, is central and a foreshadowing of the life of the God's people.  First it is a wilderness moment.  In Exodus, we will hear all about God wandering with God's people for forty years.  In the Gospels, Jesus will go to the wilderness right after baptism.  But the FIRST person to do that, to experience the pain/desert/deserted place of a wilderness is Hagar and her son, Ishmael.  Before God's people knew exile, the father and mother of the three great mono-theistic religions sent someone into exile.  And not just any one.  Ishmael is the father of the Islamic religion.  This story will find echos in the story of Moses, whose mother is distraught by Pharaoh's genocide plan, that she will hide him in a basket among the reeds until Pharaoh's daughter finds Moses, and takes him to be raised right under the nose of the Pharaoh.  The taste in your mouth right now is irony!  But the first one to feel the hopelessness to the place of abandonment was Hagar.  Her story, Ishmael's story are truly central and tragically forgotten.

So, how do you really live between hope and despair or agony and ecstasy?  Because, let's face it, most of us anesthetize our pain with food or prescription medication or shopping.  I don't have some great answer to that modern day quandary.  It is a puzzle.  But I also think the church should do a better job helping us.  Rather than trying to play into the anesthetization of saying all God wants is our praise and not also our pain.  Or we talk about God's plan or will or whatever way we try justify that we simply do not know how to explain away the existence of pain.  So, maybe like Hagar, we should feel that pain.  Name it honestly and openly.  This will not work for everyone.  For some to feel that rawness is a vulnerability that will open to addiction.  For others, the pain will open a wound that has not had time to really heal.  Again, this is less about prescription and more about descriptions. 

Have you ever had a Hagar moment where you feel so distraught? 
Have you ever been between a rock and a hard place?
Did your faith help or hinder?

As you pray those honest questions, there is one final point about this narrative.  Our African-American sisters have seen this passage as vital for their faith.  One of the most powerful books I have read is Sisters in the Wilderness by Delores Williams which uses this passage as a lens for theological insight.  I commend this book to you for exploring more about our history as a country, slavery, and the importance of the Hagar story for Womanist theologians.  

May God grant us wisdom and peace in the living out of the difficult moments of life.  And may we like Hagar find more than a trace of God's grace.

Blessings ~